Colorado Springs and Black Friday

Up in Colorado Springs, arrived Wed eve, no snow on the ground, and as you can see Pike Peak was even mostly clear. On Thanksgiving, we had a few flurries, and last night we got enough to cover the ground and roads with a couple inches. The girls are happy! It made getting out for the black Friday deals fun though. Surprisingly Wal-Mart was packed; no parking spaces. Once I got in there was two 50 people lines for the electronics dept. Good thing my brother Dirk, who was shopping online at his house, found the same deal (items intentionally left out) online with free shipping at Circuit City. So I headed over to Office Depot to grab the other items I was looking for (2 4GB CF cards and a 16GB mem stick), but they were sold out. I then decided to head to one of the other Office Depots in Colorado Springs, and, luckily, they had mislabeled the prices, so I got everything I needed! Yay! More pics later hopefully - heading to the Garden of the Gods.

Tornados On The Tube

Tonight I watched the latest installment of Discovery's Storm Chasers. I think it's a great series that shows a realistic viewpoint of the frustration chasers face most seasons. That being said, this episode went a little overboard with the drama. At one point the narrator states Reed is getting pelted by 100 mph winds while filming outside his vehicle. There were quite a few other times during this episode I found myself chuckling at comments made. Don't get me wrong, I've said a few stupid things while the camera is rolling, and I don't fault any of what the chasers said while out there, but what the narrator says after editing / production is another story. Reed and team do show how to get it done though!
Another thing that caught my attention... Seriously, the DOW team has no one technical enough to troubleshoot a faulty monitor cable out in the field??? I realize I'm a computer geek, but com'on. With all the people that travel with them, surely one should be a tech, especially given the technical difficulties they seem to run into. If I didn't want to catch more tornadoes I'd offer to tag along... ;)
On another note, My Name Is Earl had a tornado theme tonight too... That was only good for some great laughs.

11/5/2008 Chase

Things shaped up nicely for a chase on Wednesday. Steve Miller OK and I met up with Aaron for what was to be a mud slinging good time. We started out by heading to Morrison, where we met Aaron, then headed towards I-35 and up N of Perry to catch a cell developing there. At this point it was still early, so not much rotation yet. We then decided to head down I-35 towards Guthrie to catch the monster cell headed there from El Reno. We intercepted it just N of Edmond, and followed it from there, the whole time watching cyclic wall clouds. This led to the mudding adventure through back roads S of Langston, S of HW 105. After Steve got over his white knuckles (the Dodge is rear wheel drive : ), we jetted E on 105 to catch up to it again (didn't take much - these storms we slow moving for Nov). Staying on it as it had more lowerings, up to Cushing and E on 33, it never did produce any funnels. Finally we called it in Drumright as it was past sunset.

All in all, a fun day, nice to be in the weather again. It's also good to know Steve can be forgiving when I keep saying "The road ahead should be paved", as road conditions worsen. I have video of a stern faced Steve for $30 / sec if anyone is interested. j/k :)

McCain Concedes

I'm currently watching McCain's concession speech. I still have the up most respect for him. He continues to show his willingness to reach out and try and unify. Now if only those supporters booing sections of it would come around. I hope Obama offers him a cabinet position, seriously. It would do wonders to heal the divide.

Progress

Obama is at 297 projected (polling just closed on the west coast), and Florida among others haven't been counted yet. I don't think we'll reach the filibuster proof 60 in the Senate, but now have plenty of wiggle room.

GW: This is what a "mandate" looks like. I do hope Obama sticks to what drew me to him, and reaches across the isle for many things. I really have no reason to think he won't. I really can't express how optimistic I am of the coming years.

Nice Fall Possibility

As I draw myself away from politics, I'm not so sure about tomorrow's potential for storms. It's been windy as hell here in central Oklahoma, but the moisture won't flow as far north as was previously projected. This is actually good for me, as I won't have to go far to chase tomorrow. Just for nostalgia's sake, I'm targeting my old stomping ground: Payne county.

Landslide

Ohio has just been projected to go to Obama, and that pretty much clinches it. There are several other big states such as Florida that are close, but many of those are leaning Obama. It doesn't really matter at this point, the rest are just gravy. Now I'm just watching the house and senate races. Sorry to say, I can't see Rice winning the OK senate race. Oklahoma has a long way to go...

Easy

The wait wasn't too bad, only 40 minutes until I walked out the door. No glitches besides being asked to take off my Obama pin. Maybe a post in here regarding that, who knows.

The Wait Begins

Here's the line at 2:38 at my polling place. Not too bad, but more than i've ever seen here before.

