Archives October 2010

Once again I am having the rug pulled out from under me.  Yesterday SyFy announced they are canceling Caprica after only one season.  Much like what happened to me with Sarah Connor Chronicles and to a lesser degree Heroes (I was kind of ready for Heroes to die), Caprica is being sent to the scrap heap much too soon.

I found the show fascinating, especially after digesting the entire BSG series previously.  I am surprised that all of the BSG fans didn’t help prop this show up.  I can only imagine there wasn’t enough explosions or hot chicks this time around to satisfy as many space geeks.

There are 5 episodes left.  I am curious if there is going to be any attempt to wrap up the story lines or if they will just leave it hanging there like a dismembered limb.    To make it worse they are making us wait for the last 5 episodes until some time in 2011. F’in jerks.

SyFy tried to soften the cancellation by announcing a NEW BSG spinoff called Chrome and Blood which is supposed to take place 10 years into the Cylon war.  I am sure I’ll be watching that one as well.  I am getting tired of investing into shows that get eviscerated.

Today I did my first 300 since April.  It wasn’t the same sort of 300 that I did for more than two years straight.  I call it version 2.0.

In an old school 300 you do each exercise until the total reps for that exercise are complete.  Today I broke it into a 3 set circuit where I did mostly 20 rep sets.  I plan to mix up the exercises I am doing from week to week as well.  Variety is always a good thing when it comes to exercise.

Today I mixed in some old school 300 movements like dead lifts, box jumps and one handed clean & presses with some other things like diamond push ups, body weight dips and burpees.

In 2.0 I also am paying much more attention to form then in the past where partial ROM push ups, pull ups and box jumps were the norm.  Using full range of motion makes each exercise more difficult but more beneficial as well.  I also am doing more total reps of each exercise than an old 300 where the most you did of anything was 50 reps.  Today almost everything was 60 reps.

At the end of the session I needed 10 reps to get to 300.  I decided to try some jumping burpees.  Wow, I couldn’t believe how much I struggled just to get 10 of them done.  I had to take a break at eight because I was panting so hard before I squeaked out the last two.

I was just as sweaty and just as exhausted as my 300 glory days so that made me feel good.  Being able to sprinkle in 300’s on top of triathlon training will be a pretty sweet thing.

This weekend we have a race to time Sunday.  We also plan to hit the water park Sunday since it is the last day it is open until Christmas Break for the schools.

I also have a cleaning woman stopping by the house to take a look tomorrow.  My boss and my buddy both use this woman’s service and they said she does fantastic work for really reasonable money.  They do complete ceiling to floor cleaning.  I am thinking about having them come in maybe every month and a half or so to compliment what we do, which is nowhere near as detailed.

While I was putting in my mileage on the treadmill yesterday I saw a commercial for what may be the silliest, yet most sexually suggestive exercise device yet, the Shake Weight.

The Shake Weight is an elongated dumbbell with each weighted end connected via a spring like device.  The pitch is by moving the weight back and forth rapidly in short movements you develop muscle tone from resisting the inertia.

The reality is you look like you are practicing your two handed phallus technique.  You have to see this thing in action to believe it. Here, take a look.

Anyway, even though I was at the top end of my aerobic capabilities, I laughed out loud when I saw the commercial.  I really need to meet a real life Shake Weight customer.

When I am on the treadmill I typically have ESPN on.  The hosts over the lunch hour include Chris McKendry.  I don’t understand why they have this woman on Sports Center, the holy grail of male tv watching.  You would think any woman that was a host on ESPN would be steaming hot since that is what men appreciate. Well Chris McKendry  is looking pretty ragged nowadays.  I am thinking her days in front of the camera may be winding down.

Read the quote below on some guy’s website – I couldn’t agree with him more.

Have you ever heard of people that treat symptoms instead of problems?  Doctors and especially pharmaceutical companies LOVE these type of individuals, hell they try to breed them.  The game works like this.  People willingly abuse their bodies via smoking, overeating or lack of exercise (or any combination) and as a result they develop health conditions.  The pharmaceutical companies then will happily swoop in and give you a miracle pill to treat the symptoms of your ailment.  In their ideal world people will simple continue to abuse their bodies so they continue to suffer the symptoms so they can profit as a end result.

