PrivateTim

My impression of the Cramptons is that like Turner Construction, Kiewit, Hensel Phelps and many others their fortunes really took off in the post WWII boom. They were successful companies before, but became billion dollar companies after. I really liked the scene between Jeff and Matt because in all the fun we have here it is nice to remember the very real world of homeless and throwaway gay kids and the missions that guys Father Tim run all over the US. The only disappointment I had in the dinner invite list was Nana not being there. Of all the people who might be able to reach through to JJ I think she has a better shot than most of snapping him back to the real world.

Just a bump for those looking for something to read.

At its heart, there is no single answer. I was never afraid of coming out to my parents for fear of rejection, but I knew they would have fears for me. I wasn't afraid of my close friends rejecting me either, but in the sports I competed in, being out was just not an option. It still isn't for athletes in these sports mostly, at least not while they compete actively. You saw the bruhaha from what a San Francisco football player said before the Super Bowl, "a gay player wouldn't be welcome in the locker room". If a gay player wouldn't be welcome in the NFL in SF, there is no city he'd be welcome in. But that players attitude is like because he thinks he doesn't know any gay players or maybe even any gay people. So the reality is that even in uber liberal states there is still discrimination against gays and violence against gays. I am not sure where in CA you live, but not all of CA is an open minded paradise. Chris Colfer isn't much older than you and he had a very tough time in Clovis. If you go down to the Youth Center on Highland of The Center LA you can see kids younger than you who were tossed out of their houses for being gay and are on the street now. It is pretty easy to have self loathing when you are having to turn tricks to survive. Cruise down Santa Monica Blvd near Highland Ave any night and you can see these guys, 14-19 years old and you'll have no doubt that the fears are well founded. Talk to the kids at Covenant House, Children of the Night, the Youth Center, Casa Libre or any of the many shelters for homeless teens in LA and you'll understand why this thread runs through so many gay stories. In some cases the fiction can't even begin to match the reality because the reality was so much worse. "A Rent Boy Named...." was one of the most realistic portrayals of that world. I have my pet peeves with gay stories and sometimes you can get tedious themes repeating, but I think the themes repeat because they still resonate. You might enjoy the works of Cole Parker, he has a diverse set of stories and a pleasing writing style.

I know it has been a couple of years since Dom last updated a story, but by my reckoning there have to have been 3,500-5,000 new people join GA and there have to be that many or more lurkers who just read and haven't joined, but there is never any activity in the Domaholics forum. I'd think that someone might read his stories and then go to the forums to give their thoughts on Quinn, Rory, Nelson, Owen and all the other great characters from Dom's imagination because they are just fun characters to talk about. So do newbies read, but not post in the forums because they think it is dead or have they overlooked Dom?

Well not QUITE what I said..... what I have said it that water polo players in the elite programs (Harvard Westlake, Menlo School, Corona del Mar, La Jolla, The Bishop's School, Miramonte, etc) are generally good students because if you aspire to the next two levels (college & national team) you have to have the grades to get into Cal, Stanfurd, USC, UCLA, UCI and a few other top programs and it is being on those teams that gets you ready and recognized for the national team level. In addition to that, because water polo players, despite successes, don't get the attention or accolades on compus that even a losing football team does. They don't do pep rallies for the water polo team, so the players don't take themselves too seriously the way so many football & basketball players do. Few water polo players are planning a pro career in water polo, but there are many delusional basketball and football types who think they are cinches for the bigs. Lastly, because so many of the elite players play together on club teams MORE (8 months) than they play AGAINST (3 months) each other, it is a very different dynamic. I am not saying underwater kicks don't happen and nard sacks aren't squeezed to the point of bursting, but it very common for players from arch rival schools (Newport Harbor & Corona del Mar, La Jolla & Bishop's, Harvard Westlake & Loyola) to be great friends and hang out even during the high school season. I don't know if club soccer, or other club sports have similar dynamics, but I know there is no equivalent for football and not even for basketball really, club teams are very different from traveling teams.

