It was interesting to watch the election returns tonight on MSNBC.  It’s no big surprise to anyone that has paid any attention to the campaign that *most* news organizations shower Obama with love and adulation.  It was also funny knowing that the talking heads were dying to call the election at 7pm when the first polls closed. There was about a 20 minute window from 9 to 9:20 where they realized that Obama had not turned a single red state blue and they were horrified that this was going to be another 2004, and then news broke that Ohio had gone blue and it was all but over.

McCain is giving his concession speech right now.  He seems sad yet relieved that it is all over.  It was a classy concession speech.  I don’t dislike McCain, and I really think he is a fine American and a good man.  In other circumstances, I could probably have voted for him, but Obama was a far superior candidate at this time.  

They are showing live video of a huge crowd that has gathered outside the Whitehouse.  This is non-violent revolution.  200 thousand plus in Grant Park in Chicago.  This is a new country.  Jesse Jackson is openly sobbing.

I’m still surprised at the ignorance and stupidty I’ve encountered from people during the past year.

It looks like Obama is getting ready to speak.  I really think this is going to be one of the most important speeches of this generation.  

Facebook is just blowing up tonight.  The role that the internet played in this election is amazing.

I wish David Gregory would quit interrupting everyone every time a state is called for Obama or McCain.  The election, for all intent and purpose, is over.  Let the people speak Gregory, you asshole.

I’m only posting this now so I remember to come back to it later.

I’m working on a theory, postulating, if you will, about attention whore-ishness and how it relates to how many pictures you have of yourself relative to friends you have on facebook.

Check back later folks.

At 9am this morning, I pull up to one of my stops, Butch’s Italian Cafe in Canal Winchester. I’m semi-pissed because I’m one half hour behind schedule, and you know how that can affect your mood. Anyway, As I’m pulling around the building, I noticed that the dining area is swarmed with young urban hipster-types. “Wtf is this,” I mumble to myself, “some butt-pride convention?”

Anyway, I go around the building and load my cart up. As I’m walking towards the building an employee comes out the back door and makes eye contact with me.  She then proceeds to let the door lock behind her. I’m 100% certain she heard me when I said “twat” as she was walking away, I could see the pause in her step. I beat on the door and the crazy lady who works there opens it up. How do I know she is crazy you ask? Last week, when I was changing the mats, I heard her in the kitchen talking to someone. When I went back there, it was just her by herself. “Talking to yourself Sam?”, I ask. “Oh you know me. Yes.”, came the reply. I didn’t think anything of it and as I go out the door, I hear her whisper in a very sinister voice, “Because I’m crazy.”

I digress. She opens the door and as I’m going in, I ask what’s going on. “Some fundraiser for John McCain,” “Interesting indeed,” I think as I develop a plan of attack. Not attacking the McCain supporters per se, but a plan of attack for getting my shit done and getting the fuck out of there. As I’m restocking her supplies I am semi-listening as crazy-lady tells me how she is voting “undecided”, and that if enough people vote “undecided” the parties will have no other choice but to put up two different, perhaps more electable candidates. “I don’t think it works that way Sam,” I tell her. “Are you sure? If ‘undecided’ wins, they have to have a new election” “Ok Sam”, I start making my way towards the dining area, hoping to not get swept up in the moment and end up professing my love for John McCain.

As I round the corner I see the owner of the establishment, Big Butch himself. “What’s going on Butch?” “Oh, some political thing. I got the Lt. Gov. of Texas stopping in here in about 10 minutes.” As he is saying this I’m looking at the crowd that has amassed in my work area. “These fucks are fucking up my shit,” I’m thinking to myself. “Wait, is that an Obama sticker I see?” As I look around, everyone is wearing something with “Obama” on it. Stickers, buttons, hats, shirts, you name it. “Butch, who did you say is coming in to talk?” “Oh, just the Lt. Gov. of Texas, Chim Richalds or something.” “Why would Chim Richalds endorse Obama?” Butch mumbles something about not knowing, but he’ll be glad when it’s over.

I make my way into the throng. I see the waitress I called a twat. She definitely sees me. She doesn’t look too happy either. Playing it off, I change the subject before she even gets a chance to bring it up, “Nice button, (Obama ‘08) who’s coming in today?”, I ask her. “Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico.” “Awesome”, I say as I disappear back into the crowd before she can call me out for being an asshole. Things are finally starting to make sense, Richardson is coming in to talk to the Obama faithful. I make light work of the mats and start making my way towards the back of the restaurant. Crazy lady is there yelling at some fat mexican delivery guy about being over-charged for romaine lettuce. “Did you figure out what’s going on out there,” she asks. “Yea, Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico is having a town-hall style meeting.” She smiles and turns to the mexican, “Ce’sar, you want to stay and watch? He’s from Mexico, too.” Ce’sar mumbles something to the effect of “loco punta” and disappears through the back door. I tell her that New Mexico and Mexico are two different places. She doesn’t believe me. After trying to convince her of this, I decide it’s a lost cause and collect my check and leave. As I pass through the door, I’m standing face to face with Bill Richardson, the mexican governor (lol). Realizing this is kind of a big deal, I don’t want to fuck it up. I stand up straight and take my gloves off. I make eye contact with his entourage/(security?) to let them know I mean no harm. I extend my hand, “Governor, it’s a pleasure.” “Why thank you son. The pleasure is all mine.” I smile and nod and begin to walk away. As I’m doing so, I call back over my shoulder and say, “Don’t forget who you work for.” I’m 100% certain he heard me, I could see the pause in his step.

