Shouzer

You know you’ve missed these……

Last weekend, I went camping again with the outdoors meetup group. We went down to Hocking Hills Ohio to do a zip line tour and some hiking, and we stayed in a pretty sweet cabin. Once again, I didn’t know any of the 5 girls or 1 guy that were going. (Nice ratio btw).

The trip started out really well. I carpooled down to Ohio after work on Friday with two girls, and we had a pleasant conversation as well as a nice dinner at Chipotle. As a side note, I am loving the prevalence of higher class fast food places like Chipotle, Panera, Noodles and co., Zoup, etc. that they have around here. Those places dominate McDonalds in every way imaginable for like $2 more.

Saturday morning, the goodness continued. We went out to the zip line tour, which was sweet. It was basically just a series of zip lines through the trees. Zip lines are fun. We chatted as a group on the platforms between the zip lines, met a fun-loving couple who was also doing the zip lining that day, and I hit on the tour guide a little bit. Overall, a really nice morning.

But then, something bad happened. The other guy on the trip left. He had tickets to a show in Detroit and had to head home. I think it’s fair to say that anyone who knows me or reads this blog even a little bit knows that I did not handle this situation well. I kinda turned into the shy, quiet guy. I just didn’t know what to say for pretty much the rest of the trip.

A few of the girls joked that I was living the dream. I think that dream involves pajamas, pillow fights, a steamy trip to the hot tub, or some practice kissing. Instead, I got a conversation about menopause. I took that opportunity to take a long trip to the bathroom. Ladies, just for your reference, talking about woman’s issues is your version of sexual harassment. We just don’t want to hear that.

Honestly, I’ve played it up a little bit for comedic value. It wasn’t really that bad. I was pretty shy and quiet, but I didn’t feel that uncomfortable most of the time. We had a few really nice hikes, and I cooked a chicken pot pie for dinner on Saturday that was word-taking. It was so good that the chatter of 5 women was silenced for a few minutes while they savored the goodness. It wasn’t as fun as my first camping trip with this group, but I had a pretty good time.

Anybody who’s read Shouzer with even the slightest consistency certainly knows that I have very liberal political views.  It should come as no surprise, then, that I was ecstatic when MSNBC (gotta support MS, right?) announced Barack Obama would be our next president.  On a large scale, it showed me the amazing level of growth our country has seen in the last 50 years–much less the last 200.  Looking to the future, I felt the election signaled a very much needed change in direction for our country.

What really sucks, though, is that I’m not sure how much any president could do right now.  Obama will likely be taking office with the worst economy since FDR, and our world image has probably not ever been worse than it is now.  The fact that Bush will be leaving the presidency with the lowest approval ratings since those numbers have been recorded (lower even than Nixon’s when he resigned) only exemplifies the mess Obama will be taking over.

I guess my worry is that Obama’s presidency won’t live up to its potential, simply because he’ll spend his time cleaning up that mess.  Here’s to hoping that won’t be the case.  Personally, I would be happy even if Obama only got us back to where we were eight years ago–no wars, a budget surplus, and the respect of the world.  I don’t need national healthcare and a lot of that stuff (though it would certainly be nice).  I just want the country fixed.