Today is a Super Important Day

Today is a Super Important Day Today is an important day. The end of an era, the beginning of a new one. I know that I, personally, have been counting down to this day for almost a year. Today marks the beginning of a change we can believe in. Today, we celebrate the power of democracy and the power of the human spirit. Why yes, it is my 19th birthday. How’d you know? While true, that’s not really a national holiday or anything, though, I mean, it probably should be. For those of you living under a rock the last year, or just living with a faulty internet connection, today is the inauguration of 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. This is kind of a big deal. So big, in fact, that the following email was sent out to the MIT community from Chancellor Clay last week: Dear MIT Community, In response to employee requests, and due to the historic nature of this presidential inauguration, on Tuesday, January 20, cable viewingof the inaugural swearing-in and speech will be available in rooms 10-250, 3-270, 4-270, 32-123 and E51-151. We request that supervisors and managers be flexible in allowing employees to use their lunch breaks to watch the inaugural swearing-in and speech. In addition, for those who wish to watch more of the inauguration than their lunch breaks allow, or whose lunch breaks do not coincide with the time of the inauguration, the Institute will allow employees to supplement their lunch breaks with release time of no more than 1 1/2 hours, between 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.. (For those of you just living somewhere not-at-MIT, those hyphenated numbers are actually lecture halls. First number is building, second is room. Not really important, but just fun fact.) Even the hacking community chimed in. Closer. Even closer. Yeah, this is cool. Go watch. This is history in the making. Any thoughts on the next 4 years?