To me, it’s pure insanity for someone to rely on a plethora of pills to maintain their day to day existence when they could simply work on the real source of the problem and address it directly.  I mean really, wtf?  If you kept hitting your hand with a hammer every day would you continue the behavior and just keep taking pain pills for the pain or would you stop swinging the hammer? (or at least get some better aim)

Of course as much is in life, it comes down to convenience/laziness.  It is far easier in many peoples minds to just take some pills than to change a lifestyle that they deem comfortable.

It’s a dreadful cycle that has been exploding over recent years.  Self responsibility becomes trivialized when you can rely on modern medicine to keep you alive despite your best efforts to the contrary.

I have been asleep in bed at 9pm Monday night and 9:30 last night.

Yesterday my anti-Comcast post was immediately gobbled up by their blog patrol.  It seems that Comcast has staff dedicated to nothing but addressing negative comments about the company that proliferate the web.

Mark from Comcast added this:

I got a few questions about the details of swapping  out my Comcast cable for HD pulled in via an HD antenna.  In my situation it will be really very easy.

When we had our house built there was no cable available in the area, I actually used an antenna to pull in the local networks.  In addition, when we pulled coax for the various rooms we pulled two runs for each, meaning I already have a second set of coax I can use for the antenna signal to be routed through out the house.

In a normal situation you would just connect the coax from the antenna to the feed where your cable used to be connected.  I also have a powered amp if need be to make sure I have strong signal.  It is currently being used to boost the weak Comcast signal levels that cause my HD picture pixelate on a regular basis without amplification.

Physically mounting the antenna will involve attaching a 20 foot pole to the side of the house, mounting the antenna and grounding it.  I’ll be sure to document the install process.

The antenna cost $130 with free shipping from Amazon.  It should show up next week. You can get the more compact HD antennas for $50 or less.

Yesterday I took the first step toward ridding myself of that plague known as Comcast, I ordered an HD antenna.  I went big, choosing to get a big antenna with long range instead of some of the more compact but shorter range models since I am 35 miles away from the towers.

Since the weekend I have been on the warpath with companies that I give money to that I really don’t want to.  Comcast is number one on my hit list.  I am disgusted with what we are charged for internet and basic digital cable with HD service, $140+ a month.

I did a little research and found that OTA HD signals are actually the best quality HD you can get, better than cable or satellite.  After looking at my season pass list on the main Tivo I saw that almost everything is on the major networks, all of which I can grab off an antenna.  So the plan is to drop Comcast for cable tv and get our feed for free, over the airways.

Next up is addressing internet access.  Sure you can use Comcast just for internet access but if you DON’T use them for tv as well they charge you an extra $10, f that.   So part two of my plan is to grab 10 megabit Century Link DSL so I can completely eliminate Comcast from my life.  I can get the high speed DSL service for $40 a month.

That brings us to Vonage.  Ali and I discussed the need to even have a land line anymore, even the VOIP variety as Vonage.  Originally we needed a land line for both our security system and DirecTV.  It is no longer needed for either.  Our land line is mostly used by telemarketers and incessant political robocalls more than anyone else.

We have the option to include land line service with Century Link for an extra $15 a month (plus taxes, fees)  I also have set up a Google Voice account which will allow calls to a central number to ring on both of our cell phones although that would involve letting everyone know the new number since you can’t port numbers to Google voice, YET.  The third option is just say to hell with land line and just exclusively use our cell phones.

Personally I am leaning towards just using Google Voice.  Zero cost with the features Vonage charges us for.

The trimming was not yet complete.  Yesterday I cancelled one of my two WoW accounts.  With the expansion due out in December I will have plenty to keep me busy using just one account.  If I ever need to get to the second account I can reactivate it but until then it saves us another $13-$14 a month.

There are other cost saving possibilities out there.  As I mentioned last week, if Stern doesn’t resign with Sirius I am dumping them like a hot potato which would save another $25-$30 a month.

