The wife and I were considering moving back to Boulder after I graduated from massage therapy school next year. It will be interesting to see the scope of damage when we visit there in the Fall.
Showing posts with label Boulder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boulder. Show all posts
Saturday, September 11, 2010
New Video Of Boulder, CO, Burning
Below is a time lapse video taken Monday night of fire ripping through the outskirts of Boulder, CO. It breaks my heart to watch this. I called Boulder home for two years. I tell people it's where I "grew up". Have a lot of wonderful memories of the city and the surrounding area.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
So, Maybe We Won't Be Moving To Boulder
When I graduate from school next year, we're planning on moving somewhere new. A city that isn't as hot, redneck, or Red as the East Phoenix area. Some of the cities on the short list include Portland, Boston and the Denver/Boulder, CO, area.
So far this week, wildfires have destroyed over 170 homes on the outskirts of Boulder. To make things worse, Boulder is expecting 60 mph winds and for the fires to possibly spread within the city to the West side. The West side is home to much of the university and has a number of fraternity and sorority houses in the danger area. Boulder is a beautiful city of close to 100,000 people. We're keeping our fingers crossed for the sake of those in the city. Yahoo has a number of pictures of the damage and destruction so far.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Day I Became Pro-Choice
All of my life, because of my religious upbringing, I was vehemently Pro Life. I believed that life started at conception and that abortion was murder. I would be one of those people protesting in front of Planned Parenthood if not for what happened on a random Winter morning in Boulder, Colorado, almost ten years ago.
I commuted North, from Denver, at the time. When you come into town, the main vein coming off the freeway is 28th Street. At 7:30 in the morning, everyone in town is on 28th Street, either coming in from Boulder to go to work, or taking their kids to school. The city's main high school, and a number of the city's elementary and middle schools were off of 28th as well.
I'm coming into town, and it is bumper to bumper as usual, but something was different that day. Horns were honking like crazy. I could see kids crying in the cars ahead of me. I was trying to look around to see if there was an accident or a dead puppy in the road.
And that's when I saw them.
The Pro-Lifers. Sixteen of them. Four on the median on each side of the street. Walking up and down during the red lights. Two of the four were carrying signs that were eight feet tall, showing a high resolution photo of the aftermath of an abortion. It was a trash can in a clinic, with fetal "parts" and blood. That was why the children were crying. The other two protesters were carrying signs.
I was disgusted. Not only by the signs, but by the tactics of these people on the corner. 7:30am on a Monday morning, knowing full well that their message would be seen by little kids on their way to school, and worse, daycare. I started getting angry. I caught eyes with one of they guys holding the eight foot signs. I flipped him off. He smiled back and gave me a thumbs up, thinking that was the digit I had used originally. I smiled, shook my head no while giving him a thumbs up, then flipped him off again and shook my head yes. He quickly got the message and went back to hiding behind his sign.
That thirty second interaction at the beginning of my morning ruined my day. Those pictures were all I could think about. I felt violated. I felt as though I had just been through some sort of terrorist attack. I then realized that was it. They were terrorists. They decided the only way they could effectively get their point across was to be so blatantly vulgar about it, so in your face, that you had no choice but to listen. They shoved their message down your throat whether you were paying attention or not, like a suicide bomber. You can't ignore a car bomb exploding across the street, and you can't ignore an eight foot by four foot high resolution print of fetal limbs when it's 18 inches from your windshield.
And these are "God's people".....terrorizing children on their way to school, upsetting innocent people on their way to work. They do this in the name of love? That's where I started to lean Pro-Choice that day. That's where I started to call "bullshit" on the whole situation. Harassing pregnant teenagers outside Planned Parenthood, killing abortion doctors....all part of God's will? So, it's not OK to terminate a pregnancy, but hunting down abortion doctors like deer is all well and good? Um...Shenanigans!!!!
And then I started thinking about our Constitution and about how great the Fourth Amendment was, our protection to privacy. You see, it's really none of my business, and frankly not my place, to say what a woman should or shouldn't do with her body. What gives me the right to tell someone in Pensacola, FL, that she can or can't do something to her body. Or, who am I to tell a woman in Seattle, WA, that, even though she was raped, she has to carry the baby of the man that raped her. Too bad. That's the law. How ridiculous. The only person that I even have the ability to have that DISCUSSION with is my wife, and it is still ultimately HER DECISION, because it is her body.
Everyone's circumstance is different. Going full term, and giving your baby up for adoption, is a very noble and selfless thing to do. It's not an option for a lot of people. Women become pregnant everyday as a result of rape, incest, and sexual abuse. Women become pregnant everyday that cannot afford the care necessary to bring a baby full term. Women become pregnant everyday that do not have the ability to maintain themselves or a child through a pregnancy. Take a look at my posts. There is no way I would be able to handle a pregnancy in the condition both mentally and physically that I am today. If I were to become pregnant, I would be faced with a very tough choice. Thank god I'm male.
