CNN Youtube debate - and Beach bonfires UPDATED!!!!!!!!!! DEC 1st to add pictures

We headed to portsmouth to watch the CNN-Youtube debate with the Portsmouth meetup group. We got introduced to everyone and as usual, as with all Ron Paul supporters we have met everyone was awesome. As we were ordering dinner the debate started and we got some attention from the other bar patrons when we were applauding Ron taking the stage. Then all throughout the night i kept noticing people from other parts of the bar coming over to watch the debate with us. we had a great time jack bought all of us OLFD people dinner (we had the best pizza ever) and I personally thought the debate went awesome. RP made himself look great, he stood up for himself, he was passionate, and all the other guys made them selves look like complete idiots. so heres a couple of pics of us at the debate watch party






afterwards we stopped at a gas station to drop off materials to a guy that we talked to the night before who was now a hardcore RP supporter, we got him to come canvass with us saturday and gave away 3 yard signs. Then we came back here and a few of us went down to the beach and held the first annual Ron Paul Revolution Beach Bonfire :) heres some of the pics from that























a clam i found

General happenings

We have been super busy the last few days, I haven't had a chance to do much updating so heres the scoop.

tuesday a guy named bill called and said he had seen our video blogs online and had some gifts for us. he stopped by and brought each of us a gift certificate for a local grocery store. This was the best gift we could have gotten, feeding 10 people isn't easy. so heres bill giving us the gifts. I will upload the video in the player on ronpaultulsa.com/NH tomorrow.




later in the evening we went to Murphys in Manchester and hung out with Ron Paul supporters and FSP members. Tuesday nights we all meet up and everyone gets together just to relax and talk about what we have been doing for the last few days. heres some pics of that as well.

this is linda, you might know some of her work... ahem the mosaic ad, founders flyers? she is super awesome and the guy next to her is Paul... he has the coolest tea party poster on his van.




Trevor lyman and jesse the manchester meetup organizer






more random pics

Not so free lobsters

Charles brought home two live lobsters last night and just laid them on the floor. They were super cool, I have personally never touched a live lobster, much less one crawling on my living room floor. The kids thought they were pets and when they went into the pot they were like "where did our pets go?" So the lobster was steamed and from what I hear it was very good. I myself have a general rule about not eating anything I have petted within the last hour, so I opted out. But it was a fun experience I thought i would share. Here are some pics and you can find the video at www.ronpaultulsa.com/NH in the video player. (the fish was dead)

saturday canvassing

Today was our first official day of canvassing. We went to Exeter, NH and started on a list of addresses from HQ. The canvassing packets make it really easy. the addresses are mapped out in order, and the script is super easy to follow. People are really cool with strangers walking up to their doors too. We had a few people say they didn't have time or weren't interested in getting information but they would still answer a few questions about their voting status. The campaign has an official strategy for us to follow which makes it easy to not get wrapped up in conversations about our own opinions of RP.

The first time someone actually said "I am voting for Ron Paul" I almost didn't know what to say, I was so excited I just wanted to yell "I am one of you!" after explaining How i had just come from Oklahoma to help with this effort he was very interested in what we were doing and said he wasn't a "ron paul junkie" like me but he was definitely voting for him.

we had a really good response. MOST of these people are undecided, not leaning toward one or the other, with only a few ideas about ron paul. Most had heard of ron paul, and heard about NOV 5th. I was so so pleased with our results and the responses.

we got home and did some video blogging and now we are on our way to the bar at the end of the street where a band is playing. we have some of the ozzfest flyers so were going to talk to that crowd about the war, and the war on drugs.

ITS A REVOLUTION BITCHES!

Black Friday

Black friday has been the unofficial beginning of the Christmas season at least since the start of the modern Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924. "Black Friday" was originally so named because of the heavy traffic on that day, although most contemporary uses of the term refer instead to it as the beginning of the period in which retailers are in the black (i.e., turning a profit).

for Ron paul supporters it means there are hundreds of freezing people standing in lines waiting to be let in to spend their fiat money on useless products, ready to be primed for the freedom message.

we left hampton at 3:30 am to drive to the nearest "shopping district" in Portsmouth.
The first place we drove by was circuit city. There were at least 150 people in line and we dove right in... This first crowd was pretty rough. Most of them were just too damn cold to be interested in anything other than being let in the front doors but we got a few good responses. We moved on to the mall and hit up the best buy crowd first.

