Desertrose

Beautiful man, ugly shirt! Maybe bf has been changing too many diapers. Am I the only one that thinks the front of that shirt looks like the front of a diaper?

Hi Desertrose While I agree with you on principle, I also feel that everyone needs to be educated so that they can make an informed decision when voting. I have had a lot of anti-Obama emails, mainly from ONE person who is so right-winged I don't think he'd miss his left eye if something happened to it. Unless I research the contents of his emails about Obama, there is no way of knowing how much of it is pure B.S. This same individual has sent me emails about Australia (he doesn't know where I live) and I am often taken aback by the numerous inaccuracies about things I know a lot about because it is common knowledge here. While I don't forward emails on mass, I do share them with people who I know are intelligent enough to read between the lines and research the information before bringing it up in a social conversation IRL. WHere Palin is concerned, I feel very nervous about idea that the Republicans can actually win, and the possibility of Palin having so much power (when her philosophy on a number of important issues) scares me. Hence, I wouldn't feel like I've compromised my integrity if I pass on information to people I can have an open discussion with, because the more people who can see Palin for what she represents, the better the chances are for Obama. Hi Claytonic, I hear you and can agree with what you say. I also have friends that I can have open political discussions with. In fact the friend who sent me that email has the exact point of view that you have. She is, like me, a feminist, liberal, bleeding heart Democrat. I told her that I was just deleting it, and she basically told me the same thing you said. However, she did tell me that this year she would not be flying all over the country to register voters like she did last presidential election. We did spend a lot of time disseminating and distributing information about GW Shrub. It did not do any good. People still voted for him even though he had spent and wasted all the money that Ann Richards left in the Texas coffers among other things. I am just not that invested in the election this year. As, I said before, I will not be voting for Palin because she does not represent me and the issues that matter to me. I find it interesting that even though it was expected that Hillary would come out blasting Palin, it has not happened. Hillary says she supports Obama, but has not really attacked Palin. Saw where W Virginia has Santa Claus as a write-in candidate for those who do not like either of the slates.

I am not going anywhere except to Spamalot. Play, I do not think that Jaymes post applies to you. IMO. It is just fine to be honest with the way that each person (fan) is processing the latest development in this unpredictable Clay journey. Clay is very wise to let everyone vent their feelings on the OFC without any editing. IMO, when all this processing is done, fans can either stay in the fandom or go. Either way it is fine with me. I hope that you stay Play because I feel that you are a good fan. IMO, it is not fair to be critical of fans who may be hurting because they feel deceived. I believe Clay when he says that he did not mean to lie or deceive anyone. It must have been very hard for him to sing in front of screaming females with "Marry me Clay signs," and then come out and say "I am gay." I cannot even begin to imagine how he must have felt at the time. He was in a very difficult position. I did defend him when people said in a derogatory manner "He is gay," without taking into account his talent and his humanitarian efforts. All of my family members thought he was gay. I argued with them, and even made DVDs of the 20/20 Diane Sawyer interview where he said he was effeminate because he was raised by women. I made them watch it. Now, I have learned to like the taste of crow, and it is not too bad. They can give me a hard time if they want to. I am the one that put myself in this position, and I will just have to wait till they get tired of having their say. I do have one Clay fan friend that she and I discussed the possibility that Clay might be gay because there were a lot of clues. We could discuss it and not judge each other. We both felt that if Clay was gay, it would not make any difference to us. Both of us felt that he should not wait too long to come out. I never shipped him with anyone, and fathering Parker with Jaymes was the biggest clue to me. I am not a big poster, but I never would have posted this because it would upset people. I still love Clay and am not going anywhere, except to Spamalot.

Clay being gay does not make any difference to me. I used to correct people when they said he was gay because I took him at his word when he self identified. After the way that Parker was conceived, I stopped doing that and when people who knew that I am a big fan would ask me if he was gay, I started answering "I don't know, and I don't care." What difference does it make? In my mind, I felt that he had to be gay to father a child in this manner. But I still was not sure. IMO, I am happy that he is gay, and can now live a normal gay lifestyle out in the open, rather than be asexual as some people had suggested to me. A friend told me a few days ago that she heard that JP blogged that he was being interviewed for a TV show about his involvement with Clay Aiken. She said that JP said he was going to be respectful towards Clay and his family, but that he was going to talk about how the Claymates had threatened him. He said that he would be interviewed for an hour, but his part on the show would only actually take a few minutes. I discounted this as JP lying again. I did not believe that there would be such a show. Now I am hoping that they do not have this interview on GMA, because it is beginning to sound as if JP was telling the truth about TV show.

