An election to celebrate

I can't believe the amount of celebration last night! I mean, I can believe it....but it's still incredible to me to see such passion and excitement from an ELECTION! As mentioned in my last post, I was at Kabir's to celebrate and watch McCain and Obama's speeches, waiting for Matt to get out of class and join us. When he was finally free, he called and was like "um..I'm not sure if I can leave our place". I was like "what do you mean?" Apparently, a "parade" of people was marching up on Pike St at the time, right in front of our building. I soon convinced a chunk of folks from Kabir's place to head over to Cap Hill to see where the party's at...and man, a LARGE crowd took over the corner of Pike & Broadway, only 2 blocks from where I live. Apparently, it was a convergence of 2 crowds: one that came up from downtown and another that came from northern Broadway. It was a controlled crowd of excited and happy people, waving flags, openly drinking beer, shooting fireworks, singing "The Star Spangled Banner" and "My Country Tis of Thee", and giving hugs for Obama hugs. Asayo took a number of great pictures with her phone which I'll post later when I get them, but here's a few from my phone....and the rest are courtesy of The Stranger:

Me & Sri with "Obama"

Matt and Ajay
Kabir and Noreen

GO OBAMA!

How can I not blog today? I just got home (7pm) after work and have been eagerly awaiting election results. About half an hour ago, it was announced that Obama took Ohio---woot woot!!! Suffice it to say, us Sousas voted for Obama this year. Matt went to the booths this morning while I cast my ballot last week via absentee ballot. I'll be heading over to Kabir's in an hour to watch the rest of the results with friends...and hopefully we'll be toasting in champagne shortly after. It is so exciting, if anything, to see the fervor for voting and for the election this year. I've never seen such excitement and it makes me so happy to see so many around me care so much. I was most excited to see that after many many weeks of talkin' to and lecturing about it, my boss decided to cast his vote for Obama as well (I will duly thank Greg for pushing on that).

As usual, I always find it interesting to see how different the results are per network. Here's how it is right now (7:07pm PST):

Obama	155	195	207	199	207	206	207
McCain	17	75	135	135	129	83	129

Although Kansas was naturally going to go McCain, it still makes me so happy to see that little bit of blue around Douglas County (go Lawrence!!)


Go Obama!!!

I'm still here....

Oh lord, I've been terrible at updating this blog. All right, time to get back into it. Meanwhile, gotta update you with stuff since my last post:

• Aaron's bouncing alarm clock story on Everyday Edisons concludes with the idea getting sold by Spencer's Gifts (I remember going there when I was a teeny bopper to get a lava lamp and all sorts of gimmicky gadgets). Congrats lil' bro! Here's a video of him finding this out:


• We went down to New Orleans to attend Paul and Teresa's wedding and had an awesome time. First time in the city and we really enjoyed our stay there. Here are our pictures from trip there as well as the wedding. Awesome weather, delicious food, great company, fun ghost and cemetery tours and an overall good time.
  
• We went on a hot air balloon ride for the first time also---it was a beautiful beautiful flight! Many thanks to Aaron who gave this to us a a wedding gift and it took us a good year or so to finally get on a succesful flight (we'd tried several times but wind conditions have to be *just* perfect). We experienced a gorgeous sunset and it was an overall pleasant experience. Here are our pictures from the experience.
  
• Matt got a G1 Phone and loves it. I know I know...how dare I since I'm a Windows Mobile employee?
• Saw Lang Lang in concert again at Benaroya...this time it was a Chopin concert. Again, brilliant. Just brilliant.
• Just last night, we went to a Haunted Corn Maze out at Maris Farms, about 45 min. south of Seattle. It's not really haunted, of course, but they've gone out and set up actors and traps and all sorts of fun stuff throughout the corn field. We had a great time--totally recommend it if you're looking for something fun to do in the area.
  
• Oh, and remember that trip up to Vancouver Island over Labor Day? Super fun hanging out with Matt and Asayo and the dogs. Matt S., Asayo and I went bungee jumping for the first time which was a thrill. Here's some good video of both me and Asayo doing our bungee jumps---whose scream sounds more scared?
  

Me


Asayo

And alas, the Fall is upon us, the leaves are changing and it's already nearly Halloween. I'm pretty excited about our plans this year---we're going to the Bonza Bash Masquerade Ball at EMP. Matt is going to go in classic masquerade (tux and mask) while I'm going to be an Asian Marie Antoinette! I'm getting a wig and everything! Should be fun as we join a good group of folks to attend.

Prototypes and Websites

Here's the most recent episode of Aaron on the show "Everyday Edisons" --- they now have a product name ("QuakeUp") and packaging....but the clock doesn't bounce at all yet...which is the whole point behind his idea. Hope to see more progress on the clock next week!

Ready for Labor Day

I'm pretty excited about Labor Day weekend this year. Once again, we're hanging out with Matt & Asayo and the dogs to go camping....and this time we're going up to Nanaimo, B.C. on Vancouver Island! Not only is it a camping trip but we're also going to go scuba diving off the coast where it's supposedly home to the second largest artificial reef in the world (guess they like blowing up ships off the coast and letting them sink). According to Jacques Costeau, as far as temperate diving goes, the shores of Nanaimo, B.C. is only second best to the Red Sea. Sounds awesome...I can't wait!

Goats in Seattle!

What a clever idea --- starting today, the city of Seattle hired Rent-a-Ruminant to help clear the vegetation, weeds and brush in this patch of land between the dog park at the base of Pike & Boren and I-5. Literally, goats in Capitol Hill! Instead of getting big gas guzzling weed whackers or mowers, they got goats! They will eat anything, go where machines can't go and are environmentally sound. I think it's fabulous...but I have to say, seeing 60 goats with the rush hour traffic of I-5 in the background is hilarious. Here are a few photos that I've found:


Courtesy of miss_villanelle

Courtesy of evil_robot_6

Courtesy of cleverclevergirl

Aaron on Everyday Edisons

As some of you may know, my little brother, Aaron, has made it on television again (previously was on "American Inventor")---this time on a PBS show, sponsored by the U.S. Patent Office, called "Everyday Edisons" which showcases the invention process and what it takes to go from idea to actual product on store shelves. He was one of 12 chosen to be featured in Season 2 (and note that all products from Season 1 contestants are now actual, retail products!). Again, he went with his anemone alarm clock which he designed sometime in college. Here are a few episodes that he's been on. I think there may be 1 more episode coming up this next week, which I'll post once that airs:

Show where he's introduced


"Ideation Creation" -- the beginning stage of the show's team working on his design


"Engineers Gone Wild" -- the design starts getting finalized



It's always exciting to see my little brother on TV---hope that the story ends with his clock being available on store shelves this Christmas!