You might be pwned... just like I was.

I can't stop listening to this song. Not sure why. Maybe I've been pwned.
I'm pretty sure it's about World of Warcraft.

Bush/Palin '09: Narrowly avoiding nine-minutes of hell

At tomorrow's Presidential Inauguration, Joe Biden will be sworn in at 11:46 and Barack Obama will be sworn in at 11:55.

Which means that technically, for 9 minutes tomorrow, George Bush will be President and Joe Biden will be Vice President.

Of course, those nine minutes could have seen the one-two combo of George Bush as President and Sarah Palin as Vice President.

Just think about that for a moment.

In many, many ways, tomorrow will be a good day.

Awaiting kickoff...

... At the Music City Bowl... Go Vandy! It's freakin cold. But we can
take it.

In North Carolina, with my nephew Jonah

A typical Atypical Friday: 'Tis the season to get your goat!

Someone gave me a goat today. Seriously.

I should have known that today was going to be weird. After all, it was the last day of school before a 2-week vacation. I knew the kids were going to be off-the-wall crazy/excited. The last day of school is always atypical. Atypically joyous, and unusually frenetic.

Why would I have expected today to be a normal day?

After all, It was 75 fucking degrees outside. 75 degrees on December 19. What? Really? The school I worked at in Chicago was closed today because of a snowstorm. So was the school I worked at in Massachusetts. For that matter, so was the school I went to for 14 years growing up in Connecticut. All of them closed due to massive snowstorms. That's normal. That's a normal Friday in December.

But 75 degrees on the first day of Christmas break? Not normal. Walking outside the door this morning with gloves and a scarf, only to turn around and deposit those things back in my house before driving to work with Christmas songs blasting and my sunroof open...? Not normal.

Little did I realize that my day was about to get even weirder. Like when my fiance called at 7:30AM, just as I arrived to work:

Me: Hello?
C: Hey. Do you want a turkey?
Me: Do I what? Huh?
C: Do you want a turkey? Should I bring home a turkey?
Me: Like, a live turkey? As a pet?
C: No, a turkey that you cook. It's Turkey Giveaway Day here at work. Do we want a turkey?
Me: I'm sorry, what? It's Turkey Giveaway Day? They're giving away turkeys at the hospital?

I thought that was weird, but apparently it's a tradition. Actually, I still think it's weird. Like, really weird. But that was before, later in the day, someone gave me a goat.

A goat! Weird. Just slightly weirder than the llama I was given yesterday.

In all honesty, a goat is a great gift. A company called Heifer International gives a goat to a family in a third-world country on my behalf. The animal supplies the family with milk, etc.... and I've done some good in the world without having actually done anything. So I'm grateful for that, and I think it's a great gift. I'm sure a llama is a great gift, too, but I have yet to read the card, so I'm not really sure how.

And regardless, it's undeniably weird. Undeniably atypical. And, somehow on this Friday, undeniably run of the mill.

Nashville: Music Bad Decision City

Nashville, you're on my shit list.

First, the entire metropolitan school system closed down the other day after the city received an amount of snow that I can only describe as... none. I mean, seriously. There was no snow on the ground. Okay, okay, the suburbs got a little snow and ice. But in the city? In Davidson County, where the schools were closed? No snow. N-o-n-e.

Seems like a bad decision to me, but I've come to realize that I don't know everything. Maybe some school official knows something that I don't know about the bus system, the safety of the roads, the lack of de-icing equipment, etc.. What do I know.

I do know something, however, about football. I know that when you're down by 1 point with under 2 minutes to go, and its 4th and 3 from the opponents 32-yard line, and your kicker is great and your quarterback is old... you KICK THE FIELD GOAL.

What on earth was Jeff Fisher thinking today, forcing the Titans to go for the first down (which they didn't get) and possibly blowing home field advantage in the playoffs? This was a very bad decision that led to a very important loss. Yeah, it wasn't all Fisher's fault. Our quarterback was awful, their defense was great, and we were playing on the road... but COME ON! The city-wide snow-day was debatable, but Fisher's decision today was absolutely, unquestionably, inexplicably BAD.

Lastly, I'm concerned about a decision that Nashville is about to make. On January 22, residents will vote on a measure to make Nashville an English-only city. To say nothing of the merits of such a measure (and I'm certain there are none), I wonder which elected officials are making the astoundingly poor decision to spend time pushing such bigotted, unconstitutional legislation? What are they thinking?

This week, I am disappointed by bad decisions. Disappointed by the Titans loss. Disappointed that I didn't get a day off from school while my fellow Nashvillians did. And most of all, I'm disappointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court's decision to decline an appeal which would have kept this infuriating English-only measure off the ballot.

I need a drink. A good decision, wouldn't you say?

My nephews are perfect....

... and we're doing our best to corrupt them.

