Bring on the Fireworks

There are several reasons for celebration today.

On the familial side, my brother Adam turned 40 today (using decimal numbers). This round number is definitely worth a blog entry.

The official fireworks tonight were in honor of Guy Fawkes night, and like last year we had them in the Somerville quad. As I wrote last year, it's absolutely incredible to have fireworks in one's own backyard like this.

There were apparently also fireworks right after McCain's concession, but I was fast asleep and it didn't wake me up. After some conversations today, it became evident that the parties last night were in large part because of the expected outcome. The consensus over here is best summed up by a comment from one of my colleagues (which I am paraphrasing slightly because I can't remember the exact wording) during those conversations: "This election was a big victory for worldwide democracy." The general reaction here was one of elation, and that was from people from all sorts of cultural and world origins.

The one thing that seems to have gone wrong is the Prop 8 business in California, though I guess it's not officially sunk yet. (Hello, People? Others should be able to boink whomever they want and get the same legal benefits because it doesn't hinder your life in any way! Let them be!.)