I've decided I'll know it's time to move out of the city when I find myself as amazed by the ridiculous amount of open space here as I am amazed by the ridiculous amount of stuff crammed into small spaces in Chicago. Right now, I'm just amazed that I'm not amazed by being surrounded on all sides by trees. I guess growing up around that means it never leaves you. Which isn't to say it's not nice to see all the fall colours in bulk, rather than here and there along the streets.
I voted today. It was actually the first time I voted in person, and I was delighted to see that the election bureau was full of people. There was a line, and it's still just a little less than two weeks until the election. I remember the last two elections here, when all the yard signs were pretty much Bush. Now, nearly every yard between here and Youngstown has a sign in the yard. Out here it's predictably McCain, but there are yards other than my parents' that have Obama signs. That's pretty amazing in itself. The suburbs are like a competition between neighbors, kind of in the same way they try to one-up each other over Christmas decorations. One yard will have a huge Obama sign, so the next one over will have five McCain signs in a row. Youngstown is pretty solidly Obama, plus or minus the weird house on the West side that used to always have a confederate flag out front. Almost everyone has a sign though, which is just cool. And the best part is the unexpected shows of support. As we were driving out to vote today, we passed a guy on the outskirts of one of the suburbs who was getting into his rusty old pickup truck. He was wearing a cowboy hat, and had taped signs to the side of his truck. And as we passed, we saw that he had the Obama O emblem on the front of his hat, and the signs on his truck were for Obama. There's something very endearing about finding an Obama cowboy out here.
I'm getting pretty sick of all the Obama ads on TV, though. They're not obnoxious and negative like the ads in the past two elections, but they're constant enough, and they're running pretty much unopposed. I'm starting to fear some sort of backlash with all this saturation.
I voted today. It was actually the first time I voted in person, and I was delighted to see that the election bureau was full of people. There was a line, and it's still just a little less than two weeks until the election. I remember the last two elections here, when all the yard signs were pretty much Bush. Now, nearly every yard between here and Youngstown has a sign in the yard. Out here it's predictably McCain, but there are yards other than my parents' that have Obama signs. That's pretty amazing in itself. The suburbs are like a competition between neighbors, kind of in the same way they try to one-up each other over Christmas decorations. One yard will have a huge Obama sign, so the next one over will have five McCain signs in a row. Youngstown is pretty solidly Obama, plus or minus the weird house on the West side that used to always have a confederate flag out front. Almost everyone has a sign though, which is just cool. And the best part is the unexpected shows of support. As we were driving out to vote today, we passed a guy on the outskirts of one of the suburbs who was getting into his rusty old pickup truck. He was wearing a cowboy hat, and had taped signs to the side of his truck. And as we passed, we saw that he had the Obama O emblem on the front of his hat, and the signs on his truck were for Obama. There's something very endearing about finding an Obama cowboy out here.
I'm getting pretty sick of all the Obama ads on TV, though. They're not obnoxious and negative like the ads in the past two elections, but they're constant enough, and they're running pretty much unopposed. I'm starting to fear some sort of backlash with all this saturation.