what is the sound of a nation holding its breath?

i haven't posted in a while (understatement), but today needed one.

i always forget how every four years the shift from raucous celebration to tension, anxiety and seriousness happens so fast. this year in San Francisco the rain swept through in between Halloween and Election Day, clearing the streets of vomit and debris. i thought it was fitting. today has been bright and cold. it is excellent weather for waiting.

in just a few minutes the first polls will close, and we will finally have some data. we are hopeful. some of us are confident, but i can't give myself that luxury - i watched 2004 unfold like a bad movie where they got the ending wrong.

i don't think that i can ever really trust a politician, but i think that's a good thing. too many people want to hand over their responsibilities, want to find someone to elect who will just do all the thinking for them. i think we need to constantly challenge our political representatives to do better by us, to advocate for us and our best interests. it's an impossible job, and we must hold them to impossible standards. but that's the beauty of it - only when we make all our voices heard can our government know what we really, truly stand for.

so go make your voice heard today, and keep speaking up for what you believe in. we can cross our fingers and hope for one man today, but if we stop at that we're only letting ourselves down.

my company paid my phone bill

not on purpose, sadly. here's how it went down:

i originally called at&t and had phone and internet service set up back sometime in late november/early december. as of this wednesday i had still not received a bill from them, so, fearful of late fees, i called to see what the deal was. the nice customer service guy on the other line told me that they had sent the bill and received payment in december, to which i replied, "whaaaa???" i mean, no late fees, cool, but who the hell paid my bill? a few rounds of questions later, i determined that my bill had somehow been sent to my office. i realized after hanging up with the guy that i had given them the office address for shipping my modem, and they must have interpreted this request as "this is my billing address." my office, thinking it was the bill for the new store (that at&t bill also has my name on it, since i set up the utilities), glanced at it once and paid it. while it would have been nice not to pay the $110, i decided i had to let them know that a mistake had been made (i know, i'm so honest). so in the end, no free lunch for me. but it's good to know that our accounting department pays so much attention to detail. :(