Not only were they closing two of the major highways, but also the bridges leading into the city.  Throw a couple million more people than usual in to the mix with below freezing temps, and the couch at home quickly gained appeal.  Fortunately, I was able to work from home today (no, not all government workers had the day off).

I did not vote for President Obama, nor do I agree with many of his policies, but I appreciated today nonetheless.  I love the history, formality, and ceremony.  I’m amazed at the smooth transfer of power each time.  President Obama is now my President, and I will faithfully pray for him and his administration.

On a lighter note, as we watched a replay of parts of the inauguration, Micah did his best to spruce up the ceremony while waiting for the next burst of music to begin.  When Elizabeth Alexander read in the Inaugural Poem, “Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons,” Micah was banging away with a pair of wooden spoons on his toy drums.  We were amused.

All summer long Micah’s been wearing sandles anytime we go anywhere, whether it’s to the park, the store, or church.  On Saturday, we were preparing for a trip to the National Museum of Natural History, and he asked to wear his shoes instead.  Who am I to argue?  It wasn’t too long into the car ride that he started asking for his shoes to be off.  We assumed he was bored and fidgety, so we obliged.  Once we got to the museum, he started throwing a fit asking to take his shoes off again.  Being the astute parents we are, we quickly realized his shoes were too small.  He toured the entire museum in his socks.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous.

The next pair of shoes he has that fit are a pair that Rachel gave me as a gift when we first learned she was pregnant with Micah, almost 3 years ago.  I’ve anxiously been waiting for him to grow into them, asking every couple months how much longer until he could wear them.  This weekend was finally it!

The other time I’ll remember from this weekend was church on Sunday morning.  The person scheduled to watch the kids in nursery wasn’t able to make it, so we decided to keep Micah with us in the service for a while.  He was so well behaved that he stayed with us the entire hour and a half, much of it on my lap.  Something about having him worshiping with us for the first time, paying attention and trying to sing along, made it a moment I’ll treasure for quite some time.

Unlike the first one in CA, I was at work in Northern VA for this one, a location where earthquakes don’t exactly happen every day. And even though it registered a whopping 1.8 on the Richter scale (Rachel wasn’t impressed), I definitely heard this one and felt a little something. I’m assuming that’s mostly due to the fact I was only 10 miles or so from the epicenter. It was loud enough that most people at work stood up, looked over the cube walls, and decided to keep doing email.

(1) … the local news radio station has a tag line that ends, “where the traffic only gets worse.”

(2) … your 22 month old son recognizes anytime the car is approaching the highway and instinctively yells, “Other way! I want other way!” while pointing in every direction but straight ahead. Seriously, he does it every time.

Me and BBC

Somehow I managed to get myself quoted and pictured in the BBC. There I was, hanging out in the exhibit hall prior to grabbing some lunch. The straw poll voting had just opened a few minutes prior, and would be continuing for another 24 hours. I figured I’d vote, but saw no point in voting prior to hearing all of the 2008 Republican Presidential candidates. At this point we’d only heard 3 of the 8 (now down to 7), and I honestly knew very little about most of them. However, I do know a few people at FRC, and one of them asked me if I’d be willing to vote, just to make sure things were working properly. Wanting to help out, I agreed and cast my vote. When I turned around after submitting the vote, there were multiple TV cameras and a couple reporters. One of them was a reporter from the BBC Online.

As you can tell from the quote the reporter used, I was doing my best to qualify my vote without actually saying I wasn’t prepared to vote. (And yes, I vote more responsibly in actual elections.) Were I to vote now, based solely on the performance at the Briefing, I would vote for Gov. Mike Huckabee. He had far more “electibility” than anything I saw from Fred Thompson this weekend. Huckabee is a superb communicator, and his message this weekend was spot-on. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with that assessment, as he received 51% of the on-site votes in the straw poll (people not at the Briefing were also allowed to vote online). The next closest was Romney at 10%. I think Rick Lowry summed up the reaction to Huckabee’s speech well.

If there is an upside to the fact that this is the longest Presidential campaign race in history, it’s that there’s plenty of time to for candidates to sort themselves out … and for me to do my homework.

Speaker Highlights

The line-up of speakers was impressive, including all of the Republican Presidential candidates. (The Democrat candidates received the same invitation, but understandably none of them attended.) The candidates all said the Right Things for this audience, but they did each have a unique feel. In addition to the candidates, there were plenty of other exceptional speakers. Here are my thoughts on some of them:

