Same ol' Same ol'

Since the only real thing I could post was the 4+ hours I took to vaccuum my lawn, I decided to talk about my near fatal accident this morning.

Before I go on: No, it didn't happen, I was driving defensively and paying attention so it didn't happen, but it could have.

Simple enough, I'm at an intersection where my office is front right facing me. so i'm nearly at work. My light turns green, the other is very red when I notice a car that's barreling down the street (they are a ways away, and it can easily stop at the light) that isn't slowing down. I begin to move out in the street, keeping my eye on these lights that are going, at rough estimation with no gadgets to actually see, 35-40mph. Sure enough I nose myself just past the crosswalk when I have to stop, because Mr Impatient barrels through the intersection with a VERY red light and keeps going. I didn't think of honking, but I think I heard someone else do it for me.

So that's my story for today.

"He's not MY President"

This is a political rant of sorts, if you're easily offended by opposing viewpoints, don't read.

Obama won, If memory serves, 52% of the popular vote, and nearly 2:1 of the electoral College, he will be the Next President of the United States of America.


So why is it I'm already seeing & hearing folks proclaim him to be someone else's President?

I heard this from democrats about Bush for 8 years. My first introduction to this flawed piece of logic was from a stalwart Conservative in college who claimed proudly that William Jefferson Clinton was NOT his president.

I asked him if he was an American Citizen, which of course he said yes. I asked if Clinton was President of the USA, he said "not MY president" thus avoiding the logic: A=B, B=C, Therefore A=C.

This leads me to many questions and many gripes. How long has this mentality been around? If the President is not of your political affiliation, you are allowed to denounce him, to say proudly that he doesn't run your country?

When did running for office cease being who could do the job better but "we have to retake the Senate/House/White House from the others? Has reality TV or our addiction to competitive sports clouded our view on how to vote? Is this the evils of a two party system Our first President warned us of?

Then it devolves from there. Democrats will say get over it while the Republicans will refuse. this DESPITE the fact that for the past 8 years the Democrats were whining and complaning while the Republicans said get over it. Where does it end? When does the finger pointing and "But they started it!" or "It's the (other party)'s fault!" quit and they finally say "We're here to govern, not to support our party."

Am I just fooling myself? is it a pipe dream to wish those we elected to govern do that without worrying about their next election or towing the party line?

This is why I liked McCain. The term Maverick suited him well in the Senate. He did what he thought was best for his country, regardless if his Policital party disagreed. That's what a governor should do.

I'm probably hitting all over the map of my complaints of our current system, but to sum up, for the past 8 years I was not happy with who ran the white house. I've disagreed with many of his policies. That being said, he was MY president for those 8 years. Obama will be MY president on January 21st. I'm an American. It seems silly to think otherwise.

Caller ID @ 1:30am

So last night my cell rang. I didn't recognize the number so I silenced the phone and went to do what one would when they're are woken up in the middle of the night. Whilst doing that, it rang again. i finish and answer the phone to a very irate man demanding my name. Instead of giving him my name, I asked for his. He didn't give me that but wanted to know why I was calling his house. I tried to tell him I didn't, and somewhere I do give him my last name, (I am Mr. Bishop... nice tone to it.) so he calls me Mr Bishop and said this number called him. I patiently informed him that it was my cell phone and it's been charging this whole time. Here he realizes he may have misdialed the caller ID number and said he'll look at that and try again. Not much of an I'm sorry. However, I'm not mad at the man. I'd be ticked too if someone was calling me at 1:30 in the morning. So I understood where he was coming from, and didn't get angry for his tone of voice towards me.

This morning I reverse checked his number to get his name. Seemed fair since he had mine.


Cute Warm Fuzzy for today: My daughter out of the blue turned to me the other day and said, "Daddy, I love you." Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. She also once made it a point to grab my hand and put it around her. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. That's enough cavity inducing sweetness for now.

My daughter's first halloween

I could rant about the sheer amount of robo-calls I'm getting from both major political parties leading up to Election day, or comment on how my grass is now blanketed with a thick layer of leaves, and there's still more to come, but instead I decide to talk about the year My daughter is old enough to wander the streets in her Piglet outfit gathering candy for looking cute.

Sara stayed home to give out candy (this will probably be the last year for that, as she only got like 2 groups in our area) so I took my friend who came down to visit. We walked in our cul-de-sac first to show her off. Daina and Sara both had been working on her to say Trick-or-treat, so she was decent at that. Later I found that she probably needed to know "Happy Halloween" too, but there's always next year.

Anyway, we walked from house to house, her one hand holding mine, the other clenched on a death grip to her pumpkin bucket. We hit sporadic houses in our area with the light on and door open (we hit one house that had the light on, but door closed. I thought "light on" was a sign for candy, but apparently you need both for it to count.) and one cul-de-sac that had pretty much all houses giving out candy. Then we hit the mother load:

One block up from our house the whole area went from sporadic houses with lights to a Halloween block party. This area was AWESOME!!!! The weather was nice enough for them to be on their porches giving out candy. Kids were everywhere running and screaming et. al. Houses were tremendously decorated, one so much put up a pulley system to move the ghosts around his built cemetary.
The routine became standard, I'd tell Nora to say Trick-or-Treat which she did to awws, then she'd get candy, then I'd tell her to say "Thank you" which she did, then I'd tell her to say "Good bye" which she did. As the night wore on, her reponses became less and less, as we started near 7pm, her bedtime.

Anyway, She let them drop stuff in her bucket until one man let her grab candy. This was her new favorite. She wanted to do this for every house afterwards. That was difficult in the Halloween block party, as kids (yes, the kids some kids stayed home with their folks to pass out candy! AWESOME again!!) would be overeager to give her candy. Confused yes, but she still liked it.

As she was dressed as piglet, we ran into Pooh and Tigger (another little girl and I belive her baby brother) Nora was happy to see Pooh, and said as much. Pooh's mom asked where we found Piglet, as he appears to be a hard find. (Daina found it on Ebay)

Another house awwed at my daughter, as they were informed by a gaggle of girls before us a "really cute piglet" was coming.

We eventually had to call a point to loop around (I thought it went to a T intersection, which we'd loop around there, but instead it was just a curve to the road) and then wandered back. Bless my little trooper of a girl, once we hit our home street she told me that she was "all done" and "finished" So i carried her into the house were we proceeded to have an overtired meltdown. that ended after the costume was removed and diaper changed, and quit all together once the pacifier was in her mouth. I'm fairly certain she was asleep before I even laid her down in her bed.

All in all I'd say it was a good first halloween. Next year, I plan on taking my wife with us to the halloween block party, cause I think by that time Nora will start having memories of these events :)