I'm an Eagle!

Okay, not literally, but I am working at the Wichita Eagle now! Today was my second day, and I can already tell that I'm going to love it there.

I'm in training for the rest of this week and next, and will be in the office on my own after that, switching off with another lady for days during the week. (Ex., She'd work Monday and Wednesday, I'd work Tuesday and Thursday, and we'd each work half a day on Friday.)

I'm intrigued by some of the benefits I'll be entitled to just by being an employee: Discount movie tickets, discounts on Eagle merchandise and books, travelers' checks at no charge, personal checks cashed up to $100, employees can register to vote, purchase postage stamps, newspapers can be purchased at half-price (including subscriptions), and classified ads can be placed for half-price.

We printed two extra editions of the newspaper today, one about Bush holding an edge on the election, and one about Bush winning after Kerry conceded the race. I, of course, couldn't resist getting both special editions. Each special would usually cost $.25, but I was able to get both for that price since I'm an employee now.

I have an interview at KPTS tomorrow morning, so we'll see how that goes. I'll let you know, but it'll probably be a while before I hear what they thought of me.

About the presidential race: I thought Kerry said he wasn't going to concede! He is, however, going to make sure that every vote is counted for official reasons (which they would be anyway). Ted Kennedy talked to him earlier in the day and helped him do some number crunching. He told Kerry that if he insisted on not conceding until all the provisional votes were tallied, he'd keep the nation divided for at least another 10 days, and that wasn't good for the country. Apparently that's what convinced Kerry to make his concession call to Bush. I'm glad.

There's no statistical way that Kerry could have won in Ohio. Every single one of those provisional ballots would have had to be votes for him in order to have a clear win, and even that would have been too close to call without a recount, which would have put the country in even more turmoil. We didn't really want to have to use those thousands of lawyers, did we? That would have just prolonged the painful race.

We all knew it was going to be close, but I didn't know it would be this close. A margin of just 4 million popular votes and two electoral votes before Kerry conceded. Wow!

Congratulations, Americans! W got his four more years. May each year be better than the last.