I had no idea how early we should be there, but I figured the earlier the better.  It had rained the night before and was still overcast, but somehow it did not rain during the rally, despite looking like the sky was about to open up several times.  This was a good thing because they weren’t allowing umbrellas (or much of anything else, I heard that people with kids in strollers got turned away!).  We had parked and walked about halfway to the park when someone shouted this to us, so we had to walk back and leave everything in the car.  When we found the line, I cursed myself for not arriving earlier (we were about 1.5 hours before the gate opened, which was 2 hours before the event was going to start).  The line was already snaked around into two lines by then, but about 30 minutes after we got there it had snaked around into 4 distinct lines, so we actually got there at a pretty good time.

You can see the people ahead of us on left.

You can see a new line on the right side, eventually there was another line beside that one.

The line started moving fairly quickly after we’d been standing there for half and hour or so. It was a lot faster than I thought it was going to be judging from how many people were in front of us. Going through security was fast though, especially since I had dumped my purse in the car. People with bags had to go to a different line where they could be searched. I just had to get my camera and phone checked. I heard one of the security guys asking another women not to take pictures of the “security things” (after I had taken pics already), so the below picture might be illegal or something but it’s not like it’s showing anything you can’t see if you go to the airport.

We had moved over into the first line now! (LOL, just noticed this guy smiled for my pic!)

Security Checkpoint

Here’s the scene when we finally got to the park. It was maybe a quarter full at this point (about 2 hours before the event was supposed to start). You can see all the dark clouds over us. Obama stood in front of the big sign on the far right. He wasn’t actually facing the crowd, but the stage set up on the left side (where that flag is hanging) where all the cameras were set up.

So we packed in there as close a possible to the platform (it was a lot closer than I thought we would be with all the people that were in front of us in line) and commenced standing for the next 4 hours. That was hell. It was hot (duh) and the ground was wet from the rain the night before. I tried to persevere, but after about an hour or so of standing I give up and sat on the wet ground. I had brought a hoodie with me, so I sat on that, though it really didn’t help much. At one point they started passing around bottled water to the crowd which was much needed. All the while, a local band (I’m assuming?) played a bunch of motown hits with some Bob Marley thrown in for good measure to try to distract the crowd from their legs slowly losing all feeling.

I was sitting on the ground at this point, it wasn't worth standing up for.

I think the park was at capacity at this point.

The event finally started at about 3 (at which point I stood up and kept standing for the rest of the time). I expected there to be a bunch of speakers beforehand, but it got kind of ridiculous after a while because someone would come up and talk and then they’d say “And now I have the pleasure of introducing Senator….” (and here’s where the crowd collectively holds it breath) “Bill Nelson” and the crowd would groan. There was at least three senators introduced. After a bunch of people spoke, there was some more waiting, the crowd growing more and more restless. Eventually, Obama’s bus showed up and every time someone in a suit exited the crowd would start cheering. About an hour after it started, there was one more speaker (she kept it short) and finally introduced him and the crowd totally went crazy. I was able to snap a few shots before my camera battery died, but I was pretty much just holding the camera up as far as I could hoping I was pointing in the right direction because he was impossible to see with everyone jumping up and down with their hands and cameras in the air.

Kids of their daddy's shoulders get an unfair advantage.

Yay for digital zoom!

The speech was great as usual. Obama mentioned the bombings in Pakistan and thanked all the previous speakers. Then he started out by quoting Abraham Lincoln: “If you don’t stop telling lies about me, I’m going to have to start telling the truth about you.” (that is probably paraphrased from my memory though) He went into McCain for trying to blame all the recent financial problems on him and for all of McCain’s lobbyist ties. It was funniest part of the speech, just for how incredulous he was at the shit McCain’s been saying. He had some good one liners that I can’t remember off the top of my head. Then he went into his usual talking points that I’ve heard in a bunch of his speeches (didn’t mean it was any less awesome), the crowd was cheering throughout, breaking out into “Yes We Can” and “OBAMA” chanting several times. I’m not sure how long the speech was, 30 or 45 minutes? It sped by, unfortunately, and then everyone was cheering and jumping up and down like crazy again as he hugged and shook hands with all the lucky people that got to stand on the platform with him.

