Wow.  There was something somewhat unexpected.  If you've been following the polls, this was not what the pundits expected of the primary.  This probably makes the upcoming primaries even more interesting for the democrats (maybe for the republicans, too :) ).  I had a meeting today that kept me away from the majority of the coverage tonight, but I got back in time to see the AP call for Clinton, and then CNN do the same.  Obama's speech was still quite good tonight, even with the second-place finish (admittedly, it was probably the same speech he would have given anyway, but with the addition of the concession).  It sounded like Edwards gave almost the same speech he did last time.  Clinton's speech was certainly better than it was in Iowa, but still:  HILLARY, STOP READING FROM A PIECE OF PAPER ON YOUR PODIUM.  I mean, seriously, I'm sure you can afford a teleprompter.  Or if that isn't convenient, go for an in-ear audio prompter.  They look like a hearing aid.  Nobody would notice, and you'd look as polished and confident as Obama.  I do have to say that she probably did a good thing by being the only person on stage for her speech this time.  I'm still a big Bill fan, but she seemed to take more ownership of her campaign with that move, and I liked that. 

Yeah, I'm still relatively undecided.  I'm going to be interested to see if anyone drops out tomorrow.  I can't see Gravel doing anything else.  Kucinich is, well, Kucinich.  Guiliani is still holding-out for Florida, I guess.  Whatever, dude.  Paul and Thompson are pretty far out there, too.  I guess the low-runners probably have enough supporters and cash to run up to Super Tuesday, if they're lucky.  I don't know how much actual campaigning they'll be able to do there, but they could probably stay in it.  I wouldn't be surprised to see some campaigns die tomorrow, though. 

So there's the fun, and a completely biased, odd-man-out look at the New Hampshire primaries. 

jonathan

Lots of stars, lots of funny (at least for geeks :) ):

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080107/bill-gates-last-day-microsoft-video/

jonathan

There are days that I wish I was a political blogger and that people paid me money to write about days like today.  I remember my Dad reporting on election results for Venango County when we lived there.  He'd be at the courthouse or the radio station talking to people at the courthouse to report on the results over the air.  I guess that got me interested in following election results.  I'm watching the coverage of the Iowa Caucuses right now.  I think I must drive Jenny crazy with this stuff.  She and I like to joke about some of the crazy candidates.  It's fun.  Jenny is an awesome wife.  :) 

jonathan

Tonight was the night that the fire department pulls Santa's sleigh around the neighborhood and distributes treats to kids.  I'm not completely sure what the whole story is, but a couple of years ago, Jenny and I heard sirens and saw lights, and we went out to see what was happening.  We followed the sound of the sirens around the corner, and saw a set of emergency vehicles, one of which was pulling Santa in a sleigh on a trailer.  Every year since, we've gone out to see this little mini-parade.  I'm sure that there is a story behind all of this, but I just don't know what it is. 

In other news, Monday night is the next meeting for our Civic League, and we're having a bit of a holiday party along with our meeting.  It should be fun.  We've been getting some encouraging words from lots of people lately, which I'll take as a good sign.  Yay us! 

jonathan

Jenny and I went on the Allegheny West Victorian Christmas House Tour last year, and we enjoyed it.  We decided that we should do it again this year, and maybe try to find some other people who wanted to come with us.  Two friends of ours came, and we had a great time.  I think Jenny and I would both recommend this tour to anyone who wants to see some great historic houses, and see an example of what can happen when a neighborhood--that was otherwise falling apart--pulls together and gets organized.  We're trying to do that in our little neighborhood of Parnassus.  If we have even a tiny bit of the success that they've had in Allegheny West, I think we'll be doing just fine.  Actually, in a year or two, I could see us having a house tour around here, too.  There are some great houses, great people, and great history.  That sounds like the makings of an interesting tour! 

jonathan 

Sometimes, I take my lunch break and get a quick sandwich or something, then go over to a nearby Starbucks to get my Favorite Drink (venti shaken passion tea lemonade, unsweetened!).  Sometimes I'll even get an evil pastry.  I like to watch people.  I sit in an inconspicuous spot and watch people through the windows, or sometimes inside the place.  It sits on a fairly busy pedestrian corner, so there is usually a lot of activity outside.  I especially like to do this on rainy or snowy days.  I don't know why. 

