Dear Friends and Family -

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time of counting our blessings, but I’m prompted this year to take stock of them even more than usual.

Maybe it’s the prospect of change on the horizon for our country, which is long overdue if you ask me. Maybe it’s yesterday’s news of terrorism in Mumbai, reminding me that, for all our education, prosperity, and quote-unquote civilization, we still have a long way to go to coexist peacefully with our neighbors in the world. Or maybe the thought that several of the people Amy and I were delivering meals to the homeless with so joyfully this morning just had their basic civil rights stripped away by a popular vote promoted by religious zealots and supported by garden-variety folks all over the state.

Without a doubt, the manic-depressive state of the financial markets — some say the inevitable outcome of 2 decades of “Boys Gone Wild” on Wall Street with their parents’ Ferraris — proves to me yet again that government is so broken it can’t live up to its most basic mission of protecting its citizens effectively. And while the latest crisis is far from over, and I can actually fill my gas tank again without hitting the $50 mark, the astonishing levels to which we’ve mortgaged the future to keep ourselves afloat may very well impact the quality of lives available not only to us, but to our children’s children. It may be ironic, but for me it’s a sharp reminder that we have it pretty damned good, actually — if we compare ourselves, say, to the billion or so people in the world who lack access to clean water and basic sanitation.

And so onward we go. Because, just as history, proverbially, is what gets written down, life is what you live. There are births to celebrate, weddings to cheer, graduations to attend, and lots of other rites of passage and grateful moments that are bigger in our lives than all this world gloom and doom times ten. This year, I got engaged, had loved ones survive strokes and even plane crashes, helped (in some small way) a political cause I care about succeed, helped create important technology, and still had the excess good fortune and leisure to spend lots of time traveling and listening to great music and generally living well, all over the country. In this bounty, I find much to be grateful for.

The floodwaters of global warming may be real on the horizon, but they have not yet reached our door. Happily, I still have a job to return to Monday morning (at least for the time being). So you can be sure I will spend the rest of this weekend celebrating with good friends, eating real turkey and pumpkin pie, drinking good wine. . . and raising a glass with a thought for you, and to your being able to do the same.

Happy Thanksgiving and much love,
Greg

I am inspired by Obama and his victory. It makes me feel like there is hope for this country yet.

I am inspired by his literacy, his integrity, and his quality management style. So many politicians talk about running the country like a company, but I actually believe him and think it’s more the staffing that needs to be viewed that way. (See Fred Wilson’s great blog post about what we can hope for here.) There is no substitute for talent — especially when compared to cronyism.

I am electrified by his transparency. The first twitter president. An open transition. Change.gov. This is a far cry from the guy who has been suing to keep his meetings private.

What this means most to me, as I reflect on it, is that Barack Obama is raising the bar on what it means to be president. Significantly.

He has the opportunity to inspire us to act like the citizens of the world we are capable of being. And to be proud of living up to our potential.

Here’s to hoping we can never go back. I made two more kiva loans today, both to photograhers in Nigeria named Elizabeth Olaleye and Fumilayo Fatolu, to celebrate our good fortune — and hope.

There might — or might not — be a way to fax in votes for folks who can’t vote at the polls tuesday and don’t have an absentee ballot (or didn’t mail it in time). Here’s my full story, with my questions at the end:

After requesting absentee ballots twice and not receiving them, I was preparing to go to LA’s only early voting location today (12400 Imperial Highway, Norwalk, CA 90650). Internet reports said lines were stretching around the building all week and would be worse today, so I called trying to request an “express ballot” (a procedure I discovered thanks to a commenter on California Faultline) to possibly bypass the line.

Suprisingly, I got through on a saturday after only a few minutes on hold. Encouraging - but not for long. After asking my name and address, the woman argumentatively told me that a ballot had been mailed to me and returned undeliverable. She did not have a record of my second request. We went back and forth a few times, her challenging me about the validity of the mailing address (it’s perfectly valid), etc., before I finally said, “Look, either way I don’t have a ballot and would like to exercise my right to vote, but I’ll be out of state tuesday. Can I do that?”

She then told me the lines were around the block, and I should use the federal postcard oath to fax in my vote. She said it was designed for overseas folks who didn’t get paper ballots in time but could be used for out of state. She told me the link for it was on the lavote.net site, but I couldn’t find it while we were talking, and she didn’t know where the link was (”people are finding it,” she said), so I asked if I could just come in.

“Well you’d better bring snacks and lunch, because the line is around the building,” she said, discouragingly. I asked about the Express Ballot. “Oh yeah, you did request that,” she said, not particularly encouragingly. I decided to dig into the fax option a bit more anyway and signed off.

I eventually found the overseas voter instructions and the oath/signature form (pdf). While the woman had clearly stated these were being used to record out of state votes, the form itself requires you to sign an oath that you are military or a US citizen residing overseas. I did check the fax number she gave me, as I thought it might be jammed with people trying to fax military ballots and whatnot, but I got right through to a fax machine.

I decided to try my luck with an express ballot. A friend and I have appointments for 2pm, and I’ll update this blog on how it turns out. For anyone else who wants to try this, the number is 1-800-815-2666 extension 2. You must ask for an Express Ballot.

But my question, for anyone who might know, is whether that overseas form would be a valid way to vote. If it were to be valid, would you have to sign it as is (ie an oath stating you reside or are temporarily overseas even if you are just out of state)? Would you modify the statement to be truthful, or would that invalidate your vote? Would it be counted if you’d already requested an absentee ballot at a U.S. address (ie, strongly suggesting that you are not in fact overseas)?

I may need to fall back on this method, and I suspect lots of voters who are not able to get to Norwalk and/or get through the lines there on time would want to know, so any information folks have will be helpful.

Thanks - and please vote!!

UPDATE:  In and out in 20mins via Express Ballot. They laughed when we told them we had a reservation for 2pm, and it looked like lots of folks were waiting longer, but they looked us up by last name, our ballots were there, and we were immediately able to vote. Good thing, because the walk-up lines were heinous.  Photos of that here and more to come on flickr.  Still no answer on the military thing, though.