Good luck reading this entry.

You know while I was watching the inauguration today I realized that no one has come up to me and said yeah I was wrong about that whole Obama thing. I don't mean to be one of those I told you so or I knew it first people, but when I saw him as a senator of just IL I was thrilled and was happy that he was going to crush the republican black guy they put him up against at the last minute - this guy Alan Keyes, total nut job.

Anyways, over the past 4 and a half years I've hand countless conversations with people about him, just general stuff, generally the tone was the country is too racist and will never elect a black guy. I constantly argued the point that it wasn't, but it was a tough one to argue especially since he was the only black senator in the United States. Anyways, I was really excited when he announced he was going to run for president so in 06 I got both his audio books and listened to them each a few times.

He speaks them and he's a good story teller so I recommend the audio book version over the hard copy (just like I would with Steve Martin's autobiography Born Standing). It was also interesting to hear his stories about certain events he had to deal with (Maytag plant closing in IL and moving to Mexico - the small town losing over 1,000 jobs) & then hearing those stories twisted and taken out of context during the primaries by his opponents. One story I remember he told was a town he had visited that had a similar employment issue and it was at the southern tip of IL and whoever he was going down with was worried about security since a black man had been lynched there in the 60s or 70s and the idea was that not much changed there in terms of mindsets.

I remember I looked on the gambling website I used at the time to see if they were taking bets on the next president, and they were. Ex-President Bill Clinton (not Hilary) was on the list with a 300-1 chance (which made no sense since legally he can't be), and Obama wasn't even on the list of odds yet.

Unfortunately the next time I checked his odds (and he was on the list) he was at like a 4-1, and at the time there had been some good press on him so I wanted to wait a little until something bad (even if dumb and trivial) came up so that I could put money down when the odds were even worse (so I could make even more money). Unfortunately my gambling web site annoyed me by taking 6 months to pay me on another bet, combined with I forgot to make this presidential bet - so I never made my lock of a bet.

Anyways, even last year after he won Iowa in the primaries, still heard the same thing from my friends (even the smart ones!). Months passed and Hilary was gone - STILL same response. Then ahead in the polls with a month left and STILL the same thing. The media made up this thing that people said they would vote for him but really when they would go in the booth they wouldn't (I'd love to see the study they were quoting on this).

Anyways so since my gambling website wouldn't pay me I tried to take bets with everyone who said he wouldn't win, but unfortunately I was only able to get one taker at $100 (which I still haven't been paid!). So to all my ex-co workers from my job that I quit over 3 years ago, to my co-workers of today who said he wouldn't win, I said HA! You were wrong and I was right. HA! Most of them actually voted for him and wanted him to win, but to my knowledge have still not admitted they were wrong. I know it doesn't matter, but after almost half a decade with being so adamant about this it would be nice to hear an "oops" from one of the nay-sayers.

On a different note, I thought it was extremely ironic that the Chief Of Justice that Obama voted against (and rightfully so, this guy is so conservative he wants to go back to horse drawn carriages and revisit the salem witch trial) swore him in. Oh yeah and that part where Obama paused, it wasn't because he forgot what to say, it was because Roberts misplaced the word faithfully in the oath and Obama was giving him a moment to correct himself.

On a sad note, for the first time in my life the president of the United States is now way more in shape than I am, how depressing. Time to stop typing and get back to lifting weights.