An Open Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama

This entry was originally published at Big Kid:Bigger City

Dear President-Elect Obama,

First of all, SWEET PARTY in Grant Park the other night.  It was amazing.  I kept telling my friends - there’s no way this guy can pull off this shindig.  You proved me wrong, sir.  The pizza was so-so and hella expensive, but it’s cool.  I was hoping for an open bar or at least a keg, but hey, you did your best.  Maybe in 2012, right?

Now, the reason I’m writing.  I’m pretty excited about your presidency overall, but there’s a few things I’m hoping you can address in late January/early February.  I’m writing to you now because you probably need to get a head-start.  I’ve always heard that money helps grease the wheels, so I’m not afraid to bring up the multiple donations I sent your way over the course of the primary and presidential races.

So, without further ado, here’s what I’m thinking should probably be addressed:

- 7-11 Slurpee Machines.  It seems like almost every time I go to 7-11, my Slurpee flavor of choice is blinking red and all liquid.  What’s up with that?  Why can’t 7-11 have my Slurpee flavor ready to go?

- The Browns defense.  Did you see that last night?  It looked like the Bush post-invasion plan for Iraq.  Can we get a few guys with skill in the secondary and maybe one guy on the line that can put some pressure on the QB?

- Chicago Transit Authority.  I don’t even know where to begin.  Is there a restart button?

- Video game costs in bars and bowling alleys.  Have you tried to play Buck Hunter or Golden Tee lately?  Ridiculous.  You have to give up a drink just to play 18 holes.

- Spamalot tickets.  Could you make a phone call?

- The 3oz liquid rule at airports.  Actually, I hear that’s changing soon.  Never mind.

- The DH rule.  Can you just abolish it?

- Windows Vista.  My wife has it on her laptop and it randomly deletes hardware drivers.  Talk about a PITA.

- Can you have Bill Gates come to our house and fix it?

- My friend Jodi is a teacher and her principal sucks.  Can you call Arne?  I’m happy to sit on the committee to find a replacement.

- Augusta National Golf Club.  Think you can hook me up with a tee time?

- Finally, I’ve got two words for you: political appointee.  I don’t care where, I’ll serve wherever you want.

Hope these next couple of months go well.  Let me know if you need help finding a puppy for the girls.

Sincerely,

-Dave

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A Night I Won’t Forget

This entry was originally published at Big Kid:Bigger City

If Sarah and I are graced with children someday (woah), talking about the presidential election of 2008 will have a special importance.  We had the chance to stand in Grant Park with 250,000 people and follow the election results all night.  Then, as the west coast states closed their polling places, we watched as Wolf Blitzer told us Barack Obama would be the 44th president of the United States.

I can’t write that without getting goosebumps and watery eyes.  The memory of raising my arms in jubilation with about 250,000 people, one of which was my wife of 30 days, is one I will never forget.  It was almost like a combined sigh of relief for a moment most of us probably at at least one time doubted we would ever see.  As much as I supported Obama from before his announcement in Springfield, to believe that he actually was named president-elect?  It’s still a struggle.

I remember talking with Sarah and realizing that she was as excited as I was, and the anticipation on the ride downtown.  I was wearing a button my friend Kelly bought me - it said “Beer Brewers for Obama.”  While beer brewing is still a yet-to-be-achieved dream, it was a fun, eye-catching button to wear.  Sarah and I were in a crowd of supporters as we walked from the station to the park.  It wasn’t long before we hit Michigan Avenue and saw the first real glimpses of the enormity of the crowd.

We were quickly divided into two groups - people with tickets and those without.  As Sarah and I pushed through to the ticket side, mounted police appeared and the hustling crowd slowed to a crawl.  We chatted with people around us as we made it through the first check point.  Lots of people were being turned away and the crowd control staff was visibly overwhelmed.

Once past the first check point, we made lots of ground as we crossed Columbus Drive flanked by mounted police.  We thought we were moments away from finding our place in the park, but we were definitely wrong.  We again slowed, this time to a complete stop.  That’s when it started to happen.  Pennsylvania was called for Obama.  Expected, yes, but incredibly important.  A loss in PA meant this race was a lot closer.  That’s when we pretty much all knew all we had to hear was Ohio or Florida.

We moved in clumps in that crowd as the check point gradually let us move past.  As much as we hated just standing there, it made sense and worked out well.  More people were turned away at this check point, so once we made it through it was another chunk of ground we had to cross.  This time it wasn’t just cops lining the path - the first Secret Service officers and Obama staffers began to appear.  We were told repeatedly not to run, but we were all making that awkward speed walk that kids do when you tell them not to run.

