Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

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Today is the day when everything changes.

I would have been so skeptical about today happening a year ago. 2008 was by far one of the best years of my life. My sister and I spent every day watching, reading, and talking about the election. I cannot wait to get started!

So far this four-day weekend has been a fantastic success at relaxation. There have been lots of movies, reading, and even some knitting, believe it or not. Obviously it will all come to a splendid conclusion tomorrow when I get to watch the inauguration.

Brian came over yesterday and we had a pleasant morning and afternoon. It’s the first time I had seen him this year. He mostly played with the cats while he was here and brushed Penny for at least half an hour. The girls were in heaven.

Yesterday I got the chance to watch the We Are One celebration to kick off the Inauguration events. How could I not? It only had three of my favorite men ever in it:

Bruce was just okay. Barack was brilliant as always. And my one true love Bono was of course my favorite part. I completely called it and told Mike that U2 would sing “City of Blinding Lights” and then Barack would speak. Sure enough, after singing “In the Name of Love” that’s exactly what happened. Bono looked hot too. I love the haircut so much and I loved his scarf. Yum yum. He’s going to be 49 this year. Where is time escaping too so quickly?

Eek! A post, a post!

So yeah….a few things have happened since I last posted.

I got in a huge fight with my mom. I finished my pumpkin hat and went to a fun halloween party. I got a little drunk. I took a little time off. I did a lot of work things and let’s see…there’s something else…

OH YEAH! There’s a new leader of the free world.

So let’s back up to Halloween.

For Halloween, I decided to knit Crazy Aunt Purl’s “Halloweenie Beanie”, which is essentially just a pumpkin hat. I think it turned out really cute!

So I was a pumpkin for Halloween. On the day itself there wasn’t too much to report. My sister’s job hosted a costume contest again in the UMC. We went over there and it was pretty funny what people come up with.

That night, I just hung out at home, hoping for a Trick-Or-Treat -er, but I didn’t get one. Sad. I of course bought a big bag of candy. Now it takes up space in my house. I should probably bring it in to work. I ended up watching “Shaun of the Dead” which was really awesome. One of my co-workers came as Shaun and he did a great job as it. I had never seen it, so he burned it for me. It was a great thing to watch on Halloween.

I went to sleep peacefully that night, only to wake up at like 7:45 to a phone call from my dad. Well apparently my mom went all crazy again about McCain, or should I say about Obama. You see, Obama decided to make his last trip to Colorado before the election to my hometown, Pueblo. Well it wasn’t just in Pueblo, it was directly in front of my mother’s antique shop. Well since she’s gone off the deep end about hating Obama and loving the Republicans, she went nuts when the Secret Service told her she had to shut her shop down. Well they actually told her she could stay open, just that customers would have to come through the back door. So instead of just enjoying the historic event, she made big huge signs to hang in her store windows, got interviewed by all the local news stations and even for Fox news up here in Denver. She’s made friends with conservative bloggers through out the state and the country over this crap. Obama hates small business was the gist of her complaint. She wanted to be the next Joe the Plumber.

The worst part, we learned from reading the article about her that the campaign offered her VIP passes to meet Senator President-Elect Obama and she declined. GRRRR.

So needless to say, the rest of the family spent all morning on the phone with each other. I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore and called her. I left her about five messages on all of her phones telling her that she was burning bridges in such a Democratic town and asking her to stop. Well she finally called me back with and we got into it of course. I couldn’t just sit by while she said the most ridiculous things. Such as — “if Obama is elected I’ll have to provide health care to my employees.” What employees?? She only has one, and that one just got fired. I told her how completely wrong she is. With Obama’s plan it was that you would have to have more than 25 employees and then you would get a tax break for providing health insurance. Anyway, it was totally ridiculous. She ended up hanging up on me of course because she’s like a child. So I called her back about five more times. On my fourth message I warned her that if she didn’t answer on my next call or call me back that I would just become indifferent to her and this madness. Sure enough, no call back or pick up. So on my fifth message I told her this…

“I’m going to put on my Obama t-shirt and go to the store and buy tons of food to take to the Obama office in Boulder where Marissa is working the phone banks, so I can feed all the volunteers so that when Obama wins Colorado and wins this election you will one day have good health care and social security so I won’t have to worry about you in your old age because indifference begins now.”

And that was that. I promptly followed up on that promise. Since then I’ve gotten even angrier with her, but haven’t been able to direct any of that toward her, which is for the best.

It doesn’t really matter any more because this country overwhelmingly voted for change and did the right thing. I have no idea what she’s up to down there and I don’t really care right now. I knew the best revenge would be if he won, and sure enough he did.

After such a crazy Saturday afternoon, I got ready for Mike’s Halloween party. It was a really great time. There were some new folks there and that made it way more fun. I got a little drunk and laughed a lot.

