Final Obama Campaign Rally, Prince William Country Fairgrounds, Manassas, Virginia

i’m posting out of order, but the lady sparkler and i went out to Manassas last night for barack obama’s final campaign rally, at the Prince William County Fairgrounds. (see the pictures on facebook, or check out the panorama above.)

i’ll have more thoughts later (ie. tomorrow) but the rally was spectacular. they estimated the crowd at 90,000 and i’d absolutely believe it. he’s every bit as charismatic as clinton (mr, not mrs, who i met in early 1992) but hopefully without the, er, prominent character flaws. the lady sparkler and i went to the rally on a complete whim, but it felt great to be there for (hopefully) a little bit of history.

we didn’t get back until just about 2am, so i am way too tired for coherent thought, much less coherent election night coverage … but we’ll see what happens as we get through the night.

7:00 PM	i love numbers! just like crack, only they are a little more addictive ... and have a little less nutritional value.
7:03 PM	vermont is the first to go blue! as a former cog in the rep. bernie sanders (i-vt) machine, i am proud (i say) proud of this development ... and can feel the entire city of Rutland (viva, rut-vegas!) having a conniption fit.
7:18 PM	cnn is using faux-hologram technology to project a chicago-based reported into the atlanta situation room. help me obi wan, you are my only hope. @#$%ng ridiculous.
7:31 PM	cnn has mccain up 8 to 3 ... if that ratio holds, it's going to be a landslide.
7:40 PM	What we should be watching ... Early tells: Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina. Must McWins: Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri. Late flags: Montana, Colorado.
8:02 PM	on a bus, away from CNN and it's killing me. I trust nothing important is happening?
8:11 PM	CNN mobile says electoral college is 77 to 34 in favor of Barack, but only KY and VT have been called. That's a Palin sized WTF?!?
8:27 PM	oh, the northeast happened. and Maryland. and Illinois.
8:34 PM	Obama won granite staters who "never attend church" and "make less than 25k" ... not sure that's a good thing.
9:02 PM	dole goes down... burn, dole, burn! you godless heeeethan.
9:10 PM	51 senators and Michigan. it's early. why do the people on fox look so sad?!?
9:13 PM	it's silly, but I was really hoping for Georgia. sad.
9:20 PM	fox calls Ohio for obama. stick a fork inmac, he's gone!
9:34 PM	I [heart] the CNN magic state/county map. it may be my new celebrity exception. mmmmmmmmm.
9:37 PM	malvo (CNN) went a little heavy on the orange bronzer.
10:13 PM	giddy. just giddy.
10:15 PM	breaking news! CNN announces that a source in the McCain count says that he may have lost!
10:20 PM	Jessica Simpson appears to be providing election coverage on fox news, and seems to have just high-fives Brett Hume.
10:28 PM	Steve Forbes is on comedy central, and BET seems to have a "magic map" made from refrigerator magnets.
10:35 PM	William bennett looks like he wants to blink out of existance.
10:42 PM	Jon King just touched Joe Lieberman's blue tile and it turned blue! Will someone please, please call something.
10:55 PM	wow, this has been a slow, slow 10-minutes...
10:59 PM	you heard it here first, BET just called virginia for Obama.
11:00 PM	that's it kids!
11:06 PM	wow, Jesus. wow.
11:09 PM	ten minutes ago, this had nothing to do with race. now, it's hard to see anything but ...
11:17 PM	is saying "our long national nightmare is over" too strong?
11:19 PM	no, boos, repubs. no boos.
11:24 PM	McCain: Dude, if you gave this tone of a speech six months ago, you would have won. Who wrote this? Why now? Legitimately beautiful.
11:27 PM	This is the pre-2000 McCain ... the one I could have been content as president way back when.
11:29 PM	well, lots of repub boos, but atleast no "drill, baby, drill!"
11:41 PM	Am I the only one who honestly doesn't believe that this has happened?
11:51 PM	Florida, Nevada? Montana would be the end zone spike.
11:56 PM	CNN: "people are celebrating in front of the white house." that's not celebrating, bob. that's taunting...
12:00 AM	Michelle Obama's dress made me think nice things about Cindy McCain. Damn her!
12:10 AM	God, he makes a lot of sense.
12:16 AM	how long has he been writing this in his head?
12:17 AM	this is really happening, huh?
12:25 AM	seeing Jesse Jackson cry makes me hate him just a little less...
12:45 AM	the steers are a wall of noise. horns honking everywhere. trucks, cars. it's beautiful.
12:49 AM	people are litterally shouting and clapping on each street corner. And I just face planted because i should have been walking instead of typing.
12:56 AM	if park road is half as noisy as Connecticut Ave, I won't be sleeping tonight.
1:05 AM	I've seen a hundred people since the returns, maybe two... but not one hasn't been happy, laughing, smiling, honking or shouting. even the one repub I've seen was happy.
1:33 AM	18th and Columbia is a parking lot of people high-fiveing, strangers making eye contact and grinning, people shouting "yes, we did." it's like DC melted away, and became Portland, Oregon for a couple hours.
1:34 AM	screw people who say that DC isn't a sports town. our sport is politics, it's just that we don't win often enough ...
2:20 AM	watched CNN's replay of obama's acceptance speech. it's even better the second time around.
2:20 AM	g'night.

well, i’m officially old now. interestingly enough, this realization didn’t come from a mortgage, or a life insurance that gives the lady sparkler financial incentive for my death, or from friends having wedding after wedding after wedding, or from going to a party and being the only one there without kids.

it came, instead, from pottery barn.