Reverse Psychology Response

A friend and colleague of mine, who I respect and have a great deal in common with (just not political views), posted an entry regarding the upcoming elections and his thoughts on Obama. Normally I try to stay away from responses, but this one was irresistible. Sorry Steve. ;) His post can be found here.
I have the unenviable task at work to control the filters for incoming and outgoing email (I don't set the policies, just enforce 'em). A couple months ago, we set in place a policy to block the political spam / chain letters, and from time to time, I have to go through email to see if it's legit business or not and see much of the crap that gets caught. I've seen crap on both sides; how Obama is Muslim or the Antichrist, or McCain is racist, etc, etc. When I get the chance, I try to correct the errors when they are put forth, so here it goes...
The bullets:

• If you have no aspirations to ever be anything more than what you are right now, vote for Obama.
  - Personal opinion, I'm sure many conservatives feel this way. I happen to think that the policies set forth by Obama, like those of President Clinton will lead to a more prosperous country, therefore a more prosperous population with more aspirations.
• If you think slow-ass government should be in charge of keeping you healthy, vote Obama
  - Obama isn't for socialized medicine, just for providing insurance for those that can't afford it. How would my insurance be affected? It wouldn't, other than my employer may pay less for premiums (and so would I possibly). If I do expand my small business and make it full time, my premiums would be less, and my business would get a tax credit for providing insurance. Independent fact checkers (example) show generally that while both sides exaggerate, Obama's plan would cover more people for less or similar costs, especially in the long run.
• If you don't think you will ever own a small business and like being the "worker bee", vote Obama
  - Not sure how eliminating the capital gains tax for small businesses and start-ups hurts those who want to start a small business, both sides have many incentives for small business.
• If you have gone to school for years and years to be where you are today and don't mind that extra $7500 (if you make 250K+) being taken out of your check and redistributed to those who refuse to work for their living, vote Obama
  - Kind of odd since McCain just said this: "At a campaign speech Friday, October 24, in Denver, Colorado, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain criticized Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama for how his policies would impact the jobless. "Just yesterday, we received news that jobless claims increased by 15,000," McCain said. "Yet, just this week, Senator Obama announced that his plan would have a work requirement, meaning that those unemployed receive no help under the Obama plan …"
  While not totally true (Obama does provide plans to increase jobs and help those who are jobless to find them), you see my point. Yes, if you make more than $250k, you taxes will stay the same or go up (depending on how much more than $250k you make), but those cuts don't go to those sitting on their asses.
• Want your Social Security tax increased or extended? Vote Obama
  - Not a bad thing in my opinion; I'm not for privatizing Social Security. Had it been privatized, there would have been a hell of a lot of seniors in serious trouble right now. Due to their stupid investing mistakes? Sure, some, but that's exactly what Social Security was designed to prevent. Every senior can at least meet living standards. If you want more, invest to your heart's content (I know I do)!
• If you want to leave Iraq high and dry after rocking their world as they knew it, vote Obama (think New Orleans, post Katrina - Gov't assistance will just up and leave)
  - I don't think anyone is going to get left high and dry, however I do think that Iraq's government will have its feet held to the fire to get their own security forces in order. How can we deal with our own financial woes when we're pumping $10 billion per month into operations there. For comparison, 2 months would pay for Obama's education plan.
• Someone breaks into your home and threatens your family and you shoot them - you go to jail under Obama's plan. There is no self defense allowed, vote Obama
  - This is just plain false. Factcheck.org states the following:
  "NRA Claim: "Ban use of Firearms for Home Self-Defense"
  False: Obama is proposing no such ban."
  To read more on the details of the origin of this statement, go to this link at factcheck.org
• Last: Do you really think someone who has never authored a Bill in Senate qualifies to be the leader of the free world?
  - Again a false statement. The origin of this is a Palin convention speech where she stated "But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."
  Several bills he has authored:
  "Authored by U.S. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Barack Obama (D-IL), the Lugar-Obama initiative expands U.S. cooperation to destroy conventional weapons. It also expands the State Department's ability to detect and interdict weapons and materials of mass destruction." - Signed into law
  "Legislation authored by U.S. Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) that will stop the abuse of no-bid contracting in the aftermath of a disaster was included in the final Department of Homeland Security funding bill likely to pass the Senate today. After Senate passage, the bill will go to the President's desk to be signed into law." - Signed into law
  These are just some I picked out of the blue (easiest to find), notice they are all bi-partisan. There are more, some not signed into law, not to mention the many, many more he has sponsored.

On a final note, regarding the subject, reverse psychology, and the aftereffects of the election... I seriously doubt that those who have been sooo energized for the Obama campaign all this time would peter out the last day, election day. I know I won't, and my vote is pretty much useless in Oklahoma. As far as rioting, looting, the end of US civilization? No more than any other presidential election. The only ramification I fear, and most people democrat or republican I've spoken to agree; one or more assassination attempts. It's only a mild fear for me, however, seeing the issues with race, some wackos' view of him being Muslim, the Antichrist, etc; there is a definite possibility of an attempt. THEN I can see rioting, mayhem, etc coming to be.

But again, I emphasize my rosy outlook for the coming 8 years. :)

The Pendulum Has Swung

A few years back I wrote about the political pendulum and how it was, at the time, on the right side of the political spectrum. For reference: link. I didn't really expect it to swing so quickly back the other direction. I did expect a democratic president to be elected this year, but I didn't quite expect the congress to swing this far yet. There is a small possibility the dems could have a filibuster proof majority (not likely, but hey...). You read that right, I said did, as in I fully expect Obama to be elected tomorrow, not a hard one to predict. Here it is, now we have to prove ourselves. I truly believe that in the next 8 years, most everything will improve; the economy, the standard of living, the world's view of the US, and many other issues we face today. There will be bumps, but I have a rosy picture of what is to come. Happy voting!