It occurs to me that there are an enormous amount of poorly educated Americans out there that are about to vote for McCain / Palin.

If you are one of those people, please, stop for a moment and read this. I promise not to delve into what I feel is right or wrong with your political stance.

McCain and Palin are simply not qualified to serve as President and Vice President.

Watch these videos and please, reconsider. It will take only 15 minutes of your life, and if you’ve watched them and still want to vote Republican this election, at least you did so with open eyes.

John McCain vs. John McCain

McCain’s YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare

KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis

Feel free to send me videos to add, or, if you disagree with me, videos to counter. I’m just saying, don’t go into this election voting blindly. Whether or not you believe in the Republican platform doesn’t matter. McCain/Palin won’t execute on it anyway. 

I firmly believe that Obama and Biden will at least deliver on their platform and help this country over the next four years. Pick the right people to run the country. 

I’ve been struggling with loading websites over the past couple weeks. I’m not sure exactly why but it seems the culprit is Firefox. Switch to Camino or Safari and everything is AOK. Weird.

The problem is I use Better Gmail heavily and it only works in Firefox. I need the extra keyboard shortcuts to handle all the email I get for work. Bah! Guess I’ll just stick to FF for email and Camino or Safari (which, I don’t know) for everything else.

Why are there websites that restrict your password? I’ve run into websites that disallow all of the following things:

• Passwords over 8 characters
• Passwords that start with a number
• Passwords that have characters other than numbers or letters

STUPID STUPID STUPID. Ugh.

March 21 through March 28. Those are the dates I was supposed to be in NYC. March 23 is the actual day I will get there now. Thank you freak snow storm. It kind of sucks. I had all sorts of things planned for the weekend there and some of those things are off the table now. I don’t know that Thain is going to want to visit, for example, and it would have been a really good opportunity to hang out with him. I’ll try and do some things that I wanted to do (ie visit the bakery from sex and the city) during the week though.

At this point I would go into the office except they are sending everyone home at 2pm anyway for the holiday weekend. It seems a little weird to me that Google gives us President’s Day off but nothing for Easter. I know it is a religous holiday but don’t the same number of people celebrate it as, say, Christmas? I’m not religous, but I’ll say a prayer and drink some wine for a day off!

High Fructose Corn Syrup. It’s everywhere, in all the things I love, for seemingly no reason. Take yogurt for example. What do you think is in blueberry yogurt? I thought… blueberries, milk, and cultures. Nope….

“CULTURED PASTEURIZED GRADE A LOW FAT MILK, SUGAR, BLUEBERRIES, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, NONFAT MILK, KOSHER GELATIN,CITRIC ACID, TRICALCIUM PHOSPHATE, PECTIN, COLORED WITH BEET JUICE CONCENTRATE, NATURAL FLAVOR, VITAMIN A ACETATE, VITAMIN D3”

For your convenience, I have made all the ingredients which were not necessary to make blueberry yogurt bold.

Yoplait — you suck!

This is another one I’m posting for myself. A short while ago I wrote a post on how I could immediately improve my life. I felt like I should review it and assess myself.

1) Start getting up at 7am. I’ll have to do this soon for work anyway.

Well, when I posted this I started getting up earlier. Not quite at 7am but at least an hour or two earlier than I had been. Now I’m getting up around that time simply because of the job - as predicted. Kudos me!

2) Start going to bed by midnight. (I’ve set an alarm to remind myself from now on!)

Not quite at the midnight threshold all nights yet, but close to it.

3) Cardio 5 times a week. (This will be easily facilitated. I will start by using the extra time in the morning. When my schedule shifts I’ll start doing it when I get home from work)

Aha. I fail! I’ve done some sort of cardio workout only three times since posting this. I need to get on this!

4) Eat healthy and light during the week. No more heavy pastas, huge burritos. I’ve already cut the soda, this is just the next step. If the dish is large, split it and make it lunch and dinner.

Hmmm. I wrote this in such a manner that it is difficult to rate my progress. Bad me! All goals should have clear and defined methods for measurement. In any event, I do feel like I’ve been eating healthier, however, my portions haven’t gotten any smaller thanks to the open buffet at work.

5) No drinking work nights. Friday and Saturday, OK. Do I really need it anyway?

While I haven’t completely kicked the work-night-drinking I have significantly decreased the amount I consume. During the week I only go out on occasion, and I’ve drastically reduced my partying on weekends. Overall I feel healthier for it, and I’m certain I’ll stay on this road.