These people were hilarious... The first guy I got to have a real conversation with says "oh no, Gialuliani is my guy. When Hunter asked him why he supported the ghoul, he couldn't even answer, and turned the question into, well tell me something about ron paul... "IM GLAD YOU ASKED"... after explaining to this guy that Mr. 9/11 was not who he says he is and telling him why, and also why Ron Paul should be his man, I think he finally realized that maybe he hadn't looked into it enough.

we moved on to a cold young lady who was full of questions. mostly about why the UN was bad, what Ron would do for the environment, blah blah blah.... after explaining the bigger picture to her she was primed and ready to switch from Obama to Ron.

a group of young guys were all about Ron Paul and helped create a buzz around them by screaming "Ron Paul is the MAN!!!"...it didn't take much work after that we worked the crowd a while longer, and when on to the people standing in line at STAPLES... what people could seriously want that bad from STAPLES is beyond me (it was like 20 degrees out, :)

I told one guy i had drove here from Oklahoma and he was like OMG you must be freezing.. after laughing about what a puss i was for being cold, he was very interested in the fact that so few people voted in the primaries last election, because he was one of those people. I told him about November 5th and he was VERY VERY INTERESTED in that.

So we handed out plenty of materials. I wish we would have had hot chocolate, I promise we would have gained 50 new hardcore supporters.

So heres some pics of the crowd, and the sunrise pics i took on the way back home.






oooh pretty:

thanksgiving in hampton

I have never in my life been woken up by the smell of food cooking, I mean i have awoke to the smells, but the smells have never woke me...til today, We arrived in New Hampshire at 8 am and after driving all night we fell asleep before our heads hit the pillow. I came down the stairs to see Laura making a homemade Thanksgiving dinner from scratch. We had everything, Turkey, sweet potatoes (the best ever) dressing, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, homemade apple pie. The next best thing to being at your moms house for thanksgiving, is being at someone elses moms house, and we picked the right house to be. Dinner went great we have all had a lot of fun and now we are sitting around the table playing some texas hold em waiting til its time to leave for black friday.

heres our thanksgiving photos

Finally on the road

The longer it took to leave Kansas city the more I couldn't wait to get to New Hampshire. We started on the road at 9 pm expecting to arrive sometime around 10 wednesday night. of course on a 1700 mile road trip what you expect and what you get are usually two different things. I woke up somewhere in Indiana to a pop, squeal and swerving and realized a tire had blown up. We pulled over and started emptying out the packed full trunk to get the jack and donut. Lo and behold after the trunk was completely empty we found the jack, but no donut. The fuzzy memory of giving away our donut at the yard sale was swimming around in my brain while several cuss words were floating out of my mouth. So surveying our options at 4 am we had some closed looking businesses, a hotel, a truck stop and a mc donalds. Jay decided to walk up to the area and see what he could find out. He came back about 45 minutes later. He had posted a call for help message on the forums, and all we could do at this point was wait.

Its a strange experience waking up on the highway to a state trooper knocking on your window. Since it was obvious what had happened, what with a shredded tire laying next to the car, he only smiled and said, what can I do to help you guys? So he got on his phone and called a tow truck at the discount tire shop that was literally 200 yards from where our car sat on the highway. Had we known how close it was I would have carried the damn tire there to save that $75 towing charge.

Something good came out of it anyway. I spent the 30 minutes it took to change the tire talking with the shop owner about Ron Paul. First topic of conversation was about the IRS. Not much talking was needed on my part, the guy sounded like he was preaching Ron's words himself. It didn't take long to realize the guy was going to be a hardcore supporter when he gave us our bill for $100 and said "hell, ill just send that right back to him" pointing at the liberty cards we had put on the counter for his customers.

