Politics!, or Why Scott Brown Matters So Much

Well Barack Obama's time in charge hasn't been all peaches and cream.  Is anyone surprised??  I am not, but ever since 'worst.candidate.ever' Martha Coakley blundered away Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachussetts, all the talking heads have been writing Obama's political eulogy.  I think it's far too early to say that anything is a failure or that Obama will never get anything done.  It took two years for Clinton to fail at passing health care, and I think we can agree that from a non-Lewinsky standpoint, he did a pretty decent job.

Why does it matter so much if the Democrats have only 59 votes??  The filibuster!  That's why!  Jena and I were talking about it the other day, and I must admit that I was fairly ignorant outside of being able to say that 60 votes allows you to shut down the filibuster completely.  Fresh Air to the rescue!  The first segment of yesterday's Fresh Air program explains the dynamics of the filibuster...click the link below to listen:

Gregory Koger, Explaining The American Filibuster

Couldn't Say it Any Better

From Seth Godin:  Without Them

"you can fail by going along with that and not doing it, or you can do it, cause a ruckus and work things out later"

At work you often run into situations where you see something that just smells.  Something that isn't right, but is perpetuated by inertia or apathy.  You have two choices.  You can say 'well that will never fly - they have been doing this forever', or you can say 'I have an idea and I am going to go ahead and do it, and when people see that things can be better they will get on board or get out of the way'.

I choose B.

On the Mountain

Everyone knows that skiing is a big part of living in Colorado.  I wasn't sure how much of an integral part of my Colorado life it was going to be, but surprisingly, it's ended up being something that I really enjoy, and that I can see myself doing a LOT of in the future.  Prior to coming out here, I had spent all of 5 or 6 days skiing in my life, with one extremely icy/slushy day at Wintergreen, and a few pretty solid days at Snowshoe and Sugarloaf up in Maine, where I did about six cartwheels on my head while avoiding a potentially deadly collision with an entire ski school.

Anyway, I got here, and I think there's magic in the air because for someone who is not exactly the most graceful, I was able to get out on the slopes at Copper, and by the end of the day I was sort of skiing like someone who knows how to ski.  This inspired us to get a season pass at Arapahoe Basin.  We have been up to the mountain four times since then, and this time I went up to the top and skiied the blues all the way down without killing myself.  I also completed my very first ski day without a fall.  This won't come as a surprise to anyone who has done skiing or snowboarding, but it's pretty awesome.  All your cares evaporate, as all you can think about is how fast you are going and whether or not you want to go faster.  Awesome.