Last political blog post, promise.  It’s only a few days away, have you prepared yourself?  Have you listened to both parties? 

I am sure there are those that will disagree with me, but I put a lot of weight into how each candidate is campaigning.  The debates are huge.  Sure, they’ve become skilled question dodgers and avoid making any clear statements, but that shows skill in itself.  What it comes down to is tactics.  I believe that each side uses tactics to win this election just like they’ll use tactics in their presidency once they’re elected.  So beyond policies, history, experience, race, gender, party, etc, I think we’re getting a dose of how we can expect them to act.  A little mudslinging is expected and warranted, especially when it’s close and you’re trying to get exposure.  During the last week of a campaign though, you need to grow up.  Start being positive about what you can do for the country, not tearing down the component.  It’s not the time to try and convert anyone, it’s time to sway those people still on the fence.  Tell me what I should vote for you, not why I shouldn’t vote for the other guy.  The most success you’ll see with that strategy will be someone getting disgusted and not voting at all.

All I’ve seen from McCain and even Palin is mudslinging.  It’s beyond ridiculous.  Biden has been pretty quiet on the flip side.  I find Palin’s middle class soccer mom thing well over played, and these injections of fictional stereotypes like Joe the Plumber and Tito the illegal immigrant borderline offensive (Pundit tended!  OH DOUBLE ZING!).  Is she for real?  People are really getting behind this?  This is your campaign?

I’ve watched the debates, I’ve watched the rallies, I’ve read the press, I’ve read the reactions, and I’m voting for change.

Really, I have to give it up to my body for the past month or so.  It’s been through a lot, especially in the past week!  I have poison all over my legs, probably have some sort of sinus infection following a cold a week ago, and I’ve added a weight routine inbetween days of my ~4 mile runs.  It’s been in a constant state of healing for a while now, and it’s doing a great job.  Even been getting more sun than normal from soccer and the runs.  Good job, body, keep up the good work.  There’s still a rough road ahead of us to get where we need to be for the urbanathlon, or california beach appearance…but each day gets us a little closer.

As for the rest of me, doing pretty well.  I missed a week of work from the tooth surgery, then a short holiday week from the 4th of july, then another week off for staycation.  I was going to go to yankanuck with Deirdre, mom & chris, and even mike, serah, and Josie, but I decided to sit it out and save money for when i will really need it.  All i would do at yankanuck would be play music and read.  I got a lot done though, and things actually worked out very well for me by staying back.  More on that in the future.

Got a lot coming up too.  Josh Hall Project plays at the Cornerstone Kickoff on august 24th, and unlike instruments where you just have to learn the song and you’re good, vocals need to be in shape to sing.  So that needs to start NOW.  Need to take a trip up to see grandma.  I’ve also decided to sell all 4 of my lollapalooza tickets, with a minor loss, so that I can fly to California for that week.  Details to come, but I’m excited for what might be a new chapter…or even expansion pack, to my life.  I try to keep my head on my shoulders and heart in place for the time being, but I’m praying for open eyes to see what God wants to reveal to me.

this was a stupid idea.  I was totally fine thursday, friday, saturday, and sunday.  I’m swollen and can’t eat anything.  i ran 5 miles friday, hung drywall saturday, and played soccer sunday.  Now i can’t get out of bed.  isn’t this reversed?  the doc said he expected my 5th day would be the worse when i made a special visit to him yesterday because i was in so much despair.  he said that he had to remove a lot of bone last thursday.  that can’t be good.  now i think a hole opened up from my top teeth into my sinuses.  my tongue is going numb.  this is ballz.  i want to not do this anymore.  my kids are getting this done when they’re 12.

turning 25 on the 16th…wow.  Deirdre just showed me a pic from my high school soccer days and said, "here’s you almost 10 years ago."  WTF  10 years ago??!  When the crap did that happen!?!?  shoot.  I havent done half of what i had hoped i’d do by the time i’m 25.  It’s really depressing, but most birthdays are for me.  That’s why I don’t work for that whole week.  Just so i don’t have the risk of having "a bad day" and getting even more depressed.  I don’t care if i sleep all day or if i am productive all day, the only thing that’s important is that I’m happy.  Egocentric and self-indulgant?  Mayhaps.  This year I’m going down to vegas.  WEEEEE.

As another indicator of how low ludicrous my degree is, I didn’t turn in the first assignment in one of my classes, half-arsed it through the whole class, it was supposed to be a professional writing class and I can’t think of one paper that I turned in.  But i got an A.  WTF.  When I first started back at school, i thought it was just me being an excellent slacker and social engineer, but now i realize it’s the lack of anything challenging, consequential, or pressured.  Mostly.  With one of the last 2 classes i have to finish, I have to write a 10 page paper.  That’s rather overwhelming to me.  I think i’ve written 1 twelve page paper before…at Pitt…during the whole semester.  This will give me 5 weeks to do it.  I think it might be our only grade, or the majority of our entire grade.   Joy in buckets i tell ya.

I think i found a good open mic to play at regularly on Monday nights.  I want to get a email list set up for people, and the most obvious/easiest for me would be to use the newsletter function built into this site.  So the trick is to get people to go through the registration process.  I might just try to do a batch user add with all my friend’s email addresses and set their passwords to something generic.  We’ll see what I can do…I do see that they hey ya acoustic cover in the downloads section has been downloaded 30 times though, and that’s pretty acceptable to me.  I think i’m going to jump into the studio, probably my uncle kenny’s, and record a demo CD to hand out to people.  That will give me some good quality recordings to replace the bad ones too.

Luke ravenstahl, the pittsburgh mayor, came by my house the other day.  he was walking through the hill district trying to get voters and i just so happen to notice him.  He came up to my door to meet me and shake my hand and ask me about what i did and how long i lived there and any issues I had.  I could have drilled him with questions like what is that "propel pittsburgh" committee doing, if anything, and why didnt i get on it, and why don’t you just take your own car to country concerts, and why don’t you chill out a bit when you’re obviously under the spotlight for being young and immature?  but that would have taken some preparation and relied on me being able to overcome the shock of seeing the mayor in my front yard, which did not happen.  Oh well.  Not like i vote anyway.  I am definitely seeing good stuff in the development of the hill district though, so i’d like to get behind him 100%, but dude just needs to be a little more considerate of how the city thinks of him and what he does.