I made THE NEW YORK TIMES!

I. Just. Can't. Buh-leeeeeve. It.
This school board race has made it to the pages of The New York Times! And look at what is gracing the article: pics of Eric Smith and Yours Truly (wielding my lightsaber no less!) and a still from Richard Moore's ad. Hey Eric, I should have done what you did and put my website address up the whole time the ad was running... and you thought your meter had been going crazy before! :-)

Here's the link to the article... yeah I can't believe it either. I've been hysterical with laughter for the past fifteen minutes. You should have heard me when I called Dad to tell him the big news. Here's the part that pertains to the school board race:

Local Issues Mirror National Ones, but the Special Effects Occasionally Stand Alone

The school board race in Rockingham County, N.C., has produced imagery including, from left, Pink Floyd, “Star Wars,” and the Wild West.

By PAM BELLUCK
Published: November 2, 2006

The election season is getting punchier in places far from the national political spotlight — even in Eden, N.C., where 16 candidates are slugging it out for the five available seats on the Rockingham County School Board.

One of them produced a television advertisement suggesting that the school system turned children into automatons. It is shot against a backdrop of a Pink Floyd video showing children coursing through an assembly line to the lyrics: “We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control.”

Another candidate shows himself brandishing a light saber as a “Star Wars” Death Star blows up a little red schoolhouse. The message: the federal government, a “cosmic bully,” meddles too much in education.

The advertisement of a third contender, riffing on a “new sheriff in town” theme, shows a sheriff being killed in “The Terror of Tiny Town,” the 1938 all-dwarf musical Western.

Not every local race is quite as entertaining, but the Rockingham County election shows how national issues like education, the economy, crime and ethics have been localized.

Mash down here for the rest of the article. Special thanks to the Reidsville Free Press for alerting us to the story!

EDIT 4:16 PM EST: The story now requires registration (for free) with The New York Times website in order to read it. But it only takes a minute or so if you want to check it out.

EDIT 6:51 PM EST: Just got back from Greensboro a little while ago, the closest place I could find print copies of today's Times. I got four of them, and just as Eric Smith said in the comments there we are on page A20 (we made the "A" section of The New York Times... it just keeps getting better and better!). The picture of us is somewhat larger than I thought it would be. So now it's official and tangible: Eric and Richard and I really did make The New York Times.

That just... it's still sending my mind reeling. And you know who I've thought most about today? My Mom and Dad. And Lisa. And everyone else who's close to me. If it hadn't been for them being behind me all this time - on a lot of things - this would never have happened. My being pictured in the Times is more about them really than it is about me. And before today's over I just wanted to tip my hat to them.

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NOOOOOOOO! (Tonight's LOST)

"Peek-a-boo... I see you!"

I so did not want this to happen.

Awright well... who's going to continue building the church?!?

Really good episode though, even though that was the one character I did not want to die: gotta admit that was pretty neat CGI for his death scene though. Eyepatch Guy looks pretty evil. These two new castaways: they're being "introduced" rather clumsily. I feel nothing toward them whatsoever. But we haven't really been introduced to many other Flight 815 survivors outside of the "core" group yet, so I'll be forgiving and give them another few shots to prove themselves.

And ummm... didn't Juliet's "movie" that she showed Jack seem an awful lot like my newest commercial for my school board campaign? I saw that and was giggling mad at how alike they are :-)

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The Campaign: Public Disclosure of Finances

This past Monday I filed the Third Quarter-Plus Report from my campaign. The deadline was October 30th and I know it seems like I waited 'til the last minute to turn it in, but I just wanted to make sure that it was as timely as possible. Every contribution this campaign has received and every cent that I've spent on things for it is accounted for in that report. At this point I need do no more filing of reports unless I suddenly wind up getting contributions of $1000 or more between now and this coming Tuesday... in which case I have to report them within 48 hours of receipt. But like Dad said when I told him about that on Sunday night "How many of those are you expecting to get??"

I've only made one more expenditure (and have received no further contributions) since then. Earlier today I bought a half-page ad in both the Reidsville Review and the Eden Daily News for this coming Sunday. It's a special deal that they've got going for candidates this week only. It set me back $250... but like I said, that'll most likely be the very last bit of money that gets spent in this campaign.