I got the same email several days ago. I deleted it. Even though I do not agree with Sarah Palin's political views and will not be voting for her, I refuse to thrash her or circulate these sort of emails. I hate what the media did to Hillary during her campaign. IMO, it was because they are threatened by a strong woman. The media was easy with Obama. IMO a lot of women are also threatened by women such as Hillary. I hope that is not what is happening to Sarah. I just know that I will not participate.

Hi FCA, Day five, still alive! The power just came on, and I am checking in to tell you that I did suffer some damage to my house, but I am OK. Will post more later since I have major clean up to do. I did stay through Ike. My son and his family, who also stayed are OK too.

I so agree about the news sources. I could do without the speculation. It is bad enough. At this time, my son and his family are not evacuating, so I can not leave them behind. I think that we will be all right. At least I hope that we will be all right. It is scary that they are comparing this storm to Carla. I am still in my house, but at 3PM son is picking me up and taking me to his house. He lives a mile away. He is an engineer who worked with Friendswood Corporation, which developed Clear Lake, and he says that we are high. Another engineer who lives in area and lived in same house he is living now during Carla and Alicia, says the same thing. He did not get any water. A tree did come down, but did not damage his house. He said he did not suffer any damage. That doesn't mean that we will not suffer damage this time. Sure hope that they are both right that we will be OK. I do not like that it is not raining yet but some of the bayous are not draining. We will be in the big walk in closets (2) when Ike goes through. We will not be near windows or in any part of house that is close to live oak trees in case trees come down.

Thanks Merrieeee, I will keep your number handy just in case.

I am in mandatory evacuation zone. I should have evacuated yesterday at 12 pm. Because of the nightmare during Rita evacuation, I chose to stay. I am the only one left in my cul de sac. It was scary last night. This afternoon I will go to my son's house to ride out Ike. He and his family are a mile away and also in the mandatory evacuation zone. 75% of his neighbors chose to stay as opposed to all my neighbors evacuating. My granddaughter's future in laws, also in mandatory evacuation zone, evacuated to Dallas yesterday. It took them 12 hours to get to Dallas which is 4 hours away. They were scared to stay because during Alicia Hurricane, the roof came off their house. This will be my first hurricane and hopefully it will fizzle out and turn into a category 1. So far it is a category 2 even though the news media keeps saying "possible category 3." I am close to the water but my house is supposed to be 36 feet above sea level so as far as storm surge, I should be ok. Have to wait and see. DIL is scared that we will be under water. Somehow, I don't think so. At this point all I can do is wait and see because we have definitely decided not to leave. I am surprised that Keepingfaith in League City was not under mandatory evacuation because League City is really close to the water. Go figure! KF, I have not been reading the board because I have been busy preparing for IKE, but I hope that you are ok wherever you are. I remember you posting that your father said he would not evacuate again. That is what I said, and at this point, I am sticking to it. Hope that I do not regret it too much. I am glad that Solo evacuated safely.

Does anyone know what happened to Clay's friend Kristie? Last I saw was BFS at the OFC shutting down a thread that someone started about her baby. With all the excitement about Parker, Kristie somehow found her way into my mind. Don't know why. Weird. Anybody?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I redid my avatar all by myself! I got rid of the one that disappeared. It was easy too! Why did I not do it sooner? Oh well, now that I know how, I will probably be fickle and change it all the time until I run out of Clay beauties, and that will never happen!

OK Scarlett, You have convinced me. I am taking seat 103. THANKS

Thanks Bella, Good to know. I also loved the show when I saw it multiple times last March. I hope you are right, and my friend loves it. We have seats A103 and A102. I will let her have the A103 since it is closer to the center, and you say it is a great seat.

So much for the blog being private for fan club members. I found out about it from a Google Alert, and it had the whole blog verbatim. Regardless, I am happy that he blogged, sounds happy and is thinking of ways to introduce Parker to us. He can afford to fix his roof, and the main thing is that he and his little family were not hurt during the tropical storm. Life is GOOD. I have my Spam tickets. They are on Row A. I have never sat that close. I hope that we have good view of the whole show because I am going with someone who has never seen Spamalot before and is not a Clay fan. As for me, my eyes will be on Clay the whole time, and unless things change, he should be lying "dead" for ten minutes right in front of me. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I hope he cannot feel my staring at him for the whole ten minutes.

