Black Voters Like Me

The signs are clear - deserted blog, unread e-mails, two abandoned games of Scrabulous... I have been severely absent from the interweb. At work, which is already unnecessarily long, we've been preparing for and going through INSURV, an inspection that occurs every five years. It's difficult to express the amount of stupidity involved in that process, so just think ridiculously long work hours.

Things have been busy at home as well. The house is finally on the market, and thus requires constant cleaning. MIT's financial aid deadline had me scrambling madly to get things sorted out in time (if you live in the same state as your parents, I envy you). Chris's car is slowly becoming roadworthy, despite my ineptitude...

There we were, lowering Chris's Toyota MR2 around the new engine he had just finished assembling. He was monitoring clearance around the engine, and I was operating the jack that was holding up the car. I was inching it down slowly and keeping an eye on the jack stands to make sure they were properly placed, and Chris said, "Ok, hold what you've got." I turned the handle quickly to lock off the jack and keep the car from moving.

Unfortunately, I turned it the wrong way. Oh yes. Instead of not moving, the car moved a lot, and landed on the jack stands (which were in fact perfectly placed)! The damage is trivial as far as either of us can tell, but I still feel pretty stupid. That could have been a lot worse; at least everyone's safe, right? =)

In other news, a flier appeared recently on my car (which was parked at my place of residence), and I feel I must share it with you (apologies for the crappy picture):


Apparently, I'm black. Why didn't you guys tell me?! Also apparently, there is no reason to vote unless the country is "going in the wrong direction." If things were going well, it would be cool for all of us to be apathetic. People, please. I'm all about getting people to vote, but this is ridiculous. Can we affect change as a nation, as a people, as a democracy, not just as "black voters"? Your thoughts?