also,

It appears that I may have to buy a new lappy sooner rather than later. The slowness is making me crazy, and it has to be plugged in, and the CD drive is kaput. But I've gotten three good years of use out of it, and it was a christmas present. It is a Dell inspiron model, and I'm kinda inclined to buy another one. I have found it to be reliable, and it doesn't do so much that I'm tempted to get into new ways to waste my time. And also, apparently you can buy a new Dell right now and still get WinXP, which sounds like the thing to do to me. Definitely looking at the under 700 price range. Thoughts?

Boo

I hate the Lakers.

Calf Branding

I went out to Jake's parents place in Ione, OR this weekend and helped brand the calves again. Good times. There were only fifty this year, his dad is cutting back a bit due to high fuel prices and everything else, but we did flip every single one by hand. The middle Neiffer brother, Adam, got his face a little bloodied up by a couple of the calves, but he also powerslam tackled a few of them. I forgot my camera, so if you want to see pictures you'll just have to come out next year and help, all are invited.

And Jake outdid even himself with his crazy diets, and had about a pound of raw hamburger on his salad for dinner on saturday. I don't really have words for that, I didn't think I could be surprised by his food anymore but that did it.

Can you smell what the BO is cookin?

Well I'm not sure I believe that there was 75000 people like it is being reported, but I can report that there were at least 500 bicycles locked the the railing along the water north of the hawthorne bridge. Oh yeah, heres a picture:
I'd never been to a political rally before, and this was certainly a beautiful day to go to one. He spoke for about 35 minutes, it was pretty much the same speech I'm sure as always, but it was fun to be in the crowd and chat a bit with the black guy next to me.

The most interesting thing to me though was getting there. Ginny and I parked on the east side by the Morrison bridge, walked over to saturday market and got some food (east african chicken wrap and then some sherbet) Then we started towards the bowl on the south side of the hawthorne where the BO was going to be. Well the PoPo's had the underbelly barricaded off and guarded, and the herds of people were being redirected away from the river. At this point there really isn't a flow of people one direction or another, nobody really knows where the heck to go.

Then we started hearing some Obama staffers saying there was a line, that we should get in it, and that it was "over there" OK great. But by golly, there was a line. And then more line. Apparently there was only one entrance (or was there?) to the event, and a fatty line. Ginny really wanted to just go back to the park and sit on the grass, but I was overcome by the duty to stand in the line. But as we traced back the line, after about 8 blocks I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't going to move fast enough to get inside. But was curious how long the thing was, so I drug Ginny along. And along. And seriously, not until we were in the park blocks well inside PSU's campus did the line end. Probably about 20 blocks with some zig-zagging.

So that wasn't going to be any good, so I thought we'd go back and try to find some sidewalk space on the south side of the bowl. We might stand a chance of hearing something without a bridge between us and the speaker. So we got back to the bowl, this time from the south, and were able to keep walking down the sidewalk, and lo and behold we were in the bowl. I don't know what the crack those BO staffers were smoking, but they clearly should have told folks to walk around to the south side, where there wasn't a 5000 person line. I was beaming that we actually got in, I had given up hope and was kinda taking some heat from the girl for our wild chase down the line. So that was fun.

As for the man himself, I am hopeful, but I'm not betting on anything. I really hope he doesn't sell out to lobbyists. And I hope the lobbyists don't have him killed if he doesn't sell out. But either of those seems a lot more likely than him succeeding at being an honest president. But I am more than willing to take that chance. I believe he's got some fight in him, and I'm optimistic that the oil companies won't have him by the balls like they have Bush. I like his energy policies, his diplomatic attitude, and the fact that he is black. I do think that is important for this country.

But he is certainly no Jesus. The crowd felt kinda dead to me today, it was beautiful weather and the candidate of their dreams, but they really weren't all that excited. They seemed to mostly hate Bush. The holy spirit certainly wasn't a dominating presence. I want to trust BO, but I know that he will fall. And I feel like this might be similar to Bill Clinton's support in 92, and that kinda makes me shudder. Because essentially I like BO on the basis that he speaks as if he is not corrupted. Which is a house of cards. McCain I know what he is, he will not change, and he's a fool on Iraq. BO might be a fool, but it will be in a very unpredictable way. I'm willing to take that chance, but I understand those who are not.

What gets me though is the cynicism. Of my friends, the newsmedia, and myself. It's pretty discouraging when we talk expecting the worst out of someone. And one of the reasons I love Ginny is that she is not cynical, she will assume face value is true, because thats the way people should talk. But we've learned we can't trust politicians, I just wish it wasn't so easy to cross the line from a healthy caution to a discouraged cynicism. I've been pretty cynical here for craps sake, and it makes me sad. The system is broken, we make fun of each other for being optimistic, but experience will tell us pessimism will better predict outcomes, especially in politics. It's time for Jesus to come back and fix this all, I don't see any other way.

Apparently its going to go straight from winter to summer, which is alright with me. All that snow on the hills needs to melt so I can make it to the mountain trailheads. Global warming my foot.

Looking for scholarships for grad school has been pretty fruitless so far. Fastweb is just one big scam of an advertisement. I don't really have a problem investing 25k in tax-deductible loans for my future vocation, but I feel like I should look at least a little harder for some better options.

My current financial guru would disagree with me about the loans however. Mr. Dave Ramsey is my hero right now. He has given me hope for the future of my finances, and made being debt free feel attainable in a very simple way. Although I'm about to ignore him and take out more student loans. If you've never heard of the guy, you should read his book, the information really isn't new but if you're ready to hear it and make some changes it is very encouraging and empowering.


I think that's all for today. It appears that BO is finally getting some superdelegate momentum with the Edwards endorsement. I am looking forward to a race between him and McCain, and I hope they run with Billary's idea of having some moderatorless debates, I think that would be very interesting.

Back in Business

OK, I think I might be ready to get serious about this blogging thing. I have been working out of town at a cabin and staying out there for much of the week, and we just got the internets. So now I think I've got the time.

As much as I wanted to withhold judgment on the rev. Wright, I think it's pretty clear now that he's just in it for himself and wanted some of the spotlight. But we'll get back to politics in a bit. First to update on my life.

I just got officially accepted into Concordia University's Masters of Arts in Teaching program yesterday, now I've got to figure out how to pay for it. I start a new job June 25th, school would start at the end of August, be two evenings a week, one class at a time. The job is a desk one, which is new for me, but its really close in town. Which will be handy because I will most likely be carless. I sold my Tacoma and as gas keeps going up I am just de-motivated to buy a car. I'm considering trying to move in the next few months to save on rent, and most of all I'm dating a really awesome gal (http://roperfrenzy.livejournal.com/) and that is progressing to the point where its near time to consider specific future plans.

Whew.

That's the short of it, I'm sure more details will come out soon. I've got quite a few rants stored up that are also assuredly coming soon, regarding politics, money, relationships, etc. So hopefully I'll be sticking my foot in my mouth in a way that is beneficial to others. Peace.