• Sen. John McCain: He seemed to read most of his speech, and I felt it started slow. His war stories were very moving, and obviously capture your emotions.
• Sen. Sam Brownback: A very natural speaker, and his convictions were obvious and genuine. He showed plenty of passion, especially considering everyone knew he was dropping out of the race later that day.
• Rep. Tom Tancredo: He was very enjoyable, and had some great sound bites (e.g., “We need a leader because our enemies are psychopaths and our allies are the French.”).
• Sen. Fred Thompson: As I mentioned, his performance was not very memorable. He said many good things regarding judges and Social Security, but didn’t have much of the passion he’s shown in other speeches and debates.
• Rep. Duncan Hunter: A very natural speaker, saying the right things. Among his topics were national defense, the border, and Mt. Solidad (for all you San Diegans out there).
• Rep. Ron Paul: Did a good job explaining many of his positions, since not all of them are conventional ideas. His libertarian views were prevalent, and some very appealing on the surface (do we really need a Dept. of Education?). I also enjoyed his ideas for eliminating incentives for illegal immigrants to come to the US.
• Star Parker: Wow, she was great. I’d never heard her speak previously. She didn’t mince words, and almost preached at times in very plain language. Her passion was contagious.
• Rabbi Daniel Lapin: Always an engaging and insightful speaker. One good quote: “If we ever fall beneath the feet of our enemies, it is because they believe the wrong thing with more faith and conviction than we believe the right.”
• Rick Santorum: It was a bit sad to hear such an eloquent voice of conservatism from the former Senator. Surely he’ll get involved at the national level again some day.
• Gov. Mitt Romney: He was the only speaker that used a teleprompter. Not sure why (or why others didn’t). He’s obviously one of the heavy hitters in the current race, and said many of the right things. He was very detailed in what policies he’d implement, which you obviously want to see, but for some reason the continual “I’ll do such and such” felt too much like growing the government. Maybe I’ll re-read the transcript and see if that’s what he was actually saying, or just the impression I got.
• Ben Stein: He was there to promote his new movie, Expelled. Amusing, as expected, and strongly conservative on the topic.
• Mayor Rudy Giuliani: The opening of his speech was awkward at best, but he picked up steam and hit his stride. I give him credit for coming, given the common thinking that this wasn’t his crowd (as he openly admitted). He gave a speech highlighting his accomplishments in areas he knew were important to conservatives.
• Mark Levin: If you’ve heard him on the radio, you know he doesn’t dance around his words. His speech was equally straight-forward. He opened by commenting on how many of the candidates were invoking Reagan this weekend (most of them did), but when they had the chance in office they didn’t lead like him. He talked about a moral order being the glue that keeps civilized society together (e.g., without a moral order, there is no capitalism). He, along with a handful of other speakers, strongly voiced his opinion that these are not the circumstances under which we want to try producing or going along with a 3rd party candidate: “If we’re not happy with the candidates, it’s our fault.”
• Gov. Mike Huckabee: An excellent communicator, focusing a lot on issues of freedom, family, and faith. He said, “A nation that cannot fuel, feed, or fight [as in manufacturing our own weapons] for itself is no longer free.” One interesting point he made about a fair tax is that it removes the ability to muzzle pastors by threatening tax ramifications. And knowing where many portray him to be in the running, he passionately said, “I don’t ever want expediency, electibility to replace our principles and values.” I’m anxious to get to know him better.
• Judge Robert Bork: I liked a quote he gave from Antonin Scalia, talking about the activism of today’s court: “Day by day this court is designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.”

What an energizing, motivating, and informative weekend. My hat goes off to FRC Action for an exceptional conference, and my thanks goes to my wonderful wife for taking care of the little guy all weekend and encouraging me to attend.

I went with my older brother and his father-in-law. When we got the tickets months ago, we never imagined it would be 90 degrees and sunny for an October game, but it was. Fortunately, the sun was at our backs, and we even had some shade for most of the second half. Our seats were on the 40 yard line, up in the 4th tier. We were a long ways up, but the seats were great.

We saw a surprising number of Lions’ fans. (Surprising that the Lions have any fans?) Unfortunately, it looks like the Lions used up all of their offensive prowess in the first 4 games of the season. They were completely dominated in all areas of the game, providing the let down we Detroit fans have come to expect.  Even so, we had a good time amidst the home crowd, unlike other Lions’ fans I know who felt the need to hide out in a suite.

Maybe all the Lions need is a marching band …

So what is their grand plan? “[T]he current plan is to encourage displaced people to continue evacuation until they get to Ohio.” Thank you, West Virginia. That’s very big of you.

On Saturday, Brad and I went to watch the Pistons light up the scoreboard with the Washington Wizards. The Good Guys were victorious, beating the home team 115 to 111. Nothing quite like scoring 34 points in the first quarter, and 62 in the first half. Quite a change from the Pistons of a couple years ago where they had a streak of games holding teams to less than 70 points the entire game. Our seats were in the very top row, but we were able to see just fine.

As for the Red Wings, I’ve been scouring my TiVo schedule for months, and Monday night was the first time they were on a station we get. It was good to see the red sweaters flying up and down the ice again. This was the first game I’ve seen in the post-Yzerman era (perhaps the first game ever where he wasn’t on the team, unless I was watching games before I was 8?). The announcers seemed to be struggling with the adjustment, talking more about #19 (including a brief interview with him) than anyone who was actually playing. Speaking of announcers, I missed not having Mickey Redmond adding his color commentary to the game. Anyhoo, the Wings came from behind to beat the Stars 2 to 1 by scoring two short-handed goals. A bit unorthadox, but extremely exciting.

Finally, a little bit of trivia for you. The only Red Wings game I’ve seen in person at the Joe was also against the Dallas Stars 4 or 5 years ago. The Wings came from behind to win that one, too.

By most accounts it was a traditional Thanksgiving, what with the turkey and stuffing, time with family, and the Lions losing. At the same time, it certainly had some new aspects being in Virginia. For starters, the weather was sunny and in the 60′s for most of the weekend, and we were able to venture into D.C. on Saturday, once again being touristy.

We are very grateful that Brad and Lori continue to be gracious hosts while we look for a (more permanent) place to live, and that Neil and Lydia were willing to spend their vacation time by driving out to visit Micah us. All in all, a great holiday.

We took the Metro into town. We weren’t sure how it would go with Micah and his stroller, but things couldn’t have gone better. (Micah’s first ride on the Metro!) We walked down the National Mall, saw the Washington Monument, the WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and this really peaceful park just off of the Mall that Rachel and I had never seen before. All in all, a good day.

In retrospect, I’m not sure what else one should do to honor Columbus.