Pedal to the Metal

I received this email last night:

"The electoral map looked like this:  http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/Pres/Maps/Oct09.html

If you believed in the polls and the pundits on this day in 2004, Senator Kerry was on his way to the White House with victories in the battleground states of Ohio, Nevada, and Iowa.  As we all know, he lost all of them and the rest is history.  Tragic history.  So, stop getting excited.

Stay focused and turn off the tv.  Travel to a battleground state, and go knock on some doors.  Plan where you're going to be on Election Day.  Send that Oct 9th link to friends and fam and plan a roadtrip to Ohio or Colorado.  Make some Obama mixtapes for the car.  Don't be obvious and pick Sam Cooke for the first song (but, be sure to include him of course)

26 days. 

-b."

And I got this email:

Finally - I felt like it was difficult to get this started (calling for Barack)... maybe I was being distracted by life and not really trying, but there just was not a clear place where I was looking to get started - finally, I got an invitation to participate this weekend, so Sunday, I signed up for a 4 hour shift with a call bank.  YAY!

Awesome!  It's absolutely hard to get started volunteering.  We all know this.  I know it very well since most of my 16 mentees tell me they are going to do x,y, or z volunteering and they never do.  I have cast every vote I've ever had in a very blue state and until this election, I've never thought outside my own state.  I guess I didn't learn enough from my first presidential election in 2000 to do something in 2004.  Thankfully, my learning curve isn't that flat.  The first couple of calls can be tough.  More than 60% of the callers aren't home (or don't pick up) and you don't have a rhythm down.  But, soon enough, you get that rhythm.  In my office, people ring a bell for every Obama supporter they talk to.  The other day, someone rang the bell like crazy after talking to a woman that said she had 50 friends who were voting Obama.  The energy picks up and you start rolling.  Some people will come in for the half hour they have and others will stay all day.  People come in for their lunch hour and make as many calls as they can.  One high schooler came in the other day and stayed until he had 100 phone calls and was doing his Calculus homework on the side.  Whether you make 10 calls or 100, they all count.

I am going to try to take the advice above.  Don't pay attention to the polls (besides, pundits also predict that underlying racism could hurt Obama by up to 6 points) because no one is a shoe-in for the White House.  Keep working hard.  I just keep telling myself...less than three weeks and I can get more sleep.  I told one of my friends...I'd rather have a crappy three weeks than a crappy four years, so that's why I have Obama's name all over my calendar.  Keep it up team!

Wordle Wednesday #1

Tom Brokaw at the second debate:

Poor TB.  And then they stood in front of his teleprompter.  And maybe it's because I'm a high school teacher and I know my students are watching, but he said "drunk" a few too many times, right?

Off to phone NM...

Milestone

There are many things that I don't love about the Nike + system.  It is innacurate for a lot of my running (today I ran 6 miles but it thought I ran 5.17...because half of the miles were at a fast pace...it gets confused).  But today, nikeplus.com alerted me that I've run 500 miles with my Nike+ (ipod or sportband).  I'm not sure how "off" it is, but that's pretty cool to have a website remind you of things like that.

I do like the sportband more than using the ipod.  I can easily look down and see my approximate pace.  I generally use it to pace my long runs and it does a good job since it's calibrated at that pace.  The downside is the screen.  It's like an old computer that had a dark screen with light writing (the sportband has yellow-ish numbers on the display).  I run about 50% of my miles in the dark and the sportband has no light on the screen, so I have to wait until I get under a street light, angle the thing juuuuuust right so I can see my pace.  Sometimes, I think these products aren't tested by real athletes doing what they do.

The weekend at home will be great!  I'll fast for the Yom and then get two races in.  I'm going to participate in some of the Hartford Marathon.  I need to do a fast 8 miles, so that's all I'm doing on Saturday.  Then I'm running my 5th Tufts 10K.  I've run it every year that I've been teaching, except last year when I didn't go home for it.  I love the "all" women races, maybe because I've always done them with a family member.  On Sunday, I'll run my 5th Tufts with Aunt Susan, who I haven't seen since I moved to Cali.  I can't wait!  And on the 19th, I will run my first race with my sister since the Rod and Reed 3.23 mile benefit run in 1996.  I was 15 and she was 11!  Holy mackeral.  The results are still online and it turns out that my mom ran that race, I believe without training, almost as fast as my 5K PR in June.  Beast!  Similarly, Susan will probably finish in a great time despite rowing much more than running to train.  When do I get those genes?