When you go to Google.com or Google.co.uk or any other ending you go to their website that gives you the choices of, +You, Search, Images, Maps, Play, YouTube, News, Gmail, Drive, Calendar and them More, under More you have Translate, Blogger, etc. It is all right there on one website. You don't go to anyother website. Goggle Maps has gotten so scary good now you can window shop stores on Melrose Ave to decide if you want to bother going down to the store or you can walk through a Hawaiian resort to decide if it has the ambiance you want. You can even check the live traffic or average traffic pattern on an LA freeway before you make plans on when to go someplace. That is content beyond belief.

Now that's funny.....

Apparently you've never heard Google Maps, Google Translate, Google Drive, Google Blogger, Google Play, Google Gmail, Google Books or the dozens of other things they do besides being a search engine. 1) Google 2) Wikipedia 3) Baidu 4) Twitter 5) Facebook But has Facebok hit its zenith? Can it grow and stay relevant? Will Tumblr emerge as a real competitor? yfrog? kik? Does Skype qualify? Will DailyMotion & Vimeo merge to challenge YouTube? What electronic devices will emerge that will have significant impact on what sites emerge? I suspect the top 3 will stay the top three and that Twitter & Facebook continue to drop. When was the last time anyone signed into their MySpace page or Friendster?

I hope we stick with Will & Wade through 2001 and maybe into 2002. I'd like to see lingering storylines resolved. And while I enjoy Stef & JP, the carrying-ons of 60 year olds isn't exactly foremost in my JO fantasies.

it depends on how you choose to define "direct connection". It was not an accident that the first games of the modern era were held in Greece, nor that the games are held every four years, nor an accident that to this day the Olympic torch is lit in Olympia at the Temple of Hera. There were not "loads of other sports" that no longer exist. There is still athletics, equestrian events, boxing, a pentathlon and pankration events. That the events have taken on slightly different forms like Equestrian Jumping instead of chariot races doesn't alter the fact that the event's themes are very similar centuries later. Lastly, if you are going to copy and paste from Wikipedia, that should be done in a quote box.

I think Baron Pierre de Coubertin would disagree.

I don't say that Brad and Robbie don't need to improve their parenting and balance job and home life better, but that is a far cry from them as completely detattched parents. Brad and Robbie can get JJ into the HealthSouth Training Center in El Segundo to work with Frank Carroll. Whether or not he could get ready for Boston now is questionable, but not impossible. It isn't likely he'd do well since he was so emotionally dependant on his coach. If I remember correctly, they've only threatened to not allow him to go to Boston not outright said he isn't going.

From Tonto? Who passed away when Will was somewhere between 4 and 8 years old? When he saw her for limited times? Ditto for JP, how did Will get his study habits from JP in Palo Alto and not from his fathers and their work ethic? I think it is pretty clear that you read far more inbetween the lines than not. JJ by all accounts was a pretty good kid and student pre this skating coach whether or not Brad & Robbie knew his skating schedule is hardly the measure of good or bad parenting. Skating was the thing JJ did with his nanny..... errr "mother" and Tiffany. I know men who never missed their kids wrestling match or football game and were terrible, abusive parents. There is so much more to raising kids than you are addressing and much that we do not know.

I would say they did a great job in raising Will. How else did he acquire his strong moral sense of right and wrong? Where else did he learn the life skills he has? Where did his study habits come from? I think they did a great job raising JJ as well, lots of great parents have their kids fall to a predator no matter how involved they are with their kids and lots of parents miss the warning signs because they are a lot of same signs of just general teen angst and hormonal assault of puberty. I have said time and again we haven't seen the minutiae of the daily lives of these people. We haven't seen the family vacations (other than Paris and a short Hawaii trip), we haven't seen the trips to Brad and Robbie's and maybe even JP's alma mater and we have skipped years and years of the boys growing up. While they have made mistakes Brad & Robbie and Jeanie are far from bad parents and far from uninvolved. The boys wouldn't have gone to H-W in the first place if they were uninvolved. H-W was a careful choice over many easier, more convenient choices.

