The day that my blog will be ready for the public is nearing. There is only 18 days before my blog will start to become more consistent. If you've been with me since the beginning you have probably already started to see a difference in my blog. I am talking less about random philosophical stuff and am relating more towards my audience. This was put into place by allowing people to vote. (If you want to vote on what my blog will be like, there is a voting box on the right side of my page. Votes will be stopped in 18 days.) I've also changed the look of my blog and also the name of my blog. I also recently changed my URL to: http://thecaligarmo.blogspot.com (Sorry if this confused anyone.)
There have also been some behind the scene changes that haven't appeared on my blog, but has happened in the infrastructure of my workings. I've created a new email address (This brings my total up to 6) and also have changed my twitter name to better suit all of my changes. There are also more changes on the way that will allow me to separate this blog from my daily workings so that I can blog better. This has been a very fun and exciting time for me so I hope you are all ready to begin the fabulous journey with me when the time comes in August.
Also, if there are any changes that you dislike or if you would like to see some changes added please let me know!
Excitedly,
-Aram the Garmo
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
South Carolina, Gay?
Now who would have ever thought a story like this would develop? An Australian based gay travel company has labeled South Carolina among 5 other locations in the U.S. as 'great destinations' for the gay traveler. This makes me wonder whether Amro Worldwide did any research before starting their advertising campaign for South Carolina as being 'so gay.'
Amro Worldwide basically started an advertising campaign in London during London's pride in order to promote gay destinations in the U.S. South Carolina, Boston, Washington D.C., Atlanta, New Orleans, and Las Vegas were all chosen to be a part of their poster campaign in which posters describing each city as 'so gay' were put around the London Underground. The South Carolina poster is depicted on the left. But with South Carolina being so politically conservative and having such a anti-gay stance you would wonder how such a thing could happen. Don't we remember how South Carolina was the place where Irmo High School's principal resigned from his high school just because he did not want a gay-straight alliance starting up? So let's see how all of this went down.
The weird part is that it turns out that South Carolina originally liked the 'so gay' idea. Kristy Dillury, who is the spokesgirl for South Carolina Tourism, said "South Carolina has a lot to offer gay travellers... We are delighted to be involved with the 'so gay' campaign in particular as it sends a powerful positive message to everyone that there is nothing wrong at all with a destination being described as 'so gay'." This was put on a press release [here]. From here the advertising poster campaign was begun. It all went downhill once The Palmetto Scoop, a blog from South Carolina, talked about the ad campaign that Amro was putting up [found here]. Apparently Republican state senator David Thomas protested against the campaign and wanted an audit of the tourism department to see how this campaign could have happened using South Carolina's tax payer's money. The audit turned out that a lower level employee allowed the poster campaign to go through and the $5,000 to be paid for the ads without ever talking to their supervisor. Of course this employee quietly resigned. The governor of South Carolina, who apparently is in the running for VP of John McCain, said that the poster campaign was 'inappropriate.'
You can find the whole article [here].
All of this played out pretty much the way anyone could have imagined. I wish that South Carolina was not so anti-gay, but it's one state at a time I guess. I just have one question for Amro Worldwide. Why is San Francisco not on your list of 'great destinations'? And maybe next time, they should do some research before starting and ad campaign.
Realistically,
-Aram the Garmo
Amro Worldwide basically started an advertising campaign in London during London's pride in order to promote gay destinations in the U.S. South Carolina, Boston, Washington D.C., Atlanta, New Orleans, and Las Vegas were all chosen to be a part of their poster campaign in which posters describing each city as 'so gay' were put around the London Underground. The South Carolina poster is depicted on the left. But with South Carolina being so politically conservative and having such a anti-gay stance you would wonder how such a thing could happen. Don't we remember how South Carolina was the place where Irmo High School's principal resigned from his high school just because he did not want a gay-straight alliance starting up? So let's see how all of this went down.The weird part is that it turns out that South Carolina originally liked the 'so gay' idea. Kristy Dillury, who is the spokesgirl for South Carolina Tourism, said "South Carolina has a lot to offer gay travellers... We are delighted to be involved with the 'so gay' campaign in particular as it sends a powerful positive message to everyone that there is nothing wrong at all with a destination being described as 'so gay'." This was put on a press release [here]. From here the advertising poster campaign was begun. It all went downhill once The Palmetto Scoop, a blog from South Carolina, talked about the ad campaign that Amro was putting up [found here]. Apparently Republican state senator David Thomas protested against the campaign and wanted an audit of the tourism department to see how this campaign could have happened using South Carolina's tax payer's money. The audit turned out that a lower level employee allowed the poster campaign to go through and the $5,000 to be paid for the ads without ever talking to their supervisor. Of course this employee quietly resigned. The governor of South Carolina, who apparently is in the running for VP of John McCain, said that the poster campaign was 'inappropriate.'
