Election Thoughts

Here's a brief video of President-Elect Obama walking with President Bush in many of the same places Sarah and I just visited.

What can I say about the events of last Tuesday? The final results far exceeded any projects I made, even on my most optimistic days. An African-American Democrat whose name sounds like Osama, and who has Hussein as a middle name, really won Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, etc, and will soon be sworn in as President. It's really incredible, and above all, shows how hungry America really is for change.

Strange as it may sound, I've been even more impressed with Pres-Elect Obama during the last week than I was during the campaign. He has seemed humbled and levelled by the weight of what has just been placed on his shoulders. I was amazed at how quickly he actede to appoint Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of staff, and while I initially had mixed reactions, I think it is a brilliant choice. It's true that Emmanuel has a history of sharp partisanship, but I think more than anything he's a pragmatist with strong political instincts. The right direction now calls for boldness but bi-partisanship, and he's pragmatic enough to go that direction. Best of all, he knows the House and has a lot of young legislators indebted to him. Combine that with Vice-Pres-Elect Biden's clout and experience in the Senate, and I think Obama will have a much easier time working with Congress than Pres. Clinton ever did.

Now what? in some ways it seems health care, energy, and all those priorities should be put off until the economy can be dealt with. It seems that every day in the paper there is someone arguing for doing as much at once as quickly as possible, and another arguing for babysteps. I'm somewhat inclined to believe that this is a golden opportunity that might not exist for long. Think of all LBJ was able to do in the first year after his huge victory in 1964, for example. As Al Gore pointed out in his recent op-ed, appropriately titled "A Climate for Change," the solutions to health care, energy, and the economy are so inter-related that dealing with the economy provides the opportunity to work towards solving the health care and energy problems. I know Ted Kennedy is working behind the scenes, even from his hospital bed, to craft health reform legislation. How will it play out? Only time will tell. What an exciting time!

West Wing Tour

Me sitting in Helen Thomas' seat in the White House Press Briefing Room.

At the podium with my girls.

In front of the main entrance to the West Wing.

Holding my first press conference from the White House (hopefully last!)

Many thanks to my buddy Stephen for arranging the tour of the White House and West Wing.

My adorable girl was a bit tired in the morning before heading to DC, but she was a trooper all day long.

Here I am sitting at a desk in the old House Chambers of the Virginia Legislature, the room where Jefferson and Madison used to meet.

Cannonball Half Marathon

On Saturday I completed my4th half marathon, the Cannonball Run in Greensboro, NC. It was a fantastic day, and I'll post pictures soon. In many ways it was my favorite of the 4 halfs I've done, in some ways not.

The worst part was that we got there late, so I missed the starting gun. By the time I got there they had already rolled away the mat for the timing chip and I couldn't even see the last person anymore! They told me where the course went I just started running. I eventually caught someone, and pretty soon was passing a bunch of people. It was a stressful start, but it was also so relaxing to not have to fight through a crowd of people to get into a rythm.

The course was exceptionally beautiful and I enjoyed savoring every moment of the first few miles.

My goal was to finish in under 1:59:55, the average time for all half marathoners in 2007. To do that I would basically need to maintain a 9min per mile pace, which over 13.1 miles would be difficult but doable for me. I only started running 2 years ago, never having run track or anything in school, so this is all still somewhat new to me and I know I'm not very fast compared to most people my age/shape, but it's great to see that improving. In May 2007 I did the Ottawa Half Marathon in 2:25 (weighing around 197lbs at the start of training and 189 at the end). In February 2008 I ran 2:09 in the Myrtle Beach Half, weighing 181 at the end. Two months later I ran the Raleigh Half in 2:07, weighing 179. My best 13.1 mile run in training has been 2:05.

5 miles into the race I felt really strong at 44 min (just under 9 min pace), and was confident I could get under 2 hours. At mile 8 I was still feeling really strong, running consistently between 8:50 and 9:10 min/mile. Even at mile 10 I felt like I was certainly going to contend for 2 hours, as I was at about 92 min. I had told myself that if I could get to 10 miles in around 90 minutes, then I would have a full 30 to do the last three, meaning I could run 10 min/mile the whole rest of the way.