Wow.

John McCain admitted that our government has taken part in torturing prisoners of war, “And when I am president, we will not torture another prisoner…”

He also mispronounced Amahdinajad’s name, miserably.  He mis-identified the president of Pakistan and also called Pakistan a “failed state”.

Good game old chap, ship the presidency to Obama.

Ahhh, vacation.

I’ve just returned from Emerald Isle, NC and I’ve got to say, I love it there. It’s not a tourist trap like other coastal communities such as Myrtle Beach or Ocean City, MD. It is a nice, quiet, family oriented community. It’s right up my alley.

Anyway, I guess this isn’t the real point of this post. I’m tricky like that. I zig when you think I’m going to zag.

I’m going on a diet. I realized while sunning myself on the beach this past week, that my once sexy body isn’t so sexy anymore. I need to drop about 25 pounds. Last year I took my once burly 255 pound frame down to about 210 but it has slowly crept back up to 225. 200 is the new goal. January 1 is the target date.

Can it be done? Time will tell.

Last night there were several severe storms that rolled through my tiny burg. The first, at approximately 6 p.m. is the subject of this post.

As I was eating dinner, I noticed a brilliant blue flash just outside my window and jumped up from my meal to investigate. As I looked towards the source of the flash I saw a shower of electrical sparks coming from behind a neighbors home and the entire neighborhood went dark. I immediately grabbed the phone book and went outside on my porch to call said neighbors. As I was looking up the number I saw another neighbor go over to the house that had apparently been struck by lightening so I instead looked up AEP’s number instead.

As I was dialing AEP I heard something resembling 100 electric chairs going off at once and then a very loud and alarming ‘pop’ and another, much larger, blue flash of light that lit up the entire neighborhood. At this point I’m speaking with an AEP representative and she informs me that someone will be sent out to investigate. It was about this time that the first brief, but nasty storm was ending. I looked up and down my street and I saw each and every one of my neighbors outside.

I decided to walk up to the neighbors house that had been hit by the lightening and check things out. Apparently, the initial lightening strike that I saw had hit a tree in their backyard. When this happened, two very large branches splintered away from the tree. One branch landed squarely against an electrical pole, knocking two transformers askew and off of their mounts. The second branch fell over the power-line leading into my neighbors home. When the branch hit the line leading into the house, the line blew and the resulting ‘blast’ blew a hole in the eave of the house.  The second flash I witnessed was the two transformers arcing back and forth amongst themselves. Scary stuff.

Anyway, the real point of this post is the fact that my neighbors actually came outside, and even more fascinating, we actually interacted with one another. Surprisingly, all of my neighbors are nice people. I didn’t know that before last night.

This is the first trip report I have to write. The next one, which took place in New York City, will probably be more epic in scale since it encompasses an entire weekend and involves playing beer-pong in mid-town Manhattan and me almost getting kicked out of Yankee Stadium. This report is the family-friendly Fathers Day Cincinnati Reds Baseball Special.

The family and I woke up early on Father’s Day and hit the road, heading down I-71 towards The Queen City. The Red Sox were in town for the first time since 1975 and this Reds fan wasn’t about to let an opportunity like this slip by him. After a quick stop at Bob Evans for breakfast, it was non-stop to Cincy and Great American Ballpark.

Arriving at the park about 2 hours before the 1:15 first pitch I found a spot in my favorite parking place directly below the stadium. Knowing that we had lots of time to kill, the family and I decided to walk around outside the park where we found ourselves on Crosley Terrace and were greeted by a 60 foot tall banner of one Ken Griffey, Jr. commemorating his recent accomplishment of hitting his 600th home run. While I think Griffey is a huge strain on the Reds payroll, I can appreciate his recent milestone. I also weep for what might have been had he remained healthy the entire 8 or so seasons he has had with the Reds. I can say with confidence that one Barry Bonds would not be sitting at the top of a certain list. Anyway, I digress.

