Full House
So last night we went to the Barak Obama rally at the Kohl Center here in Madison. wow. Not really sure exactly how I wanted to vote next Tuesday, I was really interested in seeing him and hearing what he had to say. I was curious to see why/how he was different. Someone who could raise so much money, from so many small donations, had to have something going for them.
Having heard stories of how the crowd at the Denver rally was three times the size of the venue, I figured it would be best to at least try and get there early, seeing as I knew the college students could probably have the place packed all on their own. We tried to leave work early, parked downtown and got to the Kohl Center about 5:30pm. Doors were supposed to open at 6:15pm. Seeing as it was pretty cold out, there weren't too many die-hard fans waiting all day. Instead all the local restaurants were packed with people eating food until it was time to converge. Just as we were approaching the Kohl Center, it seemed like everyone else had the exact same idea. Within a span of 10 minutes, it went from a fairly small crowd, to a mass of people winding across the front and up all the side walks to the side doors. It was nuts. Once they finally started letting people in, the line barely moved. My feet were almost completely numb when the people in charge made a crazy and wonderful decision to open the main doors, just 20 feet from where I was standing. The 'line' of people rushed the doors, and once through security, massed towards the seating area doors. By the time we had made it to where we were directed, we were told to turn around.. that they were full. Luckily just then, they opened the second floor of seating. Thankfully no one fell as a mass of people ran up the stairs. It was crazy. We finally managed to get to seating, and being some of the first up to the 2nd floor, got front row (balcony) seats directly facing the podium. As we waited, the arena kept filling up with more and more and more people. They had to be breaking ten different fire codes as people were seated on the steps in the aisle and standing anywhere there was room, crowded into the doorways. This was even after they opened the specialty suites and every other seat they could find. The house was full and they were unfortunately turning people away at the door.
To keep the crowd entertained, they had the Kissers playing for awhile, and once they were done, alternated b/w watching the returns on CNN as Obama swept the states, playing videos created by the Obama campaign, and playing goofy songs while the crowd demonstrated how refined their Wave Skillz were with slow-mo waves to super speed waves. We were bored. ;) After much waiting, and thankfully few introductions, Obama finally arrived to speak.
He started with the typical campaign lines and jokes to get the crowd engaged, and then went into his speech. It was obvious that he's given this speech a lot (as expected) but he still did a fairly good job of delivering it with sincerity. I have absolutely no tolerance for standard campaign speeches. Even when politicians I like start talking like that on t.v. I can't watch it and change the channel. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. The opening speaker who was some local campaign organizer guy, had the cookie cutter speech. I was desperately longing for my remote control or a giant mute button :P So when Obama delivered a standard cookie cutter line here and there, I cringed a bit and wondered when he was going to get to heart of what he stood for. I took some pictures and some videos. And then about halfway through the speech, he got there. I realized that I wanted to record what I was hearing, but I didn't want to mess around with the camera. I just wanted to listen.
I think what is different and so appealing about Obama is that he is able to reach out and get people to believe in themselves. That they can make a difference. He not only gets them to believe, but he's getting them to actually take action. That is phenomenal thing.
From GenX down, we've been raised with the knowledge that we would pay social security our whole lives and mostly likely never see a dime of it. We should go to college to get better jobs, but that the better jobs still wouldn't be able to pay off our debt from going to college. That we should strive for the house, the car, the 2.5 kids, to have more than what our parents did, to send our own kids to college. But that unless we were the absolute best at everything there ever was to do, it would still be unattainable. And even if we were, it still probably wouldn't be good enough. We've grown up in a culture of apathy towards our own future, where we want to do better, but feel unable to create change. I think what Obama does, is appeal to our sense of responsibility, and our want to do better in our own lives, and as a society. For generations taught not to hope, he's convincing them that they should. That just because a goal is set high, or may seem difficult to achieve, that an effort should still be made.
What I really liked is his attitude backing his beliefs. He isn't making promises. He's offering opportunity, and inviting everyone to be a part of it. It is obvious how passionately he believes that by teaching people to take a chance and have confidence in their own abilities, an impact can be made on our lives and our culture. He fully admits that his goals are set high, and that they will be very hard to accomplish. Yet he is excited to face that challenge with optimism tempered with reality. His message of "change" (holy cow am I tired of hearing that word in all of the political blahblahblah), isn't about a fresh face on the political machine. He wants to change our social climate and our culture of what is an acceptable norm.
