yesterday Sen. Barack Obama was in town for a major rally at the Xcel Energy Center. The rally was very historic and exciting. if you don’t already know, last night Sen. Obama clinched the Democratic Presidential Nomination! it was very exciting to be a part of it.

we got downtown st. paul at about 4pm and the line was already very long. this map is where we started out in line.

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not a bad place to start. but after about 20 Minutes the line moved and we were in an even better location!

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That is where we stayed for the next 2 and a half hours, moving only a few feet every 20 minutes or so. the line in the end was more than a mile long…

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it was really not that bad waiting for that long. we had Miles with us and he had a really good time. we made some new friends. a couple and their son from Duluth. they cam down after he taught a class. they are both political scientists and professors at UMD. they were really fun to hang out with and talk to and that made the time go by faster.

there were plenty of vendors selling lots of t-shirts and buttons. i would have bought one, but you really don’t knwo where that money is going to go. but they sure were having a good time.

Well at about 6:30 they started to move people to the doors and explained what we could and could not bring into the arena. it was all the usual secret service stuff: no bags, not umbrellas, no professional cameras stuff like that. but at 7pm they started letting people in. they had to scan everyone and we all had to go through a metal detector and all that. but we got in and got pretty good seats. we were not far from the podium where Obama was going to speak from.

so we were in. it was great. they had MSNBC on the jumbo-tron and, of course, everyone cheered when they showed the crowd and they interviewed people from the Xcel. it really was fun. there were a massive amount of cameras and reporters there. also, a section for video bloggers and podcasters, of which there was a good number. we sat around and talked, ate some food and watched what was going on until about 9pm when Obama came out and gave his speech. it was really exciting! he had a lot of great things to say. if you have not heard the speech i’m sure you can find it. i am not goingt o talk about the speech because i just want to talk about my experience. he talked for about 35 minutes and he was very interesting to listen to.

it was really a lot of fun to be there because it was actual history in the making. it will go down in history as the day that the first African-American man got a major nomination for President of the United States. it was really something. any way check out the photos, there are a lot of them!

so its been really busy for me lately.  i have been working over at ProMedia Productions for the past 2 weeks and it has been great.  it sounds like i may be working over there on a freelance bassis for a while now.  that is great for us!  other than that we have just been busy outside working in the yard or playing with Miles.  he loves being out there.  some days we can’t get he inside with out a fit!  but that is fine, we are glad he likes to be outside.  he also enjoys going for a bike ride with us.  he has his own little pull behid trailer that is hooked onto Miriams bike.  we have also been speding time at my grandparents house since they are back from Arizona for the summer.  always good times there!

so yesterday my wife wanted to mow the lawn. which is fine by me, it really needed it anyway. we also had a

lot of dandelions in our yard this year. Miles discovered that he could blow on some of them to make the seeds fly away. that was cute to see. but that is not what this post is about. this post is about the freak mutant dandelion that my wife found while mowing. it was crazy and looked like something taht would attack us if it was allowed to grow.

what had happened was 3 plants fused together some how and creatated this stem with like 6 blooms on it! it was nasty ugly. is this a new species? Or is it jsut strange sci-fi, now sci-fa? Check out the photos…

for the past two years my wife and i have received a gift card to Linder’s Green House from my Grandma.  last year we got a birch tree and tulip magnolia.  this year we got 2 apple trees, a Honey Crisp and a Zestar!  both of which were genetically engineered in Minnesota!  both apples are very good and also a little spendy at the store.  both they are so good.  so after a few years we should have a healthy crop of apples!  this year and next we should only see a few apples, but it will all be worth the wait!

ah spring. its been a long winter and i am ready for spring. we have had several days where it has been around 70 and it has been glorious! Last week my wife and i had a nice lunch outside int he back patio. that is one of our favorite things to do in the warmer months! well that and have a nice fire with an occasional adult beverage.

Since my wife works in the afternoon twice a week i get to spend time with my boy and now that is is warm out we can go explore and have fun. the other day we put up the hammock in the back patio. we had fun sitting in it. it is great to see his little personality develope and it is really fun to see that he is turning into a little me! we tend to make the same goofy faces as well as the same interests. The past few days we have started drawing and coloring together. those pieces of art are on our refrigerator for all to see.