Getting Reacquainted with an Old Pair of Dehners

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Dehner Motorcycle Patrol Boots, called “Dehners” for short, are well-known and highly admired by many. Lots of motor officers around the country wear these boots. While there remains controversy in their price (about the highest of all patrol boots), and the composition of stock boot “Dehcord” plastic shafts is also causes many discussions, there’s nothing like the appearance and the feel of these boots on your legs.

The boots shown here are an old pair of all-leather Dehner Boots with Vibram big lug soles on them. They are “traditional” boots, with a bal-laced instep. I have had them for well over 15 years. They were getting tight on the calves, though, so I had to either fix them to fit me again, or not wear them any more. I didn’t want to give up a pair of boots like this, so I got out my boot stretcher. Over the past month, I slowly stretched the calf of both boots, and now they fit great again! Woo-hoo!

I spent some time shining them up with good quality boot polish and slow, steady strokes with a fine brush. The foot shows a little wear where my shifter of my old Harley rubbed against it, but to me (and some cops I know), that’s a sign of well-worn boots.

I’ll be riding my Harley with them on again in leather or breeches. Nothin’ like a good lug sole when riding the bike… great traction.

I was dressed in a pair of leather jeans tucked inside these boots with a sleeveless leather shirt when my partner got home from work last night. He thought the boots looked great and complimented me on being able to wear them again. He thought, though, that the full leather gear was a bit much. Even though it wasn’t all that warm, I did get a bit sweaty during my “greeting.” (LOL!) The smell of leather & sweat added something to what became a spontaneous sharing of tenderness and intimacy.

Whew… gotta find some more “old” boots and get them all shined and in good shape for more such “encounters.”

Life is short: wear boots!

The Trials of Replacing the Home Office Computer

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The “honey-do” list at home has expanded beyond belief. I spent much of yesterday morning planning home repairs. My partner was off work and he helped a lot. We spent much of the time acquiring materials from various building supplies retailers. Then it got so hot and oppressively humid, we retreated to the basement to keep cool.

I finally admitted to myself that my 8-year-old Gateway desktop computer had seen better days, when it took me better than an hour to get that thing working yesterday. I also have a laptop, from which I am writing. The Gateway performed well, but has become so slow and bogged down, and uses outdated software no longer supported that my partner offered to go “half-sies” with me on buying a replacement.

Man, it used to be fun to shop around for a computer, but nowadays, the systems are so complex and the options are so many from which to choose, it’s mind-boggling. I think I figured it out… and then spent about an hour hunting for coupons and other money-saving options. I was able to save about $100 by finding those coupons, so it was worth the effort, though exhausting.

Ahhh… the good old days before the internet, and using MS-DOS, … not like today when computers at home run so much background stuff that you have to find and turn off. Just give me the good old > prompt, and I’ll be happy. Um, I guess, until I need the internet LOL!

Wow, just to think, I wrote a whole doctoral dissertation on what I thought was a lightning-fast machine that had a 12mhz processor and a 1200 baud modem using WordPerfect 4.0. Man, I’m dating myself, aren’t I? I still can’t stand MS-Word, which is such a burden to use and to format documents correctly without it automatically changing fonts on you every two lines. Oh well, “progress” so-to-speak. The progress makes things much slower, in my book.

Life is short: fix things.

Live Free and Ride!

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Yesterday, I was involved with a charity fundraiser for the families of law enforcement officers who were killed in the line of duty. I led the pack, riding wing to the overall civilian event organizer. The wing position is second, to the right of the lead rider, who is on my left. (To make this very clear: I am not a sworn police officer. I was the lead Road Captain for a group of riders who belong to the same organized motorcycle rider’s group as I do. There was another man who was the overall event organizer for the supporters of this charitable fundraising event.)

What you see above is my view of the motor officers who escorted our ride. They ride ahead to stop traffic at intersections so the entire ride can ride through without stopping, and also to watch for our safety.

What you see to the left was my occasional view as an officer who had stopped traffic for us let the group ride past, then he rode past us on our left to catch up to the group of officers escorting us. So every now and then, we would hear a “whoop whoop” of a siren, and then see a motor officer whiz past us. Nice sight!

What you see below was a “behind me” view of what it looked like in my rear-view mirror. Pretty cool! I enjoy leading the pack, especially for a good cause.

For views of the some of the patrol boots that I saw, see last night’s post.

Life is short: live free and ride!