last week, we went anniversary present shopping and settled on a 33%-off console table to replace a piece of crap we bought at Ikea five years ago. it wasn’t in stock, but they had extras at the big, bad warehouse in the sky, and promised to ship one over to a store-near-us as soon as they could.

well, we got the call yesterday, crossed the bridge into rural Arlington to go pick it up. when we pulled up front, a very nice boy wheeled the box out to our car … and that’s when all hell broke loose.

the box was enormous. like really big. like “size of a piece of furniture” big.

there are apparently places in the world where you can buy furniture that doesn’t require assembly. more importantly, there are apparently places in the world where you can buy furniture which requires something bigger that a Volkswagen Jetta.

now, don’t get me wrong … i had heard rumors of such extravagance, but bushed them aide as if tales of the fortress of Atlantis, or a land filled with Unicorns, or a country of people who’d reelect some one from the Bush family. i mean, really … would would have thought such a place existed?!?

after getting a grip on our new found alternate reality, “very nice boy pottery barn boy” led us to the conclusion that the Jetta just wasn’t going to cut it (and we galloped off to rent a pick up truck from ZipCar).

but, let this serve as a cautionary tale for the youth of america. there comes a time when you will be allowed to vote, sent to war, drink, and afford to buy furniture that comes assembled — assuming that you catch a really good sale.

so, excercise your rights (responsibilities?) with caution …

after a lovely Saturday of belated anniversary present shopping (we settled on a one-third off console table from pottery barn) the lady sparkler and I settled in for a long evening at home … watching two-month stale coverage of the Beijing Summer Olympics.

a couple things, looking back two months:

• it’s been at least a week since I had heard any one say “michael phelps,” which made me wonder if he had fired his agent considering his best post-Olympic gig has been for Rosetta Stone.

• It seems like (back then) John McCain actually ran ads that weren’t entirely focused on trashing Barack Obama. heck, August was so long ago that I didn’t even know that MILF had a political context.

• I once again contemplated changing my celebrity exception clause to be U.S. Olympic indoor volleyball team silver medalist Logan Tom, but quickly realized I am already married to some one who can kick my @$& so what would the point be?

• Whichever Olympic scheduler put synchronized swimming, canoeing, water polo, and rhythmic gymnastics in the same four hour block should be fired … or shot.

• I got to thinking about politics, the economy and my 401k, and actually got nostalgic for a minute, thinking “wow. that was a simpler time, wasn’t it?!?”. yeah, way back in august.

so, back to the present. much of our weekend was spent on the couch watching soccer.

the taped USA vs. Brazil woman’s gold medal match was one of the best this year. goalie hope solo (I heard she is Han Solo’s niece) pitched a shut out over 120 minutes, making her world cup benching last year — and USA’s subsequent 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Brazil — that much more inexplicable.

but perhaps the best news of the weekend came from the English premier league, where my team (Tottenham Hotspur) finally won their first game after nine attempts (that, and the midnight firing of the entire management structure.) while the win wasn’t enough to get them out of last place, they are now just one win away from a once unthinkably-good 15th place. (weeee!)

to be fair, Tottenham could have actually been the second best news of the weekend … the best may have been the news that the Anchorage Daily News endorsed *Obama,* saying something about “putting her one … heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.”

in the words of conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan, the Anchorage Daily News editorial board is obviously filled with “goddamn East Coast elitist hippies.”

once timely thoughts from the week that was:

	… at 3:30 am, 10 lbs of cat on your stomach feels more like fifty. 4:11 AM Oct 23rd
	… feeling fat and happy. 10:58 PM Oct 22nd
	… wishing anyone could differentiate between “normal race tightening,” “yet another comeback,” and “dead cat bounce.” 10:32 PM Oct 21st
	… back home after the *beautiful* Hutchins/Kazi wedding. (photos @ http://ping.fm/kr1Gn) 10:25 PM Oct 19th
	… weary. beautiful wedding, but weeeeeary. 11:59 AM Oct 19th
	… my wife got her hands henna-ed, and I’m too tired to come up with a worthy punchline. 1:27 AM Oct 18th
	… in a rental car without power locks or windows. truley, this is the third world. 11:59 AM Oct 17th
	… Texas, it’s like a whole ‘nuther planet. 12:08 AM Oct 17th
	… going back to Texas for yet another wedding of the century. (see #1 @ http://ping.fm/Pabqp) 10:09 AM Oct 16th

mmmmmm, beeer.

hung out with a great group of greens tonight, drinking beer and otherwise promoting “good will” among eco-tweeting hippies (jcolman, starfocus, KSuzJ, and salsus … with special appearances by beautifulthangs and holdie1).

all of this camaraderie should have amped me up to go to work tomorrow morning (and it did), but it mostly reminded me that i need to polish-up a presentation on engagement for the d.m.a. conference the first week of november.

got pleeeeeanty of material, just need the time to put it all together … and work on my jokes. (”if you’re like me, and i am ….”)

we spent the weekend in Dallas for a dutch-indo-pakistani-mexican-middle eastern-american wedding … oh, where to begin.

the weekend began with a traditional ceremony where the families exchange gifts, the groom is forced to pay-off the brides cousins (they hypothetically hold the groom down and demand money in small unmarked bills, though in this case the pressure seemed to be more mental than physical) and the ladies get henna tattoos applied (the lady sparkler included).

saturday saw two events, the “big one” early in the afternoon and then a formal dinner later that night. the bride had two spectacular dresses (see below), the first reception had a Mariachi band (which rocked the hiz-house), and the rest of the day saw us hanging out with one of the most spectacularly great groups of people ever assembled.

i always forget that good friends typically have good friends, but this was a special bunch.

explore the photoset:
hutchins/kazi wedding, dallas, texas