Catching Up

Time for a major catch-up session, don't you think? It's been a while since my last post.

First, the Inauguration. Well...it sucked. Only because we didn't get in. If our tickets had gotten us through the gate as we assumed they would, it would have been amazing. I've been stewing about it for almost 2 weeks now, so I won't go on and on again here in the blog, but there are as many as 6000 other people who had the same result. The Inaugural Committee is supposedly conducting a "special investigation" as to why ticket holders didn't get through the gates. The rest of our trip to D.C. wasn't that great either. We got stuck in a snow bank for 4 hours trying to get out of town...had to call AAA. We did a whole lot of walking around the city, which is normally really cool, but it was so overrun with people for the inauguration you couldn't really appreciate things as much. Generally though, I will say that Washington D.C. is an awesome city when the focus isn't all on one thing for one man. It's a great place to re-visit as an adult to really appreciate the meaning of things. We went to the Spy Museum this time, which I highly recommend.

I will say this about the total "buzz" surrounding Obama's Inauguration. The crowd was unbelievable. Seriously, if I hadn't seen the rediculous number of people with my own eyes, I would never have known....pictures do NOT do it justice. People were so happy and friendly. Perfect strangers calling out to each other "Happy Inauguration Day!" like they were saying "Merry Christmas" or something. It was hard not to get caught up in the excitement, but it did give me pause. Here are my 2 worries.....with so much focus and so much excitement surrounding this president, it's too much for one man to live up to. People were acting like Barack Obama can part the Patomac River and Instantly cure cancer. He is still just a man and is falable. Also, what happens when he has to make some unpopular decisions. If he does his job well, he will not be able to please everyone all the time. What happens then? Will the mob of revelers become an angry mob against him? And lastly, after seeing how excited and involved all those people were, I'm sad to say to think that the level of political enthusiasm is very temporary. It became "cool" to be an Obama supporter because he's interesting, different and let's face it, he's exciting. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he can keep everyone happy through a wonderful Presidency. At most, he can only be there for 8 years, then we will have to choose somebody new. What happens if in 2016 the two candidates we have to choose from are back to being your average wealthy, old, white guys? Will all those people even bother to vote? Probably many will not. That's sad....It's the same reason I hate band-wagon fans in sports.

Anyway, there's my 2 cents on the new President, plus a few more pennies for good measure. I shall not let it go so long between entries in the future.