{"id":701,"date":"2013-12-03T23:43:54","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T23:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.adamflanders.com\/blog\/?p=701"},"modified":"2013-12-06T12:11:44","modified_gmt":"2013-12-06T12:11:44","slug":"catching-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/catching-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow, I haven’t written anything in a while! I guess I’ve just been preoccupied with other things, like helping my mom sell her houses and constructing a fence and dog house for our pomeranians. Oh, and seeing Catching Fire<\/em> in IMAX! Unfortunately the property sales along Route 3 in Belfast, my mom’s house included, are confidential and I personally don’t know what business is looking to develop, despite rumors of Wal*Mart, Home Depot, and Lowes.<\/a><\/p>\n

I continue to be faithful to my vegetarian diet. I do continue to eat a little fish and shrimp, which I may give up at some point, though overall it’s been very easy for me. A few restaurants, like Texas Roadhouse, make it very difficult to find vegetarian options, so in those situations I usually just put together a number of side items. My mom prepared a special tofurkey for our Thanksgiving dinner and my family has been eating less meat as a result of my decision.<\/p>\n

Black Friday Shopping with Ashley & Tayler
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Speaking of Thanksgiving, I went Black Friday shopping and got rear-ended by another vehicle. Fortunately the woman behind me has insurance and I have a front and rear dash cam that recorded everything.<\/a> It was also reported on local news.<\/a> We all had neck pain and headaches for a day or two following the incident. I’m still able to drive my RAV4, though it’s going to need quite a bit of repair. I didn’t even buy anything, though I’m more of a Cyber Monday kind of guy anyway (I spent way too much yesterday).<\/p>\n

In national news, Hawaii and Illinois legalized same-sex marriage. While I was not especially surprised, it was historic in that Hawaii was the first state to try to pass marriage equality back in 1991 (see Baehr v. Miike<\/em>). I’m sure the new law will bring a great deal of revenue to Hawaii, one of the most popular wedding and honeymoon destinations in the US. New Mexico is expected to be the next state to legalize same-sex marriage and there are lawsuits in many other states, most notably Virginia. The same team of attorneys who represented the Prop 8 case, Ted Olson and David Boies, have joined a lawsuit in Virginia that could be the end-all case in this matter (see Bostic v. Rainey<\/em>). The potential for an historical decision is huge when you consider that this is the same state where the 1967 Loving<\/em> case arose and put an end to discriminatory laws that prohibited interracial marriage.<\/p>\n

British Olympic Diver Tom Daley
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This past week also brought with it news of British Olympic Diver Tom Daley. Daley, who is 19 years old, decided to offer a public statement concerning his sexuality<\/a> and the fact that he is currently in a relationship with a man. Last year I blogged about the London 2012 Olympics and Tom Daley<\/a>, including some of the athletes who were out at that time, most notably Matthew Mitcham. Daley’s decision to come out is being labeled brave, and rightfully so, though I have to agree with BBC’s Matt Slater that it shouldn’t matter.<\/a> Daley’s announcement comes at a time when much of the world, most notably Russia, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, still enforces discrimination against gay and lesbian people. Nonetheless I think Daley will serve as a role model for other youth across the globe, showing that you can be yourself, even in sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, I haven’t written anything in a while! I guess I’ve just been preoccupied with other things, like helping my mom sell her houses and constructing a fence and dog house for our pomeranians. Oh, and seeing Catching Fire in IMAX! Unfortunately the property sales along Route 3 in Belfast, my mom’s house included, are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,23,24],"tags":[76,74,77,58,70,69,54,73,71,78,75,72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":705,"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamflanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}