Stand for Change

I caucused for the first time today.

Yesterday, Senator Obama held a rally at Key Arena in Seattle, and I ditched work to go. Doors opened at 11am, which is when I got there, but I still was unable to get into the near 20,000 seat arena. Thousands of us stood outside for several hours in the cold (by Seattle standards) just to hear the speech over the speakers outside the stadium.

Luckily, the Senator stopped by the crowd on the way in. With a megaphone he stood on the steps about 10 feet from where I happened to be standing, and gave an incredibly moving speech before entering the arena. The energy of the enormous crowd made it obvious that Obama was going to carry this state in a landslide.

I tend to be passionate about politics and like to argue with my friends and try to get them to go vote. But after the rally, I tried to take it a little further. I made sure to look up the caucus location for everyone at work that I could and I think I convinced several people to go and be counted.

Turnout today was definitely incredible. And as predicted, Obama supporters seemed to outnumber Clinton supporters by more than 2 to 1 in my legislative district. We broke into our precincts and stated our initial presidential candidate preferences. There were actually a couple people that came “uncommitted” in my precinct. So initial tally gave 6 delegates to Obama, 2 to Clinton, and 1 uncommitted. Obama supporters only needed to convince one of the uncommitted voters to pick up another delegate, so a couple people were able to make a few statements and it was relatively easy to pick up the extra delegate. So finally, it turned out 7 to 2.

It was actually very laid back and people were mingling and talking and I met a few people that I will probably be seeing more of. Exactly seven of us volunteered to be delegates at our county and legislative conventions, so it was easy picking them. I really have no idea what is going to be involved in being a delegate at these conventions, but I have a month to figure it out, right? Anyway, I think it will be fun. 

The Greatest Invention of My Lifetime

Ok, I have been known to exaggerate a little bit when I get excited about something, but this time I really mean it. I bought a Macbook Air earlier this week and I have fallen in love with the multi-touch trackpad.

It is large… probably more than double the size of any other trackpad I have used. But once you start getting used to the gestures, the trackpad suddenly becomes easier to use than the five-button mouse with wheel that I have become so accustom to.

The oversized pad means that you don’t have to lift up your finger and drag some more just to get across the screen. Drop a second finger on the pad and click to do a secondary click (i.e. right click). Drop a third finger and swipe for to go forward and back (two buttons I use a lot on my mouse). Hold down control while using the pad and you can zoom in to any point on the screen. This ability gives you the precision of a mouse when trying to select fine detail in desktop graphics programs.

I am waiting until they make a similar trackpad that I can use on my desktop. It really is that good.