LGBT Job Hunters Scheduled to Get Hunted

A Spring career fair focused on employing members of the LGBT community is scheduled for Wednesday April 30,  from 12-3p.m. at the San Francisco LGBT Center located at 1800 Market St. and Octavia.

According to flyers, there will be approximately 22 employers at the event, including reps from high profile companies like Bank of America, Charles Schwab, NASA.

Photo Courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

The Center also provides crash courses in job seeking at a job club offered every Tuesday from 10-12p.m. LGBT job-seekers are encouraged to utilize an employment service specialist, available by contacting employmentservices@sfcenter.org.

Another option for getting involved is to call and set  up an appointment with one of two employment specialists or a volunteer tech start-up employer that will give up the 411.

Find a Free Condom

Condomfinder.org is a website that gives specific locations of free condoms, searchable by area code. There are at least 19 free, condom pick-up sites at 18th and Castro in San Francisco's Castro district, all of which are in a one block radius. Mission's 9th and Harrison has 17 free condom spots within a four block radius.

According to the FDA website, anyone who has risky sex should use a condom. Condoms that are used correctly reduce the risk of getting or giving sexually transmitted infections.

Latino Journalist, Activist

Wall Street Journal consumer tech reporter Nathan Olivarez-Gilez has been active in the Latino community, starting the National Association of Hispanic Journalists chapter at the University of Arizona.

Nationally, NAHJ has been active since 1984, however, Olivarez-Gilez and a few of his friends became interested in reaching out to other brown-skinned students at UofA during his undergraduate [approx 6-8 years ago] he said. The focus of the association is to increase recruitment and involvement of young Hispanics in the journalism field according to their mission statement.

Olivarez-Gilez has been hailed by the Huffington Post as the greatest Latino tech writer of all time, and has been  named one of the 50 greatest Latino voices to follow on Twitter.

Needles and Bottles Are So Last December

The Castro Country Club, a sober meeting space with at least 34 12-step meetings a week,  is scheduled to reopen on March 25, 2014 after renovations that started last December are complete. Renovations include a remodeled coffee bar, new paint jobs and wider meeting spaces.

According to the official website, the club has been around since 1983 and is a safe haven for LGBT recovering addicts and alcoholics. It is located at 4058 18th St. San Francisco, CA.

The club is currently open, housing meetings in the front of the building. Meeting types are posted at the front door. Topics at meetings range from discussion of personal experience to a sober kink meeting on Friday at 9:30 p.m.

According to a 2010 analysis by Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap Initiative, approximately 23 million Americans are addicted to alcohol and drugs. The state of  Texas has a population of 29 million.

More information about Alcoholics Anonymous or alcoholism can be found at aasf.org.

Watch That Pretty Little Face

Excessive heating and cooling of a glass pipe with a hairline fracture can cause an explosion. Meth pipes, crack pipes, bongs that aren't made of heavy, thick glass have the potential to explode.

The physics say, glass will expand when heat is applied to it. Which is true, molten glass is subjected to heat and then blown into a sphere to create a glass pipe.

Physics also say that two objects of different temperatures will attempt to find a common temp when they are brought together; like an egg heating up in a frying pan.

A pipe with a hairline fracture in the bowl of the pipe, heated with say, a lighter, becomes hot. Setting the pipe on any surface not equally as hot, quickly cools the pipe, forcing the glass to withstand an enormous amount of pressure.

The hairline fracture isn't a hairline fracture anymore.

I'ts exploded.

Reporter Gets Started At SF LGBT Center

Privacy, civil liberties, tech reporter and blogger Ryan Singel said he got started  after taking a journalism class taught at the SF LGBT center 11-12 years ago. Getting into a beat was difficult Singel said.  He recalled that he was terrified of making the first phone call to a union representative. He got over his fear and broke his first story. Singel said he and other reporters interested in creating a circle of information usually keep relationships with sources for information.

"There is people in the world who know what the news is going to be," Singel said.

Singel published articles on wired.com for a decade and tech articles dating from Feb. 2009.

Singel left wired and started working for Contextly, an applications start-up within the past three years. For blogging, Singel said he prefers wordpress over blogspot.

Korean American Shares Experience with American Sexuality

Project Cu exhibit which features photos of approximately 35 slang for vagina opened Saturday Mar. 15, 2014 and is on display for the next six months at City College of San Francisco Ocean Campus Madeleine Haas Russell Gallery, the 2nd floor of Rosenberg Library. 

