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Today I feel something I’ve never felt before: pride in my country.

I’ve been ashamed of the U.S. for most of my life. When I’ve traveled abroad I’ve done my best not to “out” myself as an American out of embarrassment. For the past 8 years we’ve had a bumbling idiot representing us to the rest of the world. I seriously considered, on multiple occasions, packing up and denouncing my citizenship—jumping ship seemed a rational action when faced with the reality of a drunken cowboy-buffoon at the helm, his coked-up crapulence sure to steer us into the gaping maw of depression at any moment.

Today I’m proud that we elected an inspiring leader that has united Americans across boundaries of class, race, gender, age, and religion in unprecedented numbers. I’m proud that children around the world awoke today to possibilities that in their parents’ lifetimes had seemed unattainable. And dammit, I’m actually optimistic that the archaic, obtuse attitudes that have shrouded U.S. history in shame may be fading into obscurity.

It’s a pretty good day.

Got to the polls this morning at 6am thinking I’d be smarter than everyone else and avoid long lines. The line was already wrapped around the block. 90 cold, rainy minutes later I finally got inside to cast my vote.

My man better win this thing or I’m gonna be pissed.

Am I completely out of touch for starting a blog this late in the game or incredibly hip for shunning the trend this long?

A little about myself:
I’m a designer, web developer, musician, and father living in Richmond, VA. I’ll likely be blogging frequently about generative art, Flash/Actionscript, Processing, music production, and Ableton Live. I’ll attempt to bypass the cliché personal diatribes (you really don’t care what I had for breakfast, do you? [tomato bisque]) and just post about things that I find interesting.

The blog design is pretty minimal right now in keeping with my current infatuation with progressive enhancement techniques. As I have time I’ll be adding some bells & whistles.