FMC 3.0

I’ve been looking forward to this day for months - when the election finally ends and the campaign will be over. Frankly, it’s gotten quite tiresome. My ballot has been mostly locked up for months. Of course, those of you that know my uber liberal leanings may be surprised to know that I’m not voting a straight party ticket. I never have, actually, and don’t plan on starting now.

If you would have told me two years ago that my choices for President would be either a veteran and his little known, slightly nuts female running mate , and a the first black candidate to have a heck of a shot at the white house and his Delawarean running mate, I might have laughed at you. It has been an interesting journey, but other than Palin being a moron and Biden’s ownage of her at the VP debate, I’ve been pretty bored since the DNC.

I had thought about doing a political post, but quite frankly, I’m not out to sway anyone. I just want people to make an informed decision, and vote who they want to. That’s democracy. I know I don’t agree with everyone, and the candidates I’m voting for later aren’t the perfect ones in my eyes (though I will say that this is the first time I’ve voted where I didn’t feel like it was the lesser of two crappy choices I was voting for.)

Oh, and just to screw with those of you who thought to yourself “Oh, he’s just gonna vote for Castle, that’s his one aisle jump…” - you’re probably wrong. There’s probably more. I’ll let you all guess at that one :)

If you were to pack for a week away from home, and got to your destination, and realized you’d forgotten something, where would you go to get it? A grocery store? Drug Store? Wally World in a pinch? Sure, all sensible places. Not Us. We go to Lowes. Got the two things we need, and went on our merry way.

Today was a nice set of islands, old forts, quaint towns, and boat tours. And then there was this unexpected turn:

Been a good week so far, onto the “happiest place on earth tomorrow”.

A few quick travel notes:

Flying out of Philly didn’t suck this time. Getting to the airport, parking, check-in, security, and boarding were all a breeze, and not a horrendous experience. Then plane is pushed away from the gate, hit the lane, and did its self test. It then pulled back to the gate, with a mechanical problem. Obviously don’t want to fly with a problem, even a small one. Pilot says it should be a quick fix. 2 hours later, and after a move away from the gate for a plane that could actually fly, we’re taxiing to the runway. All the while with a more than reasonable number of small children screaming their heads off. Thankfully, I have the iPod functions built into my phone, and really good headphones to drown that kind of crap out.

I have mixed feelings on our rental car, but it is infinitely better than that PoS Jeep Liberty we had for this trip 2 years ago. This time around it’s a Mazda five. It’s not bad - has space, and a few nifty features. But I don’t fit into it as well as my Element (if anyone knows of a rental company that rents them, I wanna know about it.) The niftiest feature to play with is automatic manual, or manual automatic, or semi-automatic transmission - whatever you want to call it. It’s like a stick without the clutch, and kinda fun to play with.

Oh, and last but not least - help me, I’m so very in a red state. I’m a stranger in a strange land ’round here :)

It’s been a good one:

“God save us from that kind of help.” <- Rep. Barney Frank of New York, on whether John McCain’s return to Capitol Hill has helped the bailout talks.

Speaking of the bailout, what a load of crap. Sure, the best way to save the American economy is to give 700 billion dollars to the same people that played fast and loose with theirs in the beginning, and lost it all. This seems like a further extension of the trickle down idiocy that was the Reagan era.

I say give the 700 billion to the actual people that need it - the American public. Not to a few banks, not to give executives that have driven very large companies into the ground a few million dollars for their efforts. Let the foreign investors they sold out to hand them a golden parachute. I say with 700 billion dollars, you could probably just about pay off every mortgage in the country, or at least a very large number of them. Do that. Let those that are having problems surviving have one less thing to worry about. Families get to keep their homes and concentrate on more important things, and the banks get their money back to help them stave off not having enough money to cover their deposits. This seems like a win-win to me.

Of course, with the talks on the Hill falling apart, it may all go right down the crapper anyway, and everyone loses. We the people elect such great leaders.

(Actually, it may qualify for the week, but Dave Letterman’s “Hey John, need a ride to the airport?” is way way up there too. )

Today’s gem: “It’s just that you never had a chance. I only go for guys who are unavailable.”

Now, I won’t attribute that to save the person who said it from embarrassment. Also, I’m not posting this to call her out in any way. It’s just this week’s example of the story of my life, and further proof that humanity is doomed.