Doubt's Log

Thursday roles around and I was left with a decision. Ride a 14-15 mph pace ride with the people I'm doing the STP with, do the Cascade ride, do both or do the 107 mi, 5500 ft of climbing RAMROD training series ride? Am I even vaguely fit enough to do the RAMROD training series ride? Last time I tried it, the ride went to North Bend, was 69 mi with 3,400 feet of elevation gain, and I failed. I fell further and further behind until I had to walk the SE 164th St hill from Uplands Way SE. I always caught up with the group at the rest stop, but I never let myself recover, choosing instead  to try to stay up with the group. I made the same mistake one last time after the lunch stop in order to ride with a group that planned on going slow. As it turned out, they wanted to catch up with someone, so they took off at a pace my exhausted legs couldn't begin to replicate and after falling slightly off the group the headwind finished me off. Demotivated, alone and feeling sick, I turned off the route in the last 15 miles skipping the Fall City-Issaquah road climb up to the Sammamish plateau in order to climb Snoqualmie Parkway to crawl up and die at home. Since then, I've done a number of CTS rides and have always been comfortable with the blue group's pace, distance and elevation gain. The most I've done this season was the 80 mi ride to Black Diamond and that was no where near the hills of a RAMROD training series ride. In the end the decision was made when Per asked me at dinner on Thursday night if I was coming. What the hell, I'm stronger now and it sounded like Per hasn't ridden that distance yet this season. Two weeks ago on Saturday the rain took out both the CTS ride and his training series ride.

7:30 AM Saturday and my legs are cold. I'm at the top of Lakemont Blvd getting ready to do this. There is a lady that I've seen many times at the CTS ride and I had told her about the Tuesday/Thursday rides and now through that she has decided to come to this one. I don't think she's expecting the amount of hills ahead, but last week she did ride the flying wheels century ride and the bonus 60 miles CTS ride the next day. The fact that we are at the top of a hill that at the end of this 100+ mile ride I'm going to have to climb back up is not lost on me. Coming down off of Lakemont using 164th I quickly fall to the back of the pack, since I'm overly cautious coming down hills that have curves. Riding down hill on Newport Ave I seem to fall further behind. What's going on with my legs? Thursday my legs were tight and only after a bunch of riding did they stop feeling weird, but even then I still felt off. Here I was going steady downhill and was already slow. It wasn't the stiffness of Thursday, it was just a pure lack of strength. I start to consol myself that it must be a headwind until I pass the hangliding landing field on Issaquah Hobart Rd and the wind sock is lying dead flat. Maybe it's strapped down right now? Maybe the slight climb is doing it? Maybe my legs are cold? The excuses tumble out. The lady from the CTS ride is way ahead of me now but still visible, I'm riding with another lady in a white wind jacket. She keeps doing out of saddle work to maintain her speed. Perhaps it's not just me. We take a left on to Tiger Mountain Rd from the north side, the steeper side. On a previous CTS ride I had skipped coming up Tiger Mountain from the south side when I thought that the group had left already, it turned out to be the "fast" group leaving early.

I manage to catch up to Per and about half the pack on the turn to SE 200th St, but as I climb the hill next to the golf course we once had a moral event on, I get a nasty cramp in the back right part of my right knee. I stop at the intersection and give up on staying with the group in order to message the muscles, have some electrolyte gel and some water. I catch up again to the group in Ravensdale at the rest stop. Per gives me the rest of his gallon of water and I get a quick stop in the bathroom. The next miles are uneventful, I stay in a nice pace of small climbs and rollers doing the group pace. We climb our the Green river Gorge area on Enumclaw-Franklin Rd, but turn onto a small side road, SE 384th before getting to 169. In front of me is a wall. I hear per saying something about this being the worse between two special "rollers" on the ride. This is not a roller, this is a long straight shot up. I already see some people towards the top walking their bikes. Muttering to myself "Per, What did I do to you?" I take it on. There is one thing I know for sure, there is no restarting on this hill. If I stop, I'll have to walk. Per amazingly enough stops and restarts. At the top I catch my breath and then get moving to not lose the group.

Finally I make it to Enumclaw for lunch and I'm getting pretty sore. The group's about half the mileage and about 2/5's the climbing.  Once again the group is leaving and I've just taken the last bite of the tuna sandwich I bought from Safeway. I think about the possibility that I'll need to call Pamela to bail as we start out.

