omahas

This started, oh, maybe six or seven months ago. Being involved in the political spectrum, both at a local and national level, and being an Obama supporter, I meet up with a lot of other Obama supporters. So, I shouldn't have been surprised that, occasionally, this mistake would happen.

Every once in a while, someone would call me "Obama" instead of "Omaha".

I thought at first that it was just my imagination. But careful listening told me that, yes, these people were indeed calling me "Obama". Then it started happening more often. Tonight, at the 33rd LD meeting it happened three times. Many of these people are new, but still.

So, I'm thinking of getting a t-shirt, custom made that says:

I'm Omaha, Not Obama!

--but I still want you to vote for him anyway.

I mentioned in a previous post about how one particular bus route has been detoured due to construction. Well, apparently METRO, the section of King County that handles public transit has not been educating their drivers very well about this route, because I've had to deal now four times with drivers who didn't know the route. They continue to miss the turn then have to back up. And it doesn't seem to be because they are stupid or anything like that. No, METRO just isn't educating them properly. Time to complain.

Elf was having gut issues which was resulting in certain...er...noises coming from him. And though he claimed he had no control, they always seemed to happen at the worst times (or maybe the right times, depending on your POV). In any case, I was ribbing him for it, while Kouryou-chan was listening in.

"Why is it that I can control these things all the time and you can't?" I said. "You never know when I have these issues."

"Years of bad habits," Elf replied.

I snorted. "You know why I can do this? Because I have superb sphincter control!"

And in her little girl voice, Kouryou-chan piped up, "And someday, I'll have superb sphincter control, too!"

She broke the mommy!

I could smell it before I touched it. My fine, $200 black Italian leather boots....soaked with cat pee. I was furious.

"No!" I raged.

"What??" asked a confused Elf.

"I'm going to kill that cat!"

"What did she do?"

"She peed on my good Italian leather boots, that black furball! Where is she?!"

"Oh, I guess it matters now when she pees on something of yours," he threw back.

"Yeah, something I actually wear," I returned. "Tell me again why we still keep that cat around?"

He grasped my shoulders and drew me close. "She's a good example to our children," he murmured. "Someday, they'll be choosing our nursing home."

I growled. "If I'm ever that old and pee on their good Italian black leather boots, I hope they kill me too!"

Sunday we took a trip to the local mall, in which an Apple store was located. Since we had finally gotten the kids' G4 working, and they needed an Apple keyboard, I gave them my old one (partly because it is rather stiff typing). So, I needed a new one. I bought the new Apple anodized aluminum keyboard.

I am royally pissed that the guy at the Apple store didn't chat with me more about his. Granted, I didn't go into details about my needs, but first and foremost he assumed that I had 10.4.10 installed...a requirement (I did, but that is beside the point).

Unfortunately, I also found out that older KVM switches *do not work* with the new keyboard. Arghhhh! Which means I either get an older keyboard through Craigslist or such, or I buy a newer switch. I use an Iogear KVM switch to move between my G5 and my older Windows box. I will spend today trying to decide which is the better choice...the new keyboard is really nice, but I'm really not into spending a large sum of money, just for "nice".

My first experience with D&D was in elementary school...I got involved with a few other kids that had just started playing the game. Can't remember whether we started with the original or AD&D...we began playing just around the time that AD&D came out.

Anyway, I remember that this was my introduction into fantasy...into the idea that not everything around me had to happen in the real world, and that I could go beyond the fantasy of cartoons which, at that time, consisted mostly of lameness (save for Bugs Bunny, which was never lame). I could do a little acting, a little creating, a little managing. I really enjoyed it.

Through the years I sporadically played, but I really flourished when I hit college and got involved with Elf and the friends he introduced me to. There was AD&D, Rolemaster, Cyberpunk, Aftermath, Stalking the Night Fantastic, Morrow Project (definitely one of my favorites), Toon, and many others.

Probably my most favorite memory of those years was one weekend night while we still lived in Melbourne, Florida. There was a bunch of us together at a friend's house. Melbourne is a small town, and outside of the town proper is mostly rural pretending to be suburb, so that was where we were. We were doing Aftermath, which is a post-nuclear holocaust game. This was a game that had been going on for almost a year now. It was, I think, 2 am. And we got a knock on the door.

Randy, the guy who's house it was (he rented) got up and answered it. It was a cop. Apparently one of the neighbors was bothered by the fact that we were still up and making noise (we weren't that loud, the neighbors were assholes). You'd think that this would be a routine thing to work out. But you just had to have been there to see things from the cop's POV.

So, door opens for cop. First thing he sees is a bunch of college age people, both genders, sitting on the floor, or in a couple of chairs, with pencils/pens, notebooks, books, and a bunch of other things, like food packages littering the floor. Notebooks seem to have a large amount of notes in them. There is a big map on the wall...of Seattle (game was set in Seattle). In the corner there is a computer that has been taken partly apart (Randy was swapping out harddrives). On a table nearby was a holstered gun (this was, in fact, a laser-game gun, but painted to look real). On the floor in several stacks are also tons of manuals about flying airplanes (Randy was studying for flight school). There wasn't much more in the room (Randy didn't have much in the way of furniture).

In this day and age, I wouldn't imagine the cop would have thought twice before calling for backup to arrest "them thar terrirists", but back then things weren't so paranoid. He just told us to keep it down, then left, shaking his head.

