Well, that was exciting to say the least

Today's Quote of the Day

There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.
Norman Mailer

Do with that what you will.

So, onto the post, last night I didn't get to bed nearly as early as I was planning to, because I couldn't turn off CNN.

The longer I watched, the closer and closer the numbers were getting in Indiana. At one point the vote spread went from just under 40,000 to just under 20,000 in one quick swoop.

Why the sudden change? Why the drama? Lake County, Indiana.

To fully understand the drama, lets go back about 2 hours in time as Barack Obama then Hillary Clinton gave their election night speeches.

At the time, Senator Clinton had a large lead in Indiana, and while none of the networks were willing to call it in her favor, I don't think anyone seriously doubted she would win it, possibly by 10%. In Senator Obama's speach he congratulated her on what he called her "apparent victory in Indiana".

In Clinton's speech, she also claimed victory in Indiana. Meanwhile, we begin to hear from the Mayor of Gary, Indiana. He claims that when the numbers from his city come in, they will be overwhelmingly in favor of Obama, and that if an upset is to happen, it will be do to his county, Lake County.

Later, while looking at the map, it turns out that while 85% of the vote is in and Clinton is up 52% to 48% and by just under 40,000 votes, none of that vote is from Lake County.

Not only is it expected that Obama is going to do extremely well in Gary, but he is expected to do well throughout the county.

Why?

It is the most northwestern county putting it as practically a suburb of Chicago, the home of Barack Obama.

Suddenly, as they were talking about the county on CNN, the first results from there came in. 28% of the vote reported and Obama had a 75% to 35% lead there and a 20,000 vote advantage.

Now, Indiana was a virtual tie. Clinton's lead was down to under 20,000 votes with 72% of the vote still to come in Lake County and 9% of the vote still to come throughout the state, with the outstanding votes almost all coming from areas that Barack Obama was winning.

It turned out that that first 28% reported was all from Gary, Indiana, the area where Obama had the largest support in the county. Clinton had a very slight advantage throughout the rest of the county, slowly taking down that huge advantage, meaning that, as it stands right now with 99% of the vote reporting, she is up in the state by only 18,444 votes.

Whereas in North Carolina, with 99% of the precincts reporting, Obama won the popular vote by 232,775 votes.

In the delegate count, his pledged lead grew thanks to a huge victory in North Carolina and a virtual tie in Indiana, and his lead in the popular vote went up by 214,331 votes.

While Clinton vows to fight on despite barely having an argument on which to stand any longer, the belief is starting to grow that it will be impossible for the Democratic nominee to be anyone other then Barack Obama.

Despite what Clinton might be saying this morning about "tie-breakers", the truth is that yesterday was a very good day for Barack Obama.

The Eyes of the World are on Indiana and North Carolina

Who would have seen that coming at the beginning of this process?

The way things stand right now, Obama will win North Carolina (hopefully it will be by a big margin) and Clinton will win Indiana (but it's probably going to be very close).

For Clinton to realistically be able to claim victory, she would have to catch Obama in pledged delegates. To do that, Clinton would have to win the remaining states by 70%, which is extremely unlikely. There is no way that Clinton can match Obama in number of states won, although it is possible that she catches him in popular vote.

Despite the fact that it is nearly impossible to pass Obama at this stage for front runner status and that she is consistently polling as less likely to beat McCain, there is no indication that Clinton plans on stopping short of the convention.

Even if Obama sweeps tonight (which is far more possible then Clinton sweeping) I doubt that Clinton will concede.

For a time, I felt like this protracted race was good for the Democratic party, raising interest in the process, but now the future of the Country is at stake and Clinton is doing more harm then good in my opinion.

This race has been pretty much decided for some time, but she refuses to give up, and while admire that to some extent, this is far too important a time for the Country to be damaging any Democratic chance at the White House just because you don't want to lose.

My only hope is that when the Super Delegates decide the contest in Obama's favor (which is certainly the trend, as for the last couple of months, Obama has gained hundreds of Super Delegates while Clinton has lost some), Clinton will step aside without any more fighting. Then perhaps this prolonged fight will at least have one positive outcome by virtue of helping to prepare Obama for the race with McCain.

Tragedy at the Kentucky Derby

I love sports and I love animals, one would think that I would love the Kentucky Derby.

I'll watch it, but I don't make it a point, and Saturday is a prime reason why.

For those who might not have heard, the second place finisher, Eight Belles (the only filly in the race), pulled up at the end of the race having broken (shattered is probably closer to the truth) both of her front ankles.

She was euthanized on the track.

I'm glad that I didn't see it, just reading the story afterwards saddened me greatly.

I was watching the Preakness two years ago and I remember it clearly.

Cubs/Astros was about to start, and I was at Home Plate Sports Bar just across the street from the home plate entrance to the Juice Box (more commonly refered to as Minute Maid Park or the Park Formally Known As Enron) waiting to meet up with my friends for the game.

I settled into a spot up at the bar (trust me, you aren't getting a seat an hour before game time at Home Plate) and watched in glorious high definition as Barbaro continued his quest for the Triple Crown. I shuttered along with the entire bar as he went down after the start having broken his right rear leg. I thought for sure that he would be killed on the spot and hoped that they wouldn't show it.

I followed the story for the next couple of months hoping he could recover and was saddened when he could not.