You can find the whole article [here].
All of this played out pretty much the way anyone could have imagined. I wish that South Carolina was not so anti-gay, but it's one state at a time I guess. I just have one question for Amro Worldwide. Why is San Francisco not on your list of 'great destinations'? And maybe next time, they should do some research before starting and ad campaign.
Realistically,
-Aram the Garmo
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Cancun Part 2
First off, sorry for not updating yesterday; I wasn't really in the writing mood persay. So anyway, today I will be going into the Mayan ruins that surround Cancun, and also my gay clubbing experience.
First I'll start off with the Mayan ruins around Cancun. Of course when you go to Cancun you have to visit the historical sites of the Mayan civilization. Each location has so much information and beauty that it will be impossible for me to explain all of it here, but I will try as much as I can. I highly recommend everyone to go and visit at least once in your lives.
So the first place we went to was Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza is the most easily recognizable city developed by the Mayans. Chichen Itza has the largest games arena out of all the other spots. The Mayans used to play a game where they would hit a ball with a bat trying to get the ball into a hole on a wall around 20 feet up. (I really wish I had my pics so I can show you!) The cool part about this game was that every year they would have a sort of tournament in which each team would try and beat all the others. The team that ends up winning the tournament goes down in their history in a very simple way. The captain of the team would be sacrificed to their gods. Now a cool thing I learned was that human sacrifice did not come to the Mayans until the Tulocs came to their towns and basically 'conquered' them. So winning this game was one of the few ways to be have an honorable sacrifice. Normally a human sacrifice was reserved for their enemies. Thank God I wasn't their enemies!
Another cool point about Chichen Itza is their main structure. The building used to house the ruler of the city and was pretty massive. It also had a lot of significance which mainly corresponded to the Mayan Calendar. The Mayan calendar was pretty cool. It actually consisted of 2 different calendars that corresponded perfectly to predict eclipses. They had a lunar calendar which lasted 260 days. It was 13 months of 20 days each. The cool thing is that the 260 days corresponds to the womens reproduction cycle. If you notice 260 days is approximately how long it takes for a baby to be born, from inception to birth. Their second calendar was the lunar calendar which contained 365 days. This was 19 months of 20 days and 1 month with 5 days in it. The cool part is that the reason this last month only has 5 days in it is because it is seen as a bad month. The reason it is seen as bad is because it is the only 5 days out of the whole year that Venus cannot be seen from their point of view. And every 52 years the 2 cycles coincide. When they coincide is when an eclipse happens. Pretty cool!
Some other cool parts of Chichen Itza I will leave to you to find out when you go and visit yourself. I'll also mention that the entire place just looks absolutely beautiful. The concept that they were able to create all of these structures without the use of a wheel is amazing. I know that they egyptians did the same with the pyramids, but it still is amazing that humans could actually achieve such amazing feats. We also went to Tulum which was very beautiful also. Tulum was very cool mainly because you were able to see the buildings up close. There wasn't much information given to us at Tulum.