In my usual pattern I've fallen way behind the group coming down 218th Ave SE to Green Valley. I pass a number of people as we slowly climb out of Green Valley passing Flaming Geyser State Park. This climb I take slow enough that my heart rate doesn't go over 180 too often. At the top, some 50+ motorcycles roar by. Cheaters. I lose the group at Black Diamond bakery, but my head is acting up enough that I take an Excedrin. I head north along the route on Lake Sawyer to Witte's Rd. along which is the next rest stop. Here I don't really get a chance to rest, I just get some water, down another electrolyte gel and move on. We do Sweeny Rd which turns into 196th Ave SE. It's much more pleasant to climb it from this side then from the north end. Per is providing the few of us who hasn't flown off with a good pace on the climbs. Jones rd goes by without much issue, but I know I have to climb the other wall of maple valley soon.

The other fun "roller" was on 160th Ave SE. It's a tougher grade, but it is very short. We fly though may valley and I'm getting really weak and headachy. We do some climbing and extra miles next to coal creek pkwy before rolling into Lake Boren Park. Finally I sit down and just rest. The sun is out and I actually start to believe that I'll finish the route. We hop down to Lake Washington Blvd and then climb back over the ridge to Coal Creek again before we hit Newport Way. I know the rest of the route at this point. It's a straight shot (up) to 164th and I'm not looking forward to the final climb. Even worse I'm starting to fall behind the small pack again. Ironically I catch them on the hill. The road straighten's out and I say to myself "False Top", however I forgot that the rest of the climbing was nothing compared to the first section. Mercifully I quickly reach Lewis Creek Park and relax. That was a hard ride.

Of course the real question is, Can I do the next one in the series?

With STP coming up and my intention to ride it two days with a friend and some of his coworkers, I felt that I really needed to do at least one two-day ride before the actual event. This weekend was cascade's dedicated chance to do just that with Flying Wheels one day and a "lighter" CTS ride the next.

I did the 70 mile route on flying wheels and eventually caught up with some of the folks that I ride with on Per's Tuesday and Thursday Night rides from Marymoor. The hills hit me hard that day, perhaps because of the Thursday night ride? Either way it was a pleasant day and I had a very tasty pastrami on a garlic bagel sandwich afterwards :). The next day I braved possible rain to do the CTS ride. While parts of it were at 16 mph because of a nasty headwind whenever we headed south, the overall ride was at the level or above of a normal CTS blue ride. Our group even added two bonus hills in Magnolia. The best part was flying north up airport road. I made up my mind late to try to join the fast group and ended up not catching them in spite of a 25-26 mph pace for a couple miles. I gained for a while but eventually just fell further behind. I caught up to two women, of whom I tried to keep on my tail but fell off, and the later who did stay with me, but my pace had fallen to 22-23 mph at that point. I found that for a good number of the hills I tried to keep up with the top of the group. I even had a shout up from lady behind me "oh Ari! Don't use you grannie gear on this hill!" which quickly shamed me in to switching back up one in the front. I'm actually at the point now where for many hills I don't need the grannie gear and also for the first time on Sunday it felt that muscle soreness was a bigger factor then cardio condition (of course this was on the second day of riding). If my heart monitor is at all accurate then I burned some 9000 calories in biking this weekend (meaning that I have some series cardio training left ahead of me).

That afternoon I attended a very pleasant housewarming at Tim's place. Pamela and I got alot of playing time with Simeon there. Also after a month or two of holding the same movies from netflix, Pam and I finally watched them and we are returning it. If we do that again then netflix may not be the service for us. Oh, I did buy myself a father's day gift, the HD-DVD version of BBC's Planet Earth series. It is just plain awesome, too bad Simeon isn't as fascinated as Pamela and I are.

Today I did the 7 11 Hills of Kirkland, which involves 4,600 ft of climbing over 58 miles. Since I got another broken spoke 25 miles into the Saturday CTS training series ride and had gotten new wheels to fix it the same day, this was a bit of a make up session. Aside from mileage I was glad to see that the climbing was close to what the RAMROD training series ride did this weekend. Previously I've never ridden Seminary Hill had not gone up Winery Hill, so it was nice to get some exposure to both of those forms of torture. Favorite Hill was Norway Hill, least favorite was Novelty Hill (long, busy street and I had to go to the bathroom bad). Second least favorite was Old Redmond Road Hill, where I was getting passed a bit. I'm still getting some thigh cramps at different points, but nothing near as bad as one of the last rides I did. One guy was on the ground and in pain at the bottom of Winery road from painful thighs. I had a twinge going up the steep part, but no real need for compensation till the last climb of education hill, and I did allot better then the previous RAMROD training series ride that I had to abort by climbing the Snoqualmie parkway hill.

