15 miles to the love shack

My folks live in Alexandria, Virginia, which puts us about fifteen miles from the site where, in less than three hours, Barack Obama will become the 44 Magnum-- the 44th president of these United States. The skies are somewhat cloudy, the air is a crisp 21 degrees, and Mother Nature herself seems to be crouched and waiting. Fifteen miles down the road from me, millions of people have come from all over the country-- and the world-- to assemble in a great mass before the steps of the US Capitol in order to witness a signal moment in American history: the elevation of America's first black president. One gets the impression that the world-- most of it, anyway-- celebrates with us.

Meanwhile, the Seoul office of BK has sent me more proofing assignments (11 pages' worth today), so I'd better get cracking. In Seoul, it's business as usual... though to judge by the tenor of the business documents I've been proofreading, things are looking mighty gloomy on the peninsula. Maybe we'll see a rise in stocks during Obama's first one hundred days. That could be good news for Korea, at least until Hillary starts up again about renegotiating the KORUS FTA (due to be ratified by US and Korean legislatures in February).

How many Koreans will be up at 2AM to watch Obama's inauguration? The old ajeoshis at my former campus dorm/studio are normally sound asleep around midnight, but the foreigners in the dorm might be up.

They're talking about a "sea of humanity" out on the Washington Mall right now. I can only imagine. Millions of people, just fifteen miles away. Incredible. If I were into crowds, I might be among them, but truth be told, I'm happy to be at home today. At noon, I'll take a break from work and watch The Big Moment. We're supposed to be recording the festivities on the cable box downstairs, but the box is already 70% full thanks to all the HD-quality episodes of "24" and BSG that I've recorded. The DVR started recording at 9AM; I wonder whether there's enough memory in there to record 4-plus hours of inaugurationalia.

Well... congratulations to us, I think. I didn't vote for Obama (didn't vote for McCain, either), but I like the man, and I wish him well. He's got an impossible job ahead of him, so he has my sympathy. Making yourself responsible for the welfare of over 300 million people isn't a task for just anybody. By getting this far, this fast, I think Obama has shown he's not just anybody, so as Morgan Freeman intoned at the end of "The Shawshank Redemption":

I hope.


UPDATE: I liked Obama's inaugural speech. As I suspected, the DVR ran out of memory before the speech even began. I deleted the extraneous data, rewound the broadcast to just before Obama took the oath of office, and tried to record... but no dice. As soon as I hit the red button, the DVR began recording what was currently broadcasting. My brother Sean says not to worry: the whole thing is likely to be rebroadcast. We'll record it on the upstairs DVR.


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