Author: RTOlson

JANESVILLE, Wis. — I’m in the Hedberg Public Library printing some documents out. During the next few days, I’m going to be driving around the Midwest checking some things out.

There’s a saying that you can’t go home again, and that’s true to some extent. Although things change, there’s new experiences to be had. The last week with the family was a total blast — my sisters are growing up so quickly and I was glad to see some portion of their lives.

I can’t believe that they replaced the stadium turf at Poway High School with Astroturf. It’s so green and springy and fake. I guess I liked marching and running on good ol’ fashioned grass.

The UCSD Pep Band has changed a bit too. Most of the familiar faces I remember have moved on with young sprites taking their places. Still the band has the same ol’ spirit that I’m used to. Bowling was fun too, especially once I figured out how to bowl the Mira Mesa Lanes. So sorry about the recommendation to eat at the ‘bertos knock-off on the corner though.

Heading to Kenosha, Wis. on Saturday, I got to meet Olivia and her family. Olivia’s taking a new job in Connecticut and it may be one of the last times I get to see her for a while. Her family is extremely personable and polite although the conversation drifted toward politics more than a few times (BTW, be sure to vote “No” on the casino. 😉 )

Wisconsin in the fall is a beautiful sight with all the corn fields drying out and getting ready to be harvested for feed. One enterprising farmer has a “Bush vs. Kerry” corn field maze. Too bad I didn’t have time to stop — I bet it would’ve been interesting.

Time to hit the road again. Ciao.

Just taking a quick tour through the house, talking to family members to get their voices down “for posterity.”

POWAY — While discussing President Bush’s “bulge problem” with a maternal source who declined to be identified, she pointed to a likely hypothesis. She said the Secret Service placed an anti-theft tag on Bush that would trigger an alarm if the president left the area.

Taking it from there, my theory is that the president is equipped with a Lojack which the Secret Service can activate to track Bush if he turns up missing.

I’m just going to touch briefly on tonight’s debate, and not launch a liveblog like last time. Still I noticed one thing watching this debate between Bush’s bad jokes and lying — both Kerry and Bush are wearing the same tie. Did anybody else notice this?

It’s true that Bush’s tie is a little lighter than Kerry’s, but the red color and dotted pattern are the same. I would think there would be people from both camps looking out for something like this.

POWAY — Thanks to Kerry’s strong lead in California, the airwaves in San Diego seem to be clear of any presidential ads. However, this void seems to be more than filled by ads for other races including state office as well as the countless state, county and city propositions.

Going into the 5 o’ clock news tonight, I saw one political commercial after another. Since I haven’t been following local politics since I live hundreds of miles away, everything is just so darn confusing. Why do people want to close a landfill that was overwhemlingly approved by voters a few years ago? What’s up with this lawsuit reform proposition?

I’m generally a supporter of the proposition system, but I’m disappointed by so many issues that confront the voter every two years — especially when there’s two similar-looking propositions that do two totally different things. Another thing I don’t like is when voters approve initiatives that strip rights away from others.

Like many people, I think I would vote “no” on any proposition unless there’s a really, really good reason for it.

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Note:I find it pretty funny that the state of California hasn’t taken my name off the voter rolls since I moved away in January 2001. I wouldn’t want to try it, but I guess the old saying “vote early, vote often” could apply to me.

POWAY — There’s a lot of things I like about coming home. The family, the bright warm climate, home cooking, getting a morning newspaper, etc. There’s only one minor downside to this Norman Rockwell picture of SoCal living — the family’s new cat Nika.

Alright, it’s not a new cat — it’s been around the house for about three years, but the female feline took my room when I moved out. In a living accommodations sense, Nika replaced me.

The problem isn’t the cat. It’s trying to live with the cat when I’m allergic to some types of cat fur including hers. When I come home on vacations, I get along fine for a couple days then it starts. The running noses, the sneezing, irritated eyes, etc. For the first couple of times, I chalked it up to coming down with a cold — a cold whose symptoms disappeared when I left the house.

“But she’s very lovable,” Mom says. I can’t help but agree. Nika has a great attitude — for a cat. But the point remains that the cat invokes a bad physical reaction in me that is a slight downside to returning home.

In the end, I can live with it (as long as there’s plenty of tissue paper and some anti-histamine drugs around).

I’m setting off for Chicago. I’m ready to see new sights and take in the best of America in autumn.

