Tag: California

ALC is being SUED for Discrimination!

The former director of California’s AIDS/LifeCycle fundraiser has sued two HIV/AIDS nonprofits that put on the ride, claiming they fired him because he is not gay.

Jeffrey Shapiro filed suit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging sexual-orientation discrimination and intentional infliction of emotional distress by his former employers, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, KCBS in Los Angeles reported.

In his lawsuit, Shapiro claims leaders of the two HIV/AIDS groups hired him in March, then met with him in June and fired him, telling him that “everybody liked him as a person, but they needed somebody who better fit into the culture,” KCBS reported.

Planetout Article

CBS2 Story

Ok. This is really pissing me off right now. This guy was brought on in March to replace the outgoing director Chris Cole. In the second article they basically say that he’s responsible for the $11million dollars that was raised this year. This guy wasn’t brought on till LATE in the fund raising cycle and has nothing to do with how much was raised. He was brought in on a trail period to see if he worked out. During which time he was to be shadowing Chris Cole and learning how the ride is run.

The first I had heard about this guy was while on the ride itself. They brought him up on stage a few times and even during those interactions. Where he was just talking on stage. It was clear to _ME_ and a lot of other people in the audience that he just didn’t have the enthusiasm that it would take to get and keep this ride going strong.

Chris Cole, Stephen Cadby, Sheri Lunn, Lorri L. Jean and the many others who we were introduced to day in and day out on the stage got up there and got the crowd going and got us all enthused to be there.

When Shapiro took the stage he was always monotone and didn’t really have much to say. Talking to a lot of my fellow riders, I’ve heard that thier personal interactions with him were much the same. It’s also been said that he lacked the knowledge to be helpful in the gay community and some people even said he needed a “Gay 101” course. He never really exhibited the passion that even I have for the ride after being a participant only once. Nor did he seem to exhibit the energy or enthusiasm that a new comer should have had.

The fact that he’s even suing for discrimination in an event such as this is just ridiculous. More then 50% of the ride is heterosexual, ALC is such a HUGE cross section of humanity in general.

This guy was hired on a trail basis and from what everyone has said he left on mutual agreement. I hope that this does not drag on and that he will not be rewarded for acting this way. The money that he would get would be coming from our hard work as fund raisers and would be taking away from the great services that the ride serves.

I encourage everyone to go and sign up for the ride in 2008!!!!

Asshole online people!

Oh My god.. I just ran into one of the biggest assholes online ever!

So I get a message from this guy on hotornot.com asking if I have MSN. I message him back and give him my SN.

Well today he messages me on there, we chat for about 2 seconds. Total. First off the whole time he gives one word answers. .. What do you do? … “Chemical plant”. What the fuck does that mean?

Anyways, so then I go to ask him where he lives… And this is what happens….

3:39:15 PM me: Cool, so where are you located?

3:39:27 PM mattmci: edmonton ab

3:39:29 PM mattmci: u>?

3:39:43 PM me: where’s that?

3:39:48 PM me: I’m in Newport Beach, CA

3:40:03 PM mattmci: canada

3:40:16 PM mattmci: wheres ca?

3:40:19 PM me: california

3:40:26 PM mattmci: wheres that

3:40:42 PM me: are you serious?

3:40:50 PM mattmci: u dont know where ab is

3:41:10 PM mattmci: yet u expect me to know all yur states

3:41:15 PM mattmci: fucking americans

Changed status to Offline (3:41:30 PM)

3:41:30 PM mattmci: Matt has removed you from his or her buddy list.

Ok, seriously. Anyone read that and automatically think AB = Canada? Around here, AB = Airforce Base. Not fucking Canada. And then seriously. Even if you are from Canada, who doesn’t know where California is? It’s only the home of 8 million TV shows, movies and recording artists. And I mean hello the GDP of Alberta is only $215 billion, where as the GRP of California is $1.5 trillion (2004 numbers for both). I can totally understand people not knowing here Iowa is, but California?!

So I emailed him back on hotornot…. Let’s hope he replies!

A LONG Weekend!

Oh my god… This weekend, I DROVE… All over hell. Over 450 miles this weekend alone. What craziness.

So Friday, I got home from work and headed up to Santa Monica to hang out with this guy Dan. Who had an amazing DVD/CD collection. I went through all his DVD’s and that took about an hour. We ended up watching Vacation. I had a good time. I went home after that and went to bed.

Got up Saturday morning and went and washed my car. I’ve got this Astroturf in my bathroom under the cat litter. It’s been a while since I last cleaned it good, so I took it to the car wash with me and spent like 2 whole minutes trying to wash it out completely. I thought I got it pretty clean and then just threw it in my trunk and drove home. Took it out as soon as I got there and found out that there was a LOT more water left in it then I thought, so there was a ton of NASTY smelling water all over my trunk! I tried to clean it all up but my car smells SOOO bad now! 🙁 I took out all the carpeting and shit from the trunk Sunday night so that helped some.

After that disaster, I headed out on my road trip to check out some nice wonderful trucks…

The first one was a 1956 F250. It’s a good body and good looking truck, but needs a lot of interior work done to it. New handles, new carpet, work to the dash, needs a new bed, etc. Lots of over spray from a previous paint job that hadn’t been corrected. It also had a LOT of oil on the transmission, etc. Not sure how normal that is, but it was a little concerning. The guy selling it was HOT and I thought I was getting a little gay vibe from him. But probably not. I got a lot of great information out of him and I think no matter what truck I buy, he could be a good resource for the future.

