Jack-O-Lanterns!

Here are our jack-o-lanterns! They look great on the balcony!

High Point State Park and Dinner Party

On Sunday we had Elise, John, Sophie, Nathan, Gloria and Rose over for a dinner party. I will speak for everyone and say we all had a GREAT time! =)

On Saturday, looking for something interesting to do, we decided to go to High Point State Park. I learned of a place at High Point called Cedar Swamp from a dog walking book. I thought it would be an interesting place to visit and let Bear run. The swamp was small and a bit of a let down (hence no pictures) and also there were too many people to let Bear off the leash. Next time We'll just go to a WMA where i don't have to worry about leashing the dog. The monument was impressive looking and the view was great.
Here's a picture of the Appalachian trail (stretches from Georgia to Main and passes through New Jersey), it passes right next to the park.

Wow

Wow, check this photo out. This was taken in St Louis, Missouri today. According to the NY Times the crowd was 100,000. I don't know how they get that number...but it was A LOT of people nonetheless! Hopefully these large crowds mean something on election day!

2008 Presidential Election update

Welcome to the party West Virgina and North Dakota! More than one poll in West Virginia and North Dakota has shown the race very close, either leaning McCain or tied. This is very surprising since both states voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 by large margins.
In fact, the Obama campaign has started running ads big time in West Virginia and may do so in North Dakota.

Here is the new assesment of "battleground" states.

Strongly leaning Obama: Virginia, Colorado
Leaning Obama or tie: Nevada, Ohio, Florida, Missouri
Strongly leaning McCain: Indiana, North Dakota
Leaning McCain or tie: West Virginia, North Carolina

Sources:
www.electoral-vote.com
www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html

Obama's Early Vote Lead

SurveyUSA released several polls for President recently and if that state allowed early voting it asked if they voted. If they had voted it asked for whom. The graph shows the results. It's very interesting but important not to look too deeply into the results. It doesn't mean that Obama will win North Carolina by 34 points. However you can definitely get the picture that Democrats/Obama supporters are definitely VERY motivated. What happens when your side is really motivated? They vote in large numbers!
Similar polls in 2004 showed either a slight lead among Bush supporters or pretty much a tie between Kerry and Bush.

Opening Day of Duck Season

My dad and I went to the Paulinskill and Hyper-Humus WMA for our annual outing on opening day of duck season. The day began with the alarm at 3:30 AM...BLEA!

The interesting aspect of going to this place is the part where we use bikes to get to our spot. It is quite a sight I'm sure to see some guys on bikes with shotguns on their backs in camo!

It was a pretty slow morning and if it wasn't for some luck we wouldn't have even had a shot. My dad got two and I got one. As you can see from the pictures, the highlight of the morning was the beautiful fall colors!
Oh and if you think you see ducks in the pictures, they are not, they're just decoys! I always think it's funny when people think they are real. :)

2008 Presidential Election

Some people may want to understand the state of the race right now. Here is a brief outline of the state of the race.

Using the map shown above you'll see the states are shaded into RED, BLUE and TAN colors. RED = McCain, Blue = Obama, TAN = undecided. The numbers on each state represent their electoral votes.

Can McCain take traditionally Democratic states?:
The Traditionally Democratic states that McCain has been trying hard for are Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Polling within the last two weeks have shown that Obama has healthy leads beyond the margin of error in all of those states. So offensively McCain isn't doing so well.

Can Obama win states won by Bush in 2004?:
Obama has been polling very well in two states won by Bush in 2004: New Mexico and Iowa.

Who is in the best position?:
A candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the election. As the map is laid out here Obama has 264 to McCain's 174. In order to win the election Obama only needs to win 1 of the undecided states. McCain would need to win all of them. One interesting note to consider is that if Obama only won Nevada and McCain won the rest the electoral vote would be a tie at 269 - 269. What happens then? The election would be sent to the House of Representatives which is led by Democrats who presumably would vote Obama President. (the Senate would vote for Vice President)

Who is leading in the undecided states?:
The undecided states do have leanings.
Strongly leaning Obama: Virginia
Leaning Obama or tie: Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Florida
Strongly leaning McCain: North Carolina, Indiana
Leaning McCain or tie: Missouri

Conclusion:
Things of course can change but right now Obama is in an extremely advantageous position. It would be very unlikely for McCain to win every undecided state considering their leanings...we'll see! I'll post another update sometime soon.

Sources:
www.electoral-vote.com
www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html

2008 Governor's Surf Fishing Tournament

Nikki, Devin, Dad and I again hit the beach for the 17th annual Governor's Surf fishing Tournament and yes once again the Governor was nowhere to be seen. Boo!

There were slightly over 1000 participants and only 27 fish entered! That's surf fishing i guess...seems like it's either dead or the fish are all over the place!
If i find official results I'll post them.

Devin dares a fish to strike his pole!

We did catch a few Sea Robins but they aren't an enterable specie. In fact I think a very large Sea Robin was Devin's first fish caught surf fishing. He was very excited even though it didn't count for a prize.

Devin's Sea Robin!

Here are some pictures from the day. If you click on them they'll be larger. For more pictures you can visit our shutterfly page HERE

This is so sweet!

This is sweet enough to melt my cold, fall-hardened heart (just kidding). Barack Obama has done more for this country culturally than it is possible to quantify! yes we can!