Blogrilla

I was on the bike tonight and pushing myself to pedal harder and go faster.  I was sweating hard and pushing myself to do better.  In my mind I was remembering a 9th grade football coach (Coach Russell) encouraging me to do better while.  Helping me to push myself.  Helping me to succeed.

I walked away from Football because I was too lazy.  I didn’t want it enough to put the effort in to it.  It wasn’t worth it.  And I regret it now.  I wish I could have stuck with it.

But as I pushed myself to go harder and pedal faster it felt great.  I was thinking about work and thinking about a promotion for which I’m applying and thinking about how I’m going to get it.  I was imagining myself doing great during the interview and standing tall and succeeding.

Someday I’d really like to run in a marathon.  Seriously.  I’m not in good enough shape to consider running in the Boston marathon in 2005, but maybe 2006 I could do it.

As I pedaled harder and got myself pumped up and going I felt an old pride from competition-based achievement.  And then it occurred to me, as I considered what it would take to run in a marathon and what it would take to achieve more at work, that competition is not necessarily very compatible with taking care of a family and bringing up children.  I’m not sure I can do all this without taking something significant away from my kids.

Maybe there’s a place in between, though.

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I think he tends to prey on peoples’ worst fears and to pounce without foresight. That Tawana Brawley thing still sticks in my mind. Still, sometimes I think he gets it right. He was certainly on the right side in the that african-american who got gunned down on the stoop of his apartment building in New York a few years ago. Amidou Dialo — I think that was the name of the hatian guy who was brutalized by police. When I lived outside NY City we heard plenty about him. And I still think he’s an opportunist and is not to be trusted. But sometimes I think he gets it right.

Al Sharpton, riding the donkey and slapping Bush

Just as the Democratic convention threatened to sink into a sleepy sea of optimism, the Rev. Al Sharpton stepped up to save the day with a smoking speech before the Black Caucus. With all of the emotion but none of the weirdness of Howard Dean’s scream, Sharpton railed against George W. Bush for having the “audacity” to suggest — as he did last week in an Urban League speech — that African-Americans should consider the Republican Party as viable “alternative” for their votes.

“The insult there was that he acted like we have become Democrats by some unthinking process, rather than that we had been rejected and treated hostile by the Republican Party,” Sharpton told an enthusiastic crowd. “They promised us 40 acres and a mule. We waited and nothing happened. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Bush, we waited around with the Republican Party through Herbert Hoover. Still didn’t get the 40 acres. Didn’t even get the mule. So we decided we’d ride this donkey as far as it would take us.”

Sharpton dismissed Bush as a cynical interloper, and he made it clear that African-Americans should work within the Democratic Party, even if they have differences with it. “If Democrats deliver for us, we’ll deliver for them,” Sharpton said. “If Democrats don’t deliver, we will deal with Democrats. But we don’t need anybody that never did anything for us and with us, telling us that they’re an alternative. Even if we’ve got trouble in our marriage, we’re not going out with just anybody available to us.”

Sharpton said African-Americans choose to be Democrats because the party is aligned with their interests. “We’re not going to allow four more years of Bush based on some flimsy personality analysis,” he said. “We did not come this far to be talked to about who smiles right and who preaches right. We’ve got enough smiling and preaching to make up for everybody. ”

And he made it clear that he, for one, isn’t ready to “get over” the disenfranchisement of African-American voters in Florida in 2000. “We got this right to vote through bloodshed, through sacrifice, through house burnings, through church bombings. We come to Boston not just because we just were added on. We died first. We suffered most. And we can walk in here with our heads held high and our shoulders back.”

As the crowd exploded in applause, Sharpton contrasted his run for the presidency with Bush’s experience of “being born on third base and thinking he hit a triple.” “I wasn’t even born in the stadium,” Sharpton shouted. “I had to fight through the parking lot, get through the front gate, go around through the crowd, and thenhit a triple. But we’re here now, and we ain’t going nowhere. No backing up. No selling out. No bowing and scraping. This is our day. This is our time. We’re here, and we’re not going back.”

– Tim Grieve

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I can’t believe Kerry is STILL trailing Bush 46 to 48 points! How can this be?! Are 48% of people not paying attention at all?! Do they have no idea that their votes matter? I mean maybe they don’t understand what’s happening. Why are people still behind Bush? Christ, what do they see in him?

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So the auto repair shop is down the street from me. It looks like they’re going to need to keep the car through tomorrow because they think the trouble is a bad wire on a sparkplug at the back of the engine and they have to take off the intake to get to it. I’m assuming this is different from a “manifold”.

Whatever. Based on the weight in his voice when he warned me that this is what would be required it sounds like a pretty big deal. Removing the “intake”.

So they asked me to leave it with them and call back tomorrow around noon. So, that’s fine.

They also called me “Bwobby”

With a double-u. Just like they were from “Bwastin” or something.

I hate being called “Bwobby”. On the one hand, the way it ignores all formalities of every kind and goes straight to the nickname is kind of endearing. It makes me feel like they like me even though they don’t know me. But then a lot of salesmen do that so it makes me feel kind of skeevy; like they’re trying to pull one over on me. And the accent just makes me laugh.

Overall I don’t care for “Bwobby”.

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Since the democratic national convention is in town the Secret Service decided they had to shut down all the roads that pass next to the Fleet Center in order to ensure that no van laden with explosives can get near the event. This is ok for places like “Causeway St” and things like that, but unfortunately the primary north/south artery that runs right through the city happens to be adjacent to the Fleet Center. So Interstate 93 is being shutdown miles away from the city. Commuters will simply have to find another way to get in.

We’re a grown up city and we have all the modern conveniences. Like commuter trains! All the Boston-bound commuter lines that service the northeastern part of the state all arrive at a single location. Predictably, its called “North Station”. Can you guess where the terminal is located?

Yup.

Right underneath the Fleet Center! So the Secret Service said we had to shut that down, too. So, no highway access from north-of-the city and no commuter rail access.

Instead the commuter trains will be stopped outside of the city where passengers will transfer to buses, which will move the passengers in to and out of the city.

All the local TV shows have been doing pieces on what to expect from the closures. Everyone has a pretty good idea of what to expect. Those people who could schedule vacations for this week have done so. Anyone who can work at home, is doing that.

My house is seven miles north of Boston on a track that many thousands of people will use as a shortcut to get to the last stop on the subway. My house is about a mile north of that stop. I think that tomorrow traffic will be unbearable for much of the city.

I commute AWAY from the city and early in the morning so I don’t expect too much trouble from the DNC hoopla. But a neighbor of mine who also works here just called to warn me that there was a terrible back up on the highway already.

“What?! That can’t be! They’re not supposed to shut down the highway until 4pm!”

He reiterated that the highway was HORRIBLY backed up and that if I could get away now, I should head for home right away!

Chicken little.

Turned out there was a roll-over accident that had backed things up.

See? Everyone’s got the traffic jitters.

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I played another game of chess at http://games.yahoo.com last night and while I lost (again) at least my opponent was polite about it. I noticed that I wasn’t playing very aggressively. Like always I would line up a plausible defense and wait for my opponent to make mistakes and I continue to dislike this style of play. I need to find another way. Its ok if you’re a kid playing against other kids who make lots of mistakes but I think I need to be more aggressive to be more successful.

So far I’m not doing well.

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