Sunday didn’t amount to much and then Monday and Tuesday were busy with work. Then Tuesday night it happened! I decided I wanted to hunker down and watch on my own but as it became clear that once they called the west coast it would be over I rushed over to Marissa’s house to watch them call it. I got there about ten minutes before west coast polls closed. Once they called it for Obama we opened champagne and celebrated. I’m so glad I went over there! We of course ended up in tears. What a moment for the whole world, but especially for this country, and extra especially for Democrats or like minded people who want to return this country to what we know it can be. Boulder erupted! Obama got like 75% of Boulder’s vote, there were even fireworks! Ahh Boulder, you deserve to be happy every now and again!

Anyway, I took off Wednesday so could just bask in the glory of it all. I watched a ton of coverage and then thew the West Wing into the DVD player to celebrate even more. It was a nice day at home.

So that’s what I’ve been up to. I may be going to Pueblo for the weekend. My dad wants me to come down so we can have a celebratory dinner. The only thing holding my back is that I am soooo tired and I just want to rest and do laundry and the like. We shall see. Either way, I’ll post about it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW-6DpC-mj8]

Video Blog!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-p3oUzGYv0]

And I said that I would post the Zach Braff video, but I’m not going to do that after all, sorry folks. But here are some pictures!

And my latest EJami video called “A Thousand Years”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61v4GH2vOzI]

Oh happy day!

I write this post on my new MacBook Pro! It finally came and now I have it. I got it this afternoon at like 4:45. Talk about last minute before the weekend. I am so thrilled. It’s been a long time coming. Of course, I get the MacBook Pro like right before the new and awesome MacBooks come out, but that’s ok. I’d like to think that I have a system that will most definitely work well, unlike a newly released model with new technology.

So tonight I’m doing what any nerdy computer lover would do with a new toy. I’m playing, customizing, patching, installing, and experimenting. I also spent some time today organizing my Days of Our Lives files onto an external hard drive so that I no longer have to do my silly EJami work while at work. I no longer have to go in on the weekend, I can do it all here! I’m so thrilled about that!

Besides the great technology acquisition, I also acquired some new yarn at Shuttles today. I believe it’s my first yarn purchase of 2008. Crazy huh? I’m pretty proud of sticking to my stash, but also realistically I haven’t been knitting enough.

I’m currently in the process of making a pumpkin hat for my halloween costume. Needless to say, I’m going as a pumpkin. I actually think it’s going to turn out pretty cute.

Last night I went to dinner with some college friends in Denver at Racine’s. We had a nice time as always and it was good to see them. Sometimes though I have these doubts that they like me. I think I’m too distant and that makes them angry. I can sort of understand. I just feel so far away from them because I’m here in Boulder and most of them live in South Denver and Parker. Plus I’m not the best at talking on the phone.

This weekend I have quite a bit going on. Besides all my computer play and knitting, I need to continue making a logo for my friend Jason’s aquarium business. I’ll be going to an Obama rally tomorrow on campus, where there will first be a march to the Rec Center for early voting. I’ll be cheering people on as they go vote. Then after the vote, we’ll head over to the outdoor theater for a performance by Ben Harper and an appearance by Zach Braff. It should be pretty fun. Sunday night I’m going to a birthday dinner for my friend Tina, so all-in-all pretty fun times ahead. I’ll be sure to report.

I voted.

Nothing all that new or unusual, but I’ve voted and I’m happy! It’s so nice to have that done. Voting early is the best and it was so easy for me because it was where I work. It was definitely an exciting moment to vote in such a historical election. So much so, that I had take pictures.

[caption id="attachment_547" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="At the polling place."][/caption]

So today’s great Obama news is that he received Colin Powell’s endorsement. I just finished watching Mr. Powell’s explanation of why he has chosen to vote for Senator Obama and I must say that he described his reasoning so well. Coincidentally, two of my co-workers are attending a PMI seminar this weekend and for the next two days, and today their keynote speaker was Colin Powell. What a day for a keynote. What slightly pisses me off is that one of the more spunky project managers has been bitching about it all week, basically about how he was unimpressed with the choice of keynote. What a silly man.

In the spirit of Obama, I got my credit card out of my lock box to make a big purchase over at barackobama.com. I pretty much went a little crazy for my last campaign contribution before the election. I’ve now contributed over $500, which I know isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but is to me. Anyway, I got t-shirts, bracelets, posters, and even a pen. I can’t believe we’re only two weeks away.

Tomorrow my sister is introducing Mark Udall (Democratic candidate for the United States Senate) at an event on campus. She’s pretty nervous, but I’m excited to see her do it. I’m so proud of all of her work. To do her part to make sure Sen. Obama is elected President, and Rep. Udall is elected United States Senator, she’ll be working non-stop for the next two weeks to make sure that people go and vote,

I’ll be voting this week at the Rec Center. I can’t wait!

Seriously. I really need it to be November. Don’t get me wrong, I love October. It’s a great month and this October has been awesome. But I REALLY need it to be November for many reasons, but here are the top three:

1. The election really needs to get here so we can get done with this.

2. For November sweeps Days of Our Lives will actually get good again. The current shit that they can barely call a show is so incredibly sucky at the moment.

3. The Twilight movie. I cannot wait for this the more I Think about it. I think the movie will actually blow the book away. A new trailer came out a couple of days ago. I’m just now so excited for it!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1GbukZnl1Y]