Anyway, thanks a whole lot, Gary Gygax, for all of the memories and everything you inspired. This Sunday I'll be going to a D&D game I just started into again...I'll roll a d20 in your honor.

I'm a bit at my wit's end regarding this issue. For several years now, Elf and I have been putting Yamaarashi-chan and Kouryou-chan to bed at about 9 pm, for a 6:45/7am wake up (6:45 for Yamaarashi-chan, 7 for Kouryou-chan). In the mornings, Yamaarashi-chan wakes right up. Kouryou-chan does not.

This has led me to believe recently that Yamaarashi-chan could go to bed later, say 9:30. We tried that for a while, but unfortunately had problems with Kouryou-chan constantly getting out of bed to see what her sister was doing.

In the past couple of months Kouryou-chan has been exhibiting bedtime behavior that is driving me nuts. She refuses to go to bed, regardless of whether her sister goes to bed with her, constantly gets up and harasses us or her sister, and generally behaves like she is not tired at all. In the morning, she continues to act like she is sleepy and tired. But now I'm wondering whether her morning behavior is "sleepy" behavior or "I'm not a morning person" behavior

Tonight we tried something different. We allowed both to stay up until 9:30. It resulted in them staying up until 9:45, actually, because they were both catching up on some chores. It's a little after 10, and Kouryou-chan is *still* acting like she isn't tired, getting up and saying she is bored, wants to find a toy, needs water, etc. I am so sick of this I'm ready to just tie the kid to the bed and ignore her for the rest of the night!

What experience do you have, if you are a parent with a child near Kouryou-chan's age (8 years old), with bedtimes, specifically with how long your children sleep at night. Do you think that the 10 hours we give Kouryou-chan is enough? Too much? Should we ratchet it down to 9 hours? Yamaarashi-chan could easily, I think, go to sleep at 10/9:45 and have a good night's sleep...but I don't know about Kouryou-chan. The two year difference can be a big one.

Any advice/thoughts welcome.

Just finished the caucus. As PCO (that's Precinct Committee Officer for you yahoos ;) I was in charge of my precinct. I hadn't realized how big my precinct was...or rather, that my precinct was the biggest in my area. Nine delegates...compared to every other precinct in that area being 3, 4, or 5. I had 53 people show up...we had our own room!

I showed up about 11:30, and got right to work helping out. We had lot's of people showing up early, which is great because we very quickly became busy. There was no WiFi there, but we still had to help people find their precinct if they didn't bring their voter registration card. I was using my iPhone in the beginning, and then was able to use the Chair's satellite-connected laptop too. Still, I suddenly realized that I had some twenty people to help...

And I was the only one at the front desk all of the sudden! Yikes!

I pulled it off some how. In the end, I wasn't able to join my precinct until after the Chair began speaking. It was *crowded* in the Criminal Justice Center, where we met. Compare that to four years ago, where we had hardly anyone showing up at the precinct level. It was *awesome*!

Everyone had lot's of questions, and I was glad that the former PCO of my precinct was there to help me out (he's a good friend of mine). We did our tallys, then I asked if anyone wanted to change their votes, especially the undecideds. We had one woman who kept coming back to change her vote! Heh.

In the end everything worked out very well. Everyone was very much involved. We had lot's of people registering to vote. We had lot's of families showing up...parent/child, grandparent/grandchild combinations...which really impressed me. Lot's of different ethnicities. And everyone felt like we were all just Americans, being a part of the process.

The tally? Our caucus area is (trying to remember) 59 Obama, 32 Clinton, 1 undecided (and 1 Kucinich). I was able to see the tally from most of the other caucus areas in my legislative district as well (only two weren't done by the time I left), and though I don't remember the raw numbers off the top of my head, all of them were in the same vein...the largest delegates going to Obama. There's no question that Obama will carry the 33rd district.

ETA: Just got the final results in from the 33rd Legislative District. 144 precincts participated. Obama 393, Clinton 198, Undecided 11, Kucinich 1.

It's the last day of the Macworld Expo. I'm so glad. The expo had been very good for me, and I've made some very good connections with some very promising things to happen. I've also been inspired to think creatively about financial models for MacRadio. I think that some very interesting stuff will be happening in this space over the next year. But I oh so need someone to work with me! I just have too much to do, and not enough time to do it!

But I'm tired. It's been a long conference, I've had a ton of interviews, and I'm ready to go home now. I will spend the weekend vegging out.

Last night Kouryou-chan told me daddy was making her macaroni and cheese for dinner. I wish I could have eaten with her. :/

Some of you may have heard about the passage of several resolutions recently (H.Res 847, H.Res 635, H.Res 747, and S.Res 299). These four bills all deal with passing official congressional judgment on religions in some way. Congress got away with it, especially with 847, by couching them in terms of recognizing the historical significance of a particular festival of the religion in question. But if you read the resolutions, you will see that is not all that they say, nor do.

Well, not content with that, the Evangelical Dominionists have taken a step further in their attempts to establish their theocracy in America. It's called H.Res 888. ( What did they do? )

I find it heresy...yeah, you heard me right, heresy...to use our sacred Founding Fathers, and our Presidents, in this way. Use them to destroy the very Constitution that they created and/or swore to uphold.