Whew. Just think, we get to do this again in four years....

I don't think I've ever been so glad to seen an election over. Seriously.

Virginia was one of the "battleground states" but never did I realize that I would end up being bombarded over so many days for my vote. I almost felt sorry for people who were undecided because it was just so much information that it was almost overwhelming at times.

I'll be honest here - and it probably won't come as a surprise to most of you that know me - but I chose to vote for John McCain.

Go ahead, roll your eyes. I know you want to.

There were a multitude of reasons, but honestly my biggest beef was that I really wasn't wild about either candidate. Not at all. It was like choosing the lesser of...well, evils would be too strong of a word, but you get the idea. And honestly, I felt like either candidate would be a huge improvement over George "What, I'm Still Here?" W. Am I right in saying that? I am so sick of that fucker phoning it in for the last few years that I could scream.

I've called myself a "compassionate conservative" for quite a few years. I tend to be financially conservative yet socially liberal. A maverick, so to speak - and not in the John McCain sense, either. There are a lot of the social ideals of the Republican party that I find pretty outdated and can't bring myself to agree with. There are a lot of the financial and foreign policy portions of the Democratic platform that I don't agree with either. So sometimes, it's hard to find someone that I click with on all those levels.

A big part of my issue this year was that we are small business owners that fall into that magic income bracket that will most likely end up paying higher taxes. And yeah, I'm selfish - I don't want to feel like I'm being penalized for our hard work. Period. Sure, you can tell me until you're blue in the face that it's probably not going to happen, but I can't believe that until I see it with my own two eyes. And it's not that I don't want to help people that need help, but it totally grinds my ass when there are so many ways that the super wealthy can dodge paying taxes while the rest of us get it stuck to us right in the wallet. Why can't we fix that instead?

I could rant and rave for days but I won't. I will say this much, though. Yesterday was a day when I was proud to be an American. As I stood in the line at my polling station in the rain and saw people of all walks of life coming to get in line to vote, I was amazed at how much we as a country seemed to actually give a fuck this time. We wanted change, and we went after it. We felt reenergized. We had that fire in our bellies again. And I credit Barack Obama with all of that. He made each of us want to care, whether we agreed with his platform or not. He made us all think about how America can be a better place. He got us all talking about our country and what a freaking mess it is right now. And he got us to do something about it.

So while he might not have been my choice, I applaud him. And I stand behind him, and hope for the very best for the new administration. Because Lord, we're all going to need to stick together on this one.