I found this to be touching

Tom Toles had a fantastic cartoon in the Washington Post, I think it sums up what a lot of people are feeling




I'm pretty sappy about things, I cried a little when I read this in the newest issue of Time.

That is all.

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Posted in: america,politics

Momentous Evening

The first day of a new era.  I'm not going to wax poetic about Barack Obama and gush over him like so many of my friends.  The man has flaws, and he is going to have a trying presidency.  Given the way the world is now we will almost assuredly have moments where we are reminded that, no, he is not the Messiah.  Of course, we all know this.  Almost half of this country did not think he was ready to be president, whether because of his perceived lack of experience, his ethnicity, his family background, or simply because he is a(as Time put it so eloquently) "giant-eared nerd."  We must also remember that more than half of the country did vote for Obama.  We can't know why, again perhaps race played a role.  Perhaps age (and I will be the first to admit that Democrats, we of the biggest tent, have been guilty of gross agism during this election) played a factor.  Perhaps it was just a statement that things need to change in America.  Whatever the reason, we must acknowledge that something powerful happened in America here at the end of 2008.  During the doom and gloom of financial meltdown, during a time when most of the world questioned what it was that made the US so great, we overcame our greatest national shame and simply went out and voted.  That's right, our national shame.  Whatever side of the aisle you occupy,  you must acknowledge that your party did something great during this election.  A woman's name appeared in the Vice President slot on a major political party.  An African-American's name sat at the top of the ticket for a major political party.  This is something to be proud of, no matter which way the election went we were about to have someone in the oval-office (or a heartbeat away) that was at one time in this country's history not even considered a citizen.  Take a minute to let that sit in.  You and I both know someone that remembers a time in this country when the black man was forced to sit at the back of the bus, to use a different bathroom.  The only way a black man would ever see the oval-office in their mind's eye would be holding a trash can or a broom.  Women too should not forget the significance of Mrs. Palin's candidacy.  You almost surely know someone who was alive when women were not allowed to vote in this country.  Can you even imagine?  As my wife and I sat in tears last night watching the thousands of black, brown, and white people cheering for joy around the world; hearing the stories of African-Americans whose tears were not so much for themselves but for grandmothers, parents, sisters who were not still alive to see something like this happen in America.  Yes, despite the collapse of the US financial system we see what it truly is that makes this country great.  Not because of what we have done, others have elected people with more of a minority status, but because of where we came from.  This country was founded on principles of freedom and democracy but built on the backs of our brothers and sisters who had no rights, no way to even begin to understand what freedom meant.  Whomever you voted for, please try and take a minute and thank God that we have made a public statement of global proportions and be very, very proud to be an American.

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Posted in: america,politics

So the day is finally upon us

Election day.  It has been a long time coming, too long in fact.  If I get another political phone call I might go nuts.  Seriously, I'm going to vote, leave me alone.  Put my name on a list and direct your efforts somewhere else.  

Being a complete hypocrite, I will now take a few minutes to have a political rant.  This isn't about Republicans or Democrats; it's about the process.  Being a young adult myself I need to take the opportunity to speak to my fellow young people.  During every election I have followed, and I guess that goes back to Reagan - Mondale in 1982 - 1984 (oh Gary Hart), the pundits have talked about the young adult vote and the difference it was going to make.  Young adults are finally going to make a statement, they are finally going to turn things around.  They are always wrong.  Frankly, I'm sick of it.  As far as I'm concerned, if the young adult vote doesn't turn out in droves for this election I'm officially writing them off.  If you are a young adult that chooses not to vote in this election, -CENSORED BY AIMEE (It was good though, trust me)-.

As a young person, you might say your vote doesn't matter; you MIGHT be right.  You MIGHT also be wrong.  If you don't vote, however,  your vote does not matter.  You might complain that the government doesn't care about you, or that you are taxed unfairly, or that your voice isn't important.  I say, if you don't vote - and historically young people don't vote - why should anyone care about the things that are important to you?  If you aren't a voter then I would argue that your voice should be ignored.   Why should the country waste its resources on someone that choses not to vote?

Let's talk about the candidates.  Not the candidates that we are presented with tomorrow, but candidates in general.  Some say they are all corrupt, some say we are presented with two options (and let's try and remember that there are 5 people on the presidential ballot) that are virtually identical.  There may be things you like about both candidates and things you dislike about both candidates.  There may not be things you particularly like about either (any) candidate.  Well the sad fact of the matter is that there are never going to be perfect candidates.  There is never going to be one person (or ticket) that you can support 100%.  This is the price we pay for no longer being children.  The burden is on you to make a reasoned choice, to think about which person you think is the best fit, and to vote for them.  You can even vote 'against' someone if you want, just vote.  Please, vote.  Inform yourself and make a decision that says "I'm important!  Listen to me!"  It doesn't matter who you vote for, just please stop being irrelevant.

