Welcoming Visitors from Central America & Also, VOTING!

Here's an overdue post about recent visitors that came to us from the central part of our dear America, aka Illinois. Nick and Nichole, on a long roadtrip down the East coast, stopped by our neck of the woods. We were treated to a week of lots of fun--long walks and nice dinners, and lots of time relaxing, drinking tea, and watching movies. It's been fun for all of us to connect and spend some good time together.

N & N are here looking into the film industry. They have some good leads which may turn into jobs, either on the production side of things or in one N's case, an extra. (That is, if the selling of African jewelry don't turn up enough dough).

We watched the Pres #2 debates which were a bit of a let down, but we are all still BARACKing the vote! You can also see Ben, Chad and me featured here at the VP Debates in Decatur: Go down to the bottom of the page. Awww yeah!! Balloons!

Speaking of voting, we're about to go early vote. Because folks (EH HEM, MAGDA) always yell at me to pay attention to local matters, and suggesting they could matter more than the pres one, Ben valiantly took on the AJC Voter guide to looking at the 50 things we will be voting on. What a huge pain in the butt. You can check it out here (this is on issue #27) if you're curious as to how you'd vote on what issues. Errr...honestly, it's hard to tell whether we should be in favor or mandating school uniforms or not.

And again speaking of voting, I want to encourage everyone to get out and volunteer for Barack. I know, it took me a while to get excited about him. To me (and others) he can seem a bit reserved, a bit too centrist and accommodating to old school party lines and ideas. But I have come around to seeing that his background, his experiences, make him an extra special candidate and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us as voters. With so much up in the air, now is the time to donate, to volunteer, and to vote. Since I've done #1 as much as I can, and am about to do #3, let me focus on #2: volunteering.

For weeks I was skeptical about getting over to the Obama office: would there be anything I could do? The answer was simple: YES. All Obama offices are looking for volunteers. There's LOTS to do. And we desperately need more volunteers. We need to make calls. We need to make sure that new voters are registered through data entry. We need to make sure people can get to the polls. We need to make sure people GET OUT and vote. It's so important to do something. Not just talk about how upset we are at current situations, but to volunteer. I want to encourage everyone who ever sees this to volunteer at least once before the campaign.

I have been so distressed by how many people I called who said that they didn't really pay attention to the news, didn't know who to vote for, expressed falsehoods about Obama (truly not truths!) or said they were refusing to vote. Wow. So much information needs to get out there, and I believe it can come from volunteers like you and me. Let me know if you can volunteer! Here's where you can find out where to start.

GO OBAMA!!!!

One final point, and shout out to the third graders at Wasilla Elementary School--just kidding, a shoutout to David. When my father went voting, he took David with him, who had expressed interest in going along. When they got to the building where voting was taking place, David looked very sad, and asked "But Papa, where are the boats??"