Once the HD antenna is in place I may decide to retire the Tivo in the bedroom, saving me another $10 or so in monthly subscription charges.  I figure if I go the playon route I can watch most of my non-network shows on demand anyway via the Iphone or Ipad.

If it all pans out it could add up to a lot of savings monthly, maybe $200 or more.  That $200 plus what we currently allocate to the Camry payment should allow me to absorb a Camaro payment with minimal impact to the bottom line.  You see, there is always a method to my madness.

So Saturday morning I was timing my first every regional cross country meet.  I put a lot of effort in ahead of time preparing for this task.  I had a couple phone conversations with the author of the timing software I use to make sure I was doing everything correctly.  Instead of spending hours entering paper entries I spent the time doing test sessions and importing spreadsheets from each school that had their roster.

One important detail I forgot to address was exactly how to get the location of the event which being held at one of the area high schools.  I turned down the street that had a sign for the school but I ran into a locked gate.  I could see the football stadium all lit up inside the fence (where I needed to go) but I had no idea of how to get there.

Along the fence line there was a narrow dirt path that ran parallel to the field.  I thought maybe if I followed it I would eventually come to an opening where I could cut across.  Well after about a half mile on this path it dead ended to another locked gate.  The path was too narrow to turn around on since there was a canal on the other side of it so I had to drive backwards out of there.

Of course I was getting rather annoyed as I tried to use my GPS to guide me into the facility.  Luckily I just stumbled into another entrance after circling around for a little while.  I found the race organizer and finally was able to pull my truck into the football stadium.

The Collier County school system has VERY impressive athletic facilities.  They just got done replacing all of the high school football fields with RealTurf, the fake grass that is actaully better than grass in many ways and light years ahead of good old astroturf.

I was impressed on how much bounce the field had.  The “grass” itself looked pretty real as well.  One of the things that helps RealTurf feel like it does are the millions of tiny little rubber balls that are buried in the grass.  They both provide cushion and prevent cleats from getting stuck in the turf which causes many injuries.  I also noticed that if you walk on this turf for a period of time you will surely have a bunch of these little rubber balls inside your sneakers. It felt pretty cool to be down on that beautiful field that was lit up from the stadium lights which were all burning brightly.

It was time for me to set up.  Because in this event all of the data entry was handled ahead of time it made for a pretty leisurely environment leading up to the race.  After getting the laptop and timing equipment set up I had a lot of stand around time until the first race started at 8:00 am.

The first race was the varsity girls.  As the first finisher crossed the line I panicked a bit when I saw her time was two minutes longer than it should have been, I made a typo in the race start time.  Luckily I was able to correct it easily.  By the time the last girl crossed the line I already had the results of the first race complete.  The coaches were thrilled with instant results.  In the past they timed the race by hand which takes MUCH longer and produces much less information.

In total there were four races that went down one after the other and the timing went great.  I had one girl that said her chip didn’t register (although it tested fine later) and one girl we had to DQ because she accidentally cut the course short.  Other than that, things were perfect.

I have a feeling that my chip timing the race could possibly lead to more timing work for other cross country meets as word spreads of how efficient it was.  I had a couple coaches on site ask me about the possibility of timing stuff for them.  I told them I would be happy to talk to them about it, hell I could use Camaro money.

I actually did pretty much every part of timing the race myself, I didn’t have to hardly involve Alison at all.  She showed up on site after a group run and handled getting all of the chips sorted and put away which was a nice help.  Other than that it was a one man show.

I can’t tell you how many times I was thanked and told how much my efforts were appreciated at the race.  It made me feel good about what I do.

Once we got home and after I had the results posted and equipment put away I immediately moved into my other work.  Alison was pooped from getting up early and running so she retired for her customary nap.  By the time she came outside I was finishing up the last of three things I wanted to get done, back filling the sprinkler repair area, spreading weed n feed over the rest of the yard and replacing another ripped section of screen in the pool cage.

