A great Mother's Day present.....for me!

My Mom is coming to town! Not really just to see me, although she will see me when she's here, but she is coming to town. Wait a minute, this is getting too complicated. Let me slow down and explain.

I come from an aquatic family. My Mom and all her brothers and sisters were competitive swimmers when they were growing up. I'm sure it was a very primal reaction to growing up in the Fresno area, where summer temperatures easily soar into the 110 degree range, and a pool is a very easy way to cool down a gaggle of children. My Mom instilled that same swimming pedigree upon her children. We were all competitive swimmers for some period of time. As the oldest, I wasn't the most talented, but I was probably the hardest working and most determined of the lot. But I gave up swimming after a couple of failed attempts to get back into a fitness routine as a young adult, and the pool just faded away.

My Mom on the other hand, jumped back into the pool after all of her children left the nest. She started up with the Davis Aquatic Masters (which is still the largest, single city, Masters swim team in the country, which is pretty incredible for a small university city of under 100k in population) and has been working out almost every day for a long while. And now, she's coming to Fresno to compete in the US Masters Swimming National Championships. Why Fresno you might ask. Again, I point you to the weather page of your paper, where you can see that the temperature is already into the 90's here, which has a direct link to the large number of Olympic pool complexes here in the Fresno area.

So on this Mother's Day weekend I've had the honor of attending my Mom's swim meet as a spectator and fan. In some small way, I can only hope that my efforts honor all the times she did the same for me growing up. But I can't come even close. Not only was my Mom a spectator and fan during my meets, but she also was the following:  meet organizer, chauffeur, volunteer, banker, shoulder to cry on, and number one cheerleader. For every hour I spent in the pool, I'm sure she put in an equal number as a club official, meet official, and many more that I'm sure I've forgotten and left off the list.

But there's one more thing that my Mom has done with her participation in this swim meet:  she's inspired me to get back into the pool. As I get closer to my 100 pound weight loss goal, I feel comfortable enough with myself to be seen in public in a swimsuit. So sometime next week, I will find a workout location, and jump back into the pool on the following Monday. Watching all the goings on at the meet reminded me about the social part of swimming, and how much fun it can be once you get past the hard part of the workout!

So Happy Mother's Day to my Mom, I hope you realize that my progress in improving my health, along with my commitment to get back into the pool, is one of my gift to you. Because you are definitely one of my biggest inspirations, and I love you.

How did this happen?!?

They say the two things you should never talk about are politics and religion, because an argument is bound to occur. But I like to go against the norm, so I'll talk about both of them here. I'm a registered Republican. But I would classify myself as a Teddy Roosevelt type Republican, in that I'm pro environment. To make the discussion simple though, I don't think demonizing business, and making the discussion into an either / or proposition is the right thing. And finally, I am a Catholic, so I am pro life, anti death penalty, and believe in most of the Church's teachings. But again, on the matter of gay marriage, I'm somewhere in the middle of the argument. To make the argument simple again, I don't think government should be in the marriage business. But that's a simplistic explanation for my view, which isn't going to get much traction, so I am stuck at the ballot box voting for the side that least troubles me, which is true on most things.

Let's be honest. The State of California has been, and continues to be moving solidly into the Democratic camp. But even people I know (including family members) who are Democrats, aren't as left leaning as the Democratic party would like everyone to believe. Most of the citizens of the State are close to the middle, yet the political system usually only rewards candidates from both parties at the extremes. I'm writing this because I went to see Gavin Newsom at an event last week here in Fresno. I took some pictures and a video that I put on YouTube, and posted on my Posterous Blog. Now I have nothing against Democrats as people, but I don't think they should count me as one of their party's prime supporters.

So imagine my surprise this week when I got a lovely email from the mayor's wife, asking me to start a fundraising page called 'ActBlue,' raising money for Gavin's campaign. Now I'm sure this is boiler plate, but I thought we were trying to get past the whole Red / Blue divide in politics, and come together. In fact, at the event, I was surprised to hear Newsom's answer on some of the topics, because they are sure to anger some of the core voters in the Democratic Party. But he's advertising himself as that type of candidate. So the email from his wife isn't giving the same message, and was actually very off putting to me after taking the time to go out and see him. I know he's got to do some pandering to his Party to get the nomination, but still.

The other thing that was very surreal, was the fact that my video took on a life of its own. An independent organization catering to promoting a progressive agenda embedded my video onto their blog. Now I'm a little bit in awe of myself because this is the first ever video I posted to YouTube, and it seems to have found a minor audience. The group is using the video to point to the fact that maybe there is a candidate for change out there within the Democratic Party. I made the video to jump on the fact that maybe there is a candidate out there who once elected won't bow and scrape to the traditional Democratic interest groups. To each his own.

My grandmother, who really helped form my political beliefs, is quite possibly rolling over in her grave knowing that I'm talking about a Democrat from San Francisco for Governor. But right now, I'm a pragmatist, not an idealogue, and I think it's a good thing to explore all the options.