I taught on Wednesday night and stayed after my class to climb during the open hours. I had my ass handed to me since I haven't climbed in so long; I loved it. I discovered that I really miss climbing so I'm going to try to get on the wall a few days a week. Matt told me I could use the wall right after work as long as I wore my staff shirt so that takes away my excuse that the open hours are too late and I don't want to commute.

Obama won on Tuesday night, that was awesome. Laura and I stayed up to watch McCain's concession speech (very gracious) and Obama's acceptance speech before going to bed very happy. After the past two Presidential elections I didn't have much faith in the election system and even though Obama has been consistently ahead in the polls for a while I was very nervous all day on Tuesday. Now that it's all over and he won so decisevley (and the Democrats picked up seats in the House and Senate) I have a much brighter view of the future of this country.

Laura and I saw the Decemberists play last night. I wasn't hugely excited for this show because I didn't know if this band could capture my interest live. I sure was wrong. The crowd was excited and the singer wrapped several hundred people around his finger for an hour and a half. They played a lot of songs that I wasn't familiar with but towards the end of their set they shook the balconey (literaly) with O Valencia! and then ended their encore with Sons and Daughters, my favorite song.

The best part of that song is the out-tro where the band sings the phrase "hear all the bombs fade away" together. Their vocals combined with the music produces a haunting and pleasent sound. Right before this section of the song the singer paused and explained that he had written the song a few years ago and this particular part was in reference to the current administration and how the only solution he could see to making the bombs fade away was to leave. Now though, after Tuesday he said the song's meaning had changed for him and it represented his hope that the bombs would fade away because a new President had been elected who would help lead the country out of the war. That was a really poignant moment for me, made even more so when he invited 30 people up on stage to sing it with him. I really couldn't have asked for a better ending to the show.

I found this thread by dave8oy on Warseer. Take a look at the lenses on the marine here - they're incredibly detailed and look phenomenal.

by dave8oy

I am hoping to use this weekend and my day off on Tuesday to paint the last three marines for my first Crimson Fist squad and I'm going to see if I can replicate this effect.

I voted this morning! After waiting for about 45 minutes I was given a scantron (not nearly as exciting as I wanted it to be) and a marker. I marked my Obama circle, had my name checked off a list, and fed my sheet into a machine. This was way more exciting than voting absentee (which I did four years ago) and I've been pretty amped about the whole thing since last night. Laura and I are planning to stay up to watch the election coverage because I doubt I could go to sleep without knowing the outcome.

My Crimson Fists did their civic duty and voted last night as well.

third man from the right is getting his vote on

Thankfully these guys are the last bolter marines I have planned for the foreeable future in this army. That's a good thing because I'm already getting tired of painting power armour. Once these two tactical squads are done I'll start painting some Terminators or Scouts for some diversity.

I've been running a little bit since the marathon but not too much. I am signed up for a 5k this weekend in Allston somewhere and that should be a good time.

Gobama!

I managed to assemble the next 5 marines while watching the Red Sox beat the Angles but I've been pretty busy lately and haven't had time to clean or prime them. I tried some more dynamic poses with these 5 - some of them worked and others not so much.

My taper jitters have come back. The runs that I'm doing as part of the taper have not been enough to eat up all the energy I have so I've been a little jumpy the past few days. My two runs this week have thus far been pretty good and I'm anticipating another good one this evening.

I watched the most recent debate and was generally unimpressed with both candidates. Neither one would answer a question directly and they just rehashed the same points from the previous debate. I think Obama won, but only because McCain lost worse.

While we're on the subject, I've been reading some more interesting articles about McCain and Palin. I'll be the first to admit my liberal bias, but I think it's worth giving these articles a read anyway.

A few weeks ago I sumbitted my Massachusetts voter registration paperwork and as the deadline approaches, I've been checking cityofboston.gov to see if they have processed my paperwork. They hadn't as of a few days ago so I e-mailed them but got no response. Since it is important to me that I be able to vote I called City Hall and asked about it. They told me I am registered to vote (hooray!) and that the online database isn't updated as regularly as their databases are.

Some photos from the 5k this past weekend:

I've finally gotten started on my Crimson Fists. I have the two test models I did a few months ago and last night I painted up a third bolter marine. From a technical standpoint I am very very happy with how he turned out. I gave him a really smooth base coat of Regal Blue and then two highlights. The first one was a 60/40 or even 70/30 mix of Regal Blue / Ultramarines Blue that was pretty watered down. I used this in pretty broad strokes as a bridge between the basecoat and the second highlight, which very thin lines of straight Ultramarines Blue.

Looking at the model up close I was really proud how how I had executed the highlighting, but from arms length almost all of them dissapeared. Obviously that's the opposite of how I wanted the highlights to work and I'm not sure what went wrong. I went ahead and finished the model with the hope that addine the reds, metallics, and whites would help the overall effect pop. To a small extent they did but not as much as I wanted.

I'm not really sure how to fix this but I'll keep experimenting.

Last week was the last up week of my marathon training and it was capped off with the last 20 miler in the schedule. Sunday was a very rainy, cool day and I think that contributed to the pretty poor showing both Lisa and I had during the run. Neither one of us had much pop in our legs from the get-go and come mile 10ish we were both feeling pretty bad. Around Kenmore Square we both decided to slog through to the bottom of my hill and then walk up.

I'm sure the rain played a role in our poor showing but I'm not willing to give it all the credit. Neither one of the 20 milers I've done this training cycle have gone particularly well, and both times (and other times through this training) I've felt that my legs just didn't have and life in them. I don't know if this is because they're reacting poorly to the increase in mileage or if they're not recovering adequately or if the problem is something else. I hope that the three weeks of tapering gives them enough time to rest and be fresh for the race.

Other people however, don't seem to be having my problems. Haile Gebrselassie, the world record holder in the marathon, shaved 27 seconds off his previous record time to finish the Berlin marathon in 2:03:59 and become the first person to ever run a marathon under two hours and four minutes. And he's 35 years old! I think it's only a matter of a few years before someone knocks off those last few minutes and we're looking at a marathon run in under two hours.

Steve and I had a long conversation yesterday about the financial crisis currently going on. I was pretty uninformed about it and when I tried to get informed, most of the articles I was reading were assuming that I already knew what was going on. I think I have a handle on the general ideas now and I'll admit to being a little nervous about what's going to happen. My dad sent me an article a few days ago that talked about the bailout plan that was ultimately shot down.

This Thursday is the Vice-Presidential debate. I am planning on racing home after teaching on Thursday to watch it and see how Sarah Palin holds up. I am pretty scared of the prospect of her becoming the VP after watching her handle herself in this interviw with Katie Couric. Thus far she's been almost completely hidden from the national media and most every time she has spoken it's been pretty scripted. She tried standing on her feet for that interview and failed miserably, so I wonder how she's going to make up for that during the debate. The evidence against her keeps growing and I think Thursday will be a very telling moment.

A few weeks ago my parents came up to visit and brought my old Play Station. Yesterday my copy of Final Fantasy VII arrived in the mail and I'm really excited to play it. I remember the huge hype and excitement when I was in 7th or 8th grade and it came out and how even now it is hailed as one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Unfortunatley I never got a chance to play much of the game (or Final Fantasy IIX or IX) so I'm excited, as a fan of the RPG genre, to finally get to play it through.

After teaching last Thursday I finally got on the wall and climbed for the first time in what feels like months. It didn't go very well. I still remember how to make all the motions but I don't have any of my arm, core, or hand strength. I've certianly done this before with climbing but it doesn't get any less frustrating.