Once we made it to the metal detectors, Secret Service outnumbered the Chicago P.D.  The lines moved quickly as we literally had every ring of keys, cell phone, and camera inspected.  It actually moved really quickly considering the circumstances.  We were the first of our group to make it the entire way in so we found the closest spot  we could.  That’s when we heard it - Ohio.  For someone who bore a little of the blame from my Minnesota friends in 2004, I took great pride in my home state’s decision.  I also knew that this was it.  Any path to victory for McCain went through Ohio, and Obama had blocked it like my friend Geoff and Corey block my longest road in Settlers of Catan.  We would have to wait several hours though until the west coast polls would close and networks could ethically call the race.

The crowd was in high spirits.  Even though the networks weren’t calling it, we were all talking about the importance of the Ohio victory.  They flashed a county map and I saw that my home county was blue.  I literally choked up.  I wondered how my parents had voted.  I wondered if my mom was physically able to vote after her surgery.  Sarah soon made a trip to grab us a couple slices of pizza and some water.  She also brought back some of our best friends.

As we stood there and watched CNN on the giant screen, we cheered the Obama victories and booed the McCain wins - even the obvious ones.  We watched as Obama got closer and closer to 270 and anxiously waited for the polls to close on the west coast.  We counted down the seconds.  And then it happened.  Wolf acted like it was just another projection, but he flashed the words President Barack Obama on the screen.  A wave of disbelief hit the crowd for a half of a second… then an explosion.  We yelled at the top of our lungs and raised our arms in the air.  I turned to Sarah and hugged her with tears in my eyes.  My friends came next.  They just kept showing it over and over.  Jesse Jackson cried.  Oprah was flipping out.  And we were all there together in Grant Park.

The last sound check operator walked ot the podium and said, “Last sound check for the next president of the United States.”  We went crazy again.  They showed McCain’s speech, which garnered a mix of responses.  The mention of Palin was pretty much the only part that drew a widespread negative reaction.  The announcer came over the PA and we cheered as a bishop walked out to give the invocation.  We cheered again for the pledge and national anthem.  Anticipation was at a fever pitch.

Then… music.  Stevie Wonder.  Brooks and Dunn.  Buddy Guy.  More and more music.  The end of each song was a tease.  We stood there in disbelief as Obama’s appearance was delayed.  It was as if it was Christmas morning and your parents were making you wait to open gifts.  And then, as we waited for another song to come on, there he was.  Obama poked his head out and made his walk to the podium.  I was in disbelief.  It was real.

I will always have the words of his speech, but the experience of standing in Grant Park on that night will be one I have to hold on to in only a few pictures and my memory.  Here is hoping the next four (or eight) years prove to be worthy of that night.

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An Open Letter to Sen. John McCain

This entry was originally published at Big Kid:Bigger City

Dear Senator John McCain,

You probably don’t remember me.  Eight years ago as you mounted the Straight Talk Express during the Republican Primary, I sent you a couple bucks because I thought you were poised to be a great leader.  Clinton was wrapping up his time in office and I felt you were the best candidate to follow him.  Times were good, weren’t they?  I was a college student at the time - just a blank slate of a freshman excited to vote in my first presidential primary.

You were a veteran with a long record of bipartisan work in the senate.  I remember watching your candidacy announcement speech in the fall of ‘99 and getting goosebumps as you talked of service and the possibilities that awaited us.  It was a really good speech.

I followed nervously as you took an early hit in Iowa but, like most of your supporters, I celebrated your New Hampshire win as a potential turning point.  I then watched the entire race unravel in South Carolina as unthinkable smear tactics and racial tensions began to surface.  We now call those tactics “Rovian.”  It was despicable, but proved to be the silver bullet for your campaign.

I still voted for you in Ohio, even though it was pretty much a done deal at that point.  The writing was on the wall and the fate of our country for the next eight years was set.  We had no idea what was in store, but I can guess that if we had a chance for a do-over, if we could somehow go back as an entire nation to early 2000, the outcome would be different.  G. W. Bush would go back to Texas and the future would be in your hands.