Then mile 11 and it's big hill hit. Ugh! It just seemed to keep going and going. There weren't enough water stations. My legs threatened to start cramping up. I stopped noticing what song was on my ipod. I stopped and walked. I kept pushing, but could feel that my legs might start cramping up at any moment and that pretty soon I'd be on the ground unable to walk. I wished I had done a couple more long runs during training.

We turned back into the park near the finish line and I still hadn't seen the 11 mile marker and my mind was playing serious tricks on me. I eventually saw the 12 mile marker, but by then it was 1:55 and 2 hours was out of the question. I still felt like I could break my personal record of 2:05, but not knowing my way around park, I got real discouraged to see another uphill every time we turned a corner. Not knowing how close I was, and really afraid of cramping up, I started walking. Little did I know the finish line was just around the corner! Once I started to hear the small crowd (ony 350 did the race, so there weren't very many spectators), I ran the last 100 meters or so and felt pretty proud to be done.

My final time according to my stopwatch was 2:06:40. My time from the firing of the starting gun was 2:10:12, but remember that I was THE VERY LAST person to start, a full 3 minutes after everyone else. So I didn't meet my goal of 1:59:55, I didn't break my record from training runs, but it was my personal best in an actual race, so I guess that's something to be proud of, right?

This put me in 235th place out of 354 overall, and 15th out of 26 in my age group (25-29).

Article in the Chapel Hill News

When Mayor Foy proclaimed October to be "Go! Chapel Hill" month in Chapel Hill, in honor of the organization I've recently started volunteering with, I thought it would be a great opportunity for the local newspapers to run articles on the importance of physical activity and having a healthy lifestyle. When I suggested this to the Chapel Hill News they offered to have me write 4 short weekly columns during the month of October. I've written newspaper columns before for the politicians I've interned with, but this is the first time I'm publishing under my own name. It's pretty fun.

Here's the article published in last weekend's Chapel Hill News (circulation 22,000). This week I'll be writing about the relationship between physical activity, the economy and the environment.

In case you can't read that, here's the full text:

Mayor Foy recently proclaimed October “Go! Chapel Hill Month” and encouraged everyone to incorporate physical activity into their daily routines.

Go! Chapel Hill is an organization formed with a 5 year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to promote ways to do this. As a jogger who has had his share of near-misses, I know that being active has wonderful health benefits, but isn’t always safe. Although Chapel Hill has many beautiful greenways and sidewalks, many improvements are still needed.

One example is how difficult it is for pedestrians to cross Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Bus stops, businesses and apartments are often far from nearby intersections, prompting many to brave four lanes of traffic every day. The Town recently announced that new crosswalks will be built on MLK, such as one connecting the Shadowood Apartments to the bus stop across the street. This is a great step.

Building crosswalks is simple and relatively inexpensive, and more are needed on Chapel Hill’s busiest streets. In a month devoted to active living, this is particularly important, as few things encourage physical activity more than making sure it’s safe.

Canadian Election

Most Americans don't realize, but ours isn't the only major election happening right now. Canada votes for Prime Minister & Parliament in less than 2 weeks on Oct 14th. Because of the parliamentary system, the election was only called a month or so ago. The American campaign has cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of almost 2 full years, while the Canadian campaign costs significantly less and lasts just over a month! Of course, they're constantly in campaign mode, wondering when the elections will be called.

What do I think will happen? What do I want to happen? I can't vote in the election, so it doesn't really matter, but as an intern in the House of Commons in the fall of 2006, I had the unique opportunity to spend time with many of these leaders and watch how they operate up close, so I'm very interested in how things play out. I've stood in a scrum of reporters just 2 feet from Stephan Dion (leader of the Liberal Party - the man on the right), Jack Layton (leader of the New Democratic Party - in the middle) and Gilles Duceppes (leader of the Bloc Quebecois, not pictured), and just about every other national leader except Stephen Harper (the Prime Minister - on the left). I've been around him a number of times though, attending question period, etc, but he was less acecssible (rightly so) than everyone else.

