Rob Hyodo

“Obama to be first African-American president Obama to be first African-American president”

This seems to be the headline for the past few hours. As an Obama supporter, I celebrated at my friends’ Election Night Gathering where we watched video streams as the announcement was made.

Shortly after the announcement that Barack Obama would be our next President, Senator John McCain gave a speech in Arizona which I thought was delivered with utmost respect to both Obama and the American people. This was the greatest speech I’ve heard from McCain and I have great respect for someone who’s fought as long and hard as he did, not only for this election, but for his service to the country. He addressed Arizona and the nation with magnificent grace!

President-elect, Barack Obama, then gave his speech. He is an inspirational speaker. There were moments where I actually felt a bit of pride in being an American again. I’ve not felt much American pride in a long time. It was a very forward-thinking speech that would speak of changes into the next hundred years.

“What’s better than watching history unfold? Being a part of it.”

I’d like to think that I was a part of making history today. I’m not working at the moment… what else could I do? this afternoon, I went to the San Jose Obama Campaign Office and for the first time ever, I volunteered to try to make a difference in this presidential campaign, using my personal phone to call people in swing states like Missouri and Colorado.

There were about 50 people there making calls and over 30,000 calls were made that day to likely Obama supporters  reminding them to vote. It seemed like shamelss telemarketing, but it was great when people said they voted for Obama and were excited about that themselves. But I had enough negative responses to know I’d never want to be a telemarketer.

To close the evening, we watched various video clips, monitored results and had drinks and snacks. Then we got into watching videos on YouTube, digressing into watching videos such as:

Twisted Sister - Oh Come All Ye Faithful

and

The Temple of Drum and Bass

on a large, Sony Bravia…