Today, I am a very strong supporter of women's rights, of choice friendly and teen friendly places like Planned Parenthood, and of choice. I am also a strong supporter of contraception and abstinence. I am not a supporter of abstinence only education. Kids are going to have sex when they want to have sex. But I believe that you shouldn't "just because everyone else is", and when you do, be safe.
My point is, if it wasn't for those grotesque signs on 28th Street that morning, I may not have started thinking for myself that day. I ended up seeing a lot more than what was on that sign, and it turned me in a direction that the Pro-Life terrorists hadn't intended on that morning. So in a way...Thank You
I commuted North, from Denver, at the time. When you come into town, the main vein coming off the freeway is 28th Street. At 7:30 in the morning, everyone in town is on 28th Street, either coming in from Boulder to go to work, or taking their kids to school. The city's main high school, and a number of the city's elementary and middle schools were off of 28th as well.
I'm coming into town, and it is bumper to bumper as usual, but something was different that day. Horns were honking like crazy. I could see kids crying in the cars ahead of me. I was trying to look around to see if there was an accident or a dead puppy in the road.
And that's when I saw them.
The Pro-Lifers. Sixteen of them. Four on the median on each side of the street. Walking up and down during the red lights. Two of the four were carrying signs that were eight feet tall, showing a high resolution photo of the aftermath of an abortion. It was a trash can in a clinic, with fetal "parts" and blood. That was why the children were crying. The other two protesters were carrying signs.
I was disgusted. Not only by the signs, but by the tactics of these people on the corner. 7:30am on a Monday morning, knowing full well that their message would be seen by little kids on their way to school, and worse, daycare. I started getting angry. I caught eyes with one of they guys holding the eight foot signs. I flipped him off. He smiled back and gave me a thumbs up, thinking that was the digit I had used originally. I smiled, shook my head no while giving him a thumbs up, then flipped him off again and shook my head yes. He quickly got the message and went back to hiding behind his sign.
That thirty second interaction at the beginning of my morning ruined my day. Those pictures were all I could think about. I felt violated. I felt as though I had just been through some sort of terrorist attack. I then realized that was it. They were terrorists. They decided the only way they could effectively get their point across was to be so blatantly vulgar about it, so in your face, that you had no choice but to listen. They shoved their message down your throat whether you were paying attention or not, like a suicide bomber. You can't ignore a car bomb exploding across the street, and you can't ignore an eight foot by four foot high resolution print of fetal limbs when it's 18 inches from your windshield.
And these are "God's people".....terrorizing children on their way to school, upsetting innocent people on their way to work. They do this in the name of love? That's where I started to lean Pro-Choice that day. That's where I started to call "bullshit" on the whole situation. Harassing pregnant teenagers outside Planned Parenthood, killing abortion doctors....all part of God's will? So, it's not OK to terminate a pregnancy, but hunting down abortion doctors like deer is all well and good? Um...Shenanigans!!!!
And then I started thinking about our Constitution and about how great the Fourth Amendment was, our protection to privacy. You see, it's really none of my business, and frankly not my place, to say what a woman should or shouldn't do with her body. What gives me the right to tell someone in Pensacola, FL, that she can or can't do something to her body. Or, who am I to tell a woman in Seattle, WA, that, even though she was raped, she has to carry the baby of the man that raped her. Too bad. That's the law. How ridiculous. The only person that I even have the ability to have that DISCUSSION with is my wife, and it is still ultimately HER DECISION, because it is her body.
Everyone's circumstance is different. Going full term, and giving your baby up for adoption, is a very noble and selfless thing to do. It's not an option for a lot of people. Women become pregnant everyday as a result of rape, incest, and sexual abuse. Women become pregnant everyday that cannot afford the care necessary to bring a baby full term. Women become pregnant everyday that do not have the ability to maintain themselves or a child through a pregnancy. Take a look at my posts. There is no way I would be able to handle a pregnancy in the condition both mentally and physically that I am today. If I were to become pregnant, I would be faced with a very tough choice. Thank god I'm male.
Today, I am a very strong supporter of women's rights, of choice friendly and teen friendly places like Planned Parenthood, and of choice. I am also a strong supporter of contraception and abstinence. I am not a supporter of abstinence only education. Kids are going to have sex when they want to have sex. But I believe that you shouldn't "just because everyone else is", and when you do, be safe.
My point is, if it wasn't for those grotesque signs on 28th Street that morning, I may not have started thinking for myself that day. I ended up seeing a lot more than what was on that sign, and it turned me in a direction that the Pro-Life terrorists hadn't intended on that morning. So in a way...Thank You
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