Yes actually I can write off most (more than 50%) European FILA referees at the OC category as being dishonest. That is one reason international wrestling uses three officials at a time and they "vote" on the scores. Since the advent of video replays cheating has become harder, but more subtle. A head official can effect the outcome a match by whom he assigns to a particular match and to which position he puts them. I will says that things improved markedly since Milian Ercegan stepped down. Raphi Martinetti and Mario Seletnig have made valient efforts to clean up the sport, but that may come to a halt with Martinetti's resignation.

Google "hyberbole". The point was that with climates you can not talk in decades or even centuries, you have to talk in terms of many millennia. To quote Benji's favorite scientific source.

I think you put far too much faith in Wikipedia....

By that logic, why would there ever need to be an Olympics for any sport? Sports like swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, figure skating, etc ONLY get recognition every four years. Many people can rattle off Olympic champions in those sports, but how many can name the World Champion from the years preceding or anteceding the Olympics? That is why sports like tennis and golf don't belong in the Olympics, especially when the pros are invited, maybe even basketball for the men. Those athletes get attention, accolades and fat endorsement contracts every year. For Zombie, track down Malcolm Morley, he'll have a story or two or ten for you about wrestling on the Continent.

Good to see your ignorance extends to many fields, it is important to be well rounded

Wrestling has only had 6 or 7 incidents of drug usage vs about 40 for both Athletics (track & field for Americans) and weightlifting. And few medals have been stripped in wrestling, but too many to count in weightlifting and athletics. Cycling isn't much better. No, doping was not the reason. And yes, the IOC would be greatly less corrupt with a Canadian or American or two on the board. The IOC has been famously corrupt. In the wrestling world European coaches clamor over getting a Canadian or American referee because they know they will get an honest official. The same can not be said for most European officials. Blood doping would be of no advantage to a wrestler, you see blood doping in mostly endurance sports like cycling and long distance running. Until 2012 every violation in wrestling had been for a form of steroids. In 2012 an Uzebeky wrestler was using a newly banned stimulant. The bitch for him is that the stimulent is often used in enery drinks and bars and not listed under the banned name as an ingredient. It is pretty easy to violate WADA rules if someone is not monitoring you on a regular basis. Almost any US over the counter cold medication could make you test positive.

Gee, good thing they didn't show 500 years ago then, when there was no ice in Greenland, hence the name "green land". It was a real tough time for ice lovers.

I think one of the keys for an abuser is to find kids who don't feel special and make them feel special, "you're my favorite", "you are special" and so on. Even if they know there are others, they get reassured "they are the ONE". In some cases there are group activities with the "special group" and they all know they are "special", but one one they get assured that they are the favorite. I can't see David being involved, but does anyone know where Shane Jackson's mom was??

Well frankly I am disappointed.... sex, violence, pedophilia and cutting... I think Arbour is just hunting for a network deal Actually, that was one terrific chapter, maybe one of the best ever. JJ is suddenly more interesting and multi-dimensional, Will continues to grow and show development, Nana as a fixture at Escorial and part of the family, a lesson learned on vigilantism and a guilt free result.

I would politely suggest that anyone who thinks Los Angeles is 70% white or anything close to it has never been to Los Angeles or only visited Hancock Park and closed their eyes on the entire drive from LAX.

It is nice you did some homework, but...... that "Some Other Race, Hispanic: 23.5" is made up of "blatinos" (black latinos) like Dominicans, Haitians, etc and Mexicans and the like who have intermarried with African Americans and another significant chunk of the "some other race Hispanics are the Mestizos which is not a choice offered by the demographers. There might be other wise "white" Hispanics who choose not to classify as "white Hispanics", but I think that would be a very small number. You want to have fun with demographics, play with the LAUSD numbers; only 33% are native English speakers, only 25% are considered "fluent", 33% are "English Learners" (which means they can't understand enough of the language to learn in English) and 10% are in transition between being fluent and not. Less than 10% of the students in LAUSD are white.