Heather and I voted! It took about 1 hour and 20 minutes, which I think is acceptable for this particular election but that time can certainly be improved. I almost started to cry as it came to my turn to be assigned a voting machine. I can get emotional sometimes!

Here’s a picture when we first arrived, the line was 2x as long inside.

We vote at the Northwest Career Center in district 64 of Columbus, Ohio. While waiting in line, I herd a staffer tell someone else in line why the line was so slow. Apparently they only had 3 machines working at 6:30. They got all 19 working by 7:30.

Heather and I arrived at about 7:10am. We were done at about 8:30am, which was cutting it close for Heather to get to work. Everyone in line was very pleasent and the time flew by twittering on my G1.

Even though I’ve voted, I’m not done yet with the election. I will be volunteering one more time for the Obama campaign this afternoon. Only after will I be able to say I’m done with the election and just sit back and watch how the chips fall.

How was your voting experience today or did you early vote?

If you’re like me and waiting for an official Barack Obama yard sign, go ahead and make your own!

Home Made Barack Obama Yard Sign

First, you need a waterproof sign. The trick: laminate it!

I printed the high-res Obama’08 image (right click link, select “save as”) using Microsoft Print and Fax wizard to my color printer on regular 8.5″ x 11″ paper. Then I flipped the paper over and printed the same image on the other side. I then took the print to my local Staples and had it laminated.

Next, you need a way to display the sign in your yard. I had some scrap 2″x2″ lumber that I cut into three pieces (2 vertical 1 horizontal pieces), 2 yard stakes and a handful of deck screws and made the sign frame pictured above. I then drilled small holes at the corners of the laminated sign and tied it to drilled corners of the sign frame. I used trash twist ties, but string will work just as well.

You can also print 2 copies of the high-res image above on two separate sheets and attach them to one very long yard stake. you can pick up a dozen yard stakes at your local lumber store (Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc..) from $3-$8 depending on length.

Today I put the Barack Obama bumper sticker on my car and I picked up my Obama Ohio t-shirt from skreened.com.

What sorts of things are you doing to support your canidate?

I recently found that many friends and family were unaware that there are web badges as well as other artwork available for us to put on our web site and in our yards to support Barack Obama during this 2008 presidential election.

Here is the source code for the badge, which is 200 pixels wide, that I added to my blog.

<a href="http://www.barackobama.com/" title="Barack Obama 2008"><img src="http://www.barackobama.com/images/widgets/Obama08_Logo200.gif" border="0" alt="Barack Obama 2008" /></a>
download source

Barack Obama Web Badges

A full list of Barack Obama 2008 presidential web badges are available here.

Barack Obama Downloads

If you wish to download images to upload to your own web site or for your computer’s desktop, for printing banners or signs, etc…, please visit the official downloads page for full sets of downloadable images and materials.