Watching your dollars

Did anyone catch the President Obama speech last night?

I caught most of it, but I started to get a bit sea sick as I watched Nancy Palosi and Joe Biden do their imitation of 'the wave' behind President Obama. I wished Palosi would just sit down and let the man speak.

I checked CNN.com this morning for a little news and wasn't surprised to see more stories about how the public gets wind and reacts to spending habits.

The leading stories were (in my words):
-Bank that received loan money spends too much for PGA party.
-Bank CEO gives $60 million in personal bonus money back to company
-Palin called on the carpet for using state money for personal travel. But she swears she'll pay it back.

Bravo for the news for trying to keep people honest . . .but does it make you a little nervous about how you spend your own money and who might be watching?

I'm almost afraid that the local news will post a story about me.

"Local woman who lives two blocks from work wastes precious gas by driving to work everyday."

or

"Local preggers spends almost $3 a day to get daily ration of McDonald's biscuits and coffee. Learn to cook lady!"

True I have to drive Alaina to daycare in the mornings which is about 3/4 of a mile on the other side of the office. But if I were a govt employee or a celebrity, would they care to post that?

I'm glad for the honesty that Obama is promising by saying he will disclose all of the spending from the stimulus package and try to do the same for the budget. (At least that's what I heard when he spoke.) Because frankly, the press would love to be able use it for headlines and tear him apart for it.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try to resist having my personal plane take me to Fiji to soak up the sun for the weekend. ha ha

Fat Tuesday

Well that glorious day has arrived!

Fat Tuesday!

The day that we . . .

umm, the day that we . . .

Well, Nuts.

I can't think of a single thing that we do to celebrate this celebration of all celebrations. Mardi Gras just isn't a big deal in Nebraska I guess.

Personally, I can't decide if this is a good or a bad thing. In a state that was largely populated by German, Czech, and Slavic immigrants, I guess we are more of a Wilber Czech Festival kind of people.

I think that this is an instance that our new Attorney General would have refered to us as cowards for. . .

What, sis? You mean you don't know what I'm talking about? Well, allow this Anderson Cooper addicts to enlighten you.

Our oh so lovely Attorney General gave a riveting speech in honor of Black History Month in which he called us all a 'Nation of Cowards.' He basically railed at all of society for staying in our comfort zones, leading the whites to congregate with whites and blacks to congregate with blacks in social, religious, and familial situations, leading to a society induced segregation.

I can't get this out of my head, its been milling around for the last week. The illusion of the USA as the "Melting Pot" was mentioned, but I've never bought into this pesonally. So many people have tried to retain some of their roots and maintain their cultures that we've never seemlessly melted together. I've always pictures us as more of a salad. Different foods that are mixed together in one dish. We each retain our own tastes and structure, but together we become something more interesting that we were on our own.

But what about this comfort zone theory?

Is it so bad to have a comfort zone? For the people who are afraid to take a chance, comfort zones are all they know. But in a society today where international travel is getting to be as common as going to a neighboring state, what is the harm in settling back into your comfort zone?

Does it really relegate us to being called a 'Nation of Cowards?'

Happy Obama Day!

I know that Sis in the only one who isn't excited at all for today. She's waiting with pithy comments in tow for all the criticism to come of this year's golden boy.

I'm just eagerly anticipating any changes to the current status of the nation.

And this morning on my favorite radio station, they played the Barack Obama top ten that he did for Letterman last January. Barack read them himself and if you google the Brack Obama Letterman top ten, you can watch it on YouTube, because I don't like loading videos.

For your laughter . . .

10. To keep the budget balanced, I'll rent the situation room for sweet sixteens.
9. I will double your tax money at the craps table.
8. Appoint Mitt Romney secretary of lookin' good.
7. If you bring a gator to the White House, I'll wrassle it.
6. I'll put Regis on the nickel.
5. I'll rename the tenth month of the year "Barack-tober."
4. I won't let Apple release the new and improved Ipod the day after you bought the previous model.
3. I'll find money in the budget to buy Letterman a decent hairpiece.
2. Pronounce the word nuclear, nuclear.

1. Three words: Vice President Oprah.

Happy New President Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!

My latest crushes.

Last night Jeff informed me that he doesn't like when I talk about things saying that I am "Madly in Love with _______"


I guess that I never dreamed that he would be offended by that phrase. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a phrase that girls seem to grow up spouting as soon as we discover obsessions? Whether true or not, I have always used that phrase to describe my latest obsessions, be it boys, bands or broadcasters.




Broadcasters?



Oh yes. Broadcasters. This is who I informed Jeff that I was "Madly in Love" with last night.

David Gergen.

He is usually on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN every evening and I love listening to him. He has this wonderful soft spoken way that he talks about politics. He never really condemns anyone on the show, just talks about what could have been a rough choice that someone made.

So far I've agreed with everything I've ever heard him say, or at least, he speaks in such an intelligent manner, that its hard to want to scream at his image "No, you idiot!" like I seem to want to do with some of the other contacts on air who seem to always condemn everything or 'pussy foot' around the issues.

And lets not forget the main show host himself. Anderson Cooper. I have a friend who professed her love for Anderson to me earlier this year, but I hadn't jumped on the bandwagon yet.

