ChaosEngine

Well it appears that Obama will be the next president of the United States. While its still possible we could wake up in the morning to find McCain had miraculously made a comeback, it seems pretty unlikely. Kind of amazing how close the popular vote is compared to the electoral votes. I kind of think it may be time to do away with the Electoral College, why do we have a system that can basically negate the popular vote?

Not that it matters at the moment, it does appear that the popular vote will go for Obama as well. I’m ok with that, I voted for the guy. First time I’ve ever voted for a Democrat for President. It wasn’t an easy choice for me, because I still consider myself a fiscal conservative, and Obama is most definitely not one. But neither is McCain, and for that matter apparently neither is Bush or most of the Republicans in Congress. So not much point in letting that be my voting criteria.

I just watched McCain’s concession speech. It was positive, humble, and spoken as a true statesman. I can only hope that Obama’s acceptance speech holds as much class. I’m cautiously optimistic that maybe he will be different, though I’m not exactly holding my breath.

Really I’m just glad that the election is over. I’m sick of listening to the ads and the analysis and all the idiocy around it. Despite the fact I was voting for Obama, I got really tired of way McCain and Palin were slandered and misrepresented by the media. I’m tired of those that act like Bush is a terrible evil man, worse than the enemies we are fighting. I’m tired of those that are acting like the sky will break open and a choir of angels will appear to sing Obama into the White House and everything will suddenly be wonderful in the world. Reality Check, all the problems we have now will still be there, and no one man can magically fix them.

Maybe there will be a change, maybe not. It’s too early to tell. What we really need now is to put all the partisan discord behind us and go forward with our eyes and minds open. McCain is a big enough man to do so, I hope everyone on both sides will follow his example.

Halloween at O’Malley’s was a little disappointing. Eddie Delahunt and friends were playing, and they were good, but there wasn’t much of a crowd and very few people in costume. A very loud group of college age kids took the table next to us and pretty much prevented us from hearing any of the music past that point, so we gave up and went home a little earlier than planned.

I at least got a little eye candy earlier in the day at Centriq, a local IT training center where I was taking a MS Server 2003 class. The employees all wore costumes, and some of them were quite nice. Only a few students wore a costume, but my old renfest outfit was enough for me to take 2nd place in the student costume contest and win $30.

I took my last canoe trip of the year with a friend on Sunday. Got off to a rocky start when my wife, who was going to take us to drop off a car then drop us off upstream, decided to take a Family Circus “Billy Route” to get where we were going. We finally arrived at the boat ramp in Farley, MO on the Platte River. It was covered in about 6 inches of mud which made for a lot of fun getting the canoe into river. Had a good time, the weather was great, the trees still had a lot of color, and it was just a nice relaxing day.

Today I’m going to be at work late which means I will miss the continuous reporting, pointless speculation, and sycophantic pandering over the election. What a shame. I voted early so I didn’t have to brave the polls today, have heard mixed reports from the area about how bad lines were. Overall, probably not as bad as a lot of people feared, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets worse this evening. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this mess. Whoever wins, pretty well loses if you consider what they are inheriting.

Coming to the end of my first course of my Master’s degree. I’ve learned quite a bit about different educational theories and learning styles, interesting stuff. Finishing up a final project and getting ready for the next class. One of the reasons I decided to pursue Instructional Design was because of my ongoing fascination with online communities and virtual worlds. It was kind of cool that the month I started school an educational magazine called Educase Review published an issue completely dedicated to virtual worlds in education. Most of it has to do with Second Life, which has admittedly underwhelmed me in the past. If a lot of educational developments are taking place there I may have to get involved with it again. My Avatar is called Beltane Bookmite if anyone wants to look me up in SL.

Tomorrow is Halloween, which is one of my favorite times of the year. Partly because I guess I never grew out of the phase of liking to wear costumes, and partly because I love this time of the year when Autumn is in full swing. This weekend I plan on taking a canoe trip down the Missouri from Atchison to Leavenworth. The leaves are maybe slightly past the peak of color and starting to fall, but I still think its going to look really cool out there. But, back to Halloween. On Halloween night I will be attending a Halloween Dinner and Party at the American Bowman and O’Malley’s at Weston continuing my four year tradition of having a drink in an Irish Pub every Halloween. Should be an interesting time.

Saturday is the start of NaNoWriMo. I’ve been telling myself I have too much going on and I’m not going to do it this year. But I really want too. It would be pretty ridiculous for me try and add the writing schedule of NaNo to my school workload, but I may yet take leave of my senses.