6) Pay down debts. I don’t have that many, but I shouldn’t have any. Life is happier when you don’t owe a dime!

Isn’t this always a constant work in progress? I paid off half of my oft-forgotten credit card. When March rolls around though (bonus time), whatever is left is getting kicked to the curb for a totally debt-free Jordan!

The next step is to redefine my goals:

1) Continue getting to bed by midnight on work nights.

2) Cardio 3 times a week for at least 45 minutes.
- Sign up for a gym or dedicate to utilizing facilities at work.
3) Salad for lunch with light dressing each day, no more than one entree and side with it. Do NOT fill plate!
4) Finish at least one work-related book every other month.

5) Find a hobby.

I’ll come back and review these again in a month or two!

For the past two years every aspect of my life has been constantly improving. Still, somehow, there has always been some nagging issue that I haven’t been able to pinpoint that has held me back from fully enjoying what should be a very comfortable lifestyle.

Last night, while watching the snow from my living room, I realized something was horribly wrong. I was at peace and in that moment I was fully content just watching the snow fall. I was actually happy that it was snowing. The last time I was happy about snow… well it was because school was canceled. I am not going to divulge how many years it has been, but let it be known it has been a few.

So what has changed now and allowed me to enjoy something that has for so long been an annoyance? What immediately comes to mind is the new job I start Monday. The prospect of being able to learn and do something new coupled with the excitement of countless improvements over my old job is certainly something to brighten my mood. It is a bit of a red herring though. What is really behind breaking down the old barrier?

Driving. More than starting a new job, on Monday I will no longer be forced to drive a very expensive vehicle twenty-something miles through the most annoying traffic to and from work each day. Sure, taking a car might be faster than the CTA, but there are so many benefits to not having to get in that car five days a week.

When I get out of work - I want to relax. I don’t care if I am home. I just don’t want to think. I want to read a book, or surf the internet, or make some phone calls. What I really don’t want to do is sit in a car moving 10 feet at a time, battling to get to a place where I can relax. I also don’t want to try and anticipate what retarded things that woman working a sudoku puzzle or businessman looking things up on his laptop might do to fuck my day up. And in Chicago, if you don’t anticipate every driver’s every move, you will be one of those people with a dent in your car. I pay too much each month for my car to let it get dented.

So starting tomorrow I don’t have to drive anymore. And as soon as I can manage to sell my car for anything close to what I owe on it I won’t have to pay for it either. This really was the last holdout. The last big annoyance in my life that I needed to get rid of in order to enjoy all that I’ve been able to accomplish.

I am finally at a point that I feel proud about who I am and what I have done. I am able to notice the fruits of my labors around me. Lately, I have a new-found confidence and revitalized passion for life.

The next time you get on a CTA bus or train take a moment to think about how lucky we are in Chicago to even have public transportation, and how lucky you are to be able to use it instead of having to drive.

Walking back from SoupBox tonight (where they have the most awesome staff by the way, they are always so friendly and welcoming in there) I was nearly struck by a maniac driver on Pine Grove. General rule of thumb: don’t speed through residential neighborhoods when you can’t stop safely. Luckily I was able scurry out of the way with only a tap.

Also, I ran into one of the friendly people I was talking about in my recent post. She smiled at me warmly as I walked past her and her male counterpart on the way to get food. Then we walked past each other again and this time she smiled even bigger and said hello.

The snow outside is really pretty right now. The temperature is tolerable and the snow is falling softly and building up on the trees making for a gorgeous scene. It is also quite quiet. Such a relaxing night.

File this under “how to get nearly run over and still be in a great mood.”

Things I can do to make myself happier, healthier, and more prepared:

1) Start getting up at 7am. I’ll have to do this soon for work anyway.

2) Start going to bed by midnight. (I’ve set an alarm to remind myself from now on!)

3) Cardio 5 times a week. (This will be easily facilitated. I will start by using the extra time in the morning. When my schedule shifts I’ll start doing it when I get home from work)

4) Eat healthy and light during the week. No more heavy pastas, huge burritos. I’ve already cut the soda, this is just the next step. If the dish is large, split it and make it lunch and dinner.

5) No drinking work nights. Friday and Saturday, OK. Do I really need it anyway?

6) Pay down debts. I don’t have that many, but I shouldn’t have any. Life is happier when you don’t owe a dime!

I think that is a good list for now. Can I make it a habit of posting my progress daily? It will certainly help so I’ll try!