There was a very nice set of bronze statues consisting of Joe Nuxhall, Frank Robinson, Ted Kluszuzki, and Ernie Lombardi. The statues are very nice and set to resemble a pitcher, catcher, batter, and a man on deck. In what I took as a Fathers Day tribute to Joe Nuxhall, someone placed an arrangement of flowers in front of his statue with a black band and the number 41, which Nuxhall wore for his 15 seasons on the roster. I took a few quick photos of the boys with the statues and then we cornered Mr. Redlegs himself and got a few pictures with him as well.

After the impromptu photoshoot, we made our way into the stadium and found our seats. We were in the upper level for the sold out game, but we had a pretty good view of the field and a great view overlooking the Ohio River. In between innings we could gaze downriver and watch the various paddleboats making there way up the waterway.

The game itself was not very exciting. The Reds obviously had other things on their minds and quickly fell behind 5-0 after just a few innings. Boston ended up cruising to an easy 9-0 victory, but on this day it didn’t matter. I spent it with the most important people in my life, and we had a great time. On Fathers Day, this is the only thing that matters; on this day, the score is irrelevant.

So, it’s been a while and I’ve been busy.

This weekend I’m going to Cincinnati to see the Reds v. Red Sox.

Next weekend to New York to see Reds v. Yankees.

Following weekend to Pittsburgh to see Pirates v. Rays.

GOGOGOME!

You may recall a few posts back that I mentioned going to Detroit to catch a Tiger’s game. Well, that happened this weekend.

I headed up to my friend’s house after work Friday afternoon. I had planned on stopping for sushi along the way because I was probably going to have time to kill before my friend got home from work, but he called me just as I was leaving town saying that we would be going for sushi upon my arrival and that he was buying. Awesome indeed.

The trip up was uneventful, as most solo road trips are, and I arrived at my friend’s house promptly at 6:30. I dropped my bag and said something along the lines of, “Bring on the sushi”, but my friend informed me that while googling directions, he found out that the sushi bar we had planned on going to had recently closed. I was immensely sad for about 5 seconds until he suggested we go for Indian instead. I had never had Indian before and I was stoked to try something new. My friend, his wife, and I pile into his brand new Scion and roll into Ann Arbor and the campus area is totally packed with people. Apparently UM had a graduation that evening and there was hardly anywhere to park and all of the storefronts had lines of people halfway around the block.

Eventually we found a nice parking spot and started walking towards our destination, Raja Rani. Raja Rani is located in an old house on a corner lot in downtown Ann Arbor. The wait was brief and the food was phenomenal. After we were seated we received a complimentary appetizer of vegetable pakora, which is basically deep-fried vegetables, served with three different dipping sauces, all delicious and all spicy. For my entree I decided to go with chicken karahi, which seemed like a good introductory dish for my first Indian dining experience. Chicken kahari is simply chicken sauteed in a wok with tomato, ginger, herbs, and spices. It came topped with cilantro and was served with rice. I loved it. We also had some type of spicy flat-bread and mango milk shakes. I wanted to take a picture of my meal to post here, but didn’t want to look like a tourist. I will certainly be researching my options locally as far as Indian food is concerned.

After dinner we walked around downtown and stopped at a local coffee shop and grabbed a latte for our meandering stroll through the city. Nothing too exciting was happening so we finished our drinks and headed home.

We were up bright and early Saturday and decided to head into Detroit to check out the pre-game city scene. On the way we stopped at a Greek restaurant and had breakfast. I had an omelet with lamb, spinach, tomato, onion, and feta cheese. It was pretty tasty. Anyway, I digress. Once we made our way into the city we found some cheap parking and headed directly to Cheli’s Chili Bar which is directly across the street from Comerica Park. We had a few drinks and then decided to head into the stadium and find our seats.

During the pre-game warm-ups, my friend did manage to snag Justin Weaver’s autograph, which was pretty sweet.  The game itself was pretty uneventful, although the 2nd year pitcher, Armando Galarraga did pitch a no-hitter through 5 2/3 innings. We bounced a little early with Detroit leading 6-4 hoping to beat traffic. The score stuck and Detroit came away with a win and we got out of the city well before the sell-out crowd of 42,000 even left the ball park.

The greatest neighbors in the world:

*Allow their cats to go potty in your flower bed.

*Allow their dogs to bark all night/weekend long.

*Allow their children to pee in your garden.

*Allow their children to throw apples at your garage.

*Drive their 4-wheel drive through your backyard.

*Talk on a juiced up cb radio all hours of the day/night even when it comes across your tv and pc speakers.

*Burn plastic and rubber in huge fires in their back yard.

*Let their friends hang out with crappy music blaring from their car speakers all day/night.

*Let me watch their kids for them while they play outside.

*Let their kids play in the busy street.

*Do burnouts up and down the same street their kids are playing in.

Ugh, can you tell I’m really annoyed with my neighbors right now?  I’m sure there are 10 things I’m forgetting.