I did this today, after a sandwich at Quiznos.  I sat down at one of the few tables available (the end of the semester brings a lot of college students with large binders of other people's work to copy--or so it seems to me) with my drink.  While I was waiting for my drink, this odd couple behind me decided that the guy was going to go and get a chair while the woman waited for her drink.  There is one big easy chair in this Starbucks, which he took for himself.  He pulled-up a standard wooden chair near it for his friend/wife/whatever (I'll just say "wife" from now on to be concise, though I suspect that they were actually husband and wife).  I sat down with my drink near them, and then she came to sit down.  They didn't say anything for a while, then she said something.  The guy responded saying something to the effect of, "So-and-so is swine," then, "I don't want you getting involved with her."  Then he proceeded to tell her that everyone in their apartment building or whatever is a cheat or a swine or somesuch, followed up by saying, "We just have to live with them because that's the best we can afford."  I felt bad about this, until I noticed that his wife was dressed in some older, well-worn clothes, and he was there in all kinds of flashy fashion-branded gear (including the sunglasses, which are absolutely necessary on a completely overcast grey day, when you're inside, and the lights are dim, and there is no sun).  Then he went on to tell her, "I've got it.  This is the big one.  This is the one that is going to finally make us money."  I'm thinking to myself, "Oh boy, here comes the scheme...."  She said something else (I can only guess what she might have said), and he responds with, "I'm the artist here.  I'm the artist.  You're not the artist.  I'm the artist.  I know what I'm doing.  You're not the artist," and, "When I show this to Andy, that's going to be it.  We'll make thousands.  Thousands!"  She said something else (I couldn't hear her, in case you couldn't figure that part out yet), and he responded saying, "He's going to like it.  He has to like it.  He's going to take it.  This is his only shot at it." 

The conversation was getting a little odd, so I decided it was time to leave.  This guy was completely strange in so many ways. 

There's my fun story for the day.  More work tonight on the house is planned.  Paint stripping and sanding in the mix....

jonathan

Argh.  I wondered why traffic from houseblogs.net had dropped-off recently.  It turns out that, while adding a link to a feed that only shows new house-related entries to their site, there was a bit of a typo that caused them to not receive any entries at all.  I noticed and fixed this today. 

For the record, the folks over at houseblogs.net are good people, and I love using that resource.  Check it out if you're interested in reading about other house-working people.  Some houses there are old, some are new(er), and some are not even finished yet.  It's a neat site. 

jonathan

One of my hobbies is that I do sound for theatre productions.  I normally work some community and high school productions in the area.  The first show for me this fall is a local high school that is producing "Fools" by Neil Simon.  The show is quite funny, and the kids are doing a good job in it.  One of my favorite directors is their director, too, so I'm having a good time working on the show.  I like actually being able to do a sound design, with musical beds and all sorts of fun things, and I can do that with him.  I'm also working with one of my favorite lighting designers, which makes the show that much more fun to do, too.  Of course, it also ends up cutting into the sleep schedule a bit. 

Due to the show, I can't make any real progress on the room this week.  This weekend, though, we still plan to work, and hopefully get a lot of stuff done. 

jonathan 

We visited Jenny's family today for some post-Thanksgiving holiday fun.  All of her sisters were home today, so there was lots of activity in the house.  As always, we had a great time visiting with everyone, and Jenny's Mom made a good dinner for all of us. 

It's cool to have great in-laws.  :) 

jonathan

I'm liking this software a lot.  I'm having far too much fun playing with it and adding features.

I fixed some of the image placement issues that were bugging me in the "Cool!" post.  Now I'm working on seeing if I can add the formatting fix as a plugin, which would make it a lot easier to add images from our gallery with formatting that I like.  :) 

jonathan