The right to vote

I was walking my sister's dogs (I'm dog/kid sitting while they are in Hawaii) this morning and thought about what this day meant to me.

The right to vote is something that a lot of us take for granted - especially people from my generation who have always had this opportunity. I thought about the fact that there are people all around the world today who don't have a right to vote and I thought about the 110 year old woman who remembers the first time she voted in 1920 and has voted for 9 decades.

Today is a big day and regardless of who you want to win, please go vote. It's a right we should never take for granted.

Since I've been a voter, I've never felt more proud and more hopeful. Most importantly, I have a deep sense of the profound influence that I, one person, might have on the outcome of an election.

I thought about writing about why I'm voting for Barack Obama but so many people do it much better so I'll leave it up to them. Check out this post by an average citizen and this post by Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic Monthly.

Conquering Demons

I have a lot of demons to conquer but a particular one has been nagging me a lot lately.....especially since a few friends have been bugging me about it this summer.

That demon is Jan's Rock at Lebanon Hill's Regional Park. For some weird reason I always chickened out when we came up to this section and have only tried it once before. I always thought it was too steep and never had a good approach (lame excuses, I know). Well, riding Slickrock Trail in Moab completely changed my idea of what's too steep.

So, today when I was at Leb I told myself that I was going to do Jan's Rock. I got up to it, stared at it for a while and then road right down it. I even went back and did it again. I can't believe I let myself get freaked out by this for so long as it was like going down a slide.

On to the next demon - the teter totter.