I haven't watched a horse race since, and after Saturday's tragedy I'm not sure that I ever will again.

Is a sport worth the life of a majestic animal that doesn't even get a choice in whether or not it wants to race?

Sorry For The Lack Of Posts

I've been sick all week, culminating in a rare (for me) visit to a physician.

It had been so long since I'd been to the doctor they said I was classified as a new patient again. This meant that not only was I sick and at one of my least favorite places in the world (the Doctor's office) but also that I had to do some "new patient" paperwork, this despite the fact that not too much has happened to me medically since my last visit. (Although to be fair it has been 6 years, so I guess they felt like something could have changed. It hadn't.)

Anyway, I'm still not feeling well, but now I have Doctor prescribed medications to help speed that recovery up (hopefully. Still waiting. Come on medication, work dammit).

To prove that I am still alive, despite not quite feeling like it, I felt like I should write some sort of post today.

If you missed it, Barack Obama was on Letterman last night giving the TOP TEN.

It was pretty funny. Here they are for your reading enjoyment.

10. My first act as President will be to stop the fighting between Lauren and Heidi on “The Hills.”

9. In the Illinois primary, I accidentally voted for Kucinich.

8. When I tell my kids to clean their room, I finish with, “I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.”

7. Throughout high school, I was consistently voted “Barackiest.”

6. Earlier today I bowled a 39.

5. I have cancelled all my appearances the day the “Sex and the City” movie opens.

4. It’s the birthplace of Fred Astaire. (Sorry, that’s a surprising fact about Omaha)

3. We are tirelessly working to get the endorsement of Kentucky Derby favorite Colonel John.

2. This has nothing to do with the Top Ten, but what the heck is up with Paula Abdul?

1. I have not slept since October.

Why I Can Barely Look At Myself In The Mirror

Every morning, I hit up some of my favorite blogs only to discover that they still haven't been updated, days, weeks, sometimes even months after the last update.

And I cry. (Maybe that's a little melodramatic, I don't actually cry, maybe I die a little inside, how about that? Yeah, let's go with die a little inside.)

Then, I realized, that I have become that blogger, the blogger that kills a little bit of me with every passing week of no update. Is there someone out there to whom I am doing the same thing?

Probably not, but there might be someone who is slightly disappointed with no recent updates.

Anyway, sorry about becoming "that blogger", but things have gotten a little hectic and of my three blogs (for baseball, check out 100 Years Later, for television and movie news check out Josue23) this is the one that got short changed.

I'm going to try and do better as time goes on, really I am.

To make it up to you, I present the return of Quote of the Day, from one of our favorites. Perhaps it can help explain why I have fallen off in my duty to bring you retrospective reflections.

"Life is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half of one for breakfast."
Douglas Adams

I think that that says it all.

Thoughts About My Jobs Part Two

My other job is as an Interim Youth Minister. There is a possibility of the position becoming permanent, but I have to decide if I want that or not.

I've enjoyed it so far, although I've only done it for a few weeks now.

At my last Youth Group meeting, I led a meditation sort of thing, but I realized that I didn't have a good meditative cd to play during the meditation.

I used to have hours worth of the stuff. It was all on my laptop, but that laptop got stolen, so all of my meditation type music was gone as well.

Not a big deal, I thought, I'll pick something up at the store on the way to church. I also called one of my sponsors and left a message with her. She called me back right as I was about to pull into the store parking lot and said she was sure she could bring something. I said great and continued to the church.

Her son (one of my youth) said that he had something and he put it on his iPod to bring it up to the church.

So, he gives it to me and I hook it up to the speaker without even looking at what it was.

It wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Instead of being meditative music, it was a meditative sound type thing. You know, nature sounds.

I had already started the meditation before I started what I thought was going to be music and when the waterfall sounds started it was too late for me to come up with a different plan. I was just going to have to go with it.

I was reading them a story (from The Last Western, the greatest novel ever written, don't bother looking for it at your local book store, it is out of print), the story was set in America, long before it was known as America, in fact, long before it was discovered.

The story opened with a man jumping from a cliff into a river. The waterfall was quite appropriate.

The man gained the name Eagle for his feat, at this point the meditation went to birds, again perfect.

He became king and angered his people with his talk of peace and love. The meditation went to wolves howling and whining; it was quite appropriate.

He was captured by an enemy tribe and tossed from another cliff into a river, again, the water was there.

The few who believed in him saw a miraculous sight, a huge bird unknown to humanity, came out of the water where his body had fallen. Again, the birds began.

Afterwards, the youth thought that I had planned the sounds to match the story. I told all who asked that it was just an awesome coincidence.

It's crazy how sometimes when things don't go exactly as you planned they end up far better then you could have imagined.

Thoughts About My Jobs Part One

So today I had to go to a lunch meeting of the county Builders (one of my currently two jobs is as an apprentice home builder) and there seems to be a bias towards drinkers of tea.

I don't like tea, never have, not a tea drinker. I know that this is Texas and a majority of people here LOVE their iced tea, but I'm not one of them. Maybe it is because I was born in Chicago.

Anyway, I drank water.

The waitresses at the club house where our meeting was held came by a few times with a pitcher of tea to refill everyone's tea.

Not once did they come by with a pitcher of water. Not once.

I guess if I ever want to be a successful builder, I'll have to learn to like iced tea.