Sarah Palin

I’m watching the Palin speech right now… WOW! This chick is rockin’. Palin hit Obama again and again with her wit, sharp tongue, and best of all - substance. When I first heard of Sarah Palin - it was when McCain annouced her as his VP pick. My reaction was the same as most of you - Sarah who? The news media frenzy that ensued was staggering! I found out that she has a pregnant daughter out of wed lock! AND that her husband got a DUI twenty years ago! I learned about how she is accused of firing the Public Safety Commissioner because he wouldn’t fire her ex-brother-in-law.  I was most concerned when I heard she was cited with “Fishing without a license“!  Amazing!

Well, if you can forgive her of the wanton disregard for the laws of fishing… you might find this was a great move by John McCain.  Until last Friday, the media continued to tell us that we had the chance to make history with our vote in November.  Obama was “the fullfillment of Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech” according to the media and a vote for him was a historic vote.  A vote for McCain was not only voting for another four years of old white guys running things - it was border-line racist.

BUT… after the Palin Pick, it’s no longer a historic vote - its an historic election.  Either way you vote, you are a part of history!  Now, we can stop focusing on the color of skin, and start to focus on the actual canidates!

Mrs Palin was charismatic, energetic, and enjoyable.  Her ability to give a speech that kept the audience involved matched or surpased that of Obama, not to mention that she is easy on the eyes as we used to say back home in North Carolina.  My favorite quote from the night - “Here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country“.

If Obama wins, I worry for the country.  I like that he is concerned for many of the same issues I am concerned with, but I disagree with him on every single action plan he has suggested to solve those issues.  He also lacks the experience.  I know there are many that argue that experience is not an issue, however if you were inventing your money in a major cooperation, and they were voting on a new CEO that lacked the experience to do that job, you might consider selling… The nation is much more important that my stocks and I want a President with the life experiences to help guild him through the job.  The real danger, however, in Obama isn’t that he lacks the experience needed to be president but, in my opinion, that he lacks the wisdom to know it

But back to Buchana’s question, what if Obama loses?  Will there be riots?  I seems like a rediculous question to ask - but I couldn’t believe the riots in LA back in 1992, and I’ve seen riots in Ohio over a football game - “we lost the game, that means I can get with a few hundred of my friends, turn over cars and set houses on fire!”

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28277

Rice-o-Roni... The San Francisco Treat!

Today was awesome!  Ok, we started toward San Francisco Tuesday night knowing that there was only one ferry that you can take to get to Alcatraz Island and that it was sold out.  I knew we would be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge (I didn’t know that a heavy fog regularly rolled in so thick that you wouldn’t be able to see the bridge!).

Behind all that Fog is the Golden Gate Bridge!

I knew we would be able to see a trolly cable car.  And I knew we would be able to see the rolling hills that San Francisco is famous for (although I wasn’t aware of exactly how steep they truly were!).  But I must be honest - I wanted to tour the Rock!  I kept hope that we would be able to get on that sold out ferry.

Pier 33 - the only way to get on the Rock!

We left early from the hotel and crossed the Bay Bridge that we had crossed the day before, took at least one wrong turn in town, headed to Pier 33, hunted for close parking, all while Stephanie continually reminded me of the prior day’s event (see A Great Adventure) and respectfully asked that I not turn up any steep hills.  We finally found a public lot for a mere $20 a day…  What a deal… for the parking lot company!

Despite the large signs reading, “there is no attendant on duty, pay only the machine” and “This guy (picture of a guy) is an imposter, DO NOT GIVE HIM MONEY, pay only the machine” and “DO NOT PAY AN ATTENDANT, HANDWRITTEN PARKING SLIPS WILL NOT BE VALID!”, there was a short asian man in a parking-lot-looking attendant shirt, taking cash from cars that pulled into the lot.

A Copy of the rules went to every inmate

I hesitated, but pulled out my credit card and said to the impostor who was blocking the machine, “excuse me - I need to get to that machine”.  This sly guy - grabbed my card out of my hand, turned around and swipped it into the machine, then handed it back to me - took the ticket that printed out and walked over to my car.  I followed him after checking the machine to make sure it didn’t have any strange looking devices covering the card reader.  He wrote down part of my license plate on the parking slip and handed it to me - asking that I put it on my dash.  I couldn’t believe I let this guy take the credit card out of my hand!  I called the number on the signs and reported this strange behavior.  The lady that answered assured me that there was no attendant on duty and that she would send a manager out.  I figure, as long as I max my card out before this guy gets to try it, I’m good…

Anyway, We walk to pier 33 and ask the question I already know the answer to because I had just confirmed it online that morning -

“Are there any tickets for Alcatraz today?”

“Yes, 10:30am.”

“Are you sure, we would really love to go to …. uh?  oh… umm… ok - I’ll take two adults please!”

Behind Bars!

That’s right - we got on the ferry!  Apparently there are several hotels that are granted several tickets and ’sell’ them back if they cannot fill the seats.  If you get there early enough, you can get on a sold out boat!  We took several pictures on the way over, several while we were on the Rock, and several on the way back.  I stood in a prison cell, walked the corridors, listened to the self paced audio tour, and loved every minute of it!  I enjoyed listening to former inmates talk about how bad it was.  One of the prisoners stated that he was there for four years and it “straighten [him] up”.  Later on the tour it talks about when they closed down the prison because the correctional system changed from punishment to rehabilitation.