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Ugh

So I'm sick. I went home from work on Friday with a sick stomach, I was hoping and praying it was something I ate. Turns out it wasn't. I spent the whole weekend just sick enough to feel like crap but not sick enough to warrant staying in bed all day. Of course, it hit its peak on Monday and I just felt like absolute garbage all day. Now it has progressed to my lungs and I have kind of a yucky cough and that strange feeling like my lungs are full of glass. I sure hate that. Of course it is made worse by the fact that Aimee is pregnant. I have been sleeping on the couch and generally avoiding being close to her because I don't want to get her sick. The worst part is waking up in the morning and taking care of the girls while Aimee gets ready for work. To cap it off things at work have been sort of stressful and of course I have like 900 things to read and write about for school. Last night I had to finish up my paper on Judaism and I just couldn't manage it without a nap so I laid down on the couch just about 30 minutes after I got home from work and went to sleep. That did the trick and when I woke up I finished the darn thing and emailed it to my prof. I hope it doesn't suck (it does suck, but I figure if I pray enough maybe God will change all the words around and somehow when the teacher reads it somehow it will make sense).

On a side note, I have been super bummed out lately that the guys that broke into our house stole my cameras. I finally bought a little point and shoot type of camera like our old one so at least we'll be able to get some pics and movies of the kids and Aimee's pregnancy. (just so I don't forget, I should point out that right now Ave and Rosa are sitting on the floor going 'Daaa da da da da Gooo Gators!' over and over and over again) I was planning on inviting our friends over and taking Christmas portraits, I don't know if there is anyway I will be able to get a decent camera by then. It really bums me out thinking of all the crap I sold on Craigslist and eBay to get the money for the kit I had. My biggest problem, of course, is that I don't want to spend all of that money and get the same camera I had before. It is now 2 models behind the latest and greatest. I definitely got to the point before it was taken that I was running up against its limitations. The nice thing about the SLR is that I had a nice collection of lenses that would would have worked with a brand new body when I decided to upgrade, but now they are gone. It is frustrating. Anyways, I know this is a very first world problem to have and I shouldn't complain ... especially since the economy is in the pooper and people are getting laid off left and right. Ah well, if only I was perfect :)

I had started writing a long piece here about the election but I think I'll save that until later.  I know you guys can only stand for me to bloviate for so long :) 

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Posted in: family,hobbies,school,work

Sunday sunday sunday

I know, it's tuesday. Between getting back in the groove at work and reading/writing papers for school tuesday is about the first tome I get to think about my weekend. I had hoped to get some home improvements out of the way this weekend (since, of course, my gators weren't playing) but didn't get around to it. I hate that saturday always just turns into a day where I have to try and recover from the week. I have started exercising again and am trying to eat a little better in hopes that this will improve my overall feeling about life. It is bad enough that I don't feel good most of the time, but it is starting to get to me mentally. I think a big part of it is just lonliness. I have Aimee, of course, but with the pregnancy and school work and church stuff, it seems like we just take turns being home and awake. I think it had a lot to do with being back in Florida and being with my family and friends there. Take the wedding, it is weird that I can still feel like part of a family that I really haven't been close to in 5 years (and isn't really my family) but out here I always feel like an outsider. I don't know if it's a southern thing but you just automatically become part of the family when you become good friends. It's calling Matt's mom 'Momma' and her sister 'Aunt Cathy'. It's remembering stuart as the little kid with aluminum foil guns that would ambush me when I would just show up at the house. It's Sunday dinner with the Steels just because we were working on a car with Brian (or wrestling in the front yard). I don't know.

Anyways, that was weird. So I was in a funk Sunday and didn't really feel good after Church, so I decided I was going to take the kids to a new worship service at a church near our house. It was kind of lame in the way new church services are-but I loved it. I loved the sermon. I loved the people. I loved something new. What is it about nostalgia and lonliness that drives us to try new things? I dunno, but I think we're going to go back next week. We shall see.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

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We're going to the faaaaaaaair...the Alachua Maricopa county fair

Well, we went to the fair Friday night. I'm not a big fair person, but we got free tickets from foster care and they were only good friday night. I was exhausted from a long week and had a raging headache, but it was for the family so off we went. It was a fairly (hah) good time, though it cost a bundle. It was worth it to see the little ones light up though. They definitely didn't enjoy the animals like I did, but they flipped out over the rides. Who knew! They are such wimps I would have figured they would hate the rides. I got to ride on one ride with them and it was a blast...if you've been there it was the big boat that rolled back and forth in what you can only describe as a skateboard ramp while it was spinning in circles. Fun fun fun. The rides were expensive though, I think most rides were like 5 'tickets' (though you didn't have any tickets). It was like 10 tickets for 5 bucks so you can do the math but your dollar sure didn't go very far. Aimee is pregnant so it didn't seem too fun for her, she loves rides and couldn't go on any. She did get her nachos though :)