Once I was done there I decided to hop on the mower and mow down the majority of the back yard which was overgrown badly.  I had worked on the tractor the week before trying to fix an annoying oil leak that would cause the mower to smoke like mad when it first heats up from oil on the exhaust manifold.  It seems like my repair was successful, I had no oily smoke during the session.

Alison went out for a girls night out Saturday night with Christie and Michelle.  She said they hit a number of places before she rolled back home after midnight. I spent my night working on the computer and watching the Phillies get eliminated from the playoffs.

Sunday morning we just did a swimming workout at the water park.  I told Ali I almost felt lazy by doing JUST swimming and not tying running, biking or both into it.  My goal this time was to swim another 1600 meters/yards (not sure of exact length) however this time I wanted to do it continuously.

I have traversed this distance in the water twice before but the first time it was four 400 meter segments and then two 800 meter segments.  This would be the full Olympic swimming distance at once.

Before I started I had Ali shoot video of me doing my warm up lap with the Flip HD I grabbed off of Woot.  I have described how my swimming style is very weird and leaves much to be desired.  As you can see, there are elements of freestyle, side stroke and even a breaststroke style kick in there.  I know it looks very odd but for whatever reason it allows me to swim extended distance in a reasonable amount of time.  Why fix it if it works for me?

I was able to hit my goal, pulling down 32 fifty yard laps in about 34:30 according to my watch.  It wasn’t easy.  I tried to imagine hopping right on a bike for 25 miles and then running another 6 after such a swim.  It didn’t seem like it would be very much fun.

Boy this past weekend was a big change from the last where all of the Philly sports news was good.

The Phils had a lot of momentum returning home after a huge win in San Fransisco to extend the series.  The rabid fans were thrilled when the team jumped out to an immediate 2-0 lead. Unfortunately that was all the team scored, filling the rest of the game with frustration culminated by Ryan Howard striking out looking to end the game.  The Giants simply played better during the series.  Their pitching for the most part shut the Phils down, plain and simple.  Oh well there is always next year.

The Eagles game was very aggravating as well.  For half of the game the Birds were handling the Titans pretty easily.  They were driving for a TD that would have given the Eagles a huge lead when LeSean McCoy fumbled the ball away after a sloppy exchange.  Then the wheels came off.

The Titans have this receiver I never heard of with the last name of Britt.  All of a sudden he become God-like.  He burned the Eagles again and again AND AGAIN for huge gains down the field.  It was utterly insane.  Sean McDermott had absolutely no answers for this kid.  Instead of moving Asante Samuels onto Britt he left Ellis Hobbs on him who got burned worse than toast in a flamethrower.  Hobbs looked like he was playing on one leg, he apparently sucks.

Well McDermott had no plan to slow down Britt who had 225 yards and 3 TD”s receiving. As a result the Eagles went down in flames after controlling the game for more than a half.  It was very disappointing.

I have continued my investigation into ways I can cut down on paying too much money for stuff that I shouldn’t be, my latest target being the ridiculous amount of money Comcast charges us for cable tv.

One of the options is to use a HDTV antenna to grab over the air high def broadcasts of the major networks.  I have read that surprisingly, the best HD picture you will get is via this route.  The vast majority of what is sitting on our Tivo is major network programming AND the Tivo’s have support for an antenna based connection, another plus. I also have my Netflix service which is an unlimited source of tv content.

If there is a downside it would be the absence of some cable only programming I like such as Caprica, The Ultimate Fighter, Iron Chef and a few more.  Well I may have found an answer for that as well.

A Google search turned up a website called http://playon.tv  It is an application that you install on your Windows based pc that allows it to act as a proxy for other DLNA/uPnP devices to grab web based video content.  It supports a number of devices including all the popular console gaming systems, iphone/ipad and many more.

I tested the system out on my Wii as well as my Iphone and Ali’s IPad.  It’s pretty damn slick.  The interface is barebones but simple to use.  The selection of available content is pretty staggering including Hulu, Spike.tv, ESPN and many, many more.  The content took less than a minute to finish buffering before it fired up.

