Wacky weather
Tuesday, June 28th, 2005I don’t know what’s up with Utah weather this summer, but several times this summe – especially in the late afternoons – we’ve had pretty crazy storms break out. I was describing them at the office as “ominous, apocalyptic storms of doom” even though they’re pretty mild. But after all those years of living in Las Vegas, Reno, even in Alaska, storms just didn’t feel like these do. The sky gets really dark, the thunder and lightning are intense, and the wind gets really fierce after a day that seemed mild and pleasant through the morning. Storms like these make me understand, a little, why ancient people used to fear storms as the power or anger of the gods.
I’m doing the spreadsheet/data entry part of my job today and it remains boring as ever. Unfortunately, if I don’t do it, my writers don’t get paid and then they get mad at me. So I’m doing word counts on the articles of the past month and computing that against their pay rate, penalties (such as being late) and word limits at the time of assignment.
Last night we had our board meeting for The Center. Except, after Pride, it was decided that we’d have an informal barbeque instead of a regular meeting to allow us time to get to know one another better. It certainly worked. I did get to know a lot of my fellow board members much better. There has been a fear, I think, of going against the grain and voting in an unpopular way during our past meetings. I don’t think we’ll see as much of that in the future. I suspect that now that everyone has had a chance to really get to know one another, they’ll feel more confident in standing up for what they believe to be the right course of action instead of just the popular one.
I’m still really tentative about this, because I don’t want to screw it up, but since about April, Valerie (the E.D. at The Center) and I have had really informal discussions about making me a full time staff member at The Center. My primary job responsibility would be working on Utah Pride year round – working out sponsorships and planning things very early on. Additionally, I’d help with the media relations and outreach aspects of The Center (public speaking). No formal offer has been made (Valerie wants to be sure the money will be there to pay me first), but two of the board members told me in confidence yesterday that they’d make sure the money is there. I don’t know that working for a non-profit is any better job security than working at a start-up publishing firm, but we’ll see. Last time I worked for a G&L Community Center (in Vegas), I was laid off after 8 months because of financial problems. Still, it was working for the Las Vegas Community Center that really started off my adult professional career, and there’s a certain circular appeal to the opportunity to return to that kind of work – pure activism (unlike my career of late, which is activism tempered by the need to turn a profit for the company).
Anyway, I’ve already told Michael that this opportunity is on the horizon, and he understands, but I’ve been keeping it mostly wraps because I don’t want to get too confident about the whole thing. There’s still no guarantee.
I spoke to my best friend Nick yesterday. Seems like he’s been having a rough time at QVegas the last few days. The office politics there never seem to go away no matter how much the staff has changed. Anyway, he was playing the $.05 slots at the bar, and accidentally did a max bet on quarters instead. The machine dealt him a royal flush and he walked out with over $3000. Added to his commission check, he’s got over $5000 in the bank now, which will cover his moving costs to go back to Seattle. is goal is to have another $3000 to pay for his first three months living expenses and then he’s leaving Las Vegas, too. I’m kinda bummed that so many of my really good Vegas friends are leaving the city. In a way, it drives home the point that I really can’t go “home” again, because the home I knew isn’t really there anymore. It was the same feeling I got when I found out that almost all my college buddies had left Reno for good.
Well, back to the data entry.