OK, now the shiny-happy part is over. Now begins the part of this blog where I point out how stupid everything in Arizona is. When you think 'State Fair' what do you think? Farm animals, big midway, gangs, crowded city streets. Of course, me too! So Phoenix is smack dab in the middle of a huge desert. Arid wasteland for miles and miles and miles in every direction. The city is surrounded by suburbs which are in turn surrounded by huge farms. So where would you put the state fair, keeping in mind that almost the ENTIRE STATE OF ARIZONA is composed of rural, small-town communities. Downtown! Of course, I'm SURE there will be plenty of parking and there won't be any unsavory types lurking around to spoil the experience for people who have driven in from the wild country up north, south, east, or west of us. In fact, we should try and cram the entire thing in the middle of a residential neighborhood-and by middle I mean a very tiny piece of that neighborhood. Seriously, whose dumb-ass Idea was it to have the fair at Grand & McDowell? There isn't ANYWHERE else in the ENTIRE STATE that can handle a fair ? If you're from Florida, let me try and paint you a picture. Imagine the way Church Street Station used to be. Remove the city parking. Remove all of the street lights. Break beer bottles everywhere. Add 3 million people. And then drop half of the Brevard County Fair right on top of Rosie O'Gradies. That's right, half, because that's all you can fit into THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY. I'm not sure which was more sketchy, the dimly lit parking lots managed by homeless people or the gang task force patrolling the fair. We had to leave pretty early because we didn't want to be walking around the city with our kids late at night (you know, like after 8). When we got back to the parking lot where we left our car, we saw two young ladies that had parked right next to us on their cell phone. This was just after I caught a glimpse of our van and sighed with relief. I asked the girls if they were ok and they said they were waiting on the police because their car along with 3 other ones right next to theirs had been broken into. Awesome, good thing we paid 15 to park in a 'safe' lot. I almost had a heart attack as I walked around our car feeling the windows but luckily we won the state fair lotto and didn't get our car broken into. I was really looking forward to that phone call to my mom, "Hey remember how our house was robbed 3 days aga? Guess what-our car got broken into also!!"

I'm sure there is a lot more I can say, but I guess I"m good to go after the parking lot thing. On a positive note, we did see some really cool chickens, and the biggest freaking cow I have ever seen in my life.

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Posted in: family,florida,foster care,sarcasm

Little Known Fact

EXIF data is much more interesting than you might originally imagine. Background: Our house was robbed on Tuesday. It was horrible, not because they took so much but because Aimee came home and found the house in shambles and didn't know if they were still there or not. She was terrified. Because of this, and not at all because we care about our stuff, we are installing an alarm in the house. I've always been very anti-alarm, I don't know why. I guess it's because back home we don't even lock our front door. Like, we don't lock it when we all leave and go off to work and whatever. My dad leaves his keys in the ignition of his car in the driveway. Take that Phoenix, HA! Anyways, so our house got robbed and they stole all of my camera equipment. Now, I don't have a huge kit but I was proud of it and I'll tell you photography was something that I really, really enjoyed doing. I don't say that meaning I'm done with it, I'm just deflated because the took everything. Lenses, camera bodies (digital and film), chargers, flashes, memory cards - EVERYTHING. It is so strange too, they literally walked past 4 laptops (5 if you count the one under the bed) and a pile of Target giftcards from our baby shower but stole my stupid cameras. I wouldn't have cared TOO much if they had taken my laptops because they couldn't get our private date (yay encryption!) and, you know, it wouldn't be that hard to convince Aimes that we need to replace laptops :) But my freaking cameras. Grrrrr. So anyways, I cruised by a few pawn shops today and no cameras had been brought in but they said without serial numbers I was sort of SOL. Apparently the police automatically check the serial numbers of everything that gets pawned and flag things reported as stolen. Bummer.

So back to EXIF data. EXIF data is the silly stuff that your camera saves inside every picture you take. It's very meta. Time of day, exposure settings, lens information, etc. Just on a whim, I thought maybe the EXIF data has the serial number of the camera? First glance, no bones. Has the model number, has my name(?), but no serial number. So I turn to google. Turns out, there is a 'secret' binary field inside the EXIF data that camera manufacturers use to store lots of interesting information...and Canon is nice enough to store your camera's serial number. Ironically, this dataset is labeled 'MakerData' (creative aren't they?). So I download this nifty program, compile it, run it on one of my raw files and BINGO! Out pops my camera's serial number! I was wicked impressed. I also managed to find the serial numbers of 2 of my lenses in the original boxes (I don't know why I keep boxes...err, I mean I guess now I know why I keep boxes). Hello! So tomorrow morning I'm going to call the 'callback officer' and report the serial numbers and who knows...maybe I'll get lucky.

I still can't believe that they didn't take more of our stuff. I can only hope the dogs were going nuts in the back yard and they were scared.

PEACE!

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Posted in: family,friends,hobbies