Last night I finally got back into the tues/thursday rides with Per's Eastside Tours. While Thompson hill kicked my butt and caused me to drag a good chunk of the rest of the way, it was a fun ride. It's always a great feeling to power the way back up East Lake Sammamish to finish up the ride. This time I was able to maintain a 20 mph pace following someone, but others who had been training longer were up to 24 mph. I have also been reasonable good at getting to the cascade training series rides too. While the CTS ride this weekend is one of my favorites heading down from Renton to the Tacoma Tidal Flats, I'm planning on the more challenging RAMROD training series ride. I might be up for a hike or shorter hide on Sunday, but I imagine that most people will be involved with family.

Last night Pam and I were pretty tired, so we HAVE NOT watched the latest Battlestar Galatica episode yet. We did watch the Dresden Files new episode, The Boone Identity, and caught some of the Teasers for this week's episode, it looks like it plays games with the Baltar as a Cylon angle (which is great) and the Starbuck/Apollo marriage issues (which is pure pain).

The Dresen Files is looking like it's going to be a fun little series that I can watch and relax to. It has some backstory but it doesn't look like the deep intertwined emotional mess Battlestar inflicts every week.

• Bill Gates takes stage
• Reminds us of the GUI bet 12 years ago in Windows 95
• Everything is focused on how to represent in a Digital format
• What's the new innovations?
• Making it easier: search, flip3d, etc
• Safer: anti-spyware, anti-phising, etc
• Entertainment: DX10, Photo Gallery, DVD Maker, HiDef support
• Better Connect: Diagnosing, RSS platform support, XML file formats
• Platform Renovation
• Installing
• Upgrade Advisor
• new system
• Mike, corperate vice president demo
• thanks familys and beta testers
• Familly focused demo
• Photos
• Tagging in Photo gallery via drag and drop
• Search via the tagging
• One beta tester with 40K photos in the library
• Basic adjustments
• DVD Burning
• Videos and pictures into a nice preview
• Document editing
• Live Previews of the entire format of the document changing
• Add a photo and drag it to the size you want in the document, no guessing percents
• Ribbon UI
• Extra effects on photos in the document, shadows and the like
• Games
• Game Explorer
• DX10
• Using the Xbox360 controller
• Cross-platform playing, EX: uno
• Parental Controls
• Time-Limits
• Game ratings
• IM sessions, Games played, Web sites went to/attempted to go to
• Xbox360 media center extender
• Cable Card support -> HiDef TV Recording
• Media Center interface
• Music explorer
• picture explorer
• Extras
• DreamScene - Motion Video on the Desktop
• WoW campaign Commercial
• nice music... look up later
• Steve Ballmer
• Biggest Launch in software history and the broadest
• Today/Tommorow fun across the globe
• 19 Languages today, 99 by EOY
• 39,000 retail outlets
• thousands of OEMs
• 1 million people in europe by EOY
• 2 million in US
• 2,500 certified software products
• NY Times reader application
• 5 Mil beta testers
• Partners Video
• Dell CEO Kevin ??
• Intel Sean Melony(sp?)
• Toshiba CEO and president of computer devision ??
• AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruitz
• HP ??
• editorial comment: How much money is on that stage right now?
•  Bill Gates
• Thanks to the employees
• Jim Allchin thank you from Bill
• 5 Million People Downloaded Vista and Office 2007
• Highest quality ever
• Test Automation
• Performance Testing
• Watched 1 billion office beta sessions
• What Famillies said about the product
• 50 famillies in 7 countries
• > contact
• 800 changes
• Lots of DVD burning feedback out of this program
• "Microsoft listened to me"
• One of the Famillies on the stage
• Burn to Disc button in photo gallery was one of thier feedbacks
• Got the first copy in the US.
• Kids push the button, and Screens in Times Square Start going
• Video of Launch events across the world.
• Live Band starts playing
• Caffiteria Ballons drops
• Event is over at Microsoft

Last night I went to the Seattle Podcast Meetup in hopes of meeting Jon Udell. I'm guessing that I missed him but the reduced panel and the random people mingling was entertaining. I learned some (retroactively obvious) things like, when you interview someone in a podcast form, have a series of questions and topics outlined out. I also saw that there was a huge focus on making money from podcasting this year. Unlike blogs where the bandwidth and level of involvement scales very well, podcasting is considerably more involving. As a result, the question of making money comes out much earlier and is a more universal concern. It was interesting to hear some of the thoughts about podcasting as a marketing device for retention. There was an example of a museum moving from simple letter Q/A to podcasting the answers to questions and charities podcasting as a way to inexpensively communicate to their donors what they are accomplishing with the donations. Chris Pirillo was very entertaining and brought up finger, a good-old-days protocol I haven't thought about for almost a decade. Overall a fun little evening.