So in case anyone's wondering about the financial end of a political campaign of this scale - and because according to law this is going to be public knowledge anyway that you can look up for yourself - I'm going to go ahead and disclose how much in contributions I received and how much I spent doing this campaign.

The official name of the campaign is the "Knight for School Board 2006 Committee". You should be able to find that if you go looking through the North Carolina Board of Elections website.

During this campaign, my committee raised $914 in contributions. Those came from personal contributions, mailed-in checks and via PayPal through the campaign website.

In terms of spending, the total expenditures of my committee has been $1,513.75. That money was used to buy everything from pens, to domain name registration for the website, to stamps, to the die-cast Death Star and TIE Fighter models used in the first commercial (both were about two bucks), to yard signs and then advertising in print and on local television... with those last few being the biggest expenditures, obviously.

And from the looks of the books, it was the advertising that was the only real big crunch on my own wallet in this thing. Everything else wound up basically getting paid for because of the kindness of the contributors. I am very thankful to each and every person who has thought that this campaign was worth supporting like this.

I'll share this with you, my friends: when I started this, I had no idea how I was going to fund something like this. I prayed about it. And I asked God that if He really wanted me to go for this like it had felt like He was leading me to do, that He would make provision for the funding of it. At the end of it, I only had to pay a few hundred bucks out of more than fifteen hundred: that sure sounds like He provided a way to me.

So this may sound like a weird thing to some people to talk about in a campaign finance report, but I'm thankful to God that He did allow for me to run a world-class campaign in my very first outing as a political candidate. And I'm thankful to everyone who believed in me enough to make a contribution to the cause. I am very, very indebted to them in gratitude for this... and will probably be feeling that toward them for the rest of my life.

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Is someone going "off the island" on LOST tonight?

Last week's Lost was terrific! Even though I didn't get to finally watch it until Friday night because I was so busy with debates, making some other campaign appearances etc. So I downloaded an HD copy off the torrents and Lisa and I watched it together. The whole "Hey Sawyer we put a bomb in your chest" thing really had me gripping the arms of my chair. If there's any complaint I've had about Lost lately now though, it's this whole thing with Desmond and how he supposedly knows what's going to happen in the future. Even for a show like this, that seems... a bit hokey. It sort of has the sense of being the kind of thing that's a sign that a show is starting to get ready to "jump the shark" if you know what I mean. Hoping this is something that won't be abused and will have a sound explanation for sometime down the line.

Well, tonight's episode is supposed to focus on Mr. Eko, who is one of my very favorite characters on Lost. And supposedly tonight one of the regular characters is going to die. Are they going to "off" Eko?! I hope not! But since this is an Eko-centric episode I'm dreading that they're about to pull off an Ana-Lucia on us again. We're also supposed to see some of the castaways make a return trip to the Pearl Station, in the hopes of using the computers there to locate Jack, Kate and Sawyer.

What will happen tonight? We'll soon find out! Just please, please don't kill off Eko. Or Hurley. Or Sayid. Or Locke. Or...

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Happy Halloween!

For the first time since I've had it, I'm not wearing my Jedi costume for Halloween. Just hasn't been time to do much in the spirit of the holiday today. But we did manage to carve a traditional-looking Jack-o'-lantern (which was supposed to have been a cool Darth Vader one but I sorta messed up: needed a larger pumpkin it turns out). I did wear my lightsaber down to the station when I went there a little while ago though. And we've had some trickster-or-treatsters drop by the place tonight so we've gotten to dole out some candy. So we have enjoyed Halloween 2006 after all :-)

By the way, I know I'd promised a "sequel" to last year's popular ghost photographs article, made up of responses that have come in recently to that one (people sending their own stories, photos etc.) but the sad fact of the matter is I just haven't had time to do any compiling/editing, between the demands of work and the campaign. But I do plan on doing that sometime soon, maybe even next week after the election. Yah it won't be the Halloween spirit anymore but when you look at the chronology from a linear perspective it will still be "near" the season, right? :-)

Anyhoo, hope you and yours are having a happy Halloween this year!

