Long time-no post. As Gwen had written, we were without our desktop due to a motherboard meltdown. The "Geek Squad" had the computer for three weeks and what a weird gimmick. It's a strange joke that Best Buy committed to years ago and has awkwardly kept going. I've waited in the lines and received dispassionate and uninformed answers from from the man-boys in white shirts with black ties with dead, dead eyes that scream "release me from this creepy, imitation warehouse where I am deteriorating in a sad world of white, blue, and yellow walls all to the soundtrack of Rock Band." There have been better Best Buys. This one is Best Buy purgatory.
Gwen and I bought a laptop today from Office Depot. It's good to be here in the year 2000.
I was in San Francisco last week for the Lions-49ers game. Tailgating with anonymous 49er fans was seriously good times. We traded giant bottles of wine for spicy brats, chips, and Heineken. I'm looking forward to San Diego in December where I will hopefully get to see the Chargers take on the Broncos. Gwen wants to go and bring Lola. I told her that that was out of the question. NFL games are nasty and often violent affairs. They are stadiums filled with men and you do not find unescorted women. An NFL game is no place for a child. There's always the "family section," but we would still need to wade through the "drunk rabble" on the way out of the stadium.
Classes are excellent this year and I still love my job. Gwen and I have been following politics and have been watching the debates together. Last Friday we held a debate party here at the house with some friends.
On average, I hear the above song at least twice a day. Which is strange because it's a few years old. I dare you to avoid getting the melody into spin cycle between your ears.
Nothing too exciting around here lately. Lola is now rolling anywhere she desires, Gwen is devouring the Twilight series, and I'm adjusting to the new school year. Labor Day weekend included cell phone shopping, book store hopping, grilling with friends, Madden '09, and reading an insane number of articles in preparation for my class without a textbook. Two ways that I like to procrastinate and avoid lesson planning are by going to movies or the gym. Within the past few weeks I've seen Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, and Hamlet 2. All three movies were funny enough.
Classes started last Monday. This will be an interesting year for the politics alone. I am teaching all advanced classes and many of the kids want to discuss the presidential race. I get a few emails everyday from past and present students that send me youtube clips and newspaper articles. Most of my students care about and regularly follow current events. I'm working with one group this year that is organizing a charity event for homeless teens here in Las Vegas.
I'm going to go down and help make some phone calls for the Obama campaign this week and maybe walk the neighborhoods. I haven't really volunteered with a campaign since the John Kerry effort of 2004. I realized then that Kerry wasn't the strongest candidate but it was so clear that he was the better of the two options (thanks for the big menu!). Iraq was a moral and financial failure, the level of propaganda and outright dishonesty was enough to make Nixon blush, and you would have thought that the evangelicals would have been onto the fact that they were used. I remember a political cartoon the day after the election that had a hung-over and regret ridden Uncle Sam waking up next to a sloppy elephant.
Many of the anti-Obama crowd fall into one of three catagories: 1. "He won't manage the US in that he will weaken the military and abandon our "interests" overseas." These folks seem to forget that some of the most notorious war wagers were Democrats. Who knows, maybe Obama will pull an LBJ on Iraq? Maybe he'll "Truman it up all over Iran?" My personal hope is that he pulls troops out of Iraq and finds competant policy and oversight in Afghanistan. Maybe he'll even help put us back on a track were we don't torture or use secret gulag type prisons. 2. "He's a Muslim/anti-Christ/un-patriotic/etc." I really don't even know how to approach these arguments. Seriously, I think that the people that say and forward things like this are the reason that we had 8 years of G.W. Bush. These comments say too much. There is really no excuse to be this misinformed in the modern era. I understand that we're all a little crazy and most people get their information from one of the three or four major media conglomerates that control the flow and and type of information, but the statements above are frightening and potentially dangerous. These are the same people who believed (still believe?) that we are in Iraq to get back at "them" for 9/11. When people talk about these things it's embarrassing for most within earshot. The really sad thing is that these comments and emails often come from intelligent and humane people. The comments also seem to be rooted in a weird combination of blood lust, hatred, and fear. 3. "I just don't believe him when he talks about "change" and "hope." I fall slightly into this category. Change? Seriously? Is Vice President "I've been in the Senate for 30 years and helped rework bankruptcy law in favor of the credit card companies" Joe Biden, "change-y" enough for you? Change and hope aside, I'm voting against the party that dominated all three branches of the federal government. I'm also voting against my Democratic state senator that enabled the disasters of the early 2000s.
We've been trying to get tickets back to GR for Christmas. Prices are outrageous and flights are inconvenient. We will be home for Christmas.
