I believe in him. Even if I may be considered a “fan boy” by some, I don’t care! I support him and I believe that he will be an historical president that will unite this country over the course of the next four years. I am of the belief that there are candidates out there that can ignite the feelings of our voters. I truly believe, from the bottom of my heart, that Barack Obama will serve this country to the best of his ability just as John McCain or John Edwards or Hillary Clinton or Ron Paul would have. I believe, as Barack Obama does, that this is not a red or blue or indifferent America… nor is this a liberal or conservative or moderate America… nor is this an idealogical or agnostic America… this is the United States of America.

And fuck me if I’m wrong, but I am a firm believer in this America.

I believe that our children will ask us about this moment. They will ask us what we were doing in this moment in our country’s history. Were we celebrating? Were we mourning? Were we full of excitement? Were we filled with hopelessness? Or, were we hopeful?

I will feel that we felt truly United. Our first black president… an underdog candidate… was elected to the highest office that the American political system can acknowledge… Barack Obama was elected, by majority and by the college, to be the 44th President of these United States of America, and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited.

It’s been a long time coming, and I’ve seen all the signs, but I can still remember (Fresh in my mind) the moments when I told myself “I’ll never end up like this.” I used to depend on my friends to give me a sense of realism; I used to depend on them to keep my feet firmly on the ground. Although, relatively, my feet were perhaps far from where I thought the ground was. Now, I only rely upon myself to steer myself in the direction that I feel is where the warmest light is eminating from. It’s a sad thought, but a realistic one.

I’m on a path that I feel is righteous, and I’m sure some will disagree with me on this. I can feel the negativity and I can feel the dissent coming from (almost) all directions. However, I know that I am only here for myself at this point, so I know that I have to keep the faith that the beat that I am following is the one that leads to the encore. I have had many dreams, and all of them end with me on the winning end.

My newest goal is to make some new friends. Although, the memories of the last two years have kept me up at night - the fact that it took me almost two years to make new friends in Utah. There are times when I am equally glad and remorseful that I chose the path that I chose. I know that it’s led me to the greatest place that I could be right now, but at the same time I realize that I spend the majority of my time by myself.

Really, I think tonight is the culmination of a lot of dissenting feelings that have built up over a period of time, but in the end I am positive that I’ll be fine. I have nothing to complain about… except for the election. I will be so relieved when it is over… this fucking circus that the majority of America has largely ignored since the primaries began. Others will choose to accept their own self-serving reasons why they’ve made up their minds, but I refuse to accept that I am selfish enough to let the rest of the country suffer while I am sitting here in my ideal situation, reaping the benefits. I believe in giving my parents the tax break that they deserve - I believe that this country should be led by a person that is actually inspiring and brilliant in his own right. I don’t believe that slimeball political strategies should be rewarded with the most important elected office in this country. I believe in Barack Obama, and whoever disagrees with that… I don’t give a fuck.

Goodnight. Tomorrow is a new day and a new set of opportunities that I used to dream of so dearly. I’m starting to think that at this point, I’m much luckier than I could have ever imagined. I’m going to try to not take it for granted. Wish me luck.

I’m kind of anxious for the presidential elections to be over. I think almost everyone can agree that it’s turned into a bit of a circus. I guess I’m generally tired of political strategy getting in the way of real issues, and the use of gimmicks and distractions by both presidential candidates. I have no doubt in my mind that Obama will be our next president come election day, but I feel like I’ve been following this 20-month road only for it to turn into a round-about discussion about nothing at the very end. I know who I’m voting for, and I’m tired of hearing about it all.

On a side note, I’ve also been getting back into playing guitar recently. My playing has been sparse at best in the past couple years, and I feel like I have a renewed interest in learning new songs and trying to improve myself. Maybe it’s a trend in life - when you try to improve yourself in one area, you start developing a want to improve in other areas as well. The only downside is that I haven’t had much time outside of work and the gym to explore other opportunities, like making friends and meeting girls. Oh well.

I noticed an interesting thing while biking these past two weekends. I used to take a lot of time out of my days in the past to reflect on things, and over the last year or so I’ve digressed a bit from that. I used to sit and listen to music while writing; I used to write music; I used to walk places and spend time alone in preparation for what I thought my soon-to-be future would be. Now, in riding 20-plus miles a week, I’ve had time to really be on my own, alone in my environment and I’ve had time to really think. It’s refreshing, but I have found myself thinking where hours of my time have gone. Whereas I would usually attribute this loss in time to surfing the internet or something as time-consuming and relatively pointless, I now can be proud that I’m actually moving toward a positive goal that I’ve set. A week from now, I hope that I can say that I’m starting my fourth week of bettering myself - in discipline and in persistence.