Artist Jung Ran Bae crafted sculptures of the lower half of a woman, cut off right beneath the breast and placed sculptures of slang depicting different words for vagina in the crotch.

Honey pot, hairy donuts, cake.

It's all there.

Bae said she giggled the first time she heard the word vagina, she said the word was cute. Bae recalls a lack of visceral, emotions associated with colloquialisms for vagina because she was unfamiliar with American slang she said. Project Cu highlights a portion of Bae's Korean cultural experience living in America, differences in sexuality.

The photos are part of a larger exhibit titled "Our American Stories" that opened the same day.

Antibody Anybody

Antibodies are basically the body’s defense system that point and tattle on lingering, foreign parties roaming around on the inside looking like they might cause trouble.

If the syphilis bacteria looked like a lemon, then the antibody to combat it would look like the busty blonde, hipping a price tagger at Anytown Grocery.

An antibody recognizes bacteria and marks it, like the saleswoman tags the price of a lemon. The marked bacteria is gathered by other parts of the body’s defense system[s] and then hauled off. The bacterial cell is then squeezed, the exterior is ruptured and the fluids are drained. 

Bam Bam.

Likewise, a customer gathers a lemon and hauls it off. And if their kid wants to set up shop at a lemonade stand, she gets a lemon juicer. It gets squeezed, the exterior is ruptured and the fluids are drained. 

*********

Conventional STI tests aren't used to test for the actual infection; they are used to check if a salesperson has marked a price for a lemon. 

Dormant Disease Syphilis

Syphilis antibodies cannot be detected by screening tests for three months after contracting the STI, and after possible exposure, individuals should consider being treated as if [assumed] positive according to SF City Clinic Mind-Body Counselor Luke Adams.

Those who may have had exposure to syphilis can get the same treatment as those who have a detectable level of syphilis antibodies or actual symptoms like sores, chancres.

Among the list of those willing to treat people who may have been exposed include, "[San Francisco] Magnet, City Clinic or any competent doctor," Adams said.

The treatment is a dose of antibiotics that can be administered by pill or by shot.

Syphilis is a bacterial infection transmitted through direct contact with another individual, usually during vaginal, anal or oral sex.

A rapid plasma reagin [RPR], venereal disease research laboratory [VDLR] are common tests used to screen for syphilis, however, are ineffective and will not yield positive results during the first three months after contracting the STI.

STI testing consists of getting an STI test

Being sexually active and simultaneously scared to get tested for sexually transmitted infections is stressful.

Fortunately, being able to google search STI symptoms is not an admissions requirements for medical school.

The only way to know the truth about an STI status is to get tested.

A practical and convenient approach for testing is to buy a self-test kit. The downside is a potential  lack of support or direction after getting unexpected [or even expected] test results. At-home testing kits are not all guaranteed accurate. The FDA-backed at-home HIV test has clinical research behind it.

A more spiritual approach to relieve shame or guilt surrounding sexual activity and possible consequences, is to consider confessing fears about getting tested to a close friend or disinterested party.

Relatively large intervals between an STI test, opting not to see the results of an STI test or never having testing done is not uncommon.

Kink Community News

Wicked Grounds, located in San Francisco SOMA, is a kink cafe and boutique that primarily serves the alternative sexuality community.

"You want to talk about the hot shit, the stuff that really gets you off, like fisting ... [Wicked Grounds] would be a great place for that," cafe employee and CCSF economics student Tara said.

The cafe is set up like a living room with space for high-tech gadget users to plug in. The botique sells a wide range of kink-related items including themed board games, whips.

Cis-sexual men and women or men and women whose gender align with their sex are also welcome.

CCSF aides not likely to find AIDS

Ocean Campus Student Health Services, located at  50 Phelan Avenue, HC-100, does not give rapid HIV tests despite numerous on-campus posters telling students that they should know their HIV status. 

Receptionists at the CCSF clinic will give students a bookmark-sized piece of paper with a map, address and phone number of SF City Clinic. City Clinic is an offsite, downtown San Francisco location where people can get rapid HIV and other STD testing done. Testing is free and can be completed using a fake name or alias. 

Photo courtesy of http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-know-your-hiv-status/ [Or google search: Know your HIV status]