So the last thing I want to discuss is my gay clubbing experience down there. On the last night there I went to the gay club called 'Karamba.' The cool part is that it was in the city center itself. As in it wasn't anywhere near any of the hotels. Another cool part was that it was their comedy night and so they had a drag queen telling jokes all night long. I understood none of it, but it was pretty cool to be able to watch the whole thing happening. The music was also amazing and the hospitality there was great. I went there on my own of course and within 30 minutes a group of locals invited me to join their group and we hang out the whole time. They spoke really good English so my horrible Spanish was not used very much. The music at the club was also really good. There were only 2 problems the whole night. 1) There wasn't too much dancing happening. Of course I ended up dancing, but that's just the type of guy I am. 2) One of my drinks got spiked. Now this was mainly my fault and luckily nothing happened, but it was still a little worrisome.
So that is my experience in Cancun. I really enjoyed every minute and hope that one day I am able to go back during their amazing spring break time. I can only imagine how crazy and full that whole place is when it is packed with college students. I also realized that I need to work on my Spanish a lot, but that my Spanish is decent enough to get me by. I was able to have a whole conversation with the taxi driver on the way to the club. That's got to amount to something right!
Ravishingly,
-Aram the Garmo
First I'll start off with the Mayan ruins around Cancun. Of course when you go to Cancun you have to visit the historical sites of the Mayan civilization. Each location has so much information and beauty that it will be impossible for me to explain all of it here, but I will try as much as I can. I highly recommend everyone to go and visit at least once in your lives.
So the first place we went to was Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza is the most easily recognizable city developed by the Mayans. Chichen Itza has the largest games arena out of all the other spots. The Mayans used to play a game where they would hit a ball with a bat trying to get the ball into a hole on a wall around 20 feet up. (I really wish I had my pics so I can show you!) The cool part about this game was that every year they would have a sort of tournament in which each team would try and beat all the others. The team that ends up winning the tournament goes down in their history in a very simple way. The captain of the team would be sacrificed to their gods. Now a cool thing I learned was that human sacrifice did not come to the Mayans until the Tulocs came to their towns and basically 'conquered' them. So winning this game was one of the few ways to be have an honorable sacrifice. Normally a human sacrifice was reserved for their enemies. Thank God I wasn't their enemies!
Another cool point about Chichen Itza is their main structure. The building used to house the ruler of the city and was pretty massive. It also had a lot of significance which mainly corresponded to the Mayan Calendar. The Mayan calendar was pretty cool. It actually consisted of 2 different calendars that corresponded perfectly to predict eclipses. They had a lunar calendar which lasted 260 days. It was 13 months of 20 days each. The cool thing is that the 260 days corresponds to the womens reproduction cycle. If you notice 260 days is approximately how long it takes for a baby to be born, from inception to birth. Their second calendar was the lunar calendar which contained 365 days. This was 19 months of 20 days and 1 month with 5 days in it. The cool part is that the reason this last month only has 5 days in it is because it is seen as a bad month. The reason it is seen as bad is because it is the only 5 days out of the whole year that Venus cannot be seen from their point of view. And every 52 years the 2 cycles coincide. When they coincide is when an eclipse happens. Pretty cool!
Some other cool parts of Chichen Itza I will leave to you to find out when you go and visit yourself. I'll also mention that the entire place just looks absolutely beautiful. The concept that they were able to create all of these structures without the use of a wheel is amazing. I know that they egyptians did the same with the pyramids, but it still is amazing that humans could actually achieve such amazing feats. We also went to Tulum which was very beautiful also. Tulum was very cool mainly because you were able to see the buildings up close. There wasn't much information given to us at Tulum.
So the last thing I want to discuss is my gay clubbing experience down there. On the last night there I went to the gay club called 'Karamba.' The cool part is that it was in the city center itself. As in it wasn't anywhere near any of the hotels. Another cool part was that it was their comedy night and so they had a drag queen telling jokes all night long. I understood none of it, but it was pretty cool to be able to watch the whole thing happening. The music was also amazing and the hospitality there was great. I went there on my own of course and within 30 minutes a group of locals invited me to join their group and we hang out the whole time. They spoke really good English so my horrible Spanish was not used very much. The music at the club was also really good. There were only 2 problems the whole night. 1) There wasn't too much dancing happening. Of course I ended up dancing, but that's just the type of guy I am. 2) One of my drinks got spiked. Now this was mainly my fault and luckily nothing happened, but it was still a little worrisome.