I also got the new Jack’s Mannequin album today, and I am really enjoying it so far. I would definitely recommend it to anyone to go out and grab. It’s so strange that I haven’t listened to Jack’s Mannequin in so long. In Transit was such a great album.

So, my workout plan has been going very well so far. I went to the gym Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and I will be continuing the trend on Monday. Instead of going to the gym Saturday, I decided to bike down to the coast and watch the ocean for a while. My overall distance was a little over 20 miles, and it was a very reflective and refreshing ride. I think I may try to do something like that every Saturday from now on. I just can’t decide whether I should go in the morning or in the late afternoon. Hmm…

Finally, if anyone out there isn’t registered to vote yet, please get off your lazy ass and do it now.

Anyway, today was supposed to be day 2 of waking up at 6am and going to the gym. Only… I didn’t wake up, and neither did my roommate. Oops. I made up for it by going after work today, but I still need to stay committed. That means I can only afford to write a short blog post and go to bed. Yep. Goodnight!

I am going to wake up at 6:30am every day before work for the next two weeks and go to the gym. I know it’s going to be tough, but I have Scott doing this with me, so it won’t be so bad. I realized that I definitely need someone to make this committment with me in order for me to see it through. I hope that I can adjust to going to bed early from now on.

Well, wish me luck. Tomorrow is my first day.

I started working on a new project at work two weeks ago and now it is coming to a close tomorrow. Work has been going great and I’ve really started to find my groove. I realized the other day, however, that some of my skills in certain areas have been dwindling because I’ve been focusing on other things for a bit. I found myself making dumb mistakes that I remember making when learning these skills, and I came to a realization about how important it is to revisit these sorts of things. I need to keep myself from straying, which should be getting easier as I’m becoming more and more comfortable with where I am in my life. Good luck with that, self.

Another thing that’s been on my mind recently is politics, but I won’t get into that too much here. I will say that I am finally a registered voter in California, which is a great feeling. I’ve known who I was going to vote for since at least last year, so the only thing that’s really kept me interested is the way that things are playing out as November 4th gets closer and closer. I’d say that it’s kind of like a bad soap opera, but I think it’s becoming more and more like a freaking circus. I will just say that I am a fervent supporter of Obama and I have no doubts that the McCain/Palin charade will turn out to be all for nothing.

Well, my thoughts are starting to become more and more jumbled, so I continue this another time. It’s actually a bit of a struggle for me to figure out what to talk about on here, especially since right now I am at a point where things are going great. I need to take my bike out for some fresh air a bit more frequently, though. I put some road tires on it last weekend and so far I’ve only used it once. I’m hoping that after tomorrow, when this project is over and done with, I’ll have a small window where I can dedicate a little more time to writing and biking.

Until then, here’s a trailer for what will surely be the greatest Disney movie of the year!!! Sarah Palin in… “Head of Skate”!

One event in particular was the fact that one of my brothers was in a car accident this week. He was the passenger and his friend’s car ended up flipping one and a half times while they were driving home from golfing. Luckily, neither of them was hurt, aside from feeling extremely sore the next day. Thank God he’s the only one of my brothers that I never had to yell at for not wearing his seatbelt in my car. When I found out, I immediately wished that I was home. I just can’t imagine if things had been worse and I were stuck here in California. However, things were fine and I just continued worrying all day, reflecting on everything and trying to remember that things like this happen, and will continue happening. There’s no stopping it, so I realized that you just need to accept it and move on.

In other news, I’m just about done wrapping up my first major project at InterKnowlogy. It went extremely well, and I’m very excited to share the details of the project as soon as it’s ok for me to do so. This was my first chance to make an impression, and I really hope that I have shown them what I am capable of.

I will also be visiting Utah this week from Thursday til Saturday to represent InterKnowlogy at Neumont’s quarterly Career Week event. I will be presenting during lunch, covering the more technical details about IK and probably showing off some demos of the projects we’ve done. I’m really excited about spending a few days back up in Utah and seeing friends. I can’t wait to BBQ!

Finally, I’d just like to say that I love Grand Theft Auto 4. That is all.

Flew right over the handlebars

I definitely remember it being in slow-motion. I could feel my back tire lifting off the ground, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to regain my balance. In my head, my goal was to perform a perfect swan-dive into a tuck-and-roll while my bike flew over me gracefully. Instead, my knee took most of the impact while my bike landed on top of me as I slid down the mountain a little ways.

Fun times.