My day off

After two days of knee pain I decided to take Wednesday off. Physically it was good to take the time off but mentally I felt strange not being in workout clothes all day long.

The day turned out to be pretty eventful.

On my way to getting a haircut I drove past the campaign office for the guy running for Congress in my district, Eric Massa.

When I walked in I immediately felt nostalgic-the campaign office was a dump and reminded me of all those days and nights I spent at the Westly campaign office. You gotta love political campaigns because they have a definite pulse that most corporate/run of the mill offices lack. Everyone is filled with their own self-importance(that was a low blow).

I signed up to volunteer for the campaign because he is a democrat running against a Republican incumbent. The problem is that this guy, Eric Massa, just changed his political affiliation after Karl Rove fired him a few years back for writing some negative things about the Bush administration. It's a long story-not very interesting to most but just goes to show that most dems on the East coast are Republicans in blue collar clothing.

Enough about my rant. The volunteer coordinator-a graduate from Rochester Institute of Technology and looking too smart to be there, told me that I should attend an event with the candidate to do some campaigning that evening. So, I grabbed my friend Ilana, went shopping with her during the afternoon, and then dragged her to the Brighton jazz concert to campaign for Eric Massa. I am trying to encourage her to complete her political science major at UPenn.

There was a HUGE Rochester turn out-about forty people showed up. Most of them were seniors who voted in a different district and most of the others were their grandchildren that weren't old enough to vote. The few that fit the criteria of old enough to vote and young enough to hear, didn't want us bothering them. At one point Mr. Massa was cursed at-he said that never usually happens. Either way, this was a big campaign miss. Sorry Eric, better luck tomorrow at your press conference.

It was fun to get out today and enjoy my other interests-haircuts, shopping, and political campaigns.

An interesting coincidence-I'm going to a political fundraiser on Friday for Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. She was the person that influenced me to get into politics-I want her seat when she retires in a few years. Too bad she isn't in my district anymore-dang gerrymandering!

All in all this was a great day! Thanks Ilana for hanging out with me at that Brighton Jazz festival. At least the band was good (the average age of the band members is 70) and we got free t-shirts that say "Vote for Eric Massa". How could a day off be any better than that?