I took five or so days off from the campaign so as to focus on my ever-increasing responsibilities at work and my personal life in general. I dropped back in on the Charlotte HQ early afternoon this past Friday and was given a couple of tasks related to Youth Outreach which I enjoyed and I was asked if I’d like to be somewhere in the chain of command of the local Veterans For Obama outreach org. Here’s me in 1990. I belonged to 3/505 PIR .

My first task to identify where we can reach veterans – especially young veterans. Camping out at VA hospitals is not a realistic or tasteful option. My experience is that the military is comprised or all types of men and women who upon discharge generally return to their hometowns and ponder their next steps. I’m thinking that leaving flyers out on college campuses announcing a meeting and hoping that someone shows up or emails might be a good first step.

The first is that the warm and fuzzies I get from volunteering for political and charitable organizations always seems to be dampened by some of the paid staff members. I believe it’s because they feel threatened by someone who will work without pay. Of course, the senior staff of any organization for which I’ve worked – for free – loves me as a volunteer who works hard and brings high-end skill-sets. Unfortunately though, my experience is that senior staff members rarely talk to volunteer staff members.

Therein lies the rub; senior staff loves you but won’t associate with you because you are “just a volunteer” and they are busy doing what they do, while the junior staff resents you and thinks that you are going to take their job. So the end result is that everybody acts snooty.

What a pain in the ass. The fact is; I make a very good salary for what I do for a living. I don’t want to “take” the job of a paid staffer at any organization that receives my time because, frankly, the pay probably won’t meet my requirements.

I have always given my time to organizations because I (perversely, I guess) enjoy working. I could just give money but any idiot can do that.

BTW, this is not a slam on the Obama campaign only. I’ve experienced this with charitable orgs. Plus I’m sure Hillary has a bunch of assholes working for her as well.

My second issue has to do with people I follow on Twitter who tweet (rhetorical?) questions CONSTANTLY but don’t follow me. I can’t communicate with the people throwing out the questions because they won’t “hear” me and meanwhile their constant Twitter questions start driving me crazier than I already am.

I guess I could ping these people and say “I follow you; why not follow me as well?” but I really don’t feel like doing that. Plus, this is the Net, where 75% of the females online think that if you want contact with them, you MUST desire to have sex with them. So I’m guessing that I’ll just have to stop following these people, which is too bad because they tweet interesting sites when they are not asking questions.

The minutes preceding Obama’s entrance felt like a rock concert and when he came out the crowd went wild:

Here’s some more video I captured:

Barack Obama on Healthcare and Education

Barack Obama on the crisis in Darfur.

Barack Obama on the war on Iraq.

Barack Obama: “We can’t afford to wait.”

This candidate definitely has my vote.

My first three music purchases in the late 70′s were singles on 7″ vinyl.  My fourth and fifth purchases were LP’s on 12″ vinyl.  My parents had boxes of 45′s and a serious amount of LPs as well.  Singles were very popular in the 60′s and 70′s but musicians still produced full-length albums.  In the 80′s, cassettes became the audio medium of choice and I loved their durability.  I carried a few of my favorites with me to the Middle East when I was deployed for Desert Shield and I have to them to this day.  Recording songs to blank cassettes from the radio was very big back in the day.

Then came the CD and a requirement for me to re-purchase every cassette I owned.  Compact discs are not the least bit durable and I’m sure the age of the CD was a financial watershed for the labels.  Imagine: millions of people purchasing dozens of (more expensive) versions of the music they already own and on a MUCH frailer format to boot.  I don’t know why CD singles never caught on.  Perhaps we were being conditioned to buy the more expensive conpact disc LPs by the industry?

For my part, I still purchase CDs but I download MP3s as well.  I rip my CDs to my harddrive because it makes sense.  I can then store the original CD safely away and place the MP3s on my iPod.

The labels – and some of the musicians – are quickly becoming as hated by consumers as the big oil companies.  I doubt they were expecting that.