So that is my experience in Cancun. I really enjoyed every minute and hope that one day I am able to go back during their amazing spring break time. I can only imagine how crazy and full that whole place is when it is packed with college students. I also realized that I need to work on my Spanish a lot, but that my Spanish is decent enough to get me by. I was able to have a whole conversation with the taxi driver on the way to the club. That's got to amount to something right!
Ravishingly,
-Aram the Garmo
Monday, July 14, 2008
Cancun Part 1
Ok, so I don't have any of the pictures from Cancun, Mexico on my computer yet, but once I do I will upload a few of them up here so you can see the amazingness that is Cancun. Instead I will just talk about what I did in Cancun, and the random sites and such in the area.
Weather-wise Cancun took some getting used to. At first it was a little difficult to breathe due to the high humidity, but afterward you got used to it and it was normal. The heat was not unbearable like it is in Phoenix, and so it was nice to just walk around everywhere. We stayed at Moon Palace Resort right on the beach, but we never went into the beach. Since it was hurricane season, it was not safe enough for them to allow us to get into the ocean. That was for the better since I don't really like the ocean much anyways. So, instead, whenever we wanted to swim it was the swimming pools for us.
The first couple of days there we relaxed and learned the location. Within 2 hours I was already able to state which restaurants required formal clothes, which didn't, and the hours at which they were all open. All 17 of them. I was also able to name the time and location of a few of the resort sponsored activities that I was interested in participating in. We learned that everything on the resort was free (since we were at an all-inclusive resort). This meant that the restaurants were free, room service was free, the drinks were free, almost everything was free. This also meant you can eat whenever you want and however much you want. I automatically knew this was going to be a problem since I wasn't looking to gain weight on this trip so I would need to restrain myself from gorging.
The food at the place was actually quite good. Most of the time it was buffet style, but when it wasn't it felt like they were serving the buffet food to us anyway. In essence, even though there were 17 different restaurants, they all felt the same and seemed to have the same food. This was not very good, but at least it allowed for consistency. I personally liked my morning meal the best. It was a selection of 5 different fruits, a fruit smoothie, and a cup of tea. Also I'll occasionally have a slice of toast or eggs or something. Lunch and dinner was usually up for grabs, but I tried to keep it to one plate max and no desert. The sad part was that they had very limited salad options, and almost no vegetarian options. Very sad.
The activities were very exciting though. They had beach volleyball, salsa lessons, rumba lessons, jogging tours, guessing games, stretching, water aerobics, yoga, pilates, and other amazing things. I personally was the most interested in the yoga/pilates session early in the morning. So I got to drag my parents outside early morning to participate in yoga with me. It was so nice and refreshing. I really must say that I really like yoga. On the last day before leaving I participated in the stretching exercise also. I thought that was the most fun. I only found it on the last day and so I couldn't enjoy it on the other days, but the stretching was so much fun and worked on things I hadn't worked on in a while so it allowed me to enjoy my re-stretched body. It also was fun since the guy leading the stretching was a dancer and found out that I like to dance also and so he called me dancer the whole time. I actually felt pressured the whole time to be able to flex at least as far as he was the whole time (which I normally could), but when I couldn't he would goad me on and be like 'come on dancer.' That was funny. Oh, and random fact, he was 21. I feel like I've past my prime in dancing since I am so old, but I will still continue my passion. I feel young at heart.
I unfortunately must go now since I am busy getting my life ready for August. Come back tomorrow for the continuation of my Cancun trip. In it will be my talk about Mayan Ruins, and my gay clubbing experience!
Enthusiastically,
-Aram the Garmo
Weather-wise Cancun took some getting used to. At first it was a little difficult to breathe due to the high humidity, but afterward you got used to it and it was normal. The heat was not unbearable like it is in Phoenix, and so it was nice to just walk around everywhere. We stayed at Moon Palace Resort right on the beach, but we never went into the beach. Since it was hurricane season, it was not safe enough for them to allow us to get into the ocean. That was for the better since I don't really like the ocean much anyways. So, instead, whenever we wanted to swim it was the swimming pools for us.
