Zach Dotsey

So I could talk about my day, but there wasn’t really much to it.  After work Amanda and I picked up toilet paper and paper towels from Target before picking Lars up and heading to Justin and Lisa’s for small group, but that’s not the big news of the day.

America has elected its first black president.  (Okay, so Barack Obama’s mom was white, but that doesn’t really matter.)  Wow, my child will be born in a world where the idea of a black president isn’t only portrayed in movies.  How cool is that?.

Who would have thought even a couple years ago that a black man with foreign sounding names, Muslim names that sound like two of America’s biggest enemies in the past decade at that, would not only be a serious contender for the highest job in the land, but actually become President of the United States?

The more I think about it, the cooler it is.  I can’t even begin to imagine the pride African Americans feel right now, especially the ones who grew up during segregation.  How great of a role model must he be to everyone?  I still don’t think I’m very comfortable with some of his ideas and policies, but on the TV they were just talking about getting the transition ready, and I thought about Obama replacing President Bush.  What a breath of fresh air Obama will be.  He’s young, energetic, charismatic.

I know a lot will be made of the race benchmark here, but this is a moment that ranks up there with other iconic moments in history.  I was going to list a few, but most of them weren’t positive things

Obama’s grandmother died a couple days ago.  It’s too bad she couldn’t have held on a few more days to see this, her grandson’s finest moment, a milestone in the history of America.

He’s just come out now for the first time.  The lady in the voting line in front of me and Amanda was absolutely sure that if Obama were elected he’d be assassinated.  I just imagined that happening right now and how awful, how completely and utterly horrible that would be.  I hope to God that does not happen, not now and not at any point.  That would do awful things to this country.

McCain made a very gracious concession speech about half an hour ago.  Obama just said some very kind words about McCain.  I’m glad that’s over.  I’m glad the election is over.  No more automated phone calls, no more junk mail telling me how to vote, not too much vitriol in commercials and on the news and talk radio.  Sean Hannity should be pretty entertaining to listen to over the next few days.

I’m all over the place, I know.  It’s kind of a big deal and I’ve got all kinds of thoughts going on in my head.

I hope Barack Obama can be the force of positive change everyone who voted for him thinks he can be.  I hope a Democratic majority won’t take the country too far left.

On another positive note, we’ll get to see more of Obama’s bodyman, Reggie Love.  Reggie Love played basketball and football for Duke.

Zach Dotsey

It’s a good thing Amanda and I didn’t waste much time this morning after we woke up.  We got up, ate cereal, took showers and, semi-arbitrarily, decided to go vote.  North Carolina is one of the states that allows early voting, which is a great idea.  What sucked, though, is that it took us literally about three and a half hours.  We got to the north campus of Cape Fear Community College at about a quarter after ten and didn’t leave until about ten ’til two.

Part of the problem is that I heard the news reported that this early voting station, a mere five minute drive from our house, has not been crowded, so I think that encouraged more people to vote there.

It wasn’t very exciting.  There were two somewhat obnoxious guys behind us for the first hour, maybe less, but they eventually bailed.  We talked to a lady in front of us a bit.  Other than that it was a bunch of standing and sometimes sitting on the floor.

To make things worse I forgot to charge my iPhone last night.  There was enough juice to take a couple pictures and for Amanda and I to use the internet to brush up on some of the candidates’ stances on issues (one of us actually changed who we decided to vote for) and to have a short phone conversation.  Nick and Amy Warkentien were going to a Polish festival and had invited us to go, but we didn’t make it out in time.

So who did we vote for?  It doesn’t matter, really.  I don’t feel like enough with change no matter who wins the election.  It’s historical either way though- a (half) black president or a female vice president.  I really wish I’d brushed up on the local candidates though.  I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t.

One thing I think they should do if they’re going to offer early voting is to let them voting stations stay open later.  They’re open from 9:00 to 4:00, which is great if you’re a college student or you don’t work.  They should be open during times that are convenient for more people, and I think they’d have a greater impact that way.

After serving our grueling duty for America Amanda and I went home, let Bruce and Harvey out for a bit and watched last night’s episode of The Soup before heading out to Wrightsville Beach.  Amanda and her aunt, Anna Frazelle, walked Bruce, Harvey and Scout.  I was going to go too, but Amanda’s brother, Michael Mercer, showed up right before they left and he and I were going to go with Barry Frazelle, their uncle, to look at wetsuits.

First we went to Surf City, where Michael and I both found suits that fit us perfectly- he a small and I a medium short.  We then went to Sweetwater to compare what they had there.  There were some less expensive wetsuits at Sweetwater, but Surf City was willing to match prices and deals.  Michael ended up buying the one he tried on earlier and I had them order me one of the same because they didn’t have it in my size.  I liked his better because it’s got a part that helps cover up the neck hole to keep from getting flushed as much.  I hate to copy him, but it’s a good deal and it’s exactly what I want as well.

Before we went back to Sweetwater to get Michael’s wetsuit (and booties) Barry took us to Vito’s Pizza and bought us each a beer for the hard shopping work we’d done.

Amanda and I left Anna and Barry’s shortly after we got back.  She was hungry and ready to go.  her original plan was to make some macaroni and cheese, but we had to stop and get some dog food (it ran out this morning) and she was too hungry to really wait.  Not wanting to be a man who starves his pregnant wife, we stopped at Atlanta Bread for some quick dinner, got the dog food and came on home.

We watched Fringe and an episode of Law & Order: SVU before Amanda went to bed.  I watched a Smallville and am about to go to bed soon.  We gain an hour of sleep by getting to set our clocks back, but I hate it because it will be dark after work so I won’t get to go surfing during the week so much anymore.