I was always particularly impressed with Dion as someone who is passionate and sincerely interested in the issues, not to mention incredibly intelligent. I'm not sure he's a natural fit for the position, and would be someone everyoe across Canada would be confident about having as their leader right now. Even if he somehow wins, it'll be a minority government, and it'll seem like the conservatives will be itching to go to the polls as soon as they can.

On the other hand, I worked for a Conservative Member of Parliament (Rob Merrifield) and got to sit in on a lot private strategy sessions, so I feel I have a sense for how that party operates as well. I really enjoyed my time with him and found him and his staff to be extremely impressive. By and large I was impressed with everyone else too, but some people had surprisingly little depth of knowledge or interest in some key issues, and were much more likely to oppose/support something purely on ideological grounds with no clear reasoning other than "it's what the minister's office wants." If I had worked up close with another party I probably would have had the same impression. Perhaps that's the nature of federal politics. That being said, Harper always impressed me as intelligent, consistent, and having sharp political instincts.

I was largely impressed with the sincerity and intellect of individual members of the Bloc Quebecois (a party devoted solely to advocated Quebec's interest and autonomy), though I think the foundation of their party is incredibly weak and somewhat self-serving. They always want independence and special rules for Quebec, but always push for the maximum federal dollars as well. I don't think you can have it both ways...

The NDP and Green Party are full of good people, but don't have a broad enough platform to gain significant support. Even still, I think Jack Layton is an effective leader for the NDP and is the source of some most memorable quotes.

My prediction: Conservatives win a minority government, liberals have a new leader very soon, Green party wins at least 1 seat (not many more), and the new government doesn't last 2 1/2 years.

To see previous posts about my internship in the Canadian Parliament, check out post about: giving my dad a tour, a typical day in Oct 06, Dion takes over Liberals in Dec 06, and holiday dinner in the Parliementary restaurant,

Phish Reunion

PHISH HAMPTON 2009 from Phish on Vimeo.

After 5 years of not playing, Phish announced this morning that they're getting back together for a weekend of shows in Hampton, Virginia. I won't go into all the details, but Hampton is a particularly famous venue in Phish lore, so this is very fitting. The announcement came by way of this video being posted on their website at 3am this morning! (No I wasn't awake to see it that early). I heard about it by 9am, and quickly signed up for the lottery to get tickets. The Hampton Coliseum only seats 13,000, and I'd expect at least 30,000-50,000 people to try to get tickets, so I'm not counting my chickens until they hatch. To give you an idea, at 10am I decided to look at hotels just out of curiousity and found that virtually EVERYTHING within 10 miles was booked already.

In case you can't figure out what the guy in the video is drawing, here's a picture of the venue:

Mayor Foy's Proclamation

At the beginning of Monday night's Town Council meeting Mayor Foy presented me and other members of the Active Living by Design Advisory Board with a proclamation declaring October to be "Go! Chapel Hill Month." He stressed the importance of physical activity and thanked our committee for the work we're doing to encourage active lifestyles and to advocate policies which make active lifestyles possible. You can watch the video of his proclamation here.

In case you didn't know, I was appointed to the committee by Town Council in June. It's been a fantastic experience to work with Councilmember Ed Harrison, as well as all the dedicated people on the committee. Over the last few months our agendas have focused on a variety of topics including community gardens and "complete streets." Our most recent meeting was devoted to reviewing the town's sidewalk priority list. I'm somewhat a nerd for detailed oriented things like and enjoyed understanding how these projects get prioritized. I was particularly excited by a few of the projects on their list, though somewhat confused by a couple others. In the end our committee passed a couple resolutions advocating that a major focus be to improve pedestrian safety along Weaver Dairy Rd and Martin Luther King Blvd. I spoke up about the importance of adding more crosswalks along MLK, especially near bus stops. Somewhat coincidentally, I recently read the town will be adding four new crosswalks on MLK this fall, including linking the Shadowwoods Apt complex and the bus stop on the west side of the street. It's nice to know we're on the same page.