Getting out of the park took forever and despite being cloudy all day, I got home and realized I had the worst sunburn all over my neck and arms, but it was all totally worth it. I would definitely do it all over again. (Though it was take some convincing to get Brandon to go to another ones of these: he stood the whole time in his really old shoes, which just about killed his feet.) The crowd was really diverse: young, old, white, black, and every other race. The guy Brandon was standing next to said he voted for JFK and had gone to a rally for him as well. How cool is that? It was just really inspiring to see all those people come together and to feel the excitement from everyone. I feel really lucky that I got to participate in that.

Yeah, so this just happened. (If you can’t tell from the pic, the entire shelf in my closet broke off the wall.) Plus, there’s some work drama going on and I have a million and two things to do today despite staying up until 6am last night (or this morning I should say). August is not getting off to a good start.

Hopefully it’ll be better next week after I get all this crap taken care of.

It’s the lost month for me.  I completely lose motivation to do anything.  I don’t want to work or answer emails or talk to anyone.  Usually I start obsessing over something.  One year I watched the entire run of Everwood.  Twice. (And that took some dedication because the bastards at Warner Brothers still haven’t released the last three seasons on DVD, so I had to get the episodes in a not so legal manner.)  Before that was the year I discovered Harry Potter and read books 1-5 straight through. Last July, with the release of the last book in the series, was mostly dedicated to Harry again (read 7 twice in a row).  This July, while not nearly as bad as the Everwood July,  has been fairly TV-centric as well.  I watched first two seasons of Once and Again (another fantastic show that is taking forever to have all it’s season’s released on DVD).  I watched up to Season 5 of the Sex and the City (a lot of that was in June, though) and last week I got Spaced which possibly the most awesome show ever and have been making my way through that. (What is UP with British people only doing two “seasons” of their shows?!?) And of course, there is teh awesomeness that is Dr. Horrible (It’s free again, go watch it!).

I don’t know what the hell it is about July, but it’s just a time suck for me. Maybe it’s because it’s the middle of year and I’m just tired or burnt out or whatever, but I just can’t seem to help but to get into a funk when the month comes around. This year really hasn’t been nearly as bad as others. I actually did some work. And I was smart enough to know that July would be like this, so I didn’t schedule any major projects until next month, so I didn’t have that much work to do anyway. It also helped that I had a new hobby to help keep me somewhat focused.

Still, though, I’m glad this month is over! It’s time to move on and get some shit done. I’m starting to annoy the hell out myself.

Also, I found a plugin the remove my twitter updates from the feed for this site (I hope, haven’t tested it yet). My tweets are still displayed here, but if you’re already following me on Twitter, then you don’t really need them showing up in my feed as well, it’s redundant (and if you aren’t following me on Twitter my tweets aren’t really important enough to show up in the feed anyway).

And sorry to repost this, but since I made the last entry private, I wanted this to be seen. I’ve started that food blog I mentioned awhile back. I’ve been doing REALLY well with cooking lately. We hardly eat out anymore, because I’m actually excited about cooking dinner. It’s kind of awesome. I plan to document that and post lots of recipes since I’m making new things every day. My friend Mary is going to be a contributor as well. I’d love to have other authors if anyone is interested in sharing recipes and other food related things. Anyway, it’s called Back to the Cutting Board. Come and visit me over there! Honestly, I’ll probably be posting there a lot more than here. I’m not giving up on this blog, but I just don’t have much to write here lately. I’ll still post if something interesting happens or if I have news, but I’ll be posting a lot more regularly on the new blog.

I’ll be on the internet all day, so I’ll still be able to answer my email and help clients, but I’ll probably stick to doing actual design work at home on Tuesday, Thursday and the weekend.  Since I’m taking a break from new projects this summer, this won’t be an issue, but I’ll have to see how things go in the fall.  I may need to cut down to two days a week if I start getting busy with projects again.  Or I may just limit how many projects I do a month, so that I can do both without getting overwhelmed.

But basically my “job” will be to play a game all day.  !!!  Can’t beat that with a stick.  It’s one of those new social network-y sites, but it’s aimed for kids and there are tons of games and a whole universe to play around in.  They have their own avatars and houses and they get money from the games to buy furniture and stuff like that.  But they can also chat with friends and live in the same “neighborhood” and play games together.  My job is “lifeguard”.  I think I just monitor all the chats and games and make sure there aren’t kids who are doing/saying inappropriate things and I get to kick them out if they are.  Fear me, kids.  I have all the power!