There are a few drawbacks.  To use the service obviously your Windows pc has to be up and running to serve up the content.  The client itself seems to be a large resource hog as my CPU meter was running at over 50% even when it wasn’t actively streaming.  Once streaming started it almost pegged the CPU.

The quality of the video stream varies from provider to provider.  On the small Iphone and Ipad screen the video content looked just fine across the board.  However when you blow that up to 73 inches there is a pretty big visual quality hit.

Playon is not a free service.  You can try it for two weeks for free.  After that you can pay $40 and then $20 a year or bite the bullet and pay $80 to be good to go permanently.  A one time $80 cost versus $700-$800 in cable tv charges a year is a good trade in anyone’s book.  It’s all a matter if you are ok with some of the other trade off’s.

Today at the gym I did a workout that was along the lines of the venerable 300 but a bit different.  In total I did 271 reps that were broken down like this (totals)

41 pull ups

60 body weight dips

60 box jumps

60 diamond push ups

50 clean & press with 35 pound dumbbell

Now when I was in my 300 hey day I wasn’t very open to criticism about the form I used to complete the reps.  Jeremy in particular used to dog me about it.  I never was very willing to listen to his thoughts on form since he only dabbles in strenuous exercise a few times a year.

However once I started participating in the Bar-barian forums I saw more emphasis on form versus numbers so it started to sink in. These were guys that actually walked the talk.

If you compared the form in today’s 271 versus a typical 300 three years ago there would be a big difference.  The 41 pull ups today were full range of motion starting with my arms fully extended and ending when my chin was at bar height.   They used to be about half as long where I did more of a hanging bounce and less of a pull.

The push ups also used to be short on range where I bounced rapidly in the lower half of the motion but didn’t lock out the reps.  The diamond push ups today were full ROM and are much more difficult than conventional push ups.

Even my clean and presses and box jumps were sloppy before.  The C&P’s didn’t have full extension at the top (they did today) and my box jumps used to not include straightening my legs on top of the box.  Not only was every rep today with full extension I did it with 11 steps per side instead of the 8 I used during my 300 work outs.

It felt good to be able to do a work out with some high intensity while maintaining solid form.  I am hoping it is the start to a period of three months where my fitness level slowly ramps up until it is fully utilized for the Pull Up Challenge at the end of January.

I just read that by 2050 if nothing changes 1-3 Americans could be diabetics.  Hell I am surprised they are projecting it could take that long.  Just walk down any street in America and you see diabetes candidates left and right.  With as fat as America is, it’s odd that there would be opposition to a better national health care plan, we certainly are going to need it.

The health care plan we utilize at work is the way I think all health care should be.  There are three levels of coverage.  If you are a lazy lard ass and don’t put any effort or take any responsibility for your personal well being you get thrown on the basic coverage plan.  You pay the most for your coverage and also have the highest deductible.

The middle plan requires you to at least get a blood test so you are aware of potential problems.  You are also required to fill out a health questionnaire.  By doing this you get lower deductibles and pay less than the person that does nothing.

If you want the lowest cost, lowest deductible coverage you have a few more hoops to jump through.  You must undergo regular physicals and if your numbers show you are diabetic or pre-diabetic or if you smoke, you must attend classes that are designed both make you aware of the dangers of your issues and help you address them.

Hell this year they went a step further.  If your spouse is on the plan they have to jump through those same hoops to qualify for the same coverage.  Sure, it is an inconvenience to a degree but I don’t have a problem with it when I consider what it does in the big picture. It rewards those that work at maintaining their health and penalizes those that don’t.  More things should be like modeled  this way including a national health care plan.

Speaking of that plan I saw more political attack ads running that mentioned the health care plan.  One of the negatives was the atrocity of being REQUIRED to have health insurance.  How outrageous, right?  How is this any different than states that REQUIRE people to have automobile insurance?  The logic is the same.

If somebody hits you and they don’t have insurance this can negatively impact you because the may not have the money to cover damage/injuries to you.  If somebody doesn’t have health insurance and incurs massive medical expenses, all of that money gets absorbed by the people that DO have insurance, resulting in higher premiums for the rest. If everyone has insurance, everyone pays their fair share.