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Campaign Commercial the Third

The third (and probably final) commercial to come out of my campaign for school board...
EDIT 10:43 PM EST: I keep watching this and now... I wish that this was the ad that I had been running already. I really felt compelled to make the first one: deep down I knew that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't make that one, and it was either make it now or never do it at all. I like how the second one came out better though: it was always my intention to do a more serious one for Commercial #2 but the reaction to the first one sorta obligated me to address that in the second, instead of using it to talk about other things. This third one though, it's both serious and entertaining and... different. I quite like how it turned out. Will it help make my case about being elected to the school board? Dunno. But I've basically done everything I can so far as commercials go with getting my message out.

But however this election turns out, I'm feeling mighty proud at how I ran my first-ever political campaign... and especially my commercials. I intend to leave them available on YouTube permanently, so that others might enjoy them long after this campaign season is over.

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Straight-ticket voting: A truly wasted vote

What's the point of being a voter at all if you don't even bother to consider every race and candidate on the ballot?

This past weekend someone I know pretty well told me that he couldn't vote for me in next week's election. It wasn't anything that he held against me: he even told me he thought I'd make a great member of the school board. But the fact of the matter was that he and his wife had taken advantage of the early voting because they would be out of town next weekend... and the first and only thing they had done when the got their ballots was to mark them as straight-party tickets. And since the school board is a non-partisan race, none of those candidates were voted for at all.

I like this guy a lot. But because he wanted to vote "conveniently" that's possibly two votes for me that I'll never see. Which doesn't sound like a lot but trust me: I've come to very much appreciate the value of every single vote that is cast in your favor. Especially in a race that has sixteen candidates in it: every vote is exponentially magnified in value compared to those cast in other races.

I'm not going to think any less of my friend and his wife: they're really good people. But they - and too many other Americans - don't value the right to vote as preciously as they should. If they did, they would take the time to both educate themselves on the election beforehand, and then carefully consider the votes they cast once they actually get to the poll. Voting a straight-ticket is... well, cheap and lazy. And in my mind, it's the only truly wasted vote there is. A vote for a "third-party" candidate, however little chance he or she has of actually winning an election, is vastly more valuable if made after sober consideration than is a ballot that's marked Democrat or Republican straight down the line with scarce - or no - thought at all.

Straight-ticket voting should be done away with. Because if a person is going to take the time to cast a vote he or she should be made to consider what or who exactly it is that they are voting for. I say that because the power of the vote is far too much to be entrusted to minds that don't want to use that power responsibly. Come to think of it, any identifiers of party affiliation should be stricken from the ballot too: make the voter think about each candidate as an individual person, instead of someone who's "worth voting for" only because they happen to have a "D" or an "R" stamped next to their name.

I'm not expecting any of this to happen though, at least not anytime soon. The two major part... excuse me the one ruling party masquerading as two can only stay in power so long as it can depend on citizens who are all too willing to take the easy way out when it comes to voting. If people were suddenly expected to vote for candidates based on actual merit... why, what good would it be to have the Democrat and Republican mechanism at all then?

I'm not writing this out of a sense of "sour grapes"... but as a candidate I do now have a much greater appreciation of this problem than I did before. And I felt led to share that on this page.

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Shane's Rib Shack: Another great barbecue find!

" You can probably guess that Shane is all about food. Never trust a skinny guy when it comes to matters of eating."

-- from the Shane's Rib Shack website

A friend from church spent the afternoon with us after the service. On our way out we were trying to think of where to go for lunch and Lisa suggested Shane's Rib Shack on Wendover Avenue in Greensboro (in the same strip mall as the Circuit City). She said she'd heard it was supposed to be pretty good. So that's where we headed.

And I can't begin to describe how delighted I am with discovering this place!! Shane's Rib Shack is a pretty new franchise coming out of Georgia, from the looks of their website. But I think this place is going to be big. Really, really big. It's not the kind of restaurant you usually go to for ribs like T.G.I. Fridays or Applebee's. But it's not a fast-food joint either. It's more like Zaxby's, and I like Zaxby's a lot. Well, two things captured my attention when we walked into the place: the delicious smell of ribs, and the chain's motto: "It's gonna get messy."