Links

In case you haven't noticed, I've added a few more links to the right side of the page. I also got rid of the daily update on the Yankees. It was more depressing news than I could handle! Here's a quick profile on each of the links:

1. My family's blog - The real reason anyone comes to a blog of mine is undoubtedly to check out pictures of my daughter. My wife and I update this blog regularly with pics chronicling her growth.
2. My Church - I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and very happy to share something that's made a major impact in my life and family.
3. The Fix - Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post updates this political blog about 3-4 times per day and in my opinion is a must read. His analysis is usually dead on and well thought through.
4. Antoine Flahault - I've recently become acquainted with Monsieur Flahault, the Dean of L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Publique, the School of Public Health in France. He was kind enough to put a link to this blog on his blog, and I'm happy to do the same to his very interesting and well thought through posts. Curious what a well informed French academic would write in a letter to the incoming President of the United States?
5. North Carolina Institute of Medicine - Over the summer I worked as the Jim Bernstein Health Policy Scholar, supporting the work of three task forces focusing on improving health in North Carolina. I'll continue working there 2 days a week through the entire school year.
6. Go! Chapel Hill Advisory Board - In June I was appointed by the Chapel Hill Town Council to serve on this advisory board dedicated to encouraging active lifestyles. We're currently focusing on how to improve the build environment so that people have safe places to walk, jog and ride their bikes. It's been a great experience so far and I'm looking forward to the direction the committee is going in.
7. Liverpool FC - What can I say, I've become a fan of European soccer, and I'm claiming the Merseyside roots of my great grandmother Clara Simpson in rooting for Liverpool. In case you haven't been following, they've had a pretty good stretch the last few years. They won the Champions League in 2005 (the Super Bowl of European Soccer), lost 2-1 in the 2007 finals, and almost made it to the 2008 finals. It's been a delicate start to the new season as they barely qualified for the major tournment, sneaking by a team from Belgium at the last minute. However, when all is said and done, barely winning is the same as winning!

Palin/Hillary Joint Appearance, sorta

In case you missed the much anticipated opening of SNL's new season last night, it's worth watching:

7 years later

This is a very touching picture entitled "Victims" I recently came across. Like last year, I don't have much to say about this anniversary other than that I'm deeply touched and reminded of the importance of living our lives the best we can; you never know when it will end. For me, that means focusing on being a loving husband and father, enjoying learning, and working to make an impact on other people's lives.




This was the same picture I used in my 2006 post about the 5th anniversary. It's a picture of my mom and I on top of one of the towers when I was just a few months old. Of course, the picture means more to me now because I have a daughter that age who quite frankly looks exactly like I did.

You can read my thoughts on 9/11 as posted in 2007 when I wrote about an aspect of NYC I love, 2006 when I tried to make sense of my feelings & 2005 when I wrote about my experiences that week.

The Fix Picks

As a boost to my ego, Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post updated his state by state projections and came to very similar conclusions as I did. In case you don't regularly read his blog, The Fix, you should, as it THE SOURCE I turn to for political analysis.

His post yesterday arrived at the exact same number I did, 279, though in a different way. Based on the latest polls that came out last night/this morning, he's updated it so it came down to Obama at 269 and McCain at 249, with Ohio making the difference between whose President. In case you haven't seen the recent polls, McCain has surged since the convention to either lead or tie Obama (depending on the poll). Just last week Obama was up 50-42.

56 days to go and the drama just keeps building. The worst case scenario is that the election day results are razor thin or in any way ambigous. If McCain wins, I hope it's a clear victory, and not by 3 electoral votes, etc. I get more worried every day that it's going to be SUPER close and we're going to have some new chapter to add to the Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 episodes. Like I said in my last post, I think it's mathematically possible they both end up at 269; then what?