Yahoo Email Cut-Off

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For about the past eight weeks or so, I have been receiving spam only from Yahoo email accounts from people I know from the Boot world. They have put my email address in their respective address books on their Yahoo email. Then some hacker or spammer grabs the list by penetrating some vulnerability unique to Yahoo, and sends links that if clicked on, could introduce a virus, spyware, or other nefarious stuff.

I’ve had enough of that. It only seems to be associated with Yahoo email addresses from men in the Boot World, and nowhere else. Thus, I have blocked all email from Yahoo accounts except for just two email addresses from close friends (including my eighth brother). If you have a Yahoo account and try to send me email, don’t be surprised if it bounces back saying “recipient has blocked this email address.” Sorry, but this situation has gotten to be more serious and persistent, and I don’t have time to clean that crap up every morning.

I strongly urge Yahoo email users to abandon Yahoo and migrate to gmail, which has much stronger hacker resistance and anti-spam features. The email of old, on Yahoo, Hotmail, Lycos, Excite, and a few others, is not being maintained to prevent spammers from doing bad things. If you won’t give up your Yahoo email, at least change your password to a very difficult one that includes numbers, capital and lower-case letters, and special characters. Then run a complete spyware scan and virus scan of your computer. Yahoo email sucks, and if you won’t give it up, then in order to communicate with me, you’ll have to use my on-line “Write to me” page.

Life is short: advance with the times to a decent free on-line email service like gmail.

Good To Be Back Home

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All this past week, I was teaching at a federal government facility north of me. The students were great, the bureaucracy was typical, the paranoia was normal, the food was awful, the bed was lousy, but… it was good to be back teaching at this national facility again. Who knows, I may return. Keep my cred up.

I arrived home in the early afternoon. I grilled some steaks and caught up with my partner on our lives over dinner on our deck. It was peaceful, calm, and quiet: just the way we like it.

Last night, I curled up with my partner on the couch, snuggled close in his arms, and “tuned out.” We listened to some soft instrumentals, while getting reacquainted. Before I knew it, I was sound asleep with my head against his chest. He only woke me because his arm was falling asleep! LOL!

Life is short: cherish home.

Pop Music Conundrum

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The other day, my fellow blogger StraightJacketed posted a video by Lady Gaga that featured men dancing in boots and leather.

Also a few days ago, my buddy Clay remarked about being excited to watch something that Lady Gaga performed.

Last week, another gay friend remarked how much he enjoyed music by Madonna.

… and all you heard from me (if you heard anything) was a low grumble. I can’t stand pop music that most LGBT people like. Screeching by Gaga and Madonna is like nails on the chalkboard to me. Arrrggghhh!

Since the advent of rap music, with occasional pop music additions like I mentioned above, I have pretty much stopped listening to anything. Rap is awful throbbing garbage, IMHO. Pop music doesn’t do a thing for me but give me a headache.

I grew up in a very musical environment, and learned to play banjo (since all other instruments were “taken.”) I love music, but “real” music. Classical music played and/or sung well is relaxing. But I have a wide and eclectic mix of music I will listen to on occasion: country, rockers of the ’70s, vocalists like Anne Murray and Tony Bennett, … but not Pop that the vast majority of LGBT people enjoy.

I guess once again I’ll have to turn in my gay card.

Oh, that’s right! I’m not gay! I’m androphillic!

Biorhythmic Conflict

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I am convinced that I am strange. Or shall I say, “very different” in a number of ways. I like people but don’t like to go to parties, restaurants, or bars. I wear leather often, but do not like to go to Men’s leather events (been there, done that… enough is enough.) I own a cell phone, but I hate the cell phone for its cost and seldom use it. I also don’t text, and block that service as a money-saving measure. I am in a wonderful relationship with a great guy, but “we” don’t have guests over to our home or go visit others, because my partner is very antisocial.

But most of all, what has made me “most different” for my entire life, is that I am a morning person. I mean a “very early” morning person. It is quite common that I rise during the week at 4am, and crash no later than 9pm, or earlier if my partner will allow. On weekends, I may sleep a little later, like until 5am (what a lazy bum I am!)

Living on the biorhythms that dictate my being awake, functioning, and active so early in the morning directly conflicts with how most others (gay or straight) are “wired.” Most of my family and friends are on a schedule of rising with great reluctance at about 6:30am, plod to the kitchen and make coffee, then go to work and arrive about 8:30 or 9, work until 4:30 or 5, get home, and have dinner about 7pm. They stay awake until 10 or 11pm.

For me, I bounce out of bed, frequently with a song (seriously, I am one of “those people” who sings in the morning!) — and don’t drink coffee. Can’t stand the stuff. I am mentally alert and full of energy in the morning, anyway, so the added caffeine isn’t needed. When I was working, I was in my office for about two hours before most others. I arrived home early enough to prepare a home-cooked meal each evening, and serve it by 6pm. (That way, I can leave to attend community meetings that begin at 7 or 7:30.)

