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We got a call last night at 8:30 from an unknown (to me) number.  My wife usually screens the calls when I'm not home, not answering any she doesn't recognize.  I, on the other hand, would rather NOT be called every night for a week, so I usually try to answer the phone and ask the telemarketer/fundraiser/Jehovah's Witness¹ to please take us off their list, as I'm not interested in whatever they're selling/supporting/preaching¹.  I was about to do the same when I realized what "Gallup" stood for on the caller ID.

No, not this Gallup

Yes, I got polled by the Gallup Poll last night.  It was actually sort of fun.  I took my time and tried to answer objectively and honestly.  I swallowed knee-jerk reactions when they asked questions about whether I considered that the media coverage of Sarah Palin had been Unfairly Positive, About Right, or Unfairly Negative and gave them my well-considered answer².  I smiled when the poor girl on the other end explained that the U.S. has a system of checks and balances between the three branches of government, and asked me to rate my faith in the Executive³, Legislative⁴, and Judicial⁵ branches as they stood today.  I tried to look beyond my own job situation when asked whether I thought the economy and today's job markets were improving or declining⁶.  It took me a little time to come up with what I thought was the biggest problem facing the American people today⁷, and a little longer to come up with the single best reason why I am planning to vote for Obama this fall⁸.

Maybe we should go with another choice?

Not in all cases did my answers come off as "bleeding heart liberal", though.  My opinions on the size/powers of the government⁹ and their amount of control/regulation of businesses¹⁰ differed from what I hear other Dems saying.  I tried to be honest and represent my own opinions and views, rather than what I thought needed to be expressed to "convert" people for the upcoming election.

So anyway, I'll keep my eyes posted for the next Gallup poll results – I guess it'll be out sometime in the next few days.  My voice will only comprise about 1/2000th of the overall results, and my vote this fall will be even less representative, but it DOES COUNT.  In the meantime, I'll continue to look at all the issues and all the coverage, and make my own informed decisions about what is important to me and who best can represent my voice over the next four-to-eight years.

(The answers below are my opinions – they may not be yours.  Don't worry, we can still be friends!)

²I finally answered unfairly positive, as I've yet to hear anything really investigative about her platform and what her policy stances are for this election.  I guess that may change now that she's been tutored on foreign policy?  I decided to ignore the "dirt digging" as that has occurred to every candidate, but it still seemed a lot of the media was focusing on the wrong issues and viewing her through semi-rose-colored glasses.
³Poor
⁴Fair
⁵Fair
⁶Still declining, although I believe not as badly as earlier this year.  I keep hearing of lots of job openings for engineering work, but my overall impression is this is not a good time to be out on the job hunt.  And as for the economy, who can deny that we're in a recession right now?  My meager investments/savings certainly are certainly complaining loudly.
⁷I finally settled on the current administration's attempts to limit the civil liberties of American citizens, including but not limited to things like attempting to limit access and right to birth control, forgiving/justifying wiretapping without a warrant, setting aside habeas corpus protection for both citizens and noncitizens declared by the executive branch to be “enemy combatants", etc.
⁸It's a combination of the fact that my opinions align pretty well with his own stances on the issues and my feelings that he will probably be the candidate most likely to actually achieve (or at least make progress) on some of his goals on the issues where my priorities are aligned with his own.
⁹Government is too big/has too much power
¹⁰In most cases, regulations on businesses are about right or too high

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Hopefully by throwing the words "Fantasy Football" in the title of my posts, I can warn off the folks who aren't interested in my weekly recaps (Kevin).  I'll refrain from doing more than one of these a week, and there won't be any other content besides football or Fantasy Football in them, so feel free to ignore these posts if that's not your cup of tea.

This year, I decided to form a local league with my coworkers in addition to the one my friends in Syracuse play in.  This way I have some folks at work to trash-talk and discuss the games with, which I've been missing since I moved away from Syracuse.  Since I had more experience with fantasy football than my other coworkers, I set up the league and am League Commissioner, which is a fancy way of saying I get to do all the behind-the-scenes organization crap with no extra compensation for it.  But hey!  At least I get a local league to play in!

And I won my local league's first week game against my opponent, the Scorpions!

1st Week Win

Although my defense really let me down, my other players made up for it enough to let me squeak by for the win.  I think Maroney's going to be a bust this year now that Brady is out for the season – his replacement likes to throw the ball so the running game looks to be low priority.

Oh yeah, I also won my other league's game, but only because my opponent has the worst 1st-week luck of anyone I've ever seen!

Busted Knee Breakout

Yes, I won this week primarily because my opponent's quarterback got sidelined for the season early in the first quarter of his game.  Not shown here is his backup receiver (Nate Burleson) who ALSO suffered a season-ending knee injury in his week one game (hence my opponent's new team name).  Talk about crappy luck of the draft!

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