On to the next 500!

One Thing I Don't Want To Do Early

So, in many states, you can vote early.  This is different than an absentee ballot.  Voting early is just like voting on Election Day, but may not be at your regular polling station.  I don't know about you, but I love going to the polls on Election Day.  I guess if I was definitely out of town or working the polls all day, I would vote early, but I'm really excited to be one of the first in line on Nov 4.  But, I guess that there are fewer disenfranchisement problems when people vote early as the polls are less crowded.  Sigh...

Promotion

Today I called 100 registered Democrats in New Mexico.  I probably only spoke with about 20 or so, most fervently supporting Obama, about three supporting McCain, three who were pissed that I called, and one undecided.  I encouraged them to vote early (which NM does) and volunteer if they had the time..  Some were already all over it.  The point of this for the Obama camp is to identify the undecided and the people who might be willing to talk to them.  Getting so many answering machines was a bit of a bummer, but it was great to get so much positive feedback from the supporters.  

On my way out, one of the phone-bank leaders asked if I'd be willing to come back to train others to call.  I guess I did a pretty good job today.  So, I've upped my commitment.  I figure that there are a lot of people who don't feel comfortable doing some campaigning or don't think they have time.  I guess I should do as much as I can in place of those who can't.

Shout out to Schlotty for another Boston Qualifying time!  Maybe she'll come pace me in Eugene...

Holy Tacos!

Can you believe that just after I posted my blog, this popped up on wordles?  Redwood City Taquerias!!!  (I teach in the R-dub-C, as they say.)

What Are You Saying?

Amy posted a Wordle on her blog today. I loved it, as it reminds me of the NYT when they show words that people have been talking about in sizes proportional to their occurrence.

Ali, I think we should have Wordle Wednesdays instead of Wordless.

First I tried to Wordle my blog:
Something didn't look right. I don't think I've really talked about temple that much. So, I changed my settings to have all posts on the front page and tried again:


Wait, is this the same? I think it is, now that I inspect it. Do I really write "like" that much. A quick Ctl+F in Google Chrome tells me:
214 "like"
142 "think"
118 "school"
118 "new" (including newspaper I guess)
44 "hope"
44 "local"
6 "temple" (why's it so big?)
2 "pluots"

Just to name a few. But something's amiss here. When I clicked on my word count of the Wordle, it said "like" was 9. Clearly, Wordle is not reading my entire blog.

So here's my last attempt. I copied my entire blog and wordled it. This is my blog. I am realizing, I don't really say very much of substance, do I?



So, this is fun. What next? Obvi, last night's VP debate. I copied it from the NYT transcript, which kept in all the "Ifill," "Biden," and "Palin" in front of each person's quotation. In Coolvetica font:

But mine looks different than this posted one...I'll have to play around with this more as you can change fonts and colors and fiddle with the sizes yourself. That's not cool.


There are some great Wordles in the Gallery at their page. I liked the Psalms and Big Lebowski script (inappropriate for younger viewers) and The Declaration of Independence. But maybe Prufrock is my favorite. It would be interesting to see the bailout bill passed today.

Thanks Amy for a fun website!

Shout Outs!

1. Hopkins field hockey team.  10-0!  #3 in the country.  Ripping it up all over the place, setting records, and taking names.  I hope to get to see them when I'm home in Nov.  That might take some pulling off, but it would be cool

2. Red Sox!  Looks like a good game last night.  The Sox have won 10 straight in the post season against the Angels.  I hope all these teams get past 10 wins...