But as you can see from the caption on the photo below, We are not alone.

Seriously, I fell head first into my TiVomance with these two during the election. That and the awesome interactive map they had that you just touch and "magic happens." But the map has dissappeared after the election, so I'm only left with my two "Newsies."

(Now that makes me think of the old Disney Musical "Newsies" in which I first discovered Christian Bale and my Movie Romance with him, but that's a different story all together.)

Oh Sis, you can laugh and make fun of me, but these two men have contributed to me becoming a news junkie. Which all in all is a pretty good addiction and I'm kind of enjoying being on top of all the political issues right now.

Hail to the Chief!

I am so excited I might puke! I cast my vote bright and early yesterday for PRESIDENT Obama and I'm so excited that he won! My husband and I watched CNN all night last night and Alaina got to enjoy lots of treats in honor of the special occasion! (not to mention because of a heavy dose of parent guilt that we weren't giving her 100% of our attention.)

I cried when he won.

I'm so tired from staying up and watching the coverage, and yet I'm mentally exhilirated!

The staunch republicans in the office are walking around grouching and moaning about war records and one talked about his father in law who lost two fingers at Omaha beach. I'll never understand why after an election, the first thoughts in so many peoples minds is how this will affect the military.

I ready to see who he puts on his cabinet too! He's suppose to name his chief of staff today.

Today!!

But I wish I would have taken today off to celebrate like my husband.

I need sleep!


Update:
Jeff called this morning to share tragic news. Our Obama yard sign was liberated from our yard this morning. I hope that someone who was overjoyed at Obama's win decided that they had to have one in their yard and that it wasn't taken with the intent to detroy.

I hope you find a happy home Mr Yard sign! You served us well through the pre-election period and you were proudly displayed all election day. *sniff, sniff*

Debate Info

So I really enjoyed watching the debate last night, but there was one piece of information that I felt I needed to look up.

McCain said Obama supported a congressional earmark of "$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"

All I could think about was, have you seen the projectors they use in planitariums recently? I mean we aren't talking about those piddly things that I set up with a laptop in conference rooms. Oh, no these are rotating huge beasts that I believe would cost at the minimum 10s of thousands of dollars for a good one. And why buy just a good one? If you've ever used a $100 projector and then had the chance to use a $3,000 projector, you can really see the difference!

So I decided that this was probably not a very good accusation of "wasted" money and went out to see what I could find on the intranet and here is "The Fact" that I found.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrase suggests Obama spent $3 million on an old-fashioned piece of office equipment that projects charts and text on a wall screen. In fact, the money was for an overhaul of the theater system that projects images of stars and planets for educational shows at Chicago's Adler Planetarium. When he announced the $3 million earmark last year, Obama said the planetarium's 40-year-old projection system "has begun to fail, leaving the theater dark and groups of school students and other interested museum-goers without this very valuable and exciting learning experience."

The money was slotted for the entire overhaul, which probably included some hefty installation fees and callibration fees and all that jazz.There are a few sites that say this never passed, so the money was never spent. . . but I think that a planetarium is a good place to put money, don't you?

Just goes to show, that you can't trust everything you hear, there are a lot of sites online that you can go to to check out how factual accusations are from the candidates.

Frankly I like Obama's platform for education, energy, taxes and the war. Which are clearly outlined on his website.

McCain shoudl clear up the content on his because it isn't very clear what he believes.

Holiday? What Holiday?

I had forgotten the thrills of working retail over holidays. . . .

I worked everyday this weekend at my parttime job and am looking forward to having two evenings off. I worked up until the start of the Husker game and then decided I just couldn't sit around watching tv, so a friend who was down from up by South Dakota and I went shopping at SouthPoint.

She mentioned that her husband would be very angry if they started talking politics while we were gone. I was a little surprised that they woudl feel that was because isn't everybody talking politics these days?

That of course led us to have a bit of a heated discussion about politics of course.

She feels it doesn't matter who gets into the white house because all politicians lie.

I stated one of my main reasons to vote was that I felt our soldiers should be brought home and I felt that Obama would be most likely to make it happen . . .

And the feces hit the fan.

I was not so peaceably informed that many of the soldiers who have returned home have said they are doing a lot of good and I shouldn't think that our assistance in the mid-east is worthless.

Okay, please scroll back up at this point and see if I made any negative statement about what our soldiers are doing overseas.

Really? You mean I didn't scream obscenities about war and billions of dollars and rant about the evils of oil?

I've tried to learn the subtle art of polite politics discussion and I have the talk about war down to a science (I hope.) I simply feel that our nation is struggling right now and that it is time to focus more on internal problems, which is hard to do while we are all gazing across the globe, worried for our loved ones safety.

The End. . . .that's all I try to state about the war with someone that I know doesn't share the same political beliefs.

Of course, everything else in our discussion went down hill from there . . . .On to other things.

Alaina spent the weekend with Jeff's parents. I missed her, but it is hard to create an argument to have her stay here while I was working most of the weekend out of the house. She got a lot more play time and fun with Grandma and Grandpa.

But that about sums up the weekend.