And I even watched!

Another day of exercise with my Senior Fitness group has ended. I’m home once again, but today I came home to a wifeless house. Gator Wife, who’s usually home Tuesdays and Thursdays, has taken her car to the inspection place for its annual Maine inspection. She doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with the car but took the checkbook anyway.

It’s getting harder for Mainers to escape expensive inspections since the law passed that required a failed car to have its old sticker cut in half. If the owner wants a second opinion, that sticker puts the second place on notice that it has failed once. Most places are honest and don’t take advantage but our former place is no more so she’s taking it to a new one today. We’ll see if it’s a onetime deal or not. If all goes well, we’ll know before I’m finished with this.

And now the November presidential ballot is complete. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination last night and Sen. John McCain will accept the nomination for the top spot tonight. That sets officially what everyone has known for a while: McCain will face Dem. Barack Obama for President. Along for the ride are the two vice presidential candidates, Gov. Palin and Sen. Joe Biden.

My prejudicial view is that the nomination of Gov. Palin has given the Democrats a wedgy. They’ve already unleashed the vicious, dirt slinging attacks and there’s much evidence the Republicans are about to do the same. This has the makings of being one of the dirtiest Presidential campaigns in history. When it’s over, we just may be wishing neither had won.

The difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull: Lipstick. That was an ad-lib line tossed out by Gov. Palin last night as she looked over a sea of signs all hailing her being a hockey mom. Yes, I broke my own word and did watch the speech. This was the first convention activity I’ve seen in several years as I don’t like listening to rhetoric that will never come to pass from either side. Somehow the electricity of all that I’ve read about Gov. Palin drew me in. I surprised even myself that I watched. GW had gone to bed but got up to see what I was doing. She didn’t believe it, either.

I found her speech to be riveting. And she pulled no punches in discussing her critics and her opposition. By now you’ve read the important quotes either on line or in the newspaper or heard them on TV so I won’t try to quote them again here. But I was mildly surprised at the way she compared the McCain/Palin team to the Obama/Biden one. This does have the makings of being a lively race, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s going to be very nasty.

The Republicans, naturally, feel she has energized the party membership. Perhaps. There are still a couple months until the election, and unless it has energized the party here in Maine, her presence won’t mean much if the status quo here remains.

Maine desperately needs a similar energizing force to replace the tax and spend people now in Augusta. Let me echo a local radio talk host, as friends and neighbors most of those we elect are really good people. Something happens to them when they cross into Augusta. Unfortunately for those good people when they’re local, they lost their prospective when they are in the State House.

And now it’s after nine and GW isn’t home. That can only mean one thing: The inspection has gone as planned. Oh, boy! I wonder what this is going to cost me.

GiM