Second was a 1954 Ford F100. Great looking truck. The guy said he hadn’t driven it in a year though. It had leaked basically all it’s transmission fluid, we got in and it started right up. Took it out on a test drive… We’re driving down the street and this truck pulls out in front of us. Slam on the breaks and they go straight to the floor.. THERE’S NO BRAKES! OMG! Grab the emergency break to stop it… SCARY! The truck has no rust, and it’s nice and complete truck. All new interior, etc. One issue is that the guy said the previous owners rebuilt the engine and then it sat for 6 years. So he’s not sure how many miles, are on the engine and since it sat so long the seals, etc could be a bit dry/etc. He said he’d take $1k off the price to get the brakes fixed (Probably just need to be bleed out)

The third was the same guy, it was a Studebaker. Nice looking yellow truck, but needs more work then I’d be willing to put into it.

The fourth was a 1956 F100. This one was a real POS. Needs TONS of work. I took one look at it and said no thanks! What a mess.

The last one is the best and of course the most expensive! A 1955 F100. Everything is all new, GREAT paint job (although not an original color which is a little annoying), great new interior (and also the only one with seat belts) and drove great. The only concern I had was that the steering was a little lose. He said it probably just needed to be adjusted. He’d already come down from $18k, so I’m not sure there’s much wiggle room for price.

Saturday night I stayed home and watched Can’t Hardly Wait. Very interesting movie with lots of hot boys!

Sunday I got up early and headed up to Hollywood to meet up with Ran and Enver. We went out on a short little 15 mile ride. It was really good to see them again since the Lifecycle ride. They’re very great people. The ride was very pretty. We went up into the valley and around Griffith park and WB studios.

Came home and showered real quick and then the neighbor and I headed up to Port Hueneme, CA. It was a great little town. The neighbor is looking at buying a house/condo up there so we looked at a few of those. I went up with her to check out one more truck this weekend. A 1956 F100 Panel Truck. This was by far one of the most interesting trucks I saw this weekend. The guy who owns it sounded like a real ass on the phone, but ended up being pretty nice. The engine is pretty much unknown to him, but it was his daily driver for many years so it’s probably about ready for a rebuild/etc. It would also need a lot of interior work. New side wall coverings, etc. It’s a VERY interesting truck though which is nice. And the guy is apparently desperate for cash. He was willing to take $3k off the price right there.

We headed up to Ventura after that and ate at this random place called “I Love Sushi”. And boy, do I love the sushi there. I highly suggest getting the “In & Out Roll” very good! So if you’re ever in Ventura, Ca. I highly suggest you go there.

Got home about 8, had just enough time to read my emails from the day and then went to bed. It was another morning of getting up at 3:30am and dealing with stupid people at the HD!

On the way into the office, I heard this song on the radio called “Dear Mr. President” by Pink. Apparently it was released forever ago. But I’ve never heard it before and if you haven’t. I suggest going and checking it out.

I also found this very interesting Wold Clock on digg the other day. This clock has stats collected from all over the world, showing population, prison growth, births, US illegal immigrations, divorces, species extinct, forests lost, barrels of oil, and LOADS more, including in depth death stats. Highly interesting.

Adios!

Left Lane Drivers Unite!

I was driving home from work the other day and heard a news story about these guys…Left Lane Drivers Unite!. It was great timing too as I was stuck behind a box truck in the far left lane going exactly 65… For you non-Californians, the far left lane typically travels between 75-80 during non-rush hour traffic. So as you can imagine there was a long line of people trying to get around this guy… Would have been a great time to have one of these signs!

Wed night I went out with Brendan and we saw Shrek the third. It was really funny. I enjoyed it a lot. I made him stay till the end to hear the Trevor Hall song. Great stuff. Went home after that and made the mistake of checking my news reader… There were some more cars listed and one was this AMAZING looking 1956 F250! It was love at first sight… Ugh. I blame Charles on this new obsession. If he hadn’t been soooo enthusiastic when I mentioned that one 1961 truck, I would never have stopped to look at it and fallen even more in love with her. I’m going to have to start thinking of names… Just in case I actually do buy one!

I ended up not getting to sleep till nearly midnight after that because I was going over my finances and what not and trying to see if I could afford it. Of course I _can_ afford it. Question is, how badly do I want it. And right now. I wannnnnnt it! ::whines:: I talked to the seller and he actually is a professional restorer and this is out of his personal collection. He says it’s all new engine and transmission. Just needs some interior work and a new bed. Which should be fairly cheap to do (Like $2k maybe).

This morning I checked in with my Insurance company to see how much it would cost to add this truck into my insurance. Only $400 more a year, which isn’t bad at all. So then I went to progressive’s website. You know how they always have the whole “We show you the competitors prices”. Blah blah blah. Well I went all the way through up to the screen where it says “Buy your policy now”. And not ONCE did I see any other competitor pricing? Am I blind and missing something? They always show it as being IN YOUR FACE when they do the commercials. Like there’s this big graph on one of the pages showing it. But alas. I missed it? Did you?

I have to work the early shift tomorrow morning which means that I have to be up at 3:30am! Ok, it’s only 7:30am, I should go and get work done so today goes by fast! Adios!