The Good Stuff

The other day, on my way to Chi-pot-tel er, I mean Chi-pote-le, I was nearing the street to cross over to the restaurant, when a car crossed my path, slowed down suddenly, and the window rolled down.

I peered across to see an old woman sitting in the car with another old woman. She cried out, "Excuse me?"

"Yes?"

"Could you please open this bottle for me?" a pained look on her face wrought from obvious attempts at the bottle.

"Certainly!" I cracked it open with ease and handed it back to her.

"Thank you!"

"Your very welcome!" I replied.

The car drove off and I smiled with a feeling of general happiness and positive vibes I haven't felt in a long time.

In this world where there is so much negativity, I suddenly felt big and powerful. I'd been so negative as of late, I had forgotten how good it felt to do something nice for a complete stranger.

Last week and the week before I was involved with volunteer work through my company. In small groups of 20-30 we assembled sandwiches and box lunches for the hungry, giving 50 or so people a lunch for the day, finished in 15 minutes. Last Wednesday, we went to Second Harvest and sorted potatoes and labeled cans of corn.

The Second Harvest job was hard, sweaty work, the kind I don't normally do anymore with my cushy lab job. Man, it felt so good! Even though I knew that the work would truly only help people for probably a day or two, it was worth it. I felt proud that I helped someone I didn't know and will probably never meet, not that I made myself feel good (although, sometimes, you need that).

It's hard to find the time to do it, and I was lucky enough to have my work start a series of programs for community volunteering, but I urge you to do this once in a while, especially if you've never done it before. You will surprised by the result, I promise!

Big Daddy Prez

I just finished watching the first Presidential debate. One thing I couldn't shake about it was McCain's smiling throughout the whole thing. To me, he seemed irritated whenever Obama would debate a point that directly opposed his. Perhaps, though, he was pulling the forced shit eating grin for the cameras. Obama stood professional the whole time, in my eyes.

This whole thing was an interesting experience for me. I've never been into politics as much as I have this time around. Never have I watched a debate before and it's fascinating the way each candidate composed himself. McCain seemed to have a more personable approach they way he spoke, which actually made me want to listen to him, despite me not siding with Republicans. Obama seemed a bit cold to me, but I appreciated his business-like professionalism in conduct.

I'm still not 100% on who I want to vote for, because I don't vote party lines, and I'd rather vote Green Party. However, I will vote for the lesser of two evils when I know that if I vote Green, the larger evil would prevail and I will end up with a leader I think is incompetent. This is quite the inner struggle for me, because I want to vote for who I want to vote for, and not vote for the individual who will keep out the guy not fit to be Big Daddy Prez (or Hot Mama Prez, so I'm not being sexist here).

Watch the debate here.