Rainy Thursday-The Beginning

As I writing this post on a Rainy Thursday in my dorm room at Tufts University in Somerville, Mass, I just wanted to tell you the inspiration for the blog and what you should expect on the site in the coming posts. The blog's name is directly based off the fact it somehow on average takes 24 minutes driving from my house in the suburbs of Cincinnati to reach the broad, murky waters of the Ohio River and the same amount of time via walking from my dorm to Davis Square and taking the T's Red Line to reach the Charles River. It was just too strange of a quirk not to notice, and I enjoy traveling.

Discovering the world is one my main passions. I have been to 30 states (some big holes to fill in the West, Great Plains, and Deep South), 2 US territories (Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands), and 12 other countries (Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Bahamas, Antigua, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland) with travel already booked to the Dominican Republic, British Virgin Islands, and Nicaragua. I will be blogging about these trips and hopefully many future ones on this blog. My digital camera may not be the best, but the pictures from it should end up on the blog.

The fact that I am wearing a replica Pavel Nedved jersey while typing this entry should tell that I am a huge sports fan. If I ask me what my favorite sport is, I would probably say football, since all levels of the game from high school to college to the NFL are so exciting. I enjoy high school and college basketball more than the football counterparts, but as long as the NBA is based on personalities and not playing defense, count me out. Being a Cincinnatian, I am a total homer for the Reds and Bengals no matter how poorly they are playing. Even though I am a proud Jumbo, my Division 1 team again is the home Cincinnati Bearcats, whose football team I have been on the bandwagon long before they were going to the BCS! I have been to at least one game in each of the past ten seasons, so I have the amazing and the ugly. Also, Bearcats basketball is improving again under Coach Cronin, so watch out for an upset Saturday night when crosstown rival #10 Xavier comes to the Shoe (5/3 Arena). I have been known to support Liverpool FC, who are playing hanging onto the top of the EPL, the Israeli national soccer team, the Boston Celtics, and the Minnesota Wild. I can get excited about any sport from rugby to field hockey. I also passionately dislike certain teams including any sports team from THE Ohio State University, the Pittsburgh Steelers (stealers?), Ed Hightower, Ted Hillary, CHCA (Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy), the Chicago Cubs, the New York Yankees, any player playing against my fantasy football team (which sadly went 6-8 this season and missed the playoffs by losing the 2 biggest games of the season by a total of 3 points).

In addition, I am very passionate about politics. I spent a large portion of the past 18 months in helping elect Barack Obama, the next President of the United States, by canvassing and volunteering in five different states. I took a few months off from doing Obama stuff to intern full-time for Doctor Victoria Wulsin who ran for Congress in the Ohio Second District, and was defeated by conservative Republican Jean Schmidt. I am heading to DC for the inauguration, which should be an amazing experience and I will provide full coverage. Even though I am a progressive, I am not a down the ticket Democrat, and for example I agree with the decision of the voters in LA-2 to kick icebox Jefferson out of Congress this past weekend. Blago must resign from office! I agree with Obama's centrist cabinet, since his bi-partisanship should be able to bring about pragmatic change from the ways of Bush and Cheney. Not quite sure I would have made Hillary the Secretary of State since her strengths lie seem to lie in health care, but he could have made a far worse choice. The Obama administration should be fascinating to watch.

I have been putting off the creation of this blog for a long day, so I hope you will enjoy hearing my take on the world.