I spent most summers, school vacations and weekends at my grandmother’s when I was going up.  Planning for Christmas would take place all year.  Besides the boxes upon boxes of 40 year old paper ring garland my uncle, aunt and mother made when in gradeschool, she collected all types of odd, bird-like, rare, whitetrash ornaments.  Towards the end, a normal tree just couldn’t hold it all.  During the summer months, she would be on the constant lookout at rummage sales for artificial trees.  She loved buying them.  One year, she went and purchased a large wooden “dowel” type shaft.  She was going to put all of her trees together.  Grandma started drilling holes as she needed them, inserting limbs as she went.  There were “flocked” and non-flocked branches.  When she was done, the tree was so heavy and lopsided, the metal bases kept bending.  There was no way that would stop her.  She drilled some screws into the shaft and strategically around the two nearest walls.  She then ran wire from the tree to the walls securing it in place.  Hence the story of the FrankenTree was born.  It was lush and poky… like a giant cactus bush.

When I was a kid, I knew that the Easter bunny and Santa were real.  Not because people would leave little bunny foot prints outside or have me leave magical reindeer food.  No… Papa would take down his rifle, shout to Grandma asking, “Alice, where’re those traps?  I’m gonna catch that damn rabbit this year!” or “I can’t stand trespassers… that old, fat guy comes around here with his sleigh and those deer shitting on my roof, I’m blowing a hole in him!” 

As I look at my kids, I only hope I’m able to leave them with the same, or greater, memories.

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I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to get Jenny the bloggess to join in your focus group or write a review of your product?  Seriously.  She’s done a few of these and they generally start with her telling the companies they are nutz asking her, but Jenny gets the word out.  She’s reviewed some online card company where you can create your own messages, the Wii Fit and now the Google Andoid phone. 

Her irreverent observations point out flaws in marketing and usability while entertaining her readers.  Sure, you can go to places like CNET for actual, factual writeups that describe features, pricing and stuff like that, but I bet they never tried to take their Google phone apart looking for the positronic brain inside.  The geek in me wishes she found one.

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As I told a friend earlier today, I don’t agree with Obama’s politics, but I am aware of and happy for the historic nature of his election. He’s also my president and I want him to be successful. His success comes, however, first at understanding that just under half of the nation did not support or believe in his politics and he needs to bridge that divide. That includes understanding by his supporters that this isn’t a referendum or mandate. This is a presidency over a fairly divided nation. Hate and ignorance comes in many forms. It’s more than racially or culturally motivated.

I’ve seen a good deal of name calling and statements like “taking back my country” and “finally proud of being an American, again”.  I’ve read people I respect calling Joe “the plumber” a douche-bag because he voiced his (when asked by the media) about Obama on Israel.  I’m ashamed of the hatred and class warfare. Try to remember the media machines and campaigns jumped on this guy. Obama came to his neighborhood. He didn’t go searching out Obama. Calling someone a “douche-bag” because he asked questions he felt were important to him of someone running to be HIS president… Oh, I guess if it’s meant humorously, it’s ok to attack someone.

But here’s the deal, Obama is questionable on his support of Israel.  You need to apply the same “question our leader” tactics people applied to Bush on Obama on topics he has not clearly voiced his opinion. Calling someone a douche for doing that is “unAmerican”. That’s not only his right, but our job as citizens.

I mean, that’s the point of America… being able to freely question our leaders and government. That’s how we became America. We didn’t want to be ruled or taxed by a government which did not have our best interests at heart. We felt it was our right to be able to question our government and demand that they represent what we care about. And we didn’t start out caring about everyone.  Poor, women and people of color were nothing more than property.  People fought those ideas and changed them over long, hard years (and still continues).  

Calling this guy names because you don’t agree with him is just wrong. Argue with him. Argue your point, but going after him personally is just sad.

People have said:

Calling somebody a douche is one of the most American things one can do.

It’s also especially American to have zero idea as to what you’re talking about and to insist that you’re right because “Jesus says so.” <name removed>’s a pretty shitty American in that regard.

I have no doubt about how “American” I feel my acquaintance is.  He came to this nation, worked his ass off to receive his citizenship and is vocal about his beliefs.  But, we should debate ideas and not attack people. It’s what we mostly criticize our politicians for doing and we should lead by example. Calling someone a douche isn’t American. It’s a waste of energy, weak and takes away from the disagreement of the ideas. It allows no progress to be made in proving a point, changing opinions or closing a divide. 