I will be there Wednesday November 19.

Claygary, Most people try to go to friends or family members in locations that are not in the Hurricane area. For people who have no place to go or no way to evacuate, the City of Houston has a number one can call and they will pick you up and take you to a shelter that has been set up beforehand where you can stay until it is safe to go back home. Only thing is that these people have to go to wherever they are taken. They can not choose where they want to go. The mayor of Houston is a really good man, and he has tried to set up a network to help those who need help. After Katrina, we had most of the evacuees in Houston because he sent buses to go and bring them to the Astrodome and other shelters.

KF, I was caught in that mess too. It took us thirteen hours to get as far as the Woodlands, then we were stranded, no gas, no food, no water. It was a horrible, horrible experience. Normally it takes 45 minutes to get to the Woodlands from Clear Lake. We were heading for Dallas, and so was most of Houston. I agree with your dad. I will not evacuate again. However, if I could make it to the woodlands we could have fun at Merrieeee's since she lives in the Woodlands and that is as far as I got last time. Merrieeee, Do you have room for one more? In case I panic and evacuate again. Just kidding. I am so glad that Solo and her family are on their way to safety. I do not want Gustav to visit Houston, but in a way, I think it would be better for Houston to take the hit than New Orleans. Those people have suffered enough from Katrina. From what I hear, they are not even sure that the levees will hold even though they claim to have fixed them. If the storm remains a category 4 or gets stronger, I do not know if New Orleans can take that hit. We do not have levees in Houston, so that is one less thing to worry about. We are also not below sea level even though we are pretty low. Best thing is to pray that the storm fizzles out and looses strength before it hits any of our shores. It happened with Rita which was coming in as a category 5. I saw where Scarlett mentioned those of us that were near the water so I decided to check in to let her know that I am ok.

I just read on the Playbillers Spamalot thread that someone is recommending the La Quinta in Little Korea. This is an old post, which we read last Clay Spamalot trip. We thought it sounded good so we booked at the La Quinta for four of us. The rate was $176+tax per room. We took two rooms. We arrived late because of bad weather in Texas and flights being canceled. We managed to get on the last flight to La Guardia before the airport was closed in Dallas. We had reserved rooms at the La Quinta guaranteed with a credit card, so we did not worry about missing the 3pm check in time. When we got to hotel around 6:30 PM, we were told our reservations had been canceled, and they had given our rooms to someone else. There were several other travelers that the same thing had happened to them, both male and female. They were all upset and yelling to the reservations clerks. Despite the fact that we were four women, it was dark and we had nowhere to go, plus two of us were crying (not me). The reservation clerk offered no help. He said we could go to the basement and use their dilapidated computer to find rooms elsewhere. We had to wait in line because of the people who were ahead of us also canceled and looking for somewhere to stay. Of course, NY was booked and we could not find anything. We decided that we would just park ourselves in the tiny lobby with all of our stuff. Finally the clerk "found" us two rooms. Miraculously, he found rooms for all the other people congregated in the lobby. We ended up staying there for the duration. I definitely would not recommend this La Quinta to anyone. It was dirty, had an odor, and the staff had an attitude. It is also almost impossible to get a taxi there also. I have stayed at other La Quintas in other cities and have never experienced anything like this one. By the way, because we spent so much time trying to find a hotel, we missed going to Spamalot that first night. We did get to do the stagedoor, which kinda made up for missing the performance that night. Stay away from that La Quinta in little Korea is all I have to say. Because of this experience, I will not stay at any other La Quinta.

Hey, what happened to my avatar? HELP. I had my 12 year old grandson do it for me. I don't know how to get it back. I need a new one I guess. Mine was an early Clay one. I guess it decided it needed updating. I have always wanted one that moved but do not know how to get one. Grandson got mine from photo bucket.

Hi Merrieeee, Sorry you had two bad experiences with Best Buy. I have had pretty good luck with BB myself. I usually shop around for the best price and then get BB to meet it because they have always given me good service. What kind of Home theater did you get? I just did the same thing. Got a 58" Panasonic Plasma with all the Home Theater stuff to go with it. The best thing is that I got speakers installed in my ceilings, so now I can have Clay singing to me all over the house. That is my favorite part. Before I just had regular CRT TVs with just regular cable. Now I am re-watching Idol 2 Rewind so that I can see Clay singing on my big screen. He looks fine!

KF, Am just trying to catch up reading posts. Last year I saw a John Mayer taping for a PBS show at University of Texas. I was impressed. He is very talented, especially on the guitar. He is also very down to earth, very likable. There were a lot of young people there, especially women (going crazy for him and asking for his water bottle), and his current girlfriend was there also. The girl from "Friday Night Lights." He is funny too. At one point, after trying 3 times to do a song and messing up, he just lay down on the floor in frustration. He has been on this music show a couple of times. I know an assistant producer there, and have asked about Clay being on the show. At the time, they had a bias about "Idol" performers. Maybe it will change. I do know from that person that she received a request from Taylor Hicks' manager about him appearing on the show. They did not take him, but Taylor is not even close to Clay's talent.

Iseeme, Glad your mil got out safely. My heart goes out to her. I would be distraught too! I hope her house is spared by the fire. I understand your close relationship with her because I also am very close to my ex daughter-in -law. She still calls me mom. Thanks for the photo.

Am I the only one who does not know who Good Charlotte is? Never heard of them. I love the Eagles though.

The best thing about FCA is that it is never boring. The first MB I joined is boring because hardly anyone expresses an opinion that dares to disagree with what is the popular opinion at any given time. Everyone just seems to agree about everything. Everything is always peachy and nice. Not realistic to me. I love the spirited discussions here, and most of the time someone expresses my point of view much better than I could have put it into words. Funny how someone always says what I am thinking. I do not think that anyone is going to make Couchie use the green ink. She is one wise woman. What I gather from the discussions here is that everyone supports Clay in their own way. How can one young man inspire so much passion without even trying is what I would like to know?

I stream AOL OMWH videos and music on a more than regular basis. I also send links to videos to my non-Clay friends and family. I bought more OMWH cds than I have done of previous Clay cds and gifted them to anyone I could think of that I know likes music. I have yet to get any response as to whether they are enjoying the cd or not, just thank you for the gift. I suspect that they are not even playing it. I have asked a couple of times if they liked it and the answer is yes, thank you. Not very encouraging to me because I had to ask. Makes me feel that they have not played it yet. I am slowly beginning to understand that I have done all I can to "promote" this cd. I make it a point to tell them that Kipper, who produced the cd, is an award winning producer, who produced for Sting, (they all like Sting) and that some of the musicians played with Steely Dan, (another favorite), and it still does not seem to encourage them to play it. It is very frustrating for me. They are all very good friends and NEVER say anything negative about Clay because they know of my Clay love. So I guess that part is good. Still frustrating though. Sometimes, I think that Clay is not visible enough. We live in a very fickle society where out of sight means out of mind. A lot of new artist make the scene each year and even though not very talented, they make sure that they have high visibility. I have been a fan of Clay's from the very beginning, 2003. I went to see him both times he came to Houston, but I never new of the online fandom. Whenever Clay went missing for a long time. I thought he had disappeared from the music scene. I never knew about the Christmas Concerts since I did not know about the message boards. I found the online fandom in 2006 when I accidentally discovered the "Ideal Idol" website. I was ecstatic when I saw him in the Idol 5 finale. That was when I found out that he was still "around." There are a lot of people who do not "do the internet," even though they all have pcs. But they do watch TV, listen to the radio, and read magazines. Most of them do not read the trashy publications, including me. I did not even know what Diane Sawyer was talking about in the 2006 interview and neither did my friends because I asked. They do watch GMA. For some reason, a lot of people follow artists because they feel that they know them because of the coverage that they get in magazines, TV or other entertainment news sources, their triumphs, heartbreaks, who they are dating, etc. I am not saying that this is right, because most of the time the information is wrong or slanted, but that seems to be the way it is. JMO, I wish that Clay would decide to become more visible in celebrity events such as award shows, even though he might not be receiving or presenting, just to be there in his gorgeous sexy self. I bet he would get his young girl fans back. I respect his wish for privacy, but he is still not an icon, who can afford to take that route. I want him to be seen and heard! JMO, but what do I know? Except that I love Clay Aiken.