The Duke Blue Devils football team, as I read it, threw away a victory over Wake Forest today.  Apparently the special teams just melted down today, although the offense was doing well.  That’s okay- Coach Cut has already really improved this Blue Devils team and in subsequent years he’s only going to make it better and better.  They’re already markedly better than they have been in a long time.

Zach Dotsey

Work was work, as it has been the last couple weeks.  After work I went out for Wednesday Night Surf Club.  Our new small group members, Taylor and Esther Hutchens, picked up Lars Boscaljon and met me and Michael Mercer out at Wrightsville Beach.  I took them upstairs to meet Anna and Barry Frazelle and Anna invited us all in and started talking to us.

The surf report said to get out there as soon as you could because the wind was supposed to mess up the waves, so I told Anna after a few minutes that we needed to get on out.  She said okay but then started talking again until Barry poked his head in and said we needed to geto n out there if we were going to do any surfing.  All those Lemons girls (and their offspring) sure can talk.

Esther had surfed earlier in the day and her arms were sore, but us guys went out while she sat on the beach.  There was a wave breaking to the north of where we went out, but there was a surprising crowd there.  We went out to where a few other waves were breaking, but they were hard to catch for a while.  Taylor got the first one, and I told Lars we were being shown up by a Wrightsville noob.

It picked up a lot though.  the waves got stronger and taller and we all caught a good number of them.  There were several waves that more than one of us caught together.  They were about chest high maybe and had decent push behind them, letting us go pretty far on them.  They broke wide, too, so you didn’t have to be in one spot to catch them.

There was one wave that I caught that Michael caught too.  He was coming up behind me and called out to me, and when I turned around I slipped off the board.  When we were paddling back out he joked that he should have cut me off.  So on the next one, which I was going to ride in since the sun had set and Taylor had gotten out (and was therefore probably ready to go, even though he and Esther were talking to Anna and Barry), Michael and I were both riding it again and I decided to cut him off.  We were both on the wave pretty well and there wasn’t much left to it so we weren’t going very fast or anything, but I did in fact cut in front of him.  Of course I risked getting my ankles cut off, but I was laughing pretty good when my board ran out of steam and I sank into the water.

I came home to find my wife, Amanda Dotsey, finishing up some Days of Our Lives.  We watched The Pickup Artist 2, the second season of the douche Mystery teaching insecure losers how to talk to women.  The first season was really entertaining, we thought, so we were looking forward to it, honestly.  She went to bed after that, setting the TV on one of the channels showing the Presidential Debate.

Remember the thing I said about the Lemons girls and their offspring and how they liked to talk?  I missed the first bit of the debate.  Amanda, knowing she was going to fall asleep, asked me to DVR the debate, so I went downstairs and did that.

I folded a bunch of clean clothes while watching it.  I’m still not sure who I want to vote for.  I think I like John McCain better, but I’m not sure how I feel about some of his ideas.  I know a few days ago I said I was leaning more towards Obama, but my gut’s not liking that idea as much.  Obama is leading in all the major polls right now.

In the post-debate discussion, NBC had a group of screened undecided voters in Virginia, a battleground state.  There were six of them, and when asked, one said they were now planning on voting for Obama and three said they were going to vote for McCain.  Two, like me, remained undecided.

I need to figure it out soon.  Tomorrow in North Carolina we have an opportunity to vote early, which is pretty cool.  I’d do it, but like I said, I’m just not ready yet.  There are a lot of local people I need to decide on as well.

Amanda was feeling better today.  She wasn’t 100% yet, but she was better at least.

Zach Dotsey

So I’m sitting here working with the TV on MSNBC in the background, trying to soak up a little bit of knowledge to help me decide who to vote for in the upcoming presidential election.  John McCain, afterall, is going to be having a rally at the Scwartz Center at Cape Fear Community College in about an hour or two, only a few miles from where I sit here typing.  In fact, on my TV right now he’s talking in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

I’ve considered myself an Obama lean for a while, but I think there are two issues that are making me lean that way even more right now.  One is that John McCain wants to put an income tax on health insurance.  I don’t know what the reasoning is for that, but I’ve been meaning to look into it.

The other issue is one that Sarah Palin just brought up in her introduction to John McCain, and it’s that one of the things they want to do to help with the current energy crisis is to drill more off the American shore.  The crowd loved the idea, going into a chant of “Drill, baby, drill!”  I’m totally against that though.  I think if we drill oil to bring down the cost of gas (which actually came own quite a bit over the weekend- we paid $3.29 a gallon) it will put off the urgency to look for alternate energy sources, which I think is something that needs to be taken care of in all immediacy.

In other political news right now, it appears that one of the things that will happen with the $700 billion bailout plan is to help delinquent mortgage payers stay in their home.  I’m mixed on that.  I’m sure there are some people with legitimate problems with it- people with families and health problems or whatever who made a smart decision in buying a home but then lost their job, things like that.  What really irritates me about this though is that I’ve been in my house for two and a half years now and paid my full mortgage on time every month.  Sometimes it was tough, but you know what?  I did it.  Things might have been tight now and then but I budgeted and I was responsible with my money and I paid my mortgage.  So now we’re rewarding people who have been financially irresponsible?  I’m so glad to see my tax money at work.

Back to the energy issue, McCain did just say he wanted to also invest in electric automobiles and named just about every type of alternative energy resource available to man, so I guess I might have to look into that some more too.

Zach Dotsey