Well, time travel hasn’t been invented, so here we are in 2008.  Senator McCain, if I can be frank, I am pretty surprised by your approach to this election.  My ideals and political leanings have shifted considerably, but I was excited to see you win your party’s nomination.  I thought this was going to be an amazing presidential race - one that historians would write about for generations as one of the most important presidential races in history.  Instead, I fear, you have given up the Straight Talk Express in favor of the very same tactics that derailed your 2000 campaign.  As a political leader I once admired and even supported financially, I find it disheartening to see what your campaign has stooped to.

Some time ago, you stopped talking about policy.  You stopped talking about ideas.  You stopped talking about moving forward.  Not once in the past two months have I heard anything substantive from your campaign.  People, whether your campaign staff believes it or not, want to hear you talk about the future with hope AND direction.  Instead, we get unsubstantiated rumors, half-truths, and innuendos.  Your mocking tone, rolling eyes, and air quote gestures make you look petty and angry.

Your most important decision so far - picking a vice president - was a flop.  I know it seemed like a good idea at the time.  All of those disenfranchised Clinton supporters had to vote for someone, right?  Why not give them what they want?  But instead of selecting a running mate for the good of the country, you pandered.  You passed by dozens of qualified candidates - diverse in gender, ethnicity, political experience - and picked someone who would appeal to the least common denominator.  Your campaign had talking points in place before the announcement was made, but soon the hot air started to leak.  The most popular governor in America soon saw her numbers plummet.  She was exposed, but your campaign stubbornly repeated the very same talking points on as many 24 hour news channels as possible.

And here we are now, with only a week before the election, and the worst of your disastrous campaign was apparently saved for last.  Giving up any talk of direction or hope, you instead have completely turned to the Rovian politics that have now disenfranchised an entire generation of voters.  You repeat catch phrases filled with fear-inducing innuendo in an effort to make us think twice about electing Senator Obama.  You infer, and now outright say, that he is a dangerous politician with socialist ideals because you know what that word does to people.  Regardless of the fact that our country’s most socialist-like policy, the 1986 expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, was signed into law by Ronald Regan, you throw the word redistribution around like it is somehow a new evil plan crafted by the left.

But this is where we end up, I guess.  Who knows?  Maybe your fear-laced words will strike a chord with enough voters to shift the election in your direction after all and I’ll look foolish.  I’m used to it by now.  I just hope that if you do happen to win over enough states to hit that magical 270 that you leave your campaign tactics behind as you head to Pennsylvania Avenue.  Surely even you can recognize that the John McCain and Sarah Palin from the campaign trail are not the types of leaders this country needs or wants, right?

Oh well, here’s hoping that the bitterness ends on November 5, regardless of outcome.

Sincerely,
-Dave

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An Open Letter to Comcast

This entry was originally published at Big Kid:Bigger City

Dear Comcast,

Here’s an idea.  Don’t stand up your customers.  Don’t send out technicians that have no idea what to do.  Don’t send out technicians without the proper equipment.

If you tell a customer that you will be at their residence on a specific date in a specific time frame, show up.  If your technician is delayed, don’t wait for your customer to call you.  Call your customer and let them know that the technician is running late.

Oh, and here’s a great one - if your customer’s land line is part of the reason the technician is needed, use the alternate number to reach your customer.  It’s on the account.  It’s been given to your phone operators several times.  SEVERAL times.  Call the alternate number.

A quick breakdown of the past couple of months:

- In August, I called to set up moving my account to my new apartment.  An appointment was set up in early September for a technician to come to the new apartment and make sure everything was working.  I gave the reprasentative on the phone my cell phone number and made sure to be at home during the scheduled time.  That technician never showed and never contacted me.  Luckily enough, the cable and internet worked perfectly fine when I hooked up my old equipment at the new address.

- A few days later, both the internet and cable stopped working.  The signal was shut off.  I called and was told a technician would need to come out.  The phone rep verified my cell phone as the contact number.  I sat patiently during the scheduled time only to be stood up again.  I called and was told I would need to reschedule.  The phone rep gave me a new date, time window, and verified my contact number as my cell phone number.  The phone rep also transferred me to a cable rep who sent a signal to my cable box and reactivated it.  Sadly, that helpful rep was not able to do the same with my cable modem.

- On the day of the rescheduled appointment, I sat in my apartment and waited.  After the first 2.5 hours of the 3 hour window went by with no technician, I called Comcast.  They told me they had to talk to dispatch and found out that there was some issue that delayed the technician.  Again, I had to reschedule.  The phone rep again confirmed my cell phone was the best contact number.

