Election Thoughts

I held off on posting anything here for a day, figuring I could think of something profound to write about our historic election if given a little time. However, since I am utterly incapable of expressing how important the Obama election is through written words, here are a few random thoughts--

> It's true that Tuesday was a great day for racial minorities. But, more important to the majority of Americans, it was a great day for America. Obama was elected because of his promise of hope and change; I imagine the fact that he is African American is secondary to most Americans (although a nice bonus).

> I sure hope Obama is able to follow through on that promise of hope...

> Sure, the Democrats were unable to secure 60 seats in the Senate. But, they have significant majorities in both houses of Congress and, even if they had 60 seats, getting everyone to tow the party line on controversial issues would still have been very difficult.

> I don't remember people partying in the streets after any other election--especially those where the Republican party won.

> The people who went out and spent a ton of money on assault rifles over the past few weeks out of fear Obama would take away their 2d Amendment rights wasted their money. However, ironically, I was tempted to blast off a couple rounds Tuesday night after the election was called.

> The two most important issues to me are foreign policy and judicial nominations, with the economy/social justice a close third. With those in mind, Election Day 2008 was a big first step toward sensible and respectful relations with foreign nations, an accessible judiciary that promotes justice and liberty, and an economic policy that is in the long-term interest of America.
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*Update - I almost forgot, some election reform/accountability legislation would be nice too.

Just like Money in the Bank

Back when I used to chase steelhead in north Idaho, I periodically would hear fishing reports quantifying how difficult it was to catch a steelhead. These reports would cite some ridiculously high figure as the average number of casts required to catch the typical steelhead. While the number varied throughout the season, it always remained too high to many rejected anglers, myself included. After a day without catching any fish, I would take comfort in the thought that I had banked the day's fruitless casts toward a future day's fish.

With that said, if I get too many more days like yesterday, I'm going to cash out a fat check. Not the sort that makes a man rich--I'm talking about the sort of check that entitles it's bearer to an epic day catching gargantuan fish. You see, I went fishing yesterday and, in the course of getting completely skunked, I managed to bank a ton of casts. Being that trout are substantially easier to catch that steelhead and should require fewer casts per fish, I figure to cash in a few of these casts on a big day in the not-to-distant future.

The day wasn't a total waste though. Karta had tons of fun:

Stylin

DISCLAIMER: Normally, I try to keep this blog fairly apolitical. But, with the election only days away my natural tendencies are beginning to show. And, when events arise that demand attention, the dude abides.

The other day we learned about how the Republican National Committee spent $150K on Gov. Palin's wardrobe since her nomination. Now, we learn that the highest salary in Sen. McCain's campaign goes to Gov. Palin's travelling makeup stylist. Not the campaign manager. Not an economic advisor. Not a foreign policy advisor. Nope, it's the makeup stylist.

My friends, this post is NOT about Gov. Palin; it's about Sen. McCain. Yes, the unfortunate double standards that women live with are a fact of life and make it reasonable for Gov. Palin to have a makeup stylist and fashionable clothing. But, the spending of Sen. McCain's campaign reflect his priorities, and open a window into how he might govern if elected president.

If I was running for president with the economy in the crapper such as it is, I might invest a bit in developing an economic strategy to address some of our many problems. If I was being outspent in every battleground state like McCain is, I might hire a campaign manager that could help me overcome these obstacles.

However, I am not running for president. And, frankly, when I look at McCain's spending priorities and the state of his current campaign, it looks like he's getting pretty much exactly what he's paid for.

Taking the Shocker to Cody Canal

So The Wife and I ended up in Cody for a couple days this past week. For those who have never made the trip, Cody is well worth a visit--especially after the tourist season is over.

We wandered around the Sierra Trading Post Outlet, lamenting the dearth of smoking deals that once proliferated throughout their catalogs. We ate at the Wyoming Rib & Chop House, enjoying one of the best jambalaya dishes around until discovering the havoc it can wreck on your GI tract. I'd order it again. The Wife, not so much. In the morning, we ate breakfast in the shadow of Buffalo Bill at the historic Irma Hotel--a must see. If there is one place that screams old Wyoming, this is it.

After breakfast and a few hours of work, The Wife and I headed out to help the local Trout Unlimited chapter with their fish rescue project. Each irrigation season, thousands and thousands of fish are diverted from the local rivers into a complex network of canals. In the fall, when the irrigation districts shut down their diversions and the canals dry up, these fish become raccoon food.

Thanks to the devoted efforts of local trout eccentrics, some of these otherwise lost fish are trapped with electro-fishers and returned to their home streams. For the half-day that The Wife and I helped, we rescued around 270 trout. These fish varied from a six inch cutthroat to a brown trout around 25 inches, and everything in between. The day before we arrived, they shocked up a 29 inch brown. Ridiculous.

While I did a great job manning the electro-fisher, I did an exceptionally poor job manning the camera. Once I convince some of the locals to share their pictures, I'll update this post a bit...

"I always wanted a son named Zamboni" --Sarah Palin