Although I don't necessarily agree with all of his positions, I still plan to vote for him. He is leading a movement that will have more important impacts on our society, then just economics or foreign policy. Those are definitely important, but inspiring so many people to actually care about those topics and to be involved, is even greater. As a culture, we need an attitude adjustment, and Obama is the first person I've seen in my lifetime, who even has a chance of leading us there.
In other news, people r0ck. In the massive pushing rush to get into the doors of the Kohl Center, I dropped my hat. I didn't realize this until we'd gotten through security, and there was obviously no hope of going to look for it then. After we had gotten our seats and the place seemed full, I went back down to the doors to see if anyone had turned it in. After briefly looking around and asking with no luck, I finally spotted it balanced on a window sill by the doors. With a huge grin, I quickly convinced the security guards that 'Hey! That's my hat!' When I got back to my seat I was just about to make a comment to Nick about how awesome it was that someone was kind enough to pick it up and turn it in, when the girl sitting next to me exclaimed "Is that your hat?!?" Turns out, she was the awesome person who picked it up and turned it in :D Small world. :D
And in other obvious news, damn is it cold, windy and snowy! And I'm sorry that so many people are sick of the snow, and I'll preempt this comment by ducking *now*, but I love it! :D This is such an amazingly rare occurrence and I love the massive towers of snow all over, the beautiful drifts and the amazing new population of snow men and snow forts that have joined our city. :D And before you all think I'm completely crazy, I fully admit that if the pipes in my house were freezing, if I had to shovel a driveway every other freakin' day, if I lived farther away from work and had to drive in this mess, and if I didn't have heated underground parking, I'd probably be sick of it as well. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy it enough for everyone else instead ;)
Oh, and I made baklava for the first time! If it weren't for having to finely chop 4 cups of walnuts by hand, it didn't take all that long. It's a test batch to see how much I should make to bring along for Pennsic. Nick's coworkers seemed to like it and they haven't died yet, so I think it should be safe enough to feed to my friends ;)
Having heard stories of how the crowd at the Denver rally was three times the size of the venue, I figured it would be best to at least try and get there early, seeing as I knew the college students could probably have the place packed all on their own. We tried to leave work early, parked downtown and got to the Kohl Center about 5:30pm. Doors were supposed to open at 6:15pm. Seeing as it was pretty cold out, there weren't too many die-hard fans waiting all day. Instead all the local restaurants were packed with people eating food until it was time to converge. Just as we were approaching the Kohl Center, it seemed like everyone else had the exact same idea. Within a span of 10 minutes, it went from a fairly small crowd, to a mass of people winding across the front and up all the side walks to the side doors. It was nuts. Once they finally started letting people in, the line barely moved. My feet were almost completely numb when the people in charge made a crazy and wonderful decision to open the main doors, just 20 feet from where I was standing. The 'line' of people rushed the doors, and once through security, massed towards the seating area doors. By the time we had made it to where we were directed, we were told to turn around.. that they were full. Luckily just then, they opened the second floor of seating. Thankfully no one fell as a mass of people ran up the stairs. It was crazy. We finally managed to get to seating, and being some of the first up to the 2nd floor, got front row (balcony) seats directly facing the podium. As we waited, the arena kept filling up with more and more and more people. They had to be breaking ten different fire codes as people were seated on the steps in the aisle and standing anywhere there was room, crowded into the doorways. This was even after they opened the specialty suites and every other seat they could find. The house was full and they were unfortunately turning people away at the door.
To keep the crowd entertained, they had the Kissers playing for awhile, and once they were done, alternated b/w watching the returns on CNN as Obama swept the states, playing videos created by the Obama campaign, and playing goofy songs while the crowd demonstrated how refined their Wave Skillz were with slow-mo waves to super speed waves. We were bored. ;) After much waiting, and thankfully few introductions, Obama finally arrived to speak.