Criticizing someone because of their faith, race or political party is pretty much of the same level and something Americans have lost their life to stop. And I’m not talking about Iraq. I’m talking about the Revolutionary War, Civil War, the Suffrage Movement and the Civil Rights movement. Attack, the idea, not the person. That’s how change happens. Haven’t you been listening for the last year?

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People are posting all over why they are voting for the candidate they are.  Mike Doel gives the reason for HIS post as a sort of reminder to his future self on why he is voting for Obama.  That makes sense and inspired this update from me.  

I’m voting for McCain.  On the various issues, Obama and McCain are not that far apart.  McCain is questionable as a Republican appearing conservative only when compared to Obama’s far left voting record and vocal supporters.  

There is a lot of healing and political bridge building this country needs to undergo and McCain, closer to the middle of the 2 extreme ideologies, is better positioned to serve as catalyst. I’ve seen too much blame finding and finger pointing in Obama’s campaign to believe they are interested in pulling the country together.  We need to start with the foundation that the last several years has given us a president and congress with the worse approval ratings ever.  That represents both parties.  Partisan politics needs to be put aside.  

Government spending needs to be controlled.  Just as citizens are suddenly waking up and realizing that they really do need to be responsible for their bad decisions and debt, so does the government need to be held responsible for living outside it’s means.  The economy is critical.  This isn’t McCain’s background, but neither is it Obama’s.  Either candidate will surround himself with strong advisers and both have shown they’ll bring in experts from the field with practical experience. The difference comes down to their interpretation of the American dream.  Obama seems to feel everyone is entitled to financial success and frequently discusses redistributing wealth through taxation.  Obama says that 95% of Americans won’t see a tax increase and will probably see a tax decrease.  The problem he ignores is that only about 50% of Americans actually pay taxes.  The rest either pay nothing or get their money back in refunds.  The people who fall into this category are the low/middle class.  So, he’ll give them larger refunds to compensate for the social security tax coming out of their salaries.  Now, we have the income tax paying for social security for 50% of the population and not covering government spending.  That’s why he needs to raise taxes for the “larger” small businesses and most successful Americans.  His plan will create a welfare state where half the population is dependent on the other half.  McCain believes that people be given equal opportunity to work hard and build wealth and through this jobs are created and the economy improves.  Are there problems with his plan?  Sure.  I look at it this way, however.  If I got myself in so much debt that I was spending more than I made, I would stop all of my spending, build a budget that included paying off my debt that allowed me to live within my means.  It would also account for taking care of my children and their education.  McCain is ready to do this at the government level.  Obama isn’t.

As far as healthcare goes, neither candidate has put forth a sustainable plan that really will make a difference.  It’s a wash.

Energy independence will be critical for us and both McCain and Obama agree.  Again, it’s on execution that they differ.  Obama wants to be Kennedy and invest trillions into government programs to create alternative energy sources.  While Kennedy did get to the moon, he started with a better economic footing and still wasted huge amounts in government contracts.  Obama is also disingenuous on his talk of nuclear and domestic/offshore drilling.  He wants to leap frog right into alternative energy with no plan on how to migrate there.  Anyone in IT knows it’s easy to design a new system, but the work comes in how you sustain your current users and migrate them to the new platform.  McCain is strong on the sustain and migrate plan, but, I agree, is weak on the longterm.  He needs to strengthen his funding for alternative sources, but understands where the investments need to go to (domestic/offshore drilling, nuclear and clean coal for oil independence; nuclear, air, wind, solar, others for alternative fuel moving forward).  McCain wants to setup multi-million $ prizes for corporations/individuals who come up with viable alternative energy solutions.  I think this is good, will motivate Americans and draws on the competition that makes this country great, but it’s no where near enough.