Went to see a Canadian group called Searson at O’Malley’s tonight. Wasn’t at all what I had expected, but a hell of a good show nonetheless. I was expecting kind of a new age Celtic vibe, something in the way of Enya or Loreena McKennit. What I got was some pretty intense Celtic Rock with some phenomenal fiddle playing. Being a Thursday night concert the pub wasn’t as crowded as usual and it was a small but energetic crowd.  Had a great time, it was a good way to unwind after a somewhat tense week.

I wish I had taken a better camera. I took a few pictures and videos with my phone, but they turned out pretty lousy. The sound on the video is horrible as well, so don’t take it of as an indication as to how they really sounded.

At any rate, I’m up later than I should be right now, so I’m calling it a night. I have one more day of a Windows Server 2003 class at Centriq to make it through and I need a little bit of sleep to manage that.

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The week before the Weston Irish Festival we went the Kansas City Renaissance Festival.  Had a good time as usual, though perhaps not quite as good as the past couple of years.   We generally go every year and watch the same four or five acts.  This time we discussed the fact that we should try to see some different folks, then stood around trying to decide who to go see before finally going to see the same four or five acts.

We of course saw Tullamore.  They were kind enough provide us tickets, and they are our favorite group anyway.  The Limey Birds were a lot of fun as well.  Caught the Jolly Rogers, and the Musical Blades.  How many pirate themed singing groups does the world need anyway?  As always, the best part of the day is the Pub Sing at the end, which is always horribly wrong and funny.  It wasn’t quite as over the top as a couple of years ago, but still fun.

Took a few pictures with the camera phone, not great quality, but here they are.

The first day was less than spectacular, not because of the performances at the festival, just all the other stuff that wento on around it.  The second day went a lot better.  The B&B gave us a refund, and the weather was bright and clear.  In actuality it was a little too bright and clear.  There was no shade to speak of for the outside stage, so it was a long afternoon of sitting in the hot sun.

The music was great, got to see many favorites.  Ellis Island, Flannigan’s Right Hook, Wild Colonial Bhoys, and of course, Brigid’s Cross.  Paulie Baker, the fiddle player in the group, along with Rachel Gaither from Tullamore were the two main inspirations for me to start taking violin lessons.

Also heard a new gorup (new to us anyway) called the Clumsy Lovers, that had a nice bluegrass vibe going which was a nice change from several of the earlier more rock’n'roll sounding groups.  By the time they were finishing up the weather had turned much cooler and it was looking like a spetacular night.  But the wife was tired and hungry, and truthfully so was I.  So we left the evening to the younger crowd and headed out.

All in all a good weekend, already looking forward to next year.  Unfortunately all the B&Bs in the town are booked up a year in advance, as is the hotel, so it looks like next year we will be commuting.

One last thing, apparently O’Malley’s has acquired the world’s largest ball of twine (actually largest ball of “string” not twine, guess there is a difference).  Kind of makes sense, I think it is one of those things best appreciated with alcohol, lots of alcohol.

It is time once again for the annual Weston Irish Festival. This is my fourth or fifth year attending this event, and it is one of the best times I have all year.

Today started a little rough. As per usual when I try to take time off, I get called by work to look at some problem. Of course while I’m in the middle of it the remote access goes down. I messaged my boss but got no response, so I went ahead and went in. Spent about 3 hours there, but I think I fixed the problem. Overall about half my first day of vacation shot to hell, not to mention getting woke up when trying to sleep in, and not being able to do several things I had planned to do that morning.

Got over my irritation at work and resolved to have a good time at the festival despite the bad start for the day. Got to Weston and checked into the bed and breakfast we had reserved then visited a couple of shops and headed for O’Malley’s. We arrived early enough to get good seats down in the pub. Watched Tullamore and then Bob Reeder with a special performance by Jiggernaut’s Deanna Scotland. Had a great time. A former student I knew from Devry, Kely, joined us, as well as a few O’Malley’s regulars. A little after midnight we headed back to the B&B, only to find it locked. We knocked repeatedly, rang the doorbell, called the number of the place, all to no avail. Here it was, 12:30 AM, with us tired and somewhat inebriated, and we were locked out of the place we were spending $160 a night to stay at. Not a happy situation. Not too mention the clothes we were planning on wearing tomorrow (including my utilikilt) and my wife’s medicine were all in our room. I left a message on their answering machine telling them I would be by sometime the next day to pick up my stuff and get a refund, then my wife who was the less intoxicated of the two of us drove us home.

We will be going back for tomorrow, hope things go a little better.

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