I've been cruising pretty much all my life, and this is the first time I remember cruising on the Carnival Lines. Carnival has a reputation for being really good for families and we had set our expectations on that. As a result we were a bit disappointed on what they offered for kids under two.

While the night babysitting might be useful for someone who didn't bring a supply of grandparents we were mostly looking for a place for Simeon to be able to safely roam and play. This turned out to be somewhat difficult. They allowed use of the kids area for Simeon's age group 3 times out of 8 days (at sea periods from noon to 2pm). We also grabbed a crib for Simeon in the room, but it was much smaller then a normal crib and ended up being too small for Simeon, so he moved into our bed. We were hoping to just use the crib mattress on the floor, but they took it back when we tried to keep it since after giving up the crib they assigned it to another room. This seemed like a way too little service for charging a full third person in a cabin fare.

We did get a really good beach day with Simeon in Antigua which I would count as the highlight of the trip. The lowlight would be Nassau, which forces you through a very crowded building and makes you walk through a half a market before you can get to the street. However you are there, you are under constant assault be people trying to sell you a service. This extended all the way to the not so great beach on paradise island. This is after navigating the Atlantis Hotel in an attempt to find the beach. While riding the water taxi was nice once, the extra $1.50 for a cab instead was well worth it for the ride back. Totola didn't make much of an impression on me since we stayed with the local shopping. Puerto Rico was cool because of the historical city layout, walls and forts. Which leaves Saint Thomas. Saint Thomas is my mother's favorite shopping destination, especially a shop named Omni.

The food in the ship's dinning room left a bit to be desired, and the main show's volume levels were too loud for the speakers they were using, but it was obvious that they had put a lot of money in the productions. Carnival was a bit more pushy with the drinks and had a very well attended casino and karaoke. Overall I'd give the ship a B mostly over the food and the under two support. I'd give the staff an A. I'd give the itinerary an A-. If Pamela doesn't talk more about traveling on a cruise with Simeon then I'll post again on that topic.

In the Seattle Airport, the police had mountain bikes, in Chicago they have segways. I'm also conviced we are the only parents in America flying without a portable DVD player.

I just listened to a NPR piece on party conversation based on Raymond's Recommendation and found myself yelling in concert with the host "Stop the Party!". This advice would have been helpful at last weekend's playgroup meeting (Simeon is the one with the drool soaked shirt) where I knew none of the dads and didn't really remember real well the moms (although I did attend the post birthing classes that formed the group). This party was also my first real experience with more then two babies in a room, and it defiantly was a different experience then anything I've seen before. Babies heading in every different direction getting into whatever they could find. I really liked the way they had set up toy containers (back right of this photo) and books and will have to set something like that up. I'm currently using a toy chest from ikea (MINNEN treasure Chest), that is not bad for storage but not so great for quick access.

So I was back at the gym this morning, did 45 minutes of cardio and got a nice headache as a result. This happend the last time I tried to restart cardio. I'm going to have to keep at it until I can get over this hump. I've also started diet tracking again. I think I'm going to have to focus on this for the rest of my life.

In previous years, I'm told that Raymond went for Halloween as an Interoffice Envelope and a Nobel Prize, and we were thinking at dinner last Saturday, what would be a good costume for him this year? On the paper theme we reached a set of ideas around hazard warning signs.  The favorites (of mine) were the Danger: Contents under High Pressure and the the standard diamond. The problem is that it wasn't quite enough to be worthy of a Raymond costume. The Nobel Award was good because of the time he took to forge all the signatures. My last idea which I think would also be good is to be a signature gatherer. You could have a bunch of proposals for every possible sillyness, and try to convince people to sign them. Alas I don't think he was too interested in that one either.

