Happy Birthday to Laura!!!

2 years of linear time = an eternity of memories and hapiness. I think that's a pretty good deal. Happy birthday baby.

Baby Gallery: Laura - August, September and October 2008

It's been a while, but here is a new Laura gallery. It covers August through mid-October. Enjoy.

http://www.therhodeislandreview.com/?page_id=205&g2_itemId=10437

Recreation: Running for a year

It dawned on me the other day. I have been running continuously for over a year now. This is monumental for me. In the past, I have taken up various exercise-related activities for months at a time. Even when we were members of the YMCA, we would take multiple months off. If I lie to myself, it always happened because I got busy or preoccupied. In reality, it was because I just got bored.

I mention that because lately I have been getting bored. I am still running, but it feels like maintinence instead of improvement. The only thing really keeping me running is racing. I have the Thanksgiving Day pie run coming up. After that, there is a Christmas 10K and the Super 5K. I may try to find a New Years Day race to pull me through from mid-December to late January.

Anyway, I've had some ups and downs, but generally, I am happy, healthy and strong. While I can't attribute that all to running, every aspect of my life is certainly improved because of it. So, happy anniversary to me and many happy returns!

Here is a photo of the happy couple:

Random Thoughts: Voting

I voted today. It took an hour and forty (1:40) minutes to get through the line for those of us unfortunate enough to have a last name starting with the letters A-I. For those with names starting with J-R, the wait was about 20 minutes. If you were one of the lucky few in the S-Z category, you walked right in to the front of the line and waited about 5 minutes for a free booth. I think someone needs to rebalance the names in each book.

In addition to the long wait, I found myself figuratively assulted by campaigners blocking the walk-way to the entrance to the polling place. I find it annoying that they are even present, but to present an effective blockade is just rediculous. OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little when I call it a blockade. At the very least, I had to walk on the grass. If it had been raining, I would have gotten my shoes wet and dirty!

My final and most significant annoyance was the presence of the completely uninformed electorate. I'm not talking about the fact that people don't know their prospective council members. I'm talking about the big game. A woman behind us in line grabbed a sample ballot while waiting. As she looked at it, she exclaimed, "Who are all these people running for president?!? I thought there were only two people running!" Another worman, obviously missing the words in each section stating as much said, "How many of these people do I vote for?"

Seriously, is it that hard to be just a little bit informed? Why bother voting if you don't care about the input or the output? If you don't know who the incumbents are and you don't know who the challengers are and you don't even know how many people you vote for, shouldn't you just stay home? On a plus note, I was entertained by all the dumbasses who over-voted their questions and then just told the marshal to accept it and not count that question. They intend to vote twice, but end up not voting at all. Good effort!