First Basketball Practice (plus Obama garb + plea)

Hope had her first-ever basketball practice this morning. 2nd-6th grade b-ballers. God bless the coaches.

Plus: I received my Obama Inauguration tshirt in the mail yesterday. Sweet delivery. A thank you gift for being a supporter and cheerleader. Now, please be who we need you to be, Mr. President.

Help Send Obama and McCain to Poland

I only want them to go there for a little while. Who ever wins, we need him to attend this meeting. Tell the candidates, and tell your friends. Thanks.

Barack Obama has funny ears

I got a letter in the mail from Barrack Obama today. Much like the letter I get from Barrack just about every week (asking me to ‘help build this movement’), except this one is different. It has Barrack’s picture on the envelope–a close up cropped pic of his face. Zoey (age 3) picked it up as I was making dinner tonight and said,

“Daddy, who’s this?”

“That’s Barack Obama.”

“Is he your friend?”

“Well, no. He’s going to be our President.”

“What kind of present is Rock Obama, Daddy?”

“No, ‘President,’ honey. He’s going to be the boss of the whole country.”

“Well, he has funny ears Dad…..But don’t tell him. OK?”

I won’t tell him.

Beer Powered Cars

Beer can fuel a lot of things: parties, hobbies in the garage, indigestion, composting, sex drive, temporarily poor sense of beauty, bad fantasy football drafts, stupidity, aluminum can collections, etc. You know all those (except maybe the compost). I bet you didn’t know that you can run your car on Coors. Ethanol made from wasted Coors, that is. Sounds like the folks in Golden make 3 million gallons a year from beer that gets spilled or isn’t good enough to go into my uncle Joe.  Obama and the Dems will be riding around Denver in beer powered cars in a few weeks. Read all about that beer ethanol here, here or here.

I love beer. Not like a college guy loves beer (quantity wins), but more like a 31-year-old daddy who doesn’t think it’s fun to get hangovers anymore loves beer (quality wins). One, maybe two beers in any setting. And darker the better. It’s the kind of love wine conessiuers have with the vino. A beer can be art. Art that you drink. Or something…

Now back to work.

Obama: Real Backbone and Mad Ball Skills

What more could you want in a President?

OK, his ability to school some 3-on-3 Rec-leaguers in Indiana (see the video below) doesn’t win my vote (or anyone else’s, I pray). But he’s standing up to the bullshit trickery McCain and (surprisingly) Hillary are throwing around about this summer “gas tax holiday” idea. It won’t save us any money. It won’t cut down on our dependence on oil. It won’t help slow down global warming. It will only trick people into voting one way over another. Sure, I love a little extra cash in my pocket as much as anybody, but just like the $2100 deposit scheduled to go into my savings account tomorrow from President W., a few cents a gallon of gas tax off my bill this summer isn’t going to fix anything. No Impact Man and a bunch of experts lay it all out strait here.

Just one more reason I ask you to vote for Barack Obama. He’s willing to do what’s real and right instead of what wins short term votes. And he can kick McCain’s butt in 1-on-1.

PS-Obama comes to Watertown and Sioux Falls tomorrow. Daschle and McGovern too.

[UPDATE:]

I don’t know who Mike Trap is, but his post reminded me why I started writing this one. It wasn’t just another plug for Obama. The point I forgot to make (hold the snickering please) is this: The only way to ease the pain at the pumps is to learn to use less gas. The solution is changing our behavior–shifting the way we understand and use gasoline and other fuels. Don’t fall for the gas tax holiday gimmick. Best case: American families end the summer with 25 extra bucks in their pockets, while we keep stuffing our gas guzzlers with ever-more expensive fuel. Worst case: we end up using even more gas than we would have without the tax holiday, which drives the demand–and therefore the price–up higher and higher even more quickly.

Disclaimer: I know nothing very little (can’t bash the USD econ department that bad) about economics. But these guys do: http://www.politico.com/static/PPM43_080502_list_gastax.html.

Here’s what Barrack had to say about this slick idea a couple of weeks ago:

Obama means something

Just a short little post to ask you to support Barrack Obama. I haven’t officially announced my support for Barrack (until now), but if you check out bartblog a bit you can read between the posts–though I haven’t heard yet from the Obama camp on any press conference around my announcement… There are events here in South Dakota beginning to come together. As Madville Times points out, SD seems to be worth Barrack’s time (you can still catch the grand opening of Barrack’s Sioux Falls campaign office on Saturday). Chris Corrigan wrote a great piece a few weeks ago on Why Obama Matters. My deepest hope is that “Hope” isn’t just a campaign mantra–please be the change. Vote Obama.

UPDATE 4.13.08:

Corey nails it again: Obama Offers Truth, Elites Offer Spin.