- It was my fourth scheduled appointment with a Comcast technician.  I was not going to wait 2.5 hours to call.  I called at the start of the window to verify that the technician would make it during the alotted time window.  I was assured that the technician would make it.  When the window had passed, I called again to ask the whereabouts of the technician.  The phone rep contacted dispatch and passed along that a technician was running late but would make it that day.  The technician arrived over an hour after the scheduled window and set to work.  I tried to explain the situation (I moved and I needed my cable modem set up), but he insisted he was here for a trouble call.  He checked all of the signals and told me I had a bad modem.  He brought in a new modem and said that would fix the problem.  He hooked it up to his hand-held tester and said it worked.  I hooked it up to my laptop and it worked.  The technician left and I set to work hooking up my wireless router.  The signal was gone.  I tried restarting everything and soon the lights on my cable modem began blinking.  I knew this was a problem.

- I called Comcast immediately and was told another technician would have to come out.  We set up the time and I again verified my cell phone as the contact info.  Why do I keep mentioning my cell phone?  Because I had still had yet to receive a reminder call (Comcast S.O.P.) or a call from a technician.  They all had been calling the land line number that did not work.  This was late September - a month after setting up the original move appointment - and we still did not have internet or a working land line.  The technician showed up during the scheduled time window, but did not call.  I just happened to notice the Comcast truck and had to meet the technician outside.  Apparently the number he was given was the land line.  He checked all of the signals and decided it was another bad cable modem.  He hooked up a brand new modem and still had blinking lights.  He said a line technician would have to check the wiring within 48 hours.  We were supposed to have everything working when we returned from our honeymoon.  Shockingly, it did not.  We returned from our honeymoon and had no internet or land line.

- I call Comcast one more time and explain everything.  The original move, the missed appointments, the first technician that replaced the working modem, the second techinician that replaced the modem again and set up a wire technician, and what am I told to do?  Restart my modem.  That’s the answer.  I told the phone rep that the second technician had not connected the new modem to my account, but the phone rep ignored me and angrily told me to again restart the modem.  I complied and tried to explain the situation again, only to be told that I was wrong.  Another technician would have to come out.

- The night before the appointment I received my first reminder call.  I had hope.  We also had a new problem - our cable box was freezing up.  The picture was still working, but we couldn’t change the channel or get anything on the remote or on the box to work.  We had to unplug the cable box every 5 to 10 minutes just to change the channel.  I called Comcast to report the new problem and was told the technician could also address the cable box issue.  A half hour into the scheduled time window, the technician called and said he was on his way.  I was ecstatic.  He showed up and told me he was here to replace my cable modem.  I told him the modem wasn’t broken and he did some investigating.  He realized - surprisingly - that I was right.  The last technician that came out hooked up the new box but didn’t associate it with my account.  The lineman fixed the line issue, but my modem wasn’t activated.  He activated the modem and the signal came through.  Success!  With a new sense of hope, I asked him about the additional cable box problem.  He had nothing on his trouble ticket about a cable box problem.  Did the phone rep simply lie to me?  Interesting.

- We drove to the Comcast office and exchanged our cable box in person and it looks like we are officially operating effectively - almost two months after setting up the original move appointment.  I’m keeping my eye on the new AT&T coverage area because as soon as their cable service is available, I think it will be time for a change.  There’s just no sense in the Comcast approach to customer service.

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Urge to Write Status Check: Dwindling

This entry was originally published at Big Kid:Bigger City

I’m losing the battle of balance right now.  Work is completely overwhelming at times, which means the few moments I have in the evening are spent decompressing and reviewing the massive list of to-do’s before the wedding.  It’s not a good way to build up to a fun wedding day.

Holy crap… the wedding.  It’s like it somehow went undetected for the past few months only to decide that now is the moment to reappear and remind me that is it less than two weeks away.  There’s so much that has been accomplished (mostly by my wife-to-be and her mom), but the remaining list is frustrating.  I think we just need a solid 4 hour chunk of time to sit down and pick out gifts for our friends in the wedding and finalize the list of cheesy dance favorites for our DJ, but that is only a scratch on the surface.

Finding those four hours is quickly turning into a wild goose chase.  An elusive white whale comprised of ties that need to be picked out, seating charts that need to be assigned, and table centerpieces that have to be finished.  Oh, and tracking down a huge list of people that still haven’t submitted an RSVP either way.

…and I need to find a shiny new pair of black shoes… for my gigantic feet… that don’t require me to take out a loan.

Fun times, my friends.

But soon… soon, Sarah and I will be here:

(why is the “Business Time” song by Flight of the Conchords playing in my head…)

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