Zander in front of the Rock! (bad hair day?)

That struck me as odd since I had just heard  an old prisoner say how it straighten him up.

My favorite part of the tour was rule number 5.  Its in every inmate’s hand book and it goes like this:

You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter, and medical attention. Anything else is privilege.

I almost purchased a copy to give my children as they grow older…

Lexi stretching her legs

Stephanie and I have been married for nine years, yesterday.  I took several days off work to celebrate the occasion, even though we had not made any formal plans.  Back when Stephanie and I got married, we used to take day trips on a regular basis, even some weekend driving trips on a whim - trips to near by cities a few hours away, trips to the beach or to Washington DC over 8 hours away, and even longer trips to see family in Maine or Charlotte NC weren’t uncommon.  But as we got more busy, added children to the mix, and moved across the country, those driving mini-vacations all but vanished.

J-Haul - that made me laugh!

We both miss them despite all the ups and downs of being in a car for several hours at a time, so when I suggested we hit the road and head to San Francisco - Stephanie said yes with enthusiasm!  Wednesday night we headed out and got as far as Blithe, CA.  We stayed in a cheap (in every sense of the word) hotel.  The next morning, we hit the road with a San Francisco or bust mentality.  Zander and Lexi have been been great for being trapped in a car most of the day, but we did stop to let Zander climb a tree or two at rest areas and we took a few pictures along the way.  We got into San Francisco last night at about 9pm.

Zander being awesome!

After paying $4 to cross the bridge from Oakland to San Francisco, calling several area hotels, attempting to drive around to look for a descent place to stay that wasn’t $200 bucks a night, and climbing the scariest hill of my life in a stick shift four cylinder, please never do that again to me car - we left San Francisco and headed back to Oakland for the night.  Let me pause here to say, if you ever drive to San Francisco and get there after dark and you are in a Hyundai Elantra - don’t climb the hills!  It was difficult enough just driving up them, but when we got the red light, and my wife started yelling for me to run it, then panicing that I stopped, then screaming when I rev’ed the engine to over 5 thousand RPM with the emergency break on, dropped the break, came off the clutch, in first gear, only to still travel backwards, I must say I was beginning to doubt turning up a street that looked like it went straight to up to heaven.  It was only after I rev’ed it to 7 thousand RPM and quite possibly damaged the transmision that we started to move forward at a pace of about 1 mile per day.  The entire time, my son was saying, “Its OK Mommie, I’m not afraid.” and my wife was trying to remember the number for 911.  We are on a great Adventure!

https://www.thesmilestation.com/home.asp?AC=LTTT0862103671TARSHR

To be honest, most baseball games are just too slow for me - but last night was different.  First, the stadium was packed - with cubs fans.  So many that chants like “Let’s Go D-Backs” were drowned out by “Let’s God Cubbies!”  and during the seventh inning stretch, when we all sing “take me out to the ball game” - the cub fans were much louder than d-back fans.  “Root, Root, Root for the D-Backs” was again changed to “cubbies”.  The score at the end of the game looked more like a football score than a baseball game - 10-6 cubs.  Now, while I do wish the D-Backs had won - going home with a happy wife was worth the loose.

Among the highlights - a grand slam home run, ice cream in a waffle bowl for $6, and my wife hi-fiving strangers.  But a personal favorite for me was finding out there is a player on the cubs team with this for a last name: Fukudome.

I have no idea how he pronouces it, but I know how I read it…

Ok - I know it was likely irresponsible of me, but I went to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight.  I really enjoyed Batman Begins and knew this was also Heath Ledger’s last movie - I really wanted to see it.  I text messaged a friend at 10:30pm and asked if he wanted to see it with me and within the hour we were on our way… to a sold out theater … without tickets.  Minor oversight, one quick call on my cell and we had tickets to another theater across town.

I’ll start with what I didn’t like - they changed Rachael!  In Batman Begins, Rachael was played by Katie Holmes - very cute… but this version was played by Maggie Gyllenhaal - Not as cute.  The movie wasn’t quite as dark as Batman Begins either.  What I really loved about Batman Begins is how it really removed the cartoonish nature of some of the Batman villians as well as Batman’s charactor.  I’m not saying the The Dark Night is comical at all, just not as dark as Batman Begins.  My only other negative thoughts are the length.  Some movies are three hours long and at the end you say - wow, that was fast - I wish it were longer… this isn’t one of those movies.  It had about three endings - kinda like a preacher promising to close the sermon down at noon on a Sunday morning, then preaching to almost one.  Sometimes you don’t mind if the preacher just kept on going, other times you think - “I wonder how long the wait is at the restaurant…”

Ok - on to the positive: Heath Ledger.  He was amazing.  Did you see Johnny Depp play Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl?  Do you know how he brought something special to that charactor?  Well, Heath Ledger did that something special for the Joker.  Don’t get me wrong, Jack Nicholson played a great Joker - but Heath Ledger was truly amazing!  He really took the charactor over the top in the best way.  If I were rating the movie based soley on his performance, it would easily be two thumbs up, 5 stars, a must see.  But, I’m not rating the Joker only…

In all, I give it 3 stars out of 5.  They traded out the eye candy, they missed several shots at a big ending, but the Joker was amazing, the special affects were good, and a few other points I will keep out of the review so I don’t ruin the movie for you.  For now, I have less than three hours before I have to go to work - so g’nite!

Picture from Jeremy Sackrider