I saw a map of the US Thursday night on Hardball that so excited me, I spent a large chunk of time tracking it down to get a copy. Turns out, it's a picture of all the counties whose 2008 results were more Democratic than in 2004. It's from the NY Times and is not a depiction of final results, just trends. (It's part of an interactive feature with lots more info.) Still, it's encouraging to this Democrat. Lots of folks were saying we were headed in the wrong direction. Looks like they did what they could to change directions. "Change we can believe in!"

The most gratifying part of it to me is that right in the middle of the reddest portion is a serious blue triangular dent representing a good bit of Mississippi that could spread by 2012. Just look at Alabama, Georgia, Florida - all bluer than they were 4 years ago. True, the final results map shows more red counties than blue, but just let Obama get this trainwreck of an economy cleaned up and see if our next election doesn't show results that look more like this. Yes we can!

Our dream group met today, then went to lunch together and celebrated Yvonne's birthday. She's the baby Episcopalian whose picture I posted last Sunday.

My firstborn also celebrated his birthday today. He was on his way to Cooper's team's baseball tournament when I called him this morning. I'm guessing there's nothing else that could have made his special day more fun except winning the tournament. Haven't heard how that went, but I probably will. The first picture was made when there were only 8 candles on his cake. Now there are 44! The latest picture of him that I have was made at Cooper's paintball birthday party in October when he was pretending to be 12 years old again, something he's still good at, I'm sure. Happy Birthday, Rick!