Lisa had a barbecue pork sandwich. Michael and I both ordered a half-rack of ribs. I think Michael was the first to comment on how fraggin' huge the portions were... of everything. And let me tell you brother, those ribs were gob-slobberin'ly good!! Especially with that sauce: how I would love to have a bottle of this sauce in my cabinet next to those I keep on hand from Pigs R Us and Williamson Bros. Please Shane, if you ever read this: bottle and sell the sauce!! I promise I won't "reverse engineer" the stuff (you've just GOT to read the page on Shane's website about their sauce. I was honking with laughter: turns out this Shane guy is as good a comedian as he is a ribs guy). The cheese sticks and french fries were delicious as well.

So if you happen to be somewhere near one of their locations, give Shane's Rib Shack a try. Rib afficionado that I am, I was definitely satisfied with the experience of eating there.

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Reidsville City nitpickers quash the Haunted Warehouse

For the past few weeks our TV station has been hyping the first-ever Haunted Warehouse, around the corner and down the street from where we work here in Reidsville. I went inside where it was supposed to be a few days ago and... although I personally couldn't find anything very scary (guess they hadn't moved in the frightening props and such yet) I thought it was a great location for a Halloween haunted house-type attraction. Our station's general manager really had his heart set on doing this. Well, yesterday afternoon inspectors from the City of Reidsville came and effectively closed it down just a few short hours before it was supposed to start. Supposedly it wasn't "safe" enough... when the building in question is no less safe than any other in downtown Reidsville. Some have openly speculated that the timing of the condemnation is pretty suspect, that somebody up high in Reidsville city government "has it in" for the station. I don't know. But it's a shame that this happened. We were using the same building two weeks ago to tape some pro wrestling, and there was nothing wrong with doing that then.

I'll go ahead and state the obvious: Reidsville city government is, for the most part, bass-ackwards. I have never seen a municipal government so hell-bent on driving away small business and other industry. In the past month or so this town has already lost a good store, because its owner got sick and tired of the crazy sign ordinances that this town imposes. And at least one other retailer has outright said recently that it's going to be closing soon because of how the city government has driven away so much business. Now chalk up the Haunted Warehouse as one more casualty of the economic Bizarro-world that is Reidsville. And some of our "leaders" still dare to wonder how we can't attract any more industry.

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Wait a sec... there's a HELLBOY animated movie on Cartoon Network tonight?!

HOW did this slip under my radar?! Guess that's what happens when you're too busy campaigning and being in debates and whatnot for political office. And here I am working at the station tonight while this is going to be broadcasting. AAARRGGHH...

Well, if you're so lucky as to have a free evening tonight, Hellboy: Sword of Storms airs at 9:30 p.m. tonight on Cartoon Network (click here for the movie's official blog). I've been a fan of Hellboy for a few years now, since the night "Weird" Ed took me to see the movie. Since then I've gotten a few Hellboy comics (and the DVD of the movie 'course). Guess I'm just nuts about things like heroic demons and Nazi cultists and the whole concept of free will and all that. Anyhoo, I'll probably just bootleg it off the torrents tomorrow, so no big whuff about missing it tonight. Can't wait to see it though.

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Musical concepts you just can't teach in an elementary school

Lisa - the music teacher at the nearby elementary school - just lamented about the difficulties that would come if she attempted to teach her students about castrati.

I'm inclined to agree.

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A true-life ghost story

Hey gang, I'm currently putting together something for Halloween. Something of a sequel to last year's big ghost story post (the one that sent two hundred thousand new visitors to this site in the past week or so!) but this one is going to be made up entirely of material that people who found and read that post have submitted to me. I've got stories, photos... all kinds of good stuff about things that go bump in the night. I'm going to earnestly try to have that up by Monday, provided I can squeeze it in between work and campaigning. But in the meantime...

I know Marc - also know by his blogging nom de plume "Bmovies" - pretty well. He's one of the coolest cats I know and just an all-around solid guy. Marc is also one of the most talented people on the Internet you'll ever be likely to meet: you've probably seen some of his handiwork and didn't know it.

