Barack Obama is again our President

I, for one, am very happy with this result.  I watched the election returns tonight with considerable tension and concern, and I was thrilled when all the networks called the election for him.

I am also happy that voter turnout appears to have been good.  It certainly was at my local voting place when I showed up there this morning. 

Most of all, I love that I live in a country that allows me to vote.  That is a grand thing indeed.

I'm back

and without any incident, unless you count the guy in the seat in front of me who was so big that the seat leaned backward even though he hadn't pressed the lean button. It simply couldn't hold his weight. (No, the seat wasn't broken; it righted itself and locked when he wasn't in it. It just couldn't hold him.) Fortunately, the next row back was empty, so I was able to escape the guy's slowly tilting mass.

Raleigh was cold when we landed, but Boston was colder, so it felt like coming home to warmth. Good deal.

Obama got busy today, and that's excellent news. I hope he continues to push forward to realize his campaign promises. I'd love for my current belief in him to end up being justified.

My personal situation is akin to being snowed in, but with the mass being not snow but rather unpacking, several feet of snail mail, and a ton of email, plus a book on which I'm still hammering out concepts. Much to do, so to it I go.

Here's hoping a year from now I'm still optimistic about Obama.

Overcome with emotion

I am. I really am. I'm stuck in Boston due to the snow in Raleigh; even if I could have made it home (doubtful), no one could have come to collect me from the airport.

Being stuck here is not the problem, however. I have a fine hotel room, good company, will eat a great dinner (back to Oishii we go), and have been able to work all day. As a bonus, I got to watch the inauguration live, something I would not have been able to do had the Raleigh snowstorm not kept me here.

The inauguration is the problem. It really got to me. For the first time since my teen years, despite all the intervening decades have taught me, almost against my will I find that I believe again in a politician. I know President Obama is no saint, but I honestly believe he is a smart, idealistic, clever man who may continue to make history. I wish I could participate in some meaningful way, but I really can't; employing people, writing, and taking care of those I love is what I can manage and must be enough.

Obama is also the first president to be younger than me. Intimations of mortality are all around me, and today they draw too close and I realize that I have accomplished so very little, almost nothing, really.

And then there's the article I read. I love basketball. I miss playing it. I was never any good, not really, but I've always loved it, though in the past decade or so from a great distance. So it was that when Bill (thanks!) pointed me to this article on this day, I could not help but be touched yet again. I loved pickup basketball, loved the fact that who you were was how you played, that nothing else mattered, and I still do, though it's been years since I've stepped onto a court.

I love that our President loves basketball, listens to music I know, uses technology, and has so many other points of connection to me and others like me.

Most of all, though, I love that he seems to understand the enormity of the challenges we all face, is willing to tackle them, and has good ideas about doing so.

Let's all join in and help him change this country--and the world--for the better.