A Week in Review

What a week. Since I last posted, I have been pretty busy. I know that's not an excuse, but I ask for a little leniency. : )

Here are the headlines:

1) Senator Wilkerson was arrested. I took off from Logan airport last Tuesday (with one week to the election), and ahead of me was an aggressive schedule of travel for work, pleasure and campaigning (more on that later). While I was in the air, my State Senator, Dianne Wilkerson, was led out of her home in handcuffs. She was arrested for allegedly accepting payment in exchange for advocating on behalf of night club owners who hoped to earn a liquor license in Boston. The significance for me? Well, since July I have been volunteering for Sonia Chang-Diaz, Dianne Wilkerson's opponent for the senate seat. I took a day off work during the state primary in September to support Sonia Chang-Diaz at a phone bank in Boston.

Despite losing the primary, Wilkerson planned to challenge Chang-Diaz by asking her supporters to write Wilkerson's name on the ballot. Despite being arrested, Wilkerson amazingly kept campaigning (or at least kept her campaign going) until Friday, when she finally suspended her efforts (an announcement she made when I, fittingly, was also in the air).

2) I witnessed Barack Obama while on the road and in the air. I traveled to San Francisco for work, and I took a couple pictures of evidence.

Woman watches Senator Obama speak to a crowd in Pennsylvania
Aboard a Jet Blue flight to Oakland from Boston
October 28, 2008

A co-worker at my company's west coast office
San Francisco
October 28, 2008

3) My friend Annmarie Connors completed an Ironman. On Friday of last week, I flew to Atlanta and drove to Panama City, Florida, to watch my friend participate in the Florida Ironman. Kim McCrossen and I got to see Annmarie on the route several times as she swam, rode and ran ridiculous distances. I am so proud of Annmarie, and she clearly did something that I could never imagine doing (not the first time I have said that about her). She's been training with her teammate, Victor Acosta, for a year. From a selfish perspective, I am happy the Ironman is over, since it means I should be able to see Annmarie more (and actually buy her an alcoholic beverage).

Annmarie and Victor on the beach at the start of the 2008 Florida Ironman.
Panama City Beach, Fla.
November 1, 2008

4) I hit the campaign trail on Monday in New Hampshire. On Sunday, the Sonia Chang-Diaz campaign released me, a fancy way of saying that since Wilkerson had stopped campaigning, the Chang-Diaz campaign no longer needed me on election day. This freed me to volunteer for Barack Obama Monday and Tuesday. I traveled to New Hampshire with other volunteers from Mayor Thomas Menino's office (Mayor of Boston). We helped set up a staging location (fancy name for a place where volunteers pick up information to knock on doors) on Monday, and on Tuesday, we helped operations at the main volunteer location on Elm Street in Manchester.

5) All of my causes on election day succeeded. It was the best election day for me since 1996, when I was in D.C. on the Boston University program there, and Bill Clinton was re-elected President. That was my first Presidential election. It's been rough going since then.

This year, Barack Obama was elected. Sonia Chang-Diaz was elected as my new State Senator. And Massachusetts voters turned down Question 1, a reckless proposal to eliminate the state income tax that actually had a chance of passing a few weeks back. Success on all three of my priorities for the election. I am a tad giddy.