My 5-month old nephew is the closest to perfection. He loves being naked (yeah, that's his butt), and all he wants to do is eat and giggle. That's perfect. Sometimes he pees on himself, but he doesn't care nearly as much as we do. His only blemish seems to be that he has trouble sleeping - and that's probably the fault of the adults (myself included) who surround him during his waking hours, showering him with love, affection, and all sorts of niceties that are conspicuously absent during his attempted slumber.

My 3-year-old nephew is also pretty darn near perfect, but we've had more time to corrupt him. He's irrationally obsessed with vacuum cleaners; an infatuation that we fueled on this trip by bringing him a table-top crumb vac that looks like an elephant. He makes unneccesarily loud exclamations ("I don't want to go outside, I want to go inside and play with the blender!!"), but it's so freakin' loud around here during the holidays that I'm pretty sure he's just trying to fit in. And his last blemish is the way in which he refers to his guitar by using the word "cuntar," which sounds awful, but makes us laugh. I'm pretty sure that's our fault, too, but I'm fuzzy on the details.

That's it. Other than that, they're perfect. As their uncle, it's my job to corrupt them, and no matter how hard I try, they still seem perfect to me. I guess I'd better try a little harder.

I have Southern blood, I guess?

It's snowing in Chicago, and I'm freezing my ass off. I might as well
be in Alaska.

Flight leaves in a few hours... I'm ready to get back to balmy
Nashville, have some grits, and thaw out.

Overheard: Nashville airport

"If country music were a baseball team, I'd want Kenny Chesney batting leadoff."

"No doubt."

"And George Straight batting cleanup."

"Yeah, he's a cleanup sorta guy."

"Oh, and don't forget the catcher. Toby Keith. He's your catcher, no doubt."

"Oh, you bet. Toby Keith. No doubt."

My final reflection on attending the Obama rally

I've been to a lot of powerful events. The World Series. The 2002 gold medal Olympic hockey match in Salt Lake City. The 2002 World Cup semifinal between England and Brazil in Shizuoka, Japan.

You may not be surprised to hear that none of those events can hold a candle to last night's rally. Seeing Barack Obama win the election, while surrounded by 100,000... fans? supporters? followers? I'm not sure what to call us. It doesn't matter. It was simply awesome.

Throughout the event, I struggled with how best to capture the experience. My camera - no camera, in fact - seemed big enough, or powerful enough, to capture what I was seeing. And yet, even in the joyful moment when Obama's victory was announced, I didn't know whether to throw my arms in the air in celebration, or to reach for my camera. It's a futile habit.

I suppose this is the age that we live in. It's not enough to simply experience something. We have to digitize it. Twitter it. Or commemorate it on a grammatically incorrect t-shirt.

But, unlike some of the big sporting events I've been to, this rally was impossible to bottle. It was impossible to capture on film. Impossible to put into words. Impossible to capture by updating one's Facebook status.

I've been pondering the indescribable nature of the event as I've faced the same question from friends and family today: "What was it like?" A fair question, but tough to answer. What was it like to see grown African-American men crying in the streets? What was it like to see thousands of teenagers screaming and shouting and celebrating.. politics? What was it like to be just a stone's throw from the nation's next President as he spoke not only to us, and not only to America, but to a captive audience in every country on Earth about how a new dawn is rising?

And was it really possible to capture any of that with the camera on my iPhone?

There's no shortage of people writing far more eloquently about their election experience than I can. Maybe I'm not talented enough as a writer, or maybe - moreso than any other event I've ever attended - you just had to be there.

I'm so glad I was.

Where we were...

I've been getting a lot of questions about where we were standing last night...

So I found two pictures on the Chicago Tribune, and I've marked where we were... more or less.

When we arrived, it felt like we were farther from the stage than we wanted to be. But, in hindsight, and seeing these (and other) photographs, I realize just how lucky we were.

Also, I found a really great timelapse video of the entire rally - in three minutes. If you look really closely, you can see us running in.

(Just kidding.)

Enjoy.

Simply awesome

Internet is spotty...

I won't blog until after Obama's speech... Internet service is spotty
here since everyone is on the phone.

Classy speech McCain. But we still booed Sarah Palin.

Final sound check for the next President

That's what the sound guy said. 70,000 people exploded.

VICTORY

Lost in the crowd

There are 10,000 people in front of me. And 60,000 behind me.
And I'm hearing word that the streets around here are packed for
blocks in any direction. The nearest beverage is a block away. Yikes.

Barack wins in a landslide...

... 20 minutes. Can you FEEL it??

Ready...?

They're sound checking his podium mic... Getting ready for an
acceptance speech... Can you feel it??

If you're watching CNN, I'm right next to suzanne malvo.. Spelling? I
dunno. She's in the crowd right next to me.

The sound check guy is playing with us. He says "Obama" we say
"Obama".. It's actually fun. Weird.

We're ready.

The media tent...

It's packed. And we're singing and dancing and watching Cnn on giant
screens. Simply awesome.

Were on CNN