So last night I went to the Seattle Symphony: Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3. We were all somewhat concerned about the World Premiere piece, Black Swan, but it turned out quite nice. The second piece required what appear to be super human dexterity on the piano, but often then more complicated playing didn't seem to be the best parts of the piece for me, it was however impressive to watch. I found that the late hour and the Beethoven conspired to try to put me to sleep. I definitely closed my eyes but I don't think I actually feel asleep. The violist who shared a music sheet with first violist of the right group had a direct line of site to my seat and appeared to be staring at me the entire time. Of course he was just following his music, but it was motivating for trying to stay awake. There was another violin player who had an amazingly long beard which appears to not be very common. Another Asian violin player appeared to be seizuring, but I guess he was just really into it.

We had dinner before the concert and desert afterwards at  Earth and Ocean. I had the Hanger Steak with some blue cheese, but probably would have done juts fine with a salad. My steak came with four types of imported salts. It was very tasty. I also had some seven hills wine shared with Mark and Hillary. This was the first time I can remember doing Earth and Ocean for a main meal that wasn't 25 for 25. For desert I had trouble choosing between an apple dish, the petit fours and the sherbets. In the end I went for the sherbets but they were not as wild as they used to be; chocolate and peanut butter, mixed berry and a third I can't remember.

Unfortunately since I was at the Symphony I missed Ben's Birthday party which is where Pam and Simeon spent the evening. Earlier in the day I had brunch with Mike at the Brown Bag Cafe. All and all, way too much food during on Saturday.

Slate's commentary on Alito's confirmation hearing's third day gets pretty close to my concerns with this nominee. Specifically Alito appears to have the belief that he should look at every last issue with a complete fresh open mind. Sounds good at first, but it quickly becomes worrysome. People don't like change, and when  only a case like Brown v. Board of Education is a settled matter to Alito, there is alot of room for change. This lack of deference to the past is exactly what causes much of the desire for constitutional originalism from thoose around me. It's when the courts seem to create something completely new that seem to be at the heart of every conservative complained about judicial decision. Alito's lack of deference points that he is going to be a very much an activist judge, which is exactly the reason he was nominated. The difference is that he'll be activist to a different set of beliefs. So what are the specified beliefs? At one point Alito talks about traditional values, about safe neighborhoods and preventing your children from getting exposed to values and beliefs that you don't agree with. Stuff that sounds good on the surface but then one can recall some of the more racist and ugly beliefs that can hide underneath such a noble veneer.

Even more then that there are a couple things I worry about with his philiosophy. First there is the implict implication that a judge can shake off thier implicit biases when interpreting law. This does not seem likely to me, but it's amazing that conservatives claim to believe it so wholehartily after so often critizing the media which strives for the same thing. Second, if all a judge is, is the execution of something as mechanical as a program, then as a programmer and tester I am doubly scared. There are bugs in code, and the law is exactly that, code. I expect the judicial system as a human sanity check and part of the system to make sure that we don't end up with insane outcomes. In the end for a judge,  the law matters, but so does the person. The attempt to remove the person and this extra and important role from the judicial process isn't healthy.

Which reminds me, I did the Spawing Cycle ride this year for a 37 mile ride around Seattle with 1000 feet of elevation gain. The cardiac test of the ride is going up Discovery Park from the Locks to Magnolia. I made it with reasonable speed, but it took more effort and shortness of breath then I would have liked. I've really got to get back in the habit of longer rides if I can afford them after my first is born this October. The ride also clued me into Myrtle Edwards Park which would be an awesome place for a picnic along the sound. It's accessable by heading north along the pier near the Old Spagetti Factory in downtown. Next suprise was Interlaken Park which is between the lake front area and capital hill. It sort of sits in the middle of a steep cliff where you can see expensive looking houses above and below you as one rides through the woods. I was also happy to learn about Thorndyke Rd (and the side road  to get access to Myrtle Edwards) which is a safer way off of magnolia. Overall a nice ride and good to do again next year.

The Seattle PI writes about Microsoft's obeisity benifit, I qualified a little over two years ago and used the Pro Club's 20/20 program to go from 253 down to 178. I'm back up to 188 right now, but did STP in one day this summer and haven't been good about working out daily recently.

Ever flatten your machine and rebuild the OS only to discover two unknown devices sitting in the device manager? I have no idea what they are but they have PNP ids that on goggle lead to two useless links in some asian language. It's a lot like fixing your car and ending up with extra parts.

Today is going to be an organization day.  A day that I tidy up a couple of things so that I can stay sane and productive. My inbox will get emptied, tasks will be defined and accumulate. Unread blog entries will get read or ignored. All my test boxen will get recovered from whatever random state they ended up in and stress will run.