3. I have my first college acceptance.  One of my mentees was accepted to her first choice college.  One down, 15 to go.  

No Better Time Than Now

Note: for those of you on the other side of the aisle, I hope that you at least get something out of this post, if only a reminder about the importance of the democratic process in this country and that we can all make our vote feel more important.  Or, you don't have to read it.

"Are you fired up?"  That was the first question I was asked after I entered the "Silicon Valley For Obama" office.  I went tonight for a Volunteer Orientation, hoping to learn a bit more about how I'm going to talk to voters on November 1 and 2.  I wasn't fired up when I was asked this question to be honest.  I was tired.  I dragged myself there from a long day at school (where I had graded 100 quizzes and 15 projects over the course of the day) and I almost didn't go.  But after a few minutes, I realized that there were two inpired people standing in front of me letting me know what I can do, there were six students from the local girls's private school there with their teacher excited to get to work, and many, many baby boomers.  When they took a poll at the beginning, most people had never been in a campaign office or been a part of a campaign before at all.

Maybe you're like me and delete all Obama's emails that ask me to make calls.  After tonight, I'm totally committed to being in that office twice a week to do so.  It's actually not that intimidating because the goal of the phoning right now is to identify voters.  If they are supporting McCain, you thank them and end the call.  If they are undecided, you ask them if they have any questions.  It's only if they are a Barack supporter that you have a longer conversation about getting involved.  In the last two elections, I have felt as though my vote doesn't really matter since I've always been in a blue state.  I am now realizing that while I still need to vote, it's my voice that matters much, much more.

So, yes, I am now fired up.  This weekend 50,000 calls need to go to Nevada and New Mexico, whose voter registration ends on Tuesday.  That's a big task.  Since I graded like a crazy person today, I think I'll stop by their office on Friday or Sunday and make some calls.  Both states are very precarious right now.  There are battleground states bordering nearly everyone I know (except the one person I know in Louisiana) and what that means is that this is right in your backyard.  You can call New Mexico and Nevada...or you can Colorado or Florida,  New Hampshire or Maine, Ohio or Virginia.  

We are this country.  If we really want change, maybe we need to mix it up a little bit in our own lives.  I've never been the kind of person who felt comfortable asking people to sign something or felt like I can convince someone to change their mind.  I never thought I'd be doing what I'm doing, but, for me, this is too important to sit on the sidelines and hope for hope.  I think about my students and how most of them can't even vote.  I try to think about what might make a better future for each of them (this 11-year old kid is giving speeches about it).  So, I'm doing something.  I hope you join me.  Shoot me an email or give me a call if you want to talk through this.

Local Day #1

Ah the joys of California.

Today, among the things I will eat will be...plain yogurt from Brown Cow in Antioch, CA with strawberries and pluots from the farmer's market, more pluots throughout the day, and homemade yellow squash and tomato soup with local cream and brioche baked in SF.  I will admit that I did make some lemon cheesecake bars (with non-local cream cheese and sugar and ginger snaps...but everything else local) because the lemons are just falling off my tree and I feel guilty that I don't use them very much.  I'll bring those into school tomorrow for our faculty meeting.

I'm thinking that I might need to make apple pie or crisp this weekend to celebrate the Jewish New Year (local ingredients for that will be tough to come by...flour does exist but I'd have to drive up to Yolo County which is more than an hour away).  I went to temple on Monday night for Rosh Hashana, which made me both very sad (thinking about the year that I've just had) and very hopeful (thinking about the next one).  I forgot how much I just really like going to temple.  I love doing the prayers, singing the songs, practicing the Hebrew, and listening to the sermons (the rabbi on Monday told us that we should work not on being perfect but being present...I like this).  It's interesting because I don't consider myself a fervently religious person, but I just like the traditions that I grew up with.  Why haven't I been going to temple out here?  For one, I'm in total withdrawal from being away from Temple Israel in Boston and two, I'm just so darn tired on Friday evening.  But, my Jewish New Year's resolution is to go at least once a month. I'm going to try a local temple that many have recommended and if that doesn't work, I will go to Stanford Hillel.  The dates are already on the calendar: Oct 24, Nov 14, and December 5 or 12 depending on our school dance.  So, hold me to it!