This morning I woke up at 1:40am to start watching election results. We in Israel didn’t have it so easy that we could start watching at 7pm and just have a nice relaxed evening. I headed over to my friend Brian’s place (he had CNN), and then an ‘American’ bar was hosting an Election party.

Overall, the bar had probably 50+ people there and a ton of photographers. I just did a bit of searching, and found this article. In the main picture is my friend Ann that was with us at the bar last night. I was at the bar from 4am till Obama’s speech at 7:15am.  Through the night the group of HUC students that I was with went from 8 to 1 and the crowd generally thinned out a bit.

Another highlight occurred while we were just sitting around talking. We had 2 Virginians, 2 Ohioans (apparently I’m an Ohioan now…), 1 Floridian, and 1 New Mexican. All states that voted red and went blue this year. All of us were so excited every time our respective state was announced.

I filmed when CNN called the election for Obama, but haven’t had a chance to upload it to YouTube. As soon as I post it, I’ll add it to blog.

On a more personal note, it’s great to have a glimmer of hope again. For 8 years, I’ve disagreed with the direction our government has taken. I’m sure I can find a couple of times where I actually agreed with legislation that was passed or the direction that Bush was taking us,  but those times are few and far between. I’m not such an idealist that I believe that Obama is just going to start in January and everything will magically get better. He’s got a huge up hill battle, but I feel that he is the right person for the job. I also know that he’s not the candidate for everybody, but his policies, hope, and optimism are all qualities that I greatly admire.

Football

To add to the fact that I’m completely exhausted as I got about an hour and a half of sleep last night and another hour and a half this morning, I’m also completely sour. For some reason, I decided to join the HUC flag football team. Thought it would be fun to get out of the house, hang out with some of the other students that I normally don’t hang out with, and get some exercise. Well, I’m definitely doing all of that and realizing that I’m not in the shape that I once was and I’m definitely not as young as I once was.

See, most of the players on the other team were probably of college age. MOst of them play sports a log. Our team? We’re in decent shape, just not necessarily sprint..stop…sprint..stop kinda of good shape. Me? I can hike 10 miles, but walking today is a bit painful.

Oh…and the score? 35 - 0. It was only our second time playing with each other, and our first gaming learning their rules.  Our goal next game? Score 1 touchdown.