(no subject)
There's a profile of Dynamite Payson in (Monday) morning's BDN. Dynamite Payson is the king of boatbuilding books. He writes his books by hand (with a pencil) in the 10 x 20 shop he built from lumber cut from his own property.
Building a boat is something I've wanted to do since...I think about 1991. We lived in an apartment in Denver. We didn't even have a parking space, let alone space for a workshop, yet I still worked on plans for a boat. I think I may have even "lofted" the lines for a 12 foot rowboat on the floor of our living room. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did. I still have a binder full of small boat plans and half a book shelf of boat building books. Have I built anything? No. Despite living on a pond for seven years in Limestone, I still didn't get it done.
A lot of the fever for building a boat disappeared when I got the canoe. 17 feet of aluminum square sterned awesomeness. I stole it for $150. I've definitely gotten my $150 worth out of it.
The inauguration was pretty cool. I especially liked Aretha Franklin's hat. It would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but on Aretha, it worked.
I was slow to hop on the Obama bandwagon. Oh, I was going to vote for him as soon as it was clear he was going to be the Democratic nominee, but I would have been voting against the Republicans, not "for" anybody.
I spent most of the campaign season aghast at how McCain's campaign managed to trip over its own feet over and over again. McCain had intrigued me back in 2000 with the original "Straight Talk Express". His politics were WELL to the right of mine, but he seemed like an honest man who could get things done.
Unfortunately, he turned out to be extremely disorganized and unable to remember the things that came out of his own mouth. A local news guy here in Maine asked a softball question based on a statement on McCain's own website. McCain denied even having made the statement in the first place. The same thing happened over and over again. There was the lie to Letterman. The infamous Paris Hilton ad, which ran without checking to see if any of the Hilton family had donated to the campaign, and my personal favorite "Cindy McCain's Family recipes" which were LITERALLY cut and pasted from the Food Network website. All of these were blamed on "staffers". These are all little piddly details, but part of being president is being aware of piddly details and making sure the right people are in place to take care of them.
Most of this happened BP: Before Palin. It's still hard to believe the Palin thing happened.
So OK, I've established that I was anti-Republican and dismayed with McCain. Why was I not pro-Obama from beginning? The thing that bothered me the most was that he had hardly been sworn in as a senator when he was talking about the presidency. I felt that he had betrayed the people of Illinois who had elected him. By running for Senate he was implying that he was going to serve the people who sent him there for six years, not six months. I don't see the US Senate as a stepping stone. That was it. The whole thing that bothered me.
So how did Obama win me over? It was the third debate. The first debate was so freaking boring that I didn't watch the whole thing. The second debate was just painful. Between Tom Brokaw trying to "fix" (fix as in repair, not as in skew it for one side) the questions, whining from the audience (my uncle lost his job...)and McCain wandering around the stage, I spent most of the debate reading. I occasionally caught a second or two, but for the most part I filtered it out.
The vice-presidential debate was just fun. I thought Joe Biden came off great and Tina Fey, I mean Sarah Palin, was just plain silly. At the time it was scary, but now I just remember it as funny.
The third debate, however, was when Obama won me over. He already had my vote, of course, but after the debate I actually believed he could be the guy. He took the heat. He explained his positions thoughtfully and calmly, and remained consistent in his message.
Hopefully he'll be able to do it.
Building a boat is something I've wanted to do since...I think about 1991. We lived in an apartment in Denver. We didn't even have a parking space, let alone space for a workshop, yet I still worked on plans for a boat. I think I may have even "lofted" the lines for a 12 foot rowboat on the floor of our living room. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did. I still have a binder full of small boat plans and half a book shelf of boat building books. Have I built anything? No. Despite living on a pond for seven years in Limestone, I still didn't get it done.
A lot of the fever for building a boat disappeared when I got the canoe. 17 feet of aluminum square sterned awesomeness. I stole it for $150. I've definitely gotten my $150 worth out of it.
The inauguration was pretty cool. I especially liked Aretha Franklin's hat. It would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but on Aretha, it worked.
I was slow to hop on the Obama bandwagon. Oh, I was going to vote for him as soon as it was clear he was going to be the Democratic nominee, but I would have been voting against the Republicans, not "for" anybody.
I spent most of the campaign season aghast at how McCain's campaign managed to trip over its own feet over and over again. McCain had intrigued me back in 2000 with the original "Straight Talk Express". His politics were WELL to the right of mine, but he seemed like an honest man who could get things done.
Unfortunately, he turned out to be extremely disorganized and unable to remember the things that came out of his own mouth. A local news guy here in Maine asked a softball question based on a statement on McCain's own website. McCain denied even having made the statement in the first place. The same thing happened over and over again. There was the lie to Letterman. The infamous Paris Hilton ad, which ran without checking to see if any of the Hilton family had donated to the campaign, and my personal favorite "Cindy McCain's Family recipes" which were LITERALLY cut and pasted from the Food Network website. All of these were blamed on "staffers". These are all little piddly details, but part of being president is being aware of piddly details and making sure the right people are in place to take care of them.
Most of this happened BP: Before Palin. It's still hard to believe the Palin thing happened.
So OK, I've established that I was anti-Republican and dismayed with McCain. Why was I not pro-Obama from beginning? The thing that bothered me the most was that he had hardly been sworn in as a senator when he was talking about the presidency. I felt that he had betrayed the people of Illinois who had elected him. By running for Senate he was implying that he was going to serve the people who sent him there for six years, not six months. I don't see the US Senate as a stepping stone. That was it. The whole thing that bothered me.
So how did Obama win me over? It was the third debate. The first debate was so freaking boring that I didn't watch the whole thing. The second debate was just painful. Between Tom Brokaw trying to "fix" (fix as in repair, not as in skew it for one side) the questions, whining from the audience (my uncle lost his job...)and McCain wandering around the stage, I spent most of the debate reading. I occasionally caught a second or two, but for the most part I filtered it out.
The vice-presidential debate was just fun. I thought Joe Biden came off great and Tina Fey, I mean Sarah Palin, was just plain silly. At the time it was scary, but now I just remember it as funny.
The third debate, however, was when Obama won me over. He already had my vote, of course, but after the debate I actually believed he could be the guy. He took the heat. He explained his positions thoughtfully and calmly, and remained consistent in his message.
Hopefully he'll be able to do it.