It’s the same principal, duh.

I spent the majority of last evening doing more prep work for this cross country race I am timing Saturday.  I set up the timing system and did some test runs to make sure I understood exactly how I was going to handle timing the meet.  In addition to the testing, Ali and I had to make packets for each team that had the chips for their kids.  I have spent TONS of time preparing for this race.  If I would time more of these meets in the future I would ask for more cash to do it, it’s a lot of work.

As I plodded away we also were watching the Phillies game.  It was a win or go home game for the Phils.  I thought the Phillies should be in good hands with Halladay on the mound but right off the bat things didn’t go well with the Giants scoring early.

Unlike his no hitter performance where Halladay seemed as cool as the North Pole, he seemed visibly bothered last night.  I think it was a combination of things including the annoying, loud Giants fans, having the strike zone squeezed by the ump and the general pressure of being a must win game.  It seemed like all night long he was going 3-2 on the hitters.

Even with his struggles Halladay still only gave up two runs.  I have to be honest though I thought the Phillies were destined to lose the game, especially when they hit into a line drive double play with runners on 1st and 3rd, blowing a great scoring opportunity.    It seemed like the Phillies just were not getting the lucky breaks you needed to win games in the playoffs. (although the 3 runs they got in the 4th or 5th were aided by Giant errors)

However unlike the night before where the relievers fell apart, this time they did a bang up job, managing to keep the Giants at bay culminated by Lidge shutting the door in the 9th. Now the team gets to bring the series back to Philadelphia.  I am looking forward to the Phillie fans ripping the Giants apart.

This weekend on top of timing the meet I have a bunch of things to do around the house, surprise surprise.  The top three items are back filling the area where I did the sprinkler repair, repairing another section of ripped screen on the lanai and spreading weed and feed on a few more sections of the yard.  If I get bored after that I have all of the palm trees to get trimmed before the holidays and the sheds both could use some pressure washing.  Of course I will be watching Phillies baseball and Eagles football.  We also hope to shoot over to the water park to do some sort of brick Sunday morning.

The past two days on my way walking into the gym I have been solicited.

Yesterday as I was approaching the sidewalk two guys in a vehicle pull up beside me slowly.  The guy on the passenger side said “Hey buddy, this is going to sound really strange but I have this extra surround sound system to sell real cheap! I was accidentally sent two of them!”

I immediately dismissed the guy saying no thanks, I’m not interested.  He continued to try to get my attention but I just continued walking.  Why I looked like a good candidate to fence stolen property is beyond me.

Then today as I am walking up to the front door I see this girl wearing a tube top that shouldn’t be.  She had walked up to an old guy standing on the sidewalk and was talking to him,  however as I approached she turned her attention to me.  She asked me if I had a phone on me.  The red flag definitely went up, there was something weird about this chick too.

I told her I didn’t have my phone on me but if she needed to make a call she could come in the gym, I’m sure she could use their phone.  Well that option was not viable to her for some reason which further raised my suspicion.  After I went inside I saw the girl still walking around and accosting other people.  She followed one guy all the way out to his car before walking away with some paper in her hand.  She wanted something but I don’t think it was a phone.

Wow the NFL is going nuts over the big hits on players over the weekend.  I think it is pretty stupid personally.  Over the past decade the NFL has already done a ton to “protect” players.  Hell you can’t even play paddy cake with a QB without getting called for roughing the passer.

Now they want to suspend players that hit too hard if they inadvertently make contact with the other guys helmet.  What the F?  Is this the NFL or not?  Football is about contact, sometimes the contact is violent and players get hurt. It’s an unavoidable thing when you have two elite 250 pound athletes hurdling towards each other at high speeds.

What the NFL is asking is totally unrealistic.  In the heat of a  play when a defender is going all out to make a tackle it is physically impossible to make split second adjustments to ensure your helmet never touches the opposing players helmet.

Hell when a receiver senses a hit is coming his first reaction is to curl up to absorb the impact.  In that process he drops his head which could actually CAUSE the contact.