SOOO if anyone in Indiana needs a tire go to the discount tire shop of of I-70 about 30 minutes west of Indianapolis. talk to Jeff, hes a good guy.

After that, It was my turn to drive. I hit deadlock traffic about 5 minutes before columbus, OH that didn't stop until we were at least 30 miles out of the city. After 2 hours in traffic not moving an inch a mile, I was ready to let Jay take over again.

around The middle of pennsylvania the fog got thick and stayed that way all the way to NH. When we passed over the Hudson River we couldnt see 2 feet in front of us and we didn't really see much again til this afternoon. As we were driving in to Hampton the tide was up and the waves were crashing over the bridge onto the road.

All in all it was a good trip, the blowout turned out to bring RP another donator, and we made it one piece.

heres the pics i took from the road

coming into ohio




columbus, OH downtown




New england trees are awesome




deadlock traffic heading up to akron, oh



view from the porch





the house ( ill take a better one later)

so far theres 8 of us here

tattoo pic

here is a pic of the tattoo i got the other night, a friend of mine is an apprentice and did this as my going away present sunday afternoon.

November 18th, 2007

We woke up super early this morning and had to rearrange the car. when i picked up jay in springfield he added stuff to the already full car and there was odds and ends laying everywhere. We stayed in monett, Mo for a little while, dropping off campaign materials to friends we have turned onto ron paul. We stopped at a gas station in Lamar, Mo that had presidential candidate lighters with caricatures of the "top tier" candidates on them. I asked if they had any Ron Paul lighters and the guy looked at me with that glazed over "who the hell is ron paul" look on his face, so of course we had to explain and bitch about the media being owned etc. We are now in Kansas City and we will stay the night here, leaving sometime tomorrow after we get the window fixed in the car.

decisions, decisions

When I first heard of Operation Live free or die, I thought... what a great concept. I would love to participate in this but didn't think it was even a possiblity. We have built this little life for ourselves, Jay had no vacation time and couldn't take a leave. We have a great house, and Olivia's school is 15 feet from our backyard. Things are too perfect, too settled and No way Jay would quit his job. When jay first heard about it he thought about how much he would like to do it but didn't think I would go for it. A week or so went by when Jay finally said, would you want to go to New Hamphire to help Ron Paul win the state.... I said, "absolutely, lets start packing." He was in shock for a while as was I as we were talking over the details. Initially we weren't sure how we could even do it, with nothing in savings, few assets, and a house full of junk we could sale but how good is a garage sale in november?

we had so much support from our meetup group that we decided we would do it. We started preparing for our yard sale right away. we failed to realize that our packrat habits would be such a tedious task to accomplish. When I told my family about my plan, My mom asked if Olivia could stay with her while we were gone. That was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life. I decided to let her stay, one because there she is around family and friends she knows and loves, and she would be able to attend the same school I did with my little brother. In the next few days we worked getting things ready. Sleeping in shifts and separating everything we own into 3 piles. Stuff to sale, stuff to store, and stuff to take to New Hampshire. Our garage sale turned out to be profitable and we got rid of at least 1/3 of what we own. We were planning on leaving tulsa Wednesday. then we had some Uhaul setbacks, dog setbacks, and storage setbacks. Autumn, the meetup organizer of berryville, AR agreed to adopt our dog, which was a godsend. thursday evening we were pretty far from being finished so several guys from our meetup group came to help clean, and load everything. Friday morning I decided If i was going to enroll olivia in school I had to leave that morning. We didn't have a storage yet, and the UHaul was sitting in front of our house with all of our belongings. I had to leave Jay behind to finish everything. I made it to the school with 3 minutes to spare and got her enrolled. Jay arrived in springfield last night and we met up. Thanks to everyone that has helped us we made it only 2 days behind schedule, it probably would have been more like 5.

SO now were in Monett, Mo visiting family and will head to Kansas city tomorrow. We should be heading out Sunday or Monday at the latest. I will keep everyone updated as we go along as much as possible with pics. Oh and today I got Revolution tattooed on my arm :) Ill post pics in the next day or so.

until then