New website!

For anyone still checking out this site, go check out my new, less personal but still enjoyable endeavor: Trail Rookie

I'll probably leave this site up for a little while longer. There's a lot of history here.

Trapped in time

I was done with stuff at work this afternoon and got an email from Classmates.com telling me twenty people had signed my guestbook - and I only had to pay $15 to find out who they were and what they said. Extortion, I tell you.

So, I spent some time on their site reading through the class roster of my graduating class, 1994. However, Classmates.com never really fit me well, because I lived in three places during my formative years - the most time in the place where I was youngest, the least where I was oldest, so it's all topsy-turvy as far as who I remember and why. So, Classmates has me down for three high schools.

I've only kept in touch very tenuously with a few folks I knew in middle school and high school. A few of them have found me here, but many more have reconnected via Facebook, which has been a crazy blast from the past. But looking back at all the names from elementary school, I have this odd "trapped in amber" recollection of folks. They're all people I haven't seen since 1989 or earlier, and who I frankly remember exactly as they were in the eighties (and maybe them, me...) I think I've kept this blog going in an odd need to somehow reconnect, even though reconnection would probably be uncomfortable, unnecessary. Do I really need to know about that girl who moved to Chicago in the third (or was it fourth?) grade, who was my first real crush? Or the couple of guys who were sure to have been my buddies all through high school had I stayed? The ones I was in the sixth grade spelling bee with on the radio or academic competitions with Mr. McCool? The girl who couldn't say the Pledge of Allegiance because she was a Jehovah's Witness, but debated by my side for the Democratic candidate in the mock debate? The one who had a crush on the babysitter and asked me to explain how that stuff all worked. The ones on the bus trip to Pittsburgh, where all the kids thought my mom was cool because the group she chaperoned let them in the art exhibits where they showed the boobs in the paintings?

It's at once vain and selfless. I could have kept in touch with them, but realistically, not really. Now, I'm dying to know that these people I cared about are doing okay, but really I'm dying to know... I remember the names and the faces, but do they remember me? And then, that's it. Let's not do lunch. Let's not pretend we still know each other or anything, because we all have our own lives now.

It's like the games of kickball we used to play back in elementary school - I wasn't remotely athletic until at least high school, so they let me be the umpire - and it wasn't even for show. I was the umpire. I think I still am. Observing from the middle of the action, but never really a part of it, or at least deluding myself into believing that.

I'm willing to bet there's a little of all of this in everyone. But, that was my story.

I started this blog back in 2000, back when it was really the only social networking out there. The public nature of the blog both appealed to me and discouraged me, but I'm finding Facebook satisfies nearly all my needs of expression, and I never get around to posting here. A good bit of my postings have been generated by the ups and downs of life pre-marriage. The other good bit came from eight years of disaster in the White House that's now thankfully almost over. Neither really generate much in the way of content anymore. Moreover, I've got a better use for the domain name I think that I might start working on over the summer.

So this is as good a time as any to hang it up. My twitter page and facebook page will get more of my attention than this ever will anymore. End of an era? Nah... But, time to hang it up anyway. It's been fun. Good night.

And you're not getting my $15, Classmates. Not today, anyway.

I didn't know...

First off - what a classy speech from John McCain. His campaign took on some scary tones, but he started to turn that around last night with the classiest move of anyone in the campaign - his concession speech. He took the high road, regained my respect, and had the good sense to step out of the way of the history unfolding before him.

I started to get an inkling of that unfolding history when Chris Matthews on MSNBC started to blather after it became clear Obama would win. At first, he was making all kinds of comment about race and populations in his typically insulting way. But about 10:45, he stopped the broadcast and rendered both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow speechless (no small feat), and started talking about what the night really meant, the incredible moment in history we were witnessing and the PRIDE, the absolute pride in America he felt that we were able to do this like nowhere else in the world. I stopped. And I said, "Holy shit. He's right."

By the time 11:00 rolled around and Keith called it for Obama, I started to comprehend the signficance - I had voted for a black man for president. The wonder wasn't that though, the wonder was that the true relevance of what I had done did not hit me until then. When I pressed the button in the booth, I voted for who I thought was the best man, for so many reasons. Until 11pm that day, I gave no thought to his race. As I watched cheering crowds from across the nation, I felt like this country began to heal. Really heal its divisions.

Then the clincher - whoever thought to jam that camera in Jesse Jackson's face, a face in the sea of humanity at that park in Chicago and to see him have such an incredible reaction, awestruck with the moment, tear on his cheek, finger over his mouth in quiet contemplation. That is an image that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

The final realization hit me later even. And this was even more powerful. That my son will grow up until he is five, hopefully nine, only knowing... ONLY knowing a black man as president.

-- I have to pause here - and really stop this post... There is nothing left to say. --

Go vote

You must vote. If you don't vote, you insult democracy, you insult the dead generations of Americans who believed in their country and built the world you see around you, you insult our troops who risk their lives daily so that you can sit on your butt, read this blog, and not vote.

Go to Start -> Shut Down -> Shut Down in Windows or Apple -> Shut Down -> Shut Down, get up, go outside and go vote. Don't know where? Go to Google. They will tell you where.

That being said - here's my call:



I've been to Virginia too many times in the past five years - Northern Virginia is more liberal than Western Pennsylvania these days. (Side note - PA is not the nail-biter McCain is trying to make it. Rural PA will always surprise you on how red a blue state can be, but it's less red than it was in 2004.) Ohio is either too conservative for McCain, or too freaked out by Palin, depending on who you ask. That sends Ohio our way. Florida got screwed by the mortgage crisis (or screwed themselves...). Either way, there are enough upset people with extra time on their hands to just barely tip Florida to Obama. That goes ditto for Nevada. Colorado is still buzzing from the convention and has gone towards the center politically, meeting the democrats on their way there in the past four years. Welcome back to sanity, Colorado! New Mexico barely tipped to Bush last year, so is totally vulnerable to even the slightest headwind for Obama, and he has that for sure, they go Obama. Finally, Iowa loves Obama - something I can not explain at all, but hey, there it is. See you all tomorrow in a much brighter world.

Vote on Tuesday

This quote about Sarah Palin was in our local paper today:

“She’s been a mayor, is presently governor of Alaska,” “She’s dealt with oil and gas pipelines. I think she’s well-qualified.”

Yikes. Vote on Tuesday.

I read an article about economic flight from South Africa because of governmental mismanagement. If it can happen there, it can happen here. Bush has led us down the road of national disintegration. Attitudes like this, well she's good enough and she seems alright, will doom America to mediocrity.