Finally, and probably ultimately, it comes down to what I view as the judgment of the person running.  First, let’s get a few things out of the way.  Politicians lie. They all do. You can describe it as playing with the truth, but any distortion of the truth is a lie in my view. Campaigns do it and so do the politicians they back.  If you don’t believe your candidate does, you are naive.  So, that brings me back to the people.  If you can’t believe what they tell you or really pay much attention to their voting record (a bill for medical support of late term failed abortions could contain something tacked on completely unrelated or be filled with other pork spending), you have to go by who they surround themselves with.  I don’t believe Obama is a domestic terrorist, racist or slum lord, but he tends to surround himself with these people and only after being asked about them does he distance himself.  A politician will meet all kinds of people.  A person aspiring for the presidency (which he has for much longer then 2 years) should be more sensitive to who is around him.  Obama doesn’t seem to care.  That shows poor judgment to me.  Who he has done business with in the past, who he has associated with, who he has worshiped with is indicative on who he will associate with in the future and allow to come close and influence him.  That’s his business.  But if he’s president, that’s my business, too.

Now, because Doug wants to rile me up and I’m argumentative by nature, I have a few comments on Mike’s reasons for voting for Obama:

1) Obama will invest more in renewable energy – I don’t disagree.  Obama will throw lots and lots of money at renewable energy w/o cutting anything out of fear of taking away some special interest’s cash cow throwing us into even more astronomical debt.  It’s a gambit that MIGHT work, but there’s no way to prove my case until after the fact.

2) He wants to teach the Republican Party a lesson and punish them for poor decisions/leadership.  I don’t think picking a candidate that represents a party as guilty of poor decisions/leadership will teach anyone a lesson.  I haven’t really sat down to classify my political party affiliation and probably won’t.  There are issues I identify with various parties on.  What Mike is forgetting is that these parties represent Americans.  The politicians won’t understand, care about his point or learn from his “lesson”.

But, as he says, I don’t believe I will sway your vote or opinion.  As I’ve said quite a few times on Twitter lately, he and I will have to agree to disagree.  I respect everyone’s right to their opinion.  I won’t tell you to vote for McCain because of my beliefs.  I will only ask you to go out, do your own research.  Check factcheck.org and other such sites. Read the propaganda from each candidate.  While they are riddled with lies, there is truth on both sides.  Don’t blindly believe what your campaign is telling you, their talking points or the mass media.  There is truth out there, but no one is going to give it to you.  You have to find it.  Also, talk about your opinions and candidates.  Not just with people who are voting the same as you, but with people on the other side.  Debate with them.  If your beliefs can’t hold up to a debate with your neighbor, blog post, twitter discussion, maybe you need to change them?  Remember that the world is not black and white, but many shades of gray.  Like I told my son this week, both Obama and McCain are good men.  They ultimately want what’s best for our nation. It’s our responsibility as citizens to decide which has the background, fortitude and well-meaning to help us. 

So, I’m simply going to ask you to go vote.  Vote with your heart and with your head.

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The original colonies were created for economic gain, religious freedom and a method to deal with criminals.   America was founded as a result of tyrannical rule of the King of England.   Pioneers and homesteaders spread across the continent for many of the same reasons, displacing/killing native Americans and others along the way.  The Civil War came about, again, for many of the same reasons.  The North and South had economic and political differences that forced a wedge between the nation.  Slavery was important, but not the driving force.  African Americans fought for the right to vote after the Civil War and received it as part of the 15th Amendment.  The Industrial Revolution describes a period of technological advancement that gave people an opportunity to improve their lot in life while creating an upper economic “class”.  Women fought for their right to vote and received it in 1919.  The US was relatively an isolationist nation until WW1.  It takes 3 years before President Wilson brings America into the war and only after Germany offers Mexico the SouthWest US in exchange.  While supporting Britain, it still takes 2 years and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor before the US enters WW2.  In the ’50s & ’60s, citizens fight for civil rights while a President focuses us to go to the moon and play a calculated part in the Cold War fighting communism on a world scale.  This results in building successful and failed democracies, establishing strong and less than effective allies, tying ourselves to oil rich nations.  The ’70s bring about great disollutionment with goverment due to Vietnam, Watergate, Iran, terrorism and hostages, energy shortages and failed economic plans.  

Let’s stop there before we get into too much current politics…

I’m not a historian and what I laid out is riddled with holes and fallacies.  But there is a theme there… The American Dream.  A struggle for improvement.  Our progress is wrought with tragic mistakes, but filled with hope.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

- Declaration of Independence

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