I was told that they are interested in my experience with blogs and blogging, so I may graduate to doing something with that at some point or maybe do both.  I think they have some blogs related to the game that need maintenance or content or something.  The whole site is still finding it’s legs, so I imagine my responsibilities (and pay!) will grow as the site does.

This is exactly what I was looking for.  Super easy, no carpool issues, I can still take care of my design clients and I’ll be out among real live people for three days a week.  I specifically chose Mon/Wed/Fri so that I’d have to stick to a regular schedule from now on.  No more staying up until 4am!  I knew if I chose Mon-Wed that I’d sleep in Thu-Sun and it would be horrible to have to get up early after that.  Being that I rarely get up before noon, it’s going to be a big change to have to start getting up at 8am every day, but I know it’ll be much better for me to have a set schedule.

The best thing is that now I have an excuse to go and buy new clothes this weekend!  I haven’t bought new clothes in at least a year.  There’s not really a point when you wear yoga pants and t-shirts every single day.

Wow, I think this is actaully the first time ever that I’m looking forward to a Monday.

So I went through one of the many cookbooks I’ve bought (and rarely opened) and picked out two or three weeks worth of recipes that looked good and that seemed simple enough to make.  I’m not the best cook ever, but I can follow a recipe, my only requirement is that it not have a million ingredients (especially things I’ve never heard of) or take hours to make.  I just don’t have the time or patience to cook like that.

I’ve never spent so much at the grocery store in one go in my life.  $225!  On food.  I don’t even spend that much money in Target (and Target takes a good portion of my income).  The majority of that was meat, fruits, and vegetables, so that has helped me to follow through with making the meals or else waste a crap ton of money.  So far I’ve done pretty good.  I made dinner for 4 nights straight last week.  That has probably never happened before.  Old habits die hard, though.  We went out on Monday and I had a recipe lined up for last night, but wasn’t in the mood for cooking so we went out again (but we ate at a deli and had salad and sandwiches, so I don’t really feel bad about that).

My plan is to limit eating out to twice a week (hopefully we can widdle it down to one, eventually), have one day of fending for ourselves (cereal!) and then cook the rest of the week.  4 days isn’t terribly intimidating top me, especially if I can space them out.  Brandon’s been really good about helping out, so I don’t feel like it’s all on me.  I get him to do all my vegetable chopping (I HATE onions) and can opening.  He’s a good assistant.

The really weird thing is that I’m actually starting to enjoy cooking.  And almost all the meals I’ve made have been good (and healthy!).  I’ll definitely be making most of them again (everything except this chicken/onion/pasta casserole thing, which was pretty blah).  It makes me want to start a food/recipe blog.  I’m not sure I’d update it regularly if it was just me, though.  Might be a fun a multi-author blog if anyone is interested in recipe sharing, though (let me know!).

Here’s my favorite recipe so far.  It’s easy to make, healthy (it’s from the Weight Watchers cookbook) and really flavorful.  We made it with rice.

Garlicky Red Beans and Pork

Ingredients:

1. 4 tsp. olive oil
2. 10 oz. lean boneless pork link, cut into 1.5 in. cubes
3. 1/4 tsp. pepper
4. 1 red onion, chopped
5. 6 garlic cloves, minced
6. 1 can diced tomatoes with chiles, mostly drained (or you can use 2 chopped tomatoes, and 1/4 cup chopped chiles)
7. 2 cans kidney beans, drained (original recipe only uses 1, but I like a lot of beans)
8. 1/2 tsp. cumin (reduce to 1/4 tsp. if you don’t like overly spicy food)
9. 1/2 cup of water

In a large saucepan, hear the oil.

Add the pork and pepper; cook stirring as needed, until the pork is cooked through and lightly browned, 5-10 minutes.

Add the onions and garlic; cook, stirring as needed, until the onions are tender, 5-8 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes, beans, cumin and water; bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmmer, covered, until the beans are tender, 15-20 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

Tonight is Southern Oven “Fried” Chicken.  Not so sure about the Weight Watchers version of “fried” chicken (notice the quotation marks), but most of the other recipes from that book have been surprisingly good.

Anyway, I’m winding things down at work because I plan on taking the summer off.  I only have a few projects left and then nothing on my schedule until the fall.  I’ll still be technically working, just not on any new design projects.  I haven’t had a break in, well, ever since I started freelancing three years ago and I am so incredibly burnt out right now.  I definitely need some personal time.