He started with the typical campaign lines and jokes to get the crowd engaged, and then went into his speech. It was obvious that he's given this speech a lot (as expected) but he still did a fairly good job of delivering it with sincerity. I have absolutely no tolerance for standard campaign speeches. Even when politicians I like start talking like that on t.v. I can't watch it and change the channel. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. The opening speaker who was some local campaign organizer guy, had the cookie cutter speech. I was desperately longing for my remote control or a giant mute button :P So when Obama delivered a standard cookie cutter line here and there, I cringed a bit and wondered when he was going to get to heart of what he stood for. I took some pictures and some videos. And then about halfway through the speech, he got there. I realized that I wanted to record what I was hearing, but I didn't want to mess around with the camera. I just wanted to listen.
I think what is different and so appealing about Obama is that he is able to reach out and get people to believe in themselves. That they can make a difference. He not only gets them to believe, but he's getting them to actually take action. That is phenomenal thing.
From GenX down, we've been raised with the knowledge that we would pay social security our whole lives and mostly likely never see a dime of it. We should go to college to get better jobs, but that the better jobs still wouldn't be able to pay off our debt from going to college. That we should strive for the house, the car, the 2.5 kids, to have more than what our parents did, to send our own kids to college. But that unless we were the absolute best at everything there ever was to do, it would still be unattainable. And even if we were, it still probably wouldn't be good enough. We've grown up in a culture of apathy towards our own future, where we want to do better, but feel unable to create change. I think what Obama does, is appeal to our sense of responsibility, and our want to do better in our own lives, and as a society. For generations taught not to hope, he's convincing them that they should. That just because a goal is set high, or may seem difficult to achieve, that an effort should still be made.
What I really liked is his attitude backing his beliefs. He isn't making promises. He's offering opportunity, and inviting everyone to be a part of it. It is obvious how passionately he believes that by teaching people to take a chance and have confidence in their own abilities, an impact can be made on our lives and our culture. He fully admits that his goals are set high, and that they will be very hard to accomplish. Yet he is excited to face that challenge with optimism tempered with reality. His message of "change" (holy cow am I tired of hearing that word in all of the political blahblahblah), isn't about a fresh face on the political machine. He wants to change our social climate and our culture of what is an acceptable norm.
Although I don't necessarily agree with all of his positions, I still plan to vote for him. He is leading a movement that will have more important impacts on our society, then just economics or foreign policy. Those are definitely important, but inspiring so many people to actually care about those topics and to be involved, is even greater. As a culture, we need an attitude adjustment, and Obama is the first person I've seen in my lifetime, who even has a chance of leading us there.
In other news, people r0ck. In the massive pushing rush to get into the doors of the Kohl Center, I dropped my hat. I didn't realize this until we'd gotten through security, and there was obviously no hope of going to look for it then. After we had gotten our seats and the place seemed full, I went back down to the doors to see if anyone had turned it in. After briefly looking around and asking with no luck, I finally spotted it balanced on a window sill by the doors. With a huge grin, I quickly convinced the security guards that 'Hey! That's my hat!' When I got back to my seat I was just about to make a comment to Nick about how awesome it was that someone was kind enough to pick it up and turn it in, when the girl sitting next to me exclaimed "Is that your hat?!?" Turns out, she was the awesome person who picked it up and turned it in :D Small world. :D
And in other obvious news, damn is it cold, windy and snowy! And I'm sorry that so many people are sick of the snow, and I'll preempt this comment by ducking *now*, but I love it! :D This is such an amazingly rare occurrence and I love the massive towers of snow all over, the beautiful drifts and the amazing new population of snow men and snow forts that have joined our city. :D And before you all think I'm completely crazy, I fully admit that if the pipes in my house were freezing, if I had to shovel a driveway every other freakin' day, if I lived farther away from work and had to drive in this mess, and if I didn't have heated underground parking, I'd probably be sick of it as well. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy it enough for everyone else instead ;)
Oh, and I made baklava for the first time! If it weren't for having to finely chop 4 cups of walnuts by hand, it didn't take all that long. It's a test batch to see how much I should make to bring along for Pennsic. Nick's coworkers seemed to like it and they haven't died yet, so I think it should be safe enough to feed to my friends ;)