Job

First up, I’ll be starting a new job in a week and a half. Full time performance testing on n-teir web architecture at a company here in Indianapolis. It’s a HELL of an opportunity to learn alot of exciting technologies. The fat pay increase doesn’t hurt either. It was just time to move on from my job of nearly 7 years (it’s been that long? Cheezus.) to an opportunity that will give me some career growth and advancement. Scary, but awesome.

Personal

I’ve got a heckuva special lady. She pretty much rocks my socks clean off. Living with her now in Irvington (a neighborhood here in Indy) in a rental house. 3 bedrooms, full (unfinished) basement, wood floors,yard, the works. Irvington is a fantastic, walkable neighborhood. Love living there and we really hope to buy a house in a year or so. We’re hoping to have a party of some sort relatively soon. We’re even doing Farm Fresh Delivery now and have received some amazing food, including some brats from Moody’s that were out of this world.

Politics

I really hope to do some more political blogging in the next few weeks up to the election. but short version? It’s hard not to be really optimistic right now. Obama is kicking ass, the polls look amazing and the statistical projections at 538 are not only technically very cool but are (at least right now) projecting an epic ass kicking. Even Indiana is close!!!

John McCain has decended so far into the gutter and his remaining loyalists that show up at rallies are truly disturbing people (yelling “kill him!”, “terrorist!” and “he’s a Muslim” etc).  A President Obama is goign to face soem very stiff challenges comign into office, but I’d rather has his intelligence, reason and measured calm to McCain’s irrational, emotionally charged and dangerousbehavior in the White House.

Locally, it doesn’t look good for JLT to unseat Mitch Daniels. I’m on record as being very unimpressed by JLT’s campaign. I’m not even sure I really want to vote for her. I certainly can’t vote for Daniels. Chris pretty much sums up my feelings about the decision perfectly, so I’ll just let you read that. At this point I’m not really sure who I am going to vote for. I can’t vote for the Libertarian, as not only are Libertarians generally a little delusional, but this one is a pro-life libertarian. Wrap your head around that. Tempted to write in Schellinger for the hell of it.

Other than Governor, Indiana has a chance to send at least one more Dem to congress. The 3rd around Ft. Fun is apparently close, and even Burton and Pence are fighting off strong challenges. if Obama’s ground game really kicks in and alot of the new voters vote straight ticket, who knows what could happen? Also, now that I’m in Irvington I get to vote for John Barnes for State Rep. He’ll be a great state rep. ALso pulling for Mary Ann Sullivan to unseat John “The Rod’ Elrod to join Barnes in the State House. She came to a couple Drinking Liberally nights and I was incredibly impressed with her.

That’s a good quick and dirty summary of things right now. Here’s hoping I can get back on the blogging horse again.

The cool thing about it is that anyone with a blog who can give a feed for a specific category can assist with that website. IndyCouncilWatch is essentially a RSS feed aggregator. You can post on your own blog. As long as you can give it a specific category, and an RSS feed on that category, you can participate.

So it’s still in the early stages and there may not be much there yet, but if you are interested in helping out – going to meetings, keeping up on the news out of the council and writing about it – leave a comment here or anywhere on ICW. be glad to have you.

And if you are interested in this, you may also enjoy a new blog that isn’t by me: The Accidental Mayor. Good stuff.

* I didn’t do nearly enough for this election. I could have done more and I just plain didn’t.
* I didn’t take Ballard seriously enough. More specifically, (and less credit to Ballard) I didn’t take the anti-incumbent fever sweeping the state seriously enough
* I’ve been too focused on national politics when, as the saying goes, all politics are local.

CJ has an excellent post wrapping up the election and closes with “So come next year and the new session, expect more local politics coverage around here. I can’t speak for the Marion County Democratic Party, but I’ve certainly learned my lesson.” I couldn’t agree more and plan to take this lesson to heart. How?

Holding the MCRCC and the new CCC/Mayor accountable

CJ and I, along with a few others from Drinking Liberally: Indianapolis, talked about this last night. How can we hold the new GOP CCC and Mayor accountable? Our plan, as it stands now, is to go to every single pupblic CCC meeting possible. Take notes. Tell people what they are doing. Ask questions. Write them. Basically make it so they come to recognize we are there.
And by “tell people what they are doing” we are going to work on setting up a blog that is basically an aggregation of any posts we (or others who want to help) make on the happenings at CCC meetings and from emailing questions and comments to councilors.

Is this enough to make up for not taking this election seriously enough? No. Probably not. But it’s the best thing we can think of to keep tabs on and hold accountable a new CCC and Mayor who are long on promises and blame, but short on actual ideas.

7pm-whenever
Spencer’s Stadium Tavern
802 S. West St (SW Corner of West & McCarty)