It’s just a stupid thing to try to enforce.  What we will get is a a team of defenders that are more worried about getting fined than making a tackle.  Sure we don’t want head hunters but some of those hits that were the fuel behind this movement were not head hunting, including the hit on DeSean Jackson.  The Falcon defender actually hit Jackson in the shoulder pads.

Political correctness has even seeped into the NFL.

My eyes lit up when I saw this subject line pop up in my inbox last night. – “Sirius XM Requests Your Feedback”  It was a follow up to my call the other day to change my billing to monthly.  I was quite happy to let Sirius know how I felt about the 25 minutes of hold time as well as their company in general.  Hopefully it gets in front of some eyes that aren’t located in India.

Damn Phillies went down in flames again.  They at least showed some ability to hit the ball but this time their middle relief fell apart.  After taking a two run lead in two consecutive innings the Phillies pitchers walked the first batter, a cardinal sin, in the process allowing three runs.

Now the team has a huge mountain to climb.  If any team can do it is the Phillies.  Over the past three years they have demonstrated an ability to get off the mat and win big games.  Hopefully this year isn’t when the streak ends.

Yesterday I took advantage of early voting in Florida and cast my votes.  I went over to the election office in the late afternoon.  I was surprised there was absolutely no line, it was kind of cool.  I have to just shake my head when I used the NEW voting system for the second time.

As you all remember Florida was in the middle of the 2000 election cluster f with their ridiculous punch card voting system.  Who can ever forget the term “hanging chads”?  Well afterwards a huge initiative was put into place to modernize the voting process in the state.  Tens of millions of dollars were spent on fully computerized voting machines which were used for several years.

Well a couple years ago, some genius decided that the electronic voting systems were just too unreliable.  Yea our entire financial system is run 100% on computers but we can’t trust them to be used for elections, brilliance.  So, they threw out all of the computerized voting machines that were still being paid for and went back to paper, yes, paper.

They print out a paper ballot where you darken in circles with a pen to indicate your choice.  There is still an electronic element to the process as you feed your completed ballots into a scanner that reads and records your choices.  Having the back up of paper makes the old farts feel more secure I guess.

So anyway I made my choices, voting mostly democrat but in a few instances voting with my registered party of the republicans. I even voted for one independent.  I am not a dyed in the wool anything.

I also am not oblivious to just how sour the environment is for Obama and democrats in general.  The republicans have done a bang up job of driving home the message that Obama is a reckless spendaholic that must be stopped at any cost.  Hell it has gotten to the point where accusing a candidate of liking Obama is akin to saying he kicks puppies.

To me, this is utterly ridiculous when you actually look at reality instead of the narrow spun version neocons would like you to look at.  Yes, Obama has SPENT a ton of money since he took office, the question is what was it spent on?

Ok so let me ask, what would you have preferred the man do?  Would we have been better off if he let the majority of the financial system implode, the automobile industry evaporate, let the millions of unemployed people dig in trashcans for food,  pump zero money into stimulus packages that have provided work for countless construction and energy conservation initiatives across the country?  Even with all he has tried to do the economy is in a state that the population is unhappy with.  Imagine if he did NOTHING?  Think about that.

I love the constant bullshit that is thrown out by republicans regarding the health care plan.  The same plan that they fought viciously to neuter down to it’s current state.  The huge insurance companies spent hundred of millions of dollars to influence the American public into actually believing that providing health care for individuals is a bad thing. Did you know when Medicaid and Social Security was implemented there was a similar reaction, yet today you wont find a politician on any side that will say these programs are a bad thing.

One of the headlines that you see thrown about the plan is how it will cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicaid.  What it doesn’t tell you is that “cut” is actually a savings from clamping down on the rampant fraud and waste that exists in the system today.  You know, the stuff that Florida Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Rick Scott took advantage of that earned his company a 1.4 BILLION dollar fine.   Yea, that sort of fraud.

So anyway, when you do eventually find yourself in a voting booth all I ask is you do yourself a big favor and don’t let public spin managers that carefully create smear campaigns built on nothing but one liners be the major deciding factor in your choices.  Think for yourself and think about what would have happened if we did NOTHING.