The post-debate “debate” seems to conclude that this debate was a tie between Bush and Kerry with some commentators saying that Kerry perhaps had a slight edge. I know a lot of commentators are talking about Bush exceeding everyone’s diminished expectations, but I think Kerry is still doing a good job debunking a lot of media myths about him (like long-winded, too wonky, too French, etc.).

One point that needed verification after the debate was Kerry’s comment that Bush is a part-owner of a lumber company. Apparently according to factcheck.org, he is. Daily Kos has some details including a follow-up on an MSNBC article “scoring” the debate.

My thinking is that this lumber comment isn’t going to help Kerry and it could help Bush. Most of the 62 million people who watched the debate saw Bush make a joke about the whole affair. I think that’s what most debate watchers are going to remember — Bush was personable during that moment in the debate. For the rest of the country that relies on media coverage of the debate, the fact that Bush ventured a joke on an $84 investment that turned out to be true will probably remove this point from play in most circles.

With the relaunch of the personal site, I’ve uploaded the pictures from my recent trip to St. Paul, Minn. with Garrett. The album can be found here. There was a lot to see and do in the Twin Cities and I wish there was more time to see it all.

The photo album covers the trip pretty well. The album doesn’t show all the great people that we met during the trip. It also doesn’t cover our epic late-night quest to find an open drug store to buy a toothbrush or the hunt for a White Castle on the way back through Minnesota just so we could say that we’ve gone.

There are placeholder pages for the More and Radio sections. There should be material on those pages shortly.

I know I said that I wouldn’t be talking too much about politics in this blog. However, tonight’s debate was just a little too hard to pass up. I would normally watch this with someone else and talking with them about it. Because I’m flying solo tonight, y’all get to see my thoughts here.

10:34 p.m. – Wrapping up. I’m now totally convinced that this election’s big issue is the “war on terror” and the Iraq war (and whether Iraq should even be considered part of the “war on terror.” Kerry’s closing statements seem to focus solely on this point.

Bush’s closing statements center on the Are you better off now than you were four years ago? question. He didn’t say it, but that’s what his last words felt like. I think the president’s points are “interesting,” but I think a lot of Americans could answer that they’re not doing better than before Bush was elected.

BTW, Kerry should’ve let Bush go first in the closing statements. Bush’s simple points are relatively good sound bites and I don’t think it should’ve been the last word.

10:20 p.m. – Did the president just go back more than 150 years in his reference to Dred Scott to dredge up some examples of poor judicial judgment? Wow, that’s a bit of a stretch. Bush’s other example (the Pledge of Allegiance case) isn’t all that great either (separation of church and state is in the Constitution, Mr. President), but should help his base.

10:09 p.m. – Whoops! Kerry said something about Bush owning an interest in a timber company. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, Bush turned it around and made it into a pretty good joke. Score one for Bush.

Still, I think Kerry is doing a decent job of pointing out the shortcomings of the past four years. Bush is landing some hits, but some of his rhetoric seems a little off.

9:55 p.m. – I hope that Kerry didn’t do his impersonation of Bush 41’s take on “No new taxes.” Of course, Kerry’s statement had caveats, but I’m sure people would find examples of families earning less than $200,000 getting a tax increase. And Republicans can also bust out the old “expiring tax cuts are actually increases” argument.

9:53 p.m. – The tone of the debate has shifted a bit now that they’re talking about the economy and tax cuts. Kerry and Bush seem to be doing well although I fear that people tune out the numbers. Bush’s economic record hasn’t been all that great during the past four years, and I don’t think the president can entirely blame it on the six-month recession in his first year in office.

9:11 p.m. – Bush seems to be doing a lot better in this debate compared to last week’s relative disaster. Bush keeps hammering Kerry on the whole “flip-flop” issue. I really wish Kerry or someone else would confront Bush on the wishy-washy things he’s done over the past four years.

Homeland security, the Sept. 11 commission, UN assistance in rebuilding Iraq — all those are issues that Bush has wavered on. He was opposed to all of those initiatives before ultimately backing them. The effectiveness of all those initiatives is debatable, but the fact that Bush went back and forth on all of those for the sake of politics is obvious. Bush’s “flip-flop” comments are an obvious example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Unfortunately, saying something is so sometimes creates the perception that it’s true. Bush’s simple arguments do a decent job of making people feel all warm and fuzzy. It would be nice if reality matched the so-called optimism of the Bush White House.