The New York Times has a great article about Rob Moore and the creation of the new Battlestar Galactica series:

To be fair, though, there are androids. As in the original show, the humans of the Galactica and its fleet are relentlessly pursued by evil robots called Cylons. But in the current version, conceived by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, most of the evil Cylons look like people and have found God. Ruthlessly principled and deeply religious, the Cylons have been compared by fans and critics both to Al Qaeda and to the evangelical right. And the humans they are relentlessly pursuing are fallible and complex. Their shirts are not clingy or color-coded; the men of space wear neckties. They are led by Edward James Olmos as the Galactica's commander and Mary McDonnell as the president of the humans, and their stories revolve as much around the tensions within -- between the military and civil leadership of the fleet -- as they do around the Cylon threat. As Eick described the show to me last month with evident, subversive pleasure, ''The bad guys are all beautiful and believe in God, and the good guys all [expletive] each other over.'' Moore, who is also the show's head writer, put it more simply: ''They are us.''

Carrie and Keshav were nice enough to host for the Season 2 Priemere last friday night and this might quickly become a rotating house (or just my house?) thing for the length of the season. Special props for the Battlestar Galatica theme'd drinks Carrie put together.

After feuding with my wife about what vacation we are going to do this year before the baby is born, I found myself reading a Left2Right blog entry about the Oklahoma Republican Party's Platform. Since it seems way out wack, I got curious to see what the local Washington State Republican Party Platform looks like.

Things that I like:

·         The defense of Israel statement has a coexisting Palestinian state piece.

Things that I like but don't trust the Republican Party to actually do (or do right):

·         Property owners implementing environmental practices that are supported by sound, peer-reviewed scientific method are a model of responsible natural resource stewardship

·         Increasing competition among health care providers to promote accountability to patients

·         All people are entitled to be treated equally by government.

Things that I don't like:

·         The protection of innocent human life born or pre-born through natural death.

·         An amendment to the United States Constitution defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman.

·         A policy that public schools not promote or identify homosexuality as a healthy, morally acceptable, or alternative lifestyle.

·         Research of adult and placenta stem cells and oppose human cloning.

·         Compensating property owners when government actions reduce the value of their land secures our right to own property.

Stuff I found cute:

·         Support President Bush's Energy Bill to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign crude oil. This is immediately followed by the ANWR drilling platform element, I guess foreign is the keyword there.

While there is a couple things that I find off for me, it sounds like the more tolerable form of the republican party. Let us see how the democrats do: (-1 to start with by making me open a pdf)

Things that I like:

·         Oppose the “Corporations are people too“ Supreme court ruling

·         reinstatement of I-728 that calls for reduction of class sizes;

·         enforcement of sunshine laws and transparency in sessions that discuss and make policy

·         the separation of church and state, and we oppose organized prayer in publicly funded schools

·         the right for medically assisted death with dignity with suitable safeguards for terminally ill patients;

·         a woman’s right to choose as protected by Roe vs. Wade and the Washington State Reproductive Freedom Act;

·         the right to confidentiality of medical records and genetic information.

·         that the state should not interfere with couples who choose to marry and share fully and equally in the rights, responsibilities, and commitment of civil marriage, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

·         property forfeiture should be permitted only after criminal conviction, not on arrest or by seizure

Things that I like but don't trust the Democratic Party to actually do (or do right):

·         Supporting diversity of ownership in broadcast media

·         dedicating tobacco settlement monies only to tobacco-related health care programs and tobacco use prevention;

Things that I don't like:

·         Proclaim the executive and legislative branches of government shall abandon the doctrine of pre-emptive warfare and shall make nonviolence the primary organizing principle of foreign policy.

Stuff I found cute:

·         Supporting Kyoto, but against marketplace pollution credits

Overall, the Republican Platform avoids specific actions and tries to go with general principals. The problem is that while it is easier to agree with the Republican principals, I know a number of the actions they actually have in mind behind some of the principals and I generally don’t agree with the actions. The more specific the Republican Platform is the more I have a tendency to disagree with it.

The Democratic Platform has a huge laundry list of ideas and like a rainstorm; you can’t avoid getting hit by a few drops. There is going to be some that I like, while also have a large number that I just don’t care about or in some case dislike. As a whole it looks impossibly expensive to do all of them.

A quick scan pretty much sizes me up as socially liberal on all the big conservative causes, and since that has alw