It's Been a Long Time, I Shouldn't Have Left You

...without a dope beat to step to.

Name the song and the artist. Winner gets... the opportunity to visit me in Albuquerque (airfare not included). Sorry, I don't have much to offer.

Also I just wrote a whole blog and my stupid crappy internet disappeared it and I don't feel like writing it again. Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe two weeks from now. It involved the fact that I have been writing for other purposes and therefore not writing on here.

And how I might have a new job.

And how I am considering attempting the write one page a day, in a year you'll have a book feat. What do you think?

Miscellany

Have you folks been wondering where I've been? Me too. Part of my absence stems from the fact that my less-than-one-year-old-laptop is a piece of crap. Expensive crap. Matt's 5 year old computer can run the internet faster than this thing. So at certain points in the last two weeks I've sat down to write a blog and never had the time. I'm not sure whether to blame Vista or Dell or Qwest, but it sucks. Big waste of money.

So anyway, how's it going? Still no winner in the Democratic race. I'm kind of ambivalent about it, because even though I'm on Hillary's side, I do think she'll have a hard time in the general election. People hate her. It is silly. Yes she voted for the war, but she's done a lot of other good things. And who didn't vote for the war (who was in national office at the time and isn't Dennis Kucinich). Anyway. I didn't really mean to blog about politics today.

Did everybody hear that Fidel Castro stepped down? Of course Raul might be more of the same and the US doesn't seem to interested in smoothing over relations.

Oh what else. I found a neat blog about this guy who rides the bus in Albuquerque everyday and tells stories about it. I haven't gotten through all his back blogs, but I still think my story about holding that lady's baby in LA is up there at the top.

Also Matt and my New Texico blog is still forthcoming. It will be good, so don't get impatient.

Also I finally got paid for an article I wrote in November. The guy wrote me a check for $93.13. Couldn't he have just rounded it up? I mean seriously. Incidently, I have now been paid twice for taking pictures. Does this make me a professional photographer? Haha.

There was also a scare last week that our landlady had put our house on the market without telling us. We're pretty sure it's not true, but there were surveyors here on Friday. Why does one survey their property at random times? In relation to this incident, Matt and I started thinking about buying a house. Prices are rock bottom right now! So much cheaper than when we were looking last May. So we'll see how it goes. (It would help if either of us had a stable future.)

That's all I can think of right now. Oh except for my other secret future endeavor which apparently has a 50% chance of happening. Which is good because there was a big fiasco at work today that involved people downstairs not liking my sense of humor. Or something. Not sure. And my supervisor telling me that she thought I was fantastic and that the churchy people downstairs can be a little touchy. Weird. And then I left the office for 3 hours. For a doctor's appointment. Bastards. I'll show them! Maybe.

I should just stop writing now.

Way to Go New Mexico

New Mexico is trying to steal the spotlight from... well, from anyone. My state is the last state from Super Tuesday to have a projected winner. Still no one has been named.

I myself worry about disenfranchisement. At the only voting site in our lone suburb, Rio Rancho, people waited 3-4 hours to vote, and many left. At other sites the wait was 2 hours +, and they were running out of ballots all over the state. Some people were told to write the name of the candidate of their choice on scrap paper. who thinks that vote will be counted.

Ah, New Mexico.

***

Also check out the election leaderboard at the bottom of the page.

Vote Today!

If you live in one of 24 states that is voting today (and I think most of you do), then vote! Even vote noncommitted if you have to. But just vote!

Hanging Out with Hillary

Last night worked much better. The line moved faster, I'm pretty sure everyone got into the gym, metal detectors were actually used and tickets collected. I guess good things do come from experience ;).

We were super close to Hillary - about 6 rows of people back, so good view. Several people gave speeches before she showed up, as she was running late due to her engagements in LA and Tucson earlier that afternoon. I was impressed with Henry Cisneros, former Mayor of San Antonio and Secretary of Housing under President Clinton. Awesome guy. Also, Dolores Huerta, founder of the United Farm Workers. And finally they brought Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, Chelsea Clinton, and Hillary all up on-stage together. It was awesome to see women! (Now I realize it is also awesome for a minority to be a viable presidential candidate, but when I look at and listen to Obama, all I see is another slick white male who is maybe has a darker skin tone. I'm sure people could say the same about Hillary not being very womanly, but I disagree. And I am not proposing in any way that Obama is "not black enough." Just that he's more of the same. Except with a vision of change. But no experience. I digress.)

Hillary started out her speech talking about the environment, renewable energy, and green collar jobs. So of course I loved her from the start. Every subject she brought up she talked about specific things she would do to fix the situation. This was a far cry from Obama's talk about getting Bush out of the White House and bringing on change. Now, Matt will be the first to remind me that we didn't stay for Obama's whole speech, as it was too damn cold, but I think Hillary jumped right in. She concluded by talking about tonight's forum and telling us that she wanted us to know what she stood for and what she would do for us. Awesome. She really seems to have more concrete ideas than Obama. Also Obama apparently is in favor of the fence along the border. Honestly, a statement like that can only come from someone who knows nothing about the West or has no heart. I have to believe that for Obama it is the first, as I do think he is a good man. But he had never been to Santa Fe (not sure about Albuquerque) before Friday. Candidates who care about the West are very important to me. I am not an East Coaster, and I'm pretty sure I never will be.

That said, I am going to read my two Newsweek issues about each of the candidates in preparation for voting Tuesday. But I definitely am leaning strongly.

Hanging Out in Barack Obama's Motorcade

Oops.

I am not really a Barack fan. In fact, until yesterday, I'm pretty sure I didn't know there was a C in his name. Oops.

Now, however, I have had a brush with potential future glory.

We drove up to Santa Fe after work yesterday to attend a Barack Obama rally. He had been in Albuquerque earlier in the day, but, alas, I was working, so we had to wait until the evening one in SF. Some miles outside of SF, we ran into a couple buses on the freeway, with a few cars in between. Started to speculate that Barack was in one of the buses. Freeway traffic was pretty slow, so as we approached the necessary exit, Matt was forced to merge in between the buses. Somehow the other cars between the buses disappeared. As the buses started exiting, we realized that the 4 cars in front and the 2 cars behind were all unmarked cop cars. We were, in fact, in the middle of the motorcade.

The bus behind us started flashing its lights at Matt, but we were on a 2 way road with no shoulder. Where were we supposed to go? Finally a passing lane of sorts appeared, so Matt pulled off and the bus passed. When he put on his signal to merge back in, the copy behind his bus turned on his sirens and lights and passed us. Somehow Matt got in before the last cop car, though. Finally, at the next stop sign, the cop car behind us turned his lights and sirens on and swung out in front of us through the stop with the rest of the motorcade, with Matt following. Forgetting that it was a 4 way stop and the people waiting the other direction should have gone.

We were so close to the venue. If we had just stayed in the motorcade a few more blocks, we could have had prime parking! Alas, as it was, we didn't get there early enough to make it inside. Instead we stood outside and froze for almost 2 hours. We did get close enough to Obama to nearly shake his hand. He looks like he's maybe 30. I think he's lying about his age.

Tonight, Hillary.