All I Want For Christmas - Part 2 (and the subsequent end)

So as mentioned in the "All I want for Christmas" post, for two months I've been anxiously awaiting a response from seemingly a black hole known as my congressman Jerry Connolly regarding the lottery being held for inauguration tickets. Well, midday NYE an email had arrived and I can't begin to tell you how excited I was. Here's the opening paragraph:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for contacting the office of Congressman-Elect Gerry Connolly with your request for tickets to President-Elect Obama's Inauguration. We will be sending emails to lottery winners in the next few minutes. If you do not receive a subsequent email from us today, your name was not selected in the lottery.

Sounds good to me. I'll hang tight Gerry!

I caught it on my blackberry and I literally stopped everything, waiting very impatiently for the follow up email to arrive. I've always defined "a few" as three, not sure why, so I figured I'd take a break and just stare at my phone screen for (much longer than) three minutes.

I have to say, I was very optimistic. 10,000 ticket requests for only 200 available tickets. 2% odds...but hey, better than any other lotteries I've played. I also must admit that for me it's felt like the movie A Christmas Story. I wanted the Red Ryder BB gun sooo bad that it just had to come. How could it not?

Lastly, I recently saw this short on The Secret and was convinced that me thinking about it constantly would make it happen. Right? Those people wouldn't lie.

What I learned:

1. The Secret doesn't apply to the historical Obama inauguration event, so go ahead and bite it you stupid secret cult scam fancy ass.
   
2. "A few" may not be three, but I know it's not 1000 because I still don't have an email.
3. Who voted Gerry Connolly into office (maybe I did)? But I hate suspense, and now I don't like you either. Where's your compassion? Not getting an email from you was like breaking up over facebook - I felt cheap, used, and led on.
4. I'll be one of the other 4.99 million Americans crammed on the mall watching from a distance on Jan 20. Whatever, at least I'm tall.
5. Instead of getting my Red Rider, I got the pink bunny PJs.

Who knows, maybe something amazing will happen in the next couple of weeks and I'll be blessed with a ticket to the event. Either way, I'm still excited and only hope it's not freezing out that day. I plan to take lots of pictures, and maybe even get a decent few shots with Mr Pres Elect in them (which I'll share of course).

-msc

All I Want For Christmas

I'll keep this short and to the point - I want tickets to the friggin' Inauguration of Barack Obama. If anyone cares to share just one with me as they become available the week prior (date is Jan 20) I'd surely love you forever, as well as offer to buy you fancy things like toothpaste with baking soda, and Hershey's chocolate bars, among other things.

Per the VA government website - beware of fakers! It states:

Tickets to the 56th Inaugural Ceremonies will be provided free of charge and distributed through Members of the 111th Congress. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies does not provide tickets to the public. Members of the public interested in attending the Inaugural Ceremonies should contact their Member of Congress or U.S. Senators to request tickets.

The public should also be aware that no website or other ticket outlet actually has inaugural swearing-in tickets to sell, regardless of what they may claim. Tickets will not be distributed to Congressional offices until the week before the inauguration and will require in-person pick-up.

“Any website or ticket broker claiming that they have inaugural tickets is simply not telling the truth,” said Howard Gantman, Staff Director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. “Tickets for the swearing-in of President-elect are all provided through members of Congress, and the President-elect and Vice President-elect through the Presidential Inaugural Committee. We urge the public to view any offers of tickets for sale with great skepticism.”

Seriously, I'm dying over here - hook me up! I don't have faith that I'll win the lottery that's being used to handout tix. That is, so many people have already requested tix, including me, that they are having a lottery for the tickets. (giant sighs).

I'll post up in my scuba gear at the reflecting pool the night before if it comes down to it. Nasty.