I also feel like I’m in a bit of personal rut.  Working from home for three years is…well it changes you.  I’m home alone all day long.  Most weeks Brandon is the only other person I talk to face to face.  Except for maybe, like, the check out person at Target.  And that’s pretty depressing.  It’s not like I was Social Sally before I started doing this, but lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve regressed even more.  Especially living in a new town where I know exactly no one.

So I’ve decided to get a part-time job.  The main purpose is just to get out in the world and interact with real people again.  I don’t want to work long hours (20 per week max, preferably 10-15 so I still have plenty of time to devote to my regular clients), I don’t really even care what I do just as long as it’s easy.  Money definitely isn’t a factor as I know I won’t be making much working so few hours at probably not much higher than minimum wage, but it’s better than nothing.  And honestly, I would work for free if meant just being able to get out the house every day.

Brandon’s going to try to get me a job at his office, which would be preferable since we only have the one car.  If that doesn’t work out, the local library is hiring and I know I can get a job there since I worked at the library for a few years in college.  Either way it’ll be nice to  work with other people, to have a real schedule I have to adhere to and to have to get dressed everyday!

I’m submitting my resume this week, so we’ll see what happens.

But here are the reasons why I think the postman hates me:

1. He NEVER takes my Netflix DVDs until they’ve been sitting in the mailbox for at least two days. At first, I thought he was just stupid. Like he couldn’t remember whether he had put them in the day before or not? I don’t think that’s the case anymore.

But let me digress for a moment and talk about how stupid the mailboxes at this apartment complex are set up. My old apartment had many things against it, but one good thing was a mail station. All the mailboxes were in a central place, a room that only the mailman had access to and which he could go do his business. It also had a dropbox for people to put their letters to be sent. Just like at the post office. What a freaking concept! My new apartment complex just has a set of extremely old, rusted over (and hard to open) metal boxes in front of each building. There is no dropbox anywhere. So you just have to put your letters in the box and hope that they get found. What if you don’t get that much mail or what if you don’t check your mail every single day and the guy can’t tell what he needs to take and what he already put in there. The whole thing just doesn’t work at all.

So anyway, the first few times I noticed this Netflix occurrence, I thought it was due to the crappy mail system, but I tested it to make sure there was no other mail in the box and still the DVDs would be sitting there under the new mail. I always check now when I put DVDs in there and not once has he taken them the same day. That’s not a coincidence anymore, he’s specifically choosing not to take my DVDs.

2. Whenever I get a package (which is fairly regularly) he ALWAYS puts it in the worst box available. The one that’s so rusted over it takes 20 minutes to open. The other day, Brandon was trying to get a package and the key completely broke off in the lock. My package is STILL stuck in that box. It’s been three days and no one has bothered to get my package or give me a new key. I’ve already learned from the iPod incident that the apartment complex can do absolutely nothing about this. So I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now.

3. The reason I think he broke my plate was because I wrote a nasty note and put it in my mailbox (and it’s gone, so he obviously took it). Maybe I shouldn’t have been such as asshole, but after dealing with the iPod incident and his netflix aversion, learning that he AGAIN put my package in the broke ass box and that the key (which had been bending every time I used it before) finally broke, well I was pissed the hell off. And besides, I was told to put a note in my box when I reported this issue before, so I was really just following protocol this time.

Obviously I can’t report him for breaking my plate. I have no proof, could’ve broken in shipment, blah blah blah (though none of my other 4 sets, shipped through UPS, arrived broken). But the Netflix thing smacks of…something. Like Netflix is paying him not to take them, so they wind up sending less DVDs per month. I don’t know, but something’s not right. And the package thing? That’s definitely an issue. He’s pretty much holding my package hostage right now! How long does it take to get a locksmith to come out and fix a stupid mailbox? Not three freaking days! And how do I know he’s even reported it? I’ve gotten no acknowledgment about the situation at all.

I think it’s just ridiculous that my apartment complex says they can’t help with these kinds of issues. The boxes are on their property, so I don’t see how they can say it’s the responsibility of the USPS to maintain them. People who own their own houses have mailboxes don’t they? They don’t expect the USPS to buy them a new mailbox if theirs gets old or broken. Apparently the complex doesn’t have extra keys for the larger mail boxes, but they obviously have keys to the regular mail boxes or else they wouldn’t have been able to give them to us when we moved in. They’re all the same kind of boxes, so why can you have keys for one and not for the other? The whole thing just seems like pure laziness to me.

I guess it’s off to the USPS website to find someone to contact.