When there are times when I have to stay up late, I try to find time to take a nap, because I actually have fallen asleep in a restaurant, or while riding in a car late at night. (Fortunately, I have not fallen asleep while driving, but I know “drowsy driving” is a huge hazard, so I take all measures to avoid it.)

I am so very thankful that my partner is an earlybird, too, or we would be like ships passing in the night.

I wonder, though, if more gay people are typically late risers (and stay awake late into the night) than straight people. I ponder that on two levels — for how typically gay people show up at bars or restaurants very late (much later than straight people). Second, I get a huge spike in visitors to my website late at night from U.S. visitors who are surfing the web between 11pm and 3am. The volume of website visitors who surf my site that late at night never ceases to amaze me. Are gay people sleepless and surfing? I haven’t a clue, but wonder about it.

Nonetheless, I recognize that I am different, and I am okay with it. I realize that I don’t engage when others do, and miss some opportunities sometimes, but that’s how things have been, and how things are.

Life is short: live.

Androphilia and the Gay Man

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My partner and I recently watched the movie titled, “The Butch Factor.” The film was released in 2009 and just became available on Netflix, which we can view by streaming video at home. It was recommended to me by my friend Kevin.

This movie interviewed a number of masculine, homosexual men who behaved and engaged in rather rugged activities, sports, hobbies, and jobs, as well as contrasted some of these men’s opinions with two other gay men who were more effeminate in their nature.

We found the movie interesting and it sparked an excellent conversation, both right after it was over as well as on Sunday morning when we were snuggled closely watching the sunrise.

One of the interviewees was Jack Donovan (aka Jack Malebranche) who wrote a book titled, “Androphilia: A Manefesto” in 2007. This was the first time we had heard of this man and his book. While he had the shortest interview during the entire film, some of the points he made rang close to the thoughts that both my partner and I have: that we have a healthy male-male attraction, and that we reject some of the labels and stereotypes brought with the label “gay.”

We believe that the male-male relationship that we have is consistent with our own behavior and masculinity, which Donovan described as “androphilia.” That word is derived from the Greek, “Andro” (Man) and “philia” (Like). Donovan’s contention is that “gay” is:

…inseparable from connotations of effeminacy and “a whole cultural and a political movement that promotes anti-male feminism, victim mentality, and leftist politics.”

While I don’t agree about the swipe at “leftist politics,” I do generally agree that the label “gay” causes lots of negative thoughts (and actions) by the straight world. In particular, many (not all, but many) in the straight world have a common misconception that all gay men are frilly-froo-froo queens, and cannot look, act, or behave in a typical masculine manner. My partner and I, among several of those interviewed in this film, are here to disprove that notion. (And let me tell ‘ya, being a masculine man whose sexual orientation is male-male, I have encountered a number of times when straight guys are confused as heck by me. So be it, they need to learn that not all “gays” are the same.)

Kevin said to me, “I think he proposes that there is no gay archetype or identity for that matter and to attempt to build one’s self perception around something as basic as who one is sexually attracted to is limiting.” I absolutely agree, as does my partner.

The narrator in the movie said that “Androphilia” caused a lot of controversy in the “gay community” (however defined.) Perhaps gay people who read it didn’t like the opinion that “gay” is a label or “catch-all” phrase whereas people who are male and like other men do not all fit in one certain “catch-all” mold.

My partner and I never quite knew what to call ourselves, and generally used the term gay for lack of something else. Face it, we’re “homosexual” and a label by any other name is just as sweet (pardon the mixed metaphors.)

Life is short: continue to learn about yourselves.

Boot Stare Funnies

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This is how I was dressed and booted yesterday whilst running some errands. Two funny things happened along the way.

1. A guy in a car next to me pulled up and stopped so his window was next to where my boot was on my bike. He stared gape-jawed. He was staring so hard at my roughout brown/burgundy Wesco harness boots that the guy behind him had to beep his horn at him when the light changed, because the guy was so distracted (mezmerized?) by my boots! LOL!

2. I went to a grocery store and walked down the aisle featuring canned goods. There was a nice-looking guy (wearing well-worn work boots) stacking cans. He turned and looked at me, then my boots. He also became gape-jawed and knocked over the pile of cans he was stacking! LOL! I stopped to help him capture the cans rolling this-way-and-that. He thanked me, and then complimented me on the boots.

Life is short: Boots happen!