People tell you to get ready when you're raising daughters because they're going to argue over bathroom time, or they're going to have times when they just aren't rational, and when they seem to be reacting to things that you don't expect. All of that's happened in spades.

They're terrific, terrific young women, but they can test your patience.

I grew up in a traditional Catholic family in north Omaha. There were nine kids. I'm the middle child.

I think middle children are more inclined to bring people together and try to find compromise.

We all get along terrifically. We vacation every summer together. Four of the boys live in Omaha, including me. I have a sister in Toronto, two of them in Oregon, a brother in Spokane, Washington, and a sister in the Twin Cities.

All of them came back for the primary and for the general election and knocked on doors for the last week. It became a family affair.

My mom was a stay-at-home mom and we would have a full family meal every night. Now, I'm lucky if I can have one on Sundays with my kids with all the activities.

I won by 14 votes after the provisional ballots came in. It flipped because of the provisional ballots.

We knocked on doors. We went around to every likely voter twice in the primary and two more times in the general election. So it was very much grass roots, very much on the doorstep, going to fish fries and church carnivals.

By the time the election comes, part of you is grateful it's over.

Maybe it is a little more special because it was close, 14 votes out of 11,000. I'd feel pretty privileged to be down here even if it wasn't close.

I've been at Hauptman O'Brien since 1989. My little brother and I went out there and started practicing law together.

I truly enjoy the practice of law. To be a trial lawyer is a terrific thing, to have the training and ability to go into court and represent families. It's a privilege. I'm grateful to practice law with the guys I practice with.

I'm still in there on the weekends and on my days off.

I used to be a worrier. I don't know when I gave it up. When I was a young lawyer, I worried about everything from winning to looking stupid in a trial. But you get to the place where you go, "None of that does any good. It doesn't change a single thing."

I gotta tell you I'm pretty content. I don't compare myself to other people.

I feel strongly about working families. In my practice I represent working families primarily and down here that's the most important thing. The middle class is getting forgotten in government.

One of my favorite things to do is to go to comedy clubs. I go to the Funny Bone in Omaha at least once a month, probably. And I'll hear a thousand jokes in the course of the night, and I'll get up the next morning and I won't remember a single one of them.

My favorite thing to do (on vacations) is to scuba dive. I love going to places where scuba diving is good, jumping in the water and going around the reefs, seeing the fish.

I have a picture of me with a shark.

I don't think there's a place on earth more beautiful than under water. When you get under water and you're in a reef, all these fish that people try to capture and put into tanks and have in their living room, they're all down there. It can be spectacular.

I have a small black dog, a schnoodle, half schnauzer, half poodle. And it's the greatest dog. Mia.

I don't dote over Mia the way Senator Chambers dotes over his poodle, but my kids do.

I drive back and forth every day. I'm a safe driver. There's so many state troopers between Omaha and Lincoln in the morning that I've just resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to observe the speed limit. And it goes from 75 to 65 to 55, with construction all over the place.

But I'm generally careful. I've represented so many people who have been hurt in traffic that I think it's made me a safer person.

I do not have a talent for decorating. If it was left to me I'd probably put brown carpet in every room, paint the walls off-white and throw up pictures of scenes from nature.

Look at (my office). This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices.  There's nothing on the walls except the nails Abbie Cornett left behind.

If I had a national political stage I would express concern about the war in Iraq, which I think, as we look back as a country, I think we were talked into something we never should have gotten into. I think our standing in the world has just