Palantir

It feels like time to glance into the seeing stone again, dangerous though it might be. I'm really liking Johnny MC's choice for VP. It seems a calculated, risky move, and it works for me.

I feel like I can now settle into a calm peace over this election, as there is a nice symmetry between both tickets, and the country is going to move forward no matter what. I'm not seeing much of a further reason to get worked up over the Presidential Election, I like both tickets. They have different strengths and weaknesses, and I can support who wins, for different reasons.

I think it is a crazy risk for JMC to pick a 44 year old former pageant contestant with even less experience than BO. But I like the direction that it potentially takes this country in. The rise of the outsiders. The Washington elite cannot control everything, or so it would seem. And I'm really glad he didn't pick Romney.

I think the race that I am going to have to put some thought into is the senate race here in Orygun. Smith or Merkley. It's going to be close, it's going to matter, and I'm still undecided. Smitty lost some points with me when he ran a TV ad with his name in the Oregon Ducks font, thunder green and all. I suppose I'll have to look at some actual issues, and I expect to have that chance. But if there is a race to have a debate about around here, I think that's the one.

I don't know if my hand will physically be able to mark the bubble for democrats in the two biggest races though. My red roots bristle at the very notion even now. Apparently I haven't completely been turned. Something within me feels like my first vote for a major candidate in a presidential race should be a republican, just because I thought nothing but red for so long. But I never actually voted red, some beaucratic snafu intercepted my ballot in '00, and in '04 I really wanted to vote for Bush but the midichlorians within me and the war prevented me from actually marking the bubble so I voted for Jesus. So my conclusion is that it doesn't really matter who I vote for Pres, (but in a good way) and I don't have a clue in the senate race yet. I believe I did vote for the Merk in the primary though.

On a different government conspiracy note, I passed my Praxis II exam in math that I took last month apparently. The state of Oregon pretty much considers me qualified to teach calculus. And that's awesome don't get me wrong thank you Jesus.

But I can't shake the feeling that the powers that grade are either smoking crack or just have a quota of a % or number of people that must pass. Because by any objective standard I bombed the written response portion. It was 4 questions. I aced the first one, but used about 25 of my 60 minutes. The second one I feel I got the first half, and then I didn't have much of a clue on the rest of the test. I did write a very limited amount down, which I almost didn't do because I knew I wasn't close to a solution. But I maybe wrote a total of 4 lines for the last two and a half problems, and it would take about a page and a half minimum to present a correct solution.

So that's kind of messed up but I guess I'll take it. I scheduled the "Technology Education" one for November, and after that I still may do Social Studies. But it sounds like those jobs are pretty popular, and I'm not that gung-ho about it so it might not be worthwhile at this point in my career. Class is going fine, its a ~25 person cohort and I think it will be a good program; I'm enjoying it so far. I need to get my butt in a school volunteering though.

I got a new $600 dell lappy with some of my student loan money, not totally confident that was a solid decision but the old one was pretty painfully slow, even by my very tolerant standards. Isaac is going to wipe it and install linux though, I think in that form it will have some life left. I'm pretty happy with the new, it's from the small business area of their website, and I think as such it's got less crap pre-loaded on it.

With Keith in the UAE for a couple months I'm in a little less of a hurry to drive something other than his Susui Azztorpp for my very limited use. Although the tranny does appear to be going out again, which is a bad deal. But I'm just not going to use it but for work, until I can find something worth buying. I've been looking and have seen a few maybe's but nothing that was amazing yet in the 700-1500 range. But it'll come.

The bicycle commuting is working like a champ though. I got a front basket on today, 12 bucks and its removable so I can use it in the store as well. I'm trying out spud.com for produce delivery every other week; the stuff might be a little more expensive but its good and I'm actually eating it which is a big step.

And the Blazers are going to be the shizzle this season.