The first couple of days there we relaxed and learned the location. Within 2 hours I was already able to state which restaurants required formal clothes, which didn't, and the hours at which they were all open. All 17 of them. I was also able to name the time and location of a few of the resort sponsored activities that I was interested in participating in. We learned that everything on the resort was free (since we were at an all-inclusive resort). This meant that the restaurants were free, room service was free, the drinks were free, almost everything was free. This also meant you can eat whenever you want and however much you want. I automatically knew this was going to be a problem since I wasn't looking to gain weight on this trip so I would need to restrain myself from gorging.
The food at the place was actually quite good. Most of the time it was buffet style, but when it wasn't it felt like they were serving the buffet food to us anyway. In essence, even though there were 17 different restaurants, they all felt the same and seemed to have the same food. This was not very good, but at least it allowed for consistency. I personally liked my morning meal the best. It was a selection of 5 different fruits, a fruit smoothie, and a cup of tea. Also I'll occasionally have a slice of toast or eggs or something. Lunch and dinner was usually up for grabs, but I tried to keep it to one plate max and no desert. The sad part was that they had very limited salad options, and almost no vegetarian options. Very sad.
The activities were very exciting though. They had beach volleyball, salsa lessons, rumba lessons, jogging tours, guessing games, stretching, water aerobics, yoga, pilates, and other amazing things. I personally was the most interested in the yoga/pilates session early in the morning. So I got to drag my parents outside early morning to participate in yoga with me. It was so nice and refreshing. I really must say that I really like yoga. On the last day before leaving I participated in the stretching exercise also. I thought that was the most fun. I only found it on the last day and so I couldn't enjoy it on the other days, but the stretching was so much fun and worked on things I hadn't worked on in a while so it allowed me to enjoy my re-stretched body. It also was fun since the guy leading the stretching was a dancer and found out that I like to dance also and so he called me dancer the whole time. I actually felt pressured the whole time to be able to flex at least as far as he was the whole time (which I normally could), but when I couldn't he would goad me on and be like 'come on dancer.' That was funny. Oh, and random fact, he was 21. I feel like I've past my prime in dancing since I am so old, but I will still continue my passion. I feel young at heart.
I unfortunately must go now since I am busy getting my life ready for August. Come back tomorrow for the continuation of my Cancun trip. In it will be my talk about Mayan Ruins, and my gay clubbing experience!
Enthusiastically,
-Aram the Garmo
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Another Change
So since I am back from my trip to Europe I will be changing my blog title to reflect my new status. Also, the poll is still in effect and will be closing in 28 days, so if you want to have your say as to what my blog will feature as its main component please vote soon.
In the next couple of days I will be finishing up my recollections and talks about my trip to England and also my trip to Cancun, Mexico. Hopefully they will add a few days to my blog, which (now with a little free time) hopefully will start having more posts.
In the next couple of days I will be finishing up my recollections and talks about my trip to England and also my trip to Cancun, Mexico. Hopefully they will add a few days to my blog, which (now with a little free time) hopefully will start having more posts.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Publicity?
So I was randomly scouring the internet and reading the random blogs I generally look at and I noticed something odd; for some reason another blog mentions mine! Now normally this occurs by one of my friends who is talking about me or something random, but the blog that mentions me is from someone I haven't even heard of! (Of course now I have and will be reading more of his material.) I've basically been mentioned in a blog post about Gay Armenians blogging which is sort of cool. I just didn't know that other people actually read my blog.
If you want to read the amazing post (done by: Onnik Krikorian) you can read it [here]. And to read more posts by Onnik Krikorian you can do so at his blog [here]. I'd also like to say thank you to Onnik for mentioning me in his post!
Happily,
-Aram the Garmo
If you want to read the amazing post (done by: Onnik Krikorian) you can read it [here]. And to read more posts by Onnik Krikorian you can do so at his blog [here]. I'd also like to say thank you to Onnik for mentioning me in his post!
Happily,
-Aram the Garmo
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