Well, Marc has posted his own personal ghost story on his blog. It's a pretty thorough and detailed tale. And a compelling one too. In addition to his other talents I think Marc has quite a good mind at conveying a story. Head on over there if you want a good jolt to kick off the Halloween spirit :-)

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Shadows of the Empire: ten years later

In 1996 Lucasfilm launched a unique project with the Star Wars saga called Shadows of the Empire. It was a massive multi-media event that involved action figures and toy vehicles, a videogame, a hardcover novel, a comic book series, a soundtrack CD... just about all the merchandising you'd expect to come out of a Star Wars movie. Except, there was no actual movie. Set in the one-year period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Shadows of the Empire was the previously untold story of Luke, Leia, and Lando's search for the carbon-frozen Han Solo. Most of that had to do with following up on a myriad of leads about the location of Boba Fett. But there was also a secondary plot involving Xizor, who after the Emperor and Darth Vader is the third most powerful person in the galaxy, what with him being a bigger criminal mastermind than Jabba the Hutt. The entire storyline was told through all the associated memorabilia: the core story played out in the Steve Perry novel and the Dark Horse comic, but unless you played the videogame you didn't know the ultimate fate of Dash Rendar, the new Rebel character.

To mark the ten-year anniversary of Shadows of the Empire the official Star Wars website has published a retrospective of the project, including a list of all the stuff that came out under the title. One thing that is still remarkable about Shadows of the Empire: it's probably the first and only time that there was ever a soundtrack CD that was composed for a fictional book (and it's a very good soundtrack at that, in my humble opinion... well worth tracking down a copy).

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Tonight on Sci-Fi: The Doctor will witness the "Rise of the Cybermen"

"Le-let's cover up that noise... Uhhhh, give us Track Number Ninety."

"It's happening again... I've seen them before."

"Because it hurts."

"Delete, delete, delete..."

They haven't been seen by an American audience in 18 years.

But tonight, as Doctor Who continues the second season on the Sci-Fi Channel since its revival, the Cybermen return, in the first of a two-part story that is as horrifying as it is thrilling.

(By the way, here's my original review of this episode from back in May when I bootlegged it off the 'net.)

In "Rise of the Cybermen", The Doctor, Rose and Mickey accidentally wind up on the Earth of a parallel universe. On this "new" Earth, high-tech airships fill the skies of London and we see firsthand that the proliferation of compatible tech like laptops and Bluetooths may not be the best of ideas. While the Doctor desperately tries to fix the TARDIS, Rose and Mickey run off to see what their other-Earth counterparts are like. While all this is going on, John Lumic - the insane but genius head of Cybus Industries - is about to unveil the ultimate "upgrade package"... whether the leaders of Earth's governments are ready for it or not.

"Rise of the Cybermen" marks a reunion of sorts for David Tennant - who just keeps getting better and better as the Doctor - and Roger Lloyd-Pack, who is playing Lumic in this and the following episode. Tennant and Pack were seen in last year's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Lloyd-Pack playing the vindictive Bartemus Crouch and Tennant playing his traitorous son Barty Crouch Jr. Lloyd-Pack does an ex-cellent (you have to say it like the Cybermen of the '80s) job portraying Lumic, giving the role an over-the-top insanity we haven't seen in the series since Davros. Which might not be a good thing since in some ways Lumic here is already too much like Davros, but I'm willing to overlook the similarities on this one.

"Rise of the Cybermen" ends with a terrifying cliff-hanger that continues next week with "The Age of Steel". Combined, these two episodes represent some of the best Doctor Who since the series was re-started up almost two years ago. Definitely worth watching tonight and next week.

EDIT 8:46 PM EST: SCI-FI CHANNEL CUT OUT A GREAT SCENE!!! It's the part where Lumic is talking to his henchman who's demonstrating the "work" done on the homeless guys. Okay well he tells them to march forward and the door opens and they head on through, and past the door we hear people screaming. Okay in the original run of the episode on the BBC, the henchman says that it's too much noise "give us Track Number Ninety". A technician activates a console... and we start hearing the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". It continues to play as we see what's going on past the doors: these evil mechanical arms with things like buzzsaws and knifeblades and injectors and whatnot slicing up those poor dudes while they're still screaming. It's a GREAT scene and... I can't believe that Sci-Fi deleted it!!

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Watch the school board candidates forum online

I don't like the way I looked during this thing. Had I spent a minute going to the restroom to look in the mirror I would have noticed how bad my hair looked. It didn't start out looking like that when I left for the forum: guess the wind tussled it a bit. And I had a comb with me for this sort of thing too. Going back yesterday to watch this from the TiVo at the station I kept thinking that I looked too much like Mayor Quimby during the debate on the classic "Sideshow Bob Roberts" episode of The Simpsons:
Quite a number of people have told me they thought I looked good and performed well during the forum, so maybe I'm just being too hard on myself.

But anyway, if you want to watch the complete forum with all the candidates who attended, here are some links for you (BTW these are all in Windows Media format). I'm in the second portion that starts maybe 20-30 minutes in on the first video.

School Board Forum #1

School Board Forum #2

Just remember: unlike Mayor Quimby, I am literate!

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Because I'm feeling so good after coming out of two candidates forums...

...I just got back from Wal-Mart where I treated myself to a Count Dooku Star Wars action figure :-)

This is what I do to celebrate or otherwise mark small occassions: get a new Star Wars figure for the collection. I know, pretty silly and juvenile. What can I say: I'm a school board candidate who still has a lot of kid left in him. But I don't see anything wrong with that.

Don't take life so completely seriously every second of your life. You can't put it into real perspective unless you take time to let your inner child come out and play some.

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LIVE TONIGHT: Candidates Forum: Round 2

Well, here we go again. This time in living color.

The second school board candidates forum starts tonight at 8 p.m., televised live from the studios of WGSR Star 39 (DISCLAIMER: I also work there as a master control technician and video producer).

Because of the sheer number of candidates and because it really is a small studio, they are having to "stagger" the candidates throughout the two-hour event. The first four listed on the ballot will get the first half-hour, then the second four in the next half-hour, and so forth, up 'til 10 o'clock. I'm scheduled to be in the 8:30-9 segment and so far as I know the only other candidate who will be able to appear during that time is Lorie Booth McKinney.

Now even though I'm a station employee, I have no idea what questions are going to be asked of me or of any other candidates. Which is the way it should be. During this campaign I've tried my hardest not to have anything like an unfair advantage over anyone else: this absolutely has to be a fair and honest and on-the-level election. And I'll do whatever it takes to keep it that way. Parse that as you will. It may not make much sense to someone reading this who isn't living here but I need to make that statement.

Let me put it this way: I'm more than ready and willing to "pull the trigger" if it comes to that.

Anyway, as with last night I'll make an addendum to this post later tonight after the forum, with some thoughts about what happens. My biggest regret about tonight: I'm going to have to miss Lost for the first time since I really started watching this show... and tonight looks like it's gonna be a hum-dinger of an episode. Oh well: I'll just download it from a file torrent tomorrow morning :-)

EDIT 10:47 PM EST: The final segment just finished a little while ago, between Eric Smith and Steve Smith. I left the station not long after ours finished about 9:20 (and I've totally missed Lost tonight).

I liked the forum last night better, because being in a studio with the lights and the camera and no real audience that you can see does have an impact. But people I know who watched it said I did good. As for the other two in my group: Lorie Booth McKinney did an excellent job and Jon Mason, even though he had just come straight in from work as a paramedic and couldn't have on any dress attire, he was straight on the ball and gave some compelling answers to the questions. One thing that happened was, just like last night, a very vague question got asked during the viewer call-in part and it landed on me first and I had absolutely no idea what exactly the person was asking but I did my best (it was about racial quota and inequalities about... something or nother. I just said that I believe in looking at everyone as equal without regard to race or physical condition). Lorie and Jon thought that was a pretty weird question too: I don't think any of us were able to answer with any real confidence about what it was the caller was asking about. The only real regret about tonight is that I wasn't able to finish my closing statement, because at the last moment something sprang to mind that I just felt compelled to share with the audience about how there are a lot of younger candidates on this ballot and they deserve special consideration because they tend to be the ones who are parents (and in my case the spouse of a teacher in the system). So I wasn't able to give out the campaign website address. But otherwise, I feel pretty good about how I did tonight.

As for the other three segments with the remainder of the candidates... well, I'm going to hold off saying anything right now. Some of them I was very impressed with. Others... I can't help but think they might have done themselves a lot of damage. The better angels of my nature are keeping me from saying anything else about that.

I might be able to have some video up soon of our portion of the debate. Will be working on that...

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