kendall card 2.0

It’s the first annual (sounds so much better than first, even though it may not become an annual) bumper sticker photo contest. Send ‘em in and you could win some stuff.

Guidelines

• Politics, sports, anything but racial or sexist bumper stickers are fair game.
• It doesn’t have to be your bumper sticker
• You have to take the photo - please resize to 500 pixels wide (not required, but spares me editing time)
• Send photos to kendall(nospace)card AT gmail D0t com
• Aug 3 is the deadline.

Winner gets?

The winner will get some cool gear from me. (I’ve got a DNA hoodie, a sleeve of Nike golf balls and a brand new Backcountry.com organic cotton tee shirt up for grabs so far. I’m making this up as I go so bear with me - trust me, if anyone can round up some free gear I’m the man!)

Here’s my entry which I’ll start things off with.

All entries will be posted to my Flickr Bumper Sticker Contest set of photos

Driving home from the office in Park City I noticed a large, very large object in the field at Treasure Mountain Middle School - the President’s taxi. Well, it wasn’t exactly the Marine One helicopter as that specific one flew back to Salt Lake City while Mr. Bush was dining at Mitt Romney’s house with a few paying guests, it was a Marine One. This massive helicopter was what had transported the press and some staff to Park City. Wow, some taxi.

Mr. Bush should fly a few bloggers around in one of these things. I’ll volunteer to be first!

Flown out from Washington DC over two days (stopping off at Omaha) this Marine One helicopter was MASSIVE. When I say massive I mean massive. It had 7 blades on the main rotor with each blade around 2 1/2 feet wide at the apex and what looked to be around 30′ long.

Equally as impressive was the inside which had a sign above the rear cargo door that said, “Vehicles exiting must turn left”.

While there were a few Marines in bullet proof vests carrying assault shotguns and other weapons, most of the flight crew was mulling around in jump suits as nearly 60-70 lookers on like myself oohed and awed.

Unless Mr. Bush, and likely Mr. Obama is into letting a few A list bloggers like myself (hah!) replace the stuffy Washington Post staff writers to take a lift in Marine One, I can easily say that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

(figures I would leave my camera home this one day - photos are from my lousy cell phone. I know what you’re thinking - “Some ‘A’ list blogger you are!”)

I found this worth the 9 minutes it took to watch. Why? Because it caused me to think about global warming in a way and with a simple organized approach that I have not yet seen or considered - with open perspective of the varying results from our action or inaction.

I can’t really poke any wholes in this. The comments on YouTube are interesting as well.

I’d love to see this argument be the foundation for a debate among the presidential candidates.

–Thanks Dow

I can’t remember a time in my life when I was so interested in the presidential outcome so far in advance of the actual election as I am now. We’re still 10 months away from the first caucus and the buzz is, well buzzing enough for me to start contemplating the front running candidates to be.

Of the candidates I’m most interested in learning more about Obama and exactly where he stands and additionally I want to know more about Mitt Romney. Of the later, my mother-in-law sent the following to me in an e-mail:

On June 2, 2006, Romney sent a letter to each member of the U.S. Senate urging them to vote in favor of the Marriage Protection Amendment.^[31] In the letter, Romney stated that the debate over same-sex unions is not a discussion about “tolerance”, but rather a “debate about the purpose of the institution of marriage”. Romney wrote, “Attaching the word marriage to the association of same-sex individuals mistakenly presumes that marriage is principally a matter of adult benefits and adult rights. In fact, marriage is principally about the nurturing and development of children. And the successful development of children is critical to the preservation and success of our nation.”

What impresses me most about this quote is Mitt’s ability to see through the political fog to the real issue at hand, in this case the point that gay and lesbian unions are not at the root about tolerance but about the purpose of marriage. Marriage serves the adult participants in many ways but at the root of it marriage between a man and woman provides the ideal situation for children, our future, to be raised and nurtured in a way that will provide society and humanity with the best possible future.

I’m looking forward to posting some of the things I learn and extrapolate from the next year and a half until the election in November of 2008.