Yes He Did

Laura and I were lucky enough to participate in some history last night. This giant video screen was as close as we got to President-Elect Obama at the Grant Park rally, but just being there with the crowd of 65,000 was exciting enough. Here's how I described it to my parents:

It was really great. The atmosphere at Grant Park kind of reminded me of Wrigley Field this summer when there was a sense of inevitability that things would go our way...fortunately Barack performed in the clutch a little better than the Cubs! It was great to see the mix of attendees at the rally - young, old, white, black, you name it. It was amazing how many people showed up, and everyone was in a good mood and very respectful of Mccain's concession speech, so that was nice. Speaking of which, I'm glad that McCain no longer has to pander to the crazy folks and can get back to being the sensible guy that he's always been. I really do admire him and either with a spot in the cabinet, or as a leader in the Senate, I'm sure him and Barack will be able to work together. CTA ran very smoothly (as did the whole operation) considering the massive amounts of people they were moving around, Daley had all hands on deck as I'm sure he wanted to prove that we're ready for the Olympics. It was surreal to see Michigan Avenue swamped with people after the rally, chanting Yes We Can!

As for Barack, John Kass had a great column today about how far we've come - It wasn't too long ago that MLK, on a visit to Chicago, was hit in the head with a brick and experienced some pretty violent racism. 40 years may seem like a long time to us, but in the context of history it really isn't. It really is inspiring that we live in a country that can not only evolve enough to elect a black man as president, but can evolve quickly enough in 8 years to realize that George W. had this country on a terrible path and we needed to send a message that we were fed up with it.

Here's what the crowd looked like right before they announced that Obama had clinched it. I'm looking forward to showing this post to our grandkids when they're old enough to understand.

Dr. Seuss Would Be Proud

Although we didn't win any awards at the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Halloween party we were at, we did have "the most original costumes" according to a couple of guys standing outside the Belmont El-stop.

In my eyes, that's a better first-place than the party - the guys must have seen atleast 1,000 costumes pass by that night, right?