The Sock that saw Barack...

Even though I did not win one of the raffle tickets to the democratic debate last Tuesday, I did get a chance to see Barack Obama on Friday night at a rally held for him. Myself and three of my friends begged off a meeting in order to be a little part of the history currently in the making.

We wanted to get there early in order to have a good view of the stage. One of my friends said that if he was going he wanted to see the man's eyes. So we got there when the gates opened at 6pm, went through the metal detectors and settled in to wait for the 9pm speech. I had flashbacks to the Austin City Limits festival, except I wasn't sweating buckets. It was a beautiful night to cram a bunch of people into a quarter block cordoned off area. There were thousands of other people outside the fences. The creepy thing is that someone, somewhere, has figured out how much space needs to be secured for a rally such as this in order to place the speaker out of the range that a weapon might be able to reach. Gives you the willies, doesn't it?

Anyway, I was amused over the next three hours by my friends, a wonderful r&b group, a high school mariachi band, and lastly a rock band (although I have to admit, by the time the rock band came on in the corner stage behind us, the crowd was so packed that I assumed the music was recorded, not live). Oh, and my current sock in progress. I very nearly finished the body of this guy while chatting with my friends and waiting for the speech. Since then I have finished the first one and knit the ribbed cuff of the second. I think I will have to call these the Barack Socks.

As for the speech, I won't go into detail. If you are unfamiliar with Obama's platform I suggest going to the official website. I found that I am far less eloquent than he is when I tried to explain the content of his speech to others. And while I do not use my blog as a soapbox, I will say that he is my candidate in this election.

The rest of the weekend ended up leaving me even more tired than when it started! It ended with the Oscars, and I wanted to share this picture with you. Living in Austin gives you some freedoms that I did not experience in the midwest. People in this town manage to walk the fine line between yard trash and yard art, tacky and tasteful, with the greatest of ease. For example, That Guy went to great efforts to put gravel into the yard. Low hanging tree canopies and rocky soil prevent grass from growing, and the yard gets quite muddy at times. He also built a nice fire pit. We like to make fires and watch movies outside in the yard. There are white christmas lights in the trees year round. And to top it off, he recently acquired this mini fridge. Yes, the television is sitting on top of our mini beer fridge in the front yard, fire and christmas lights casting a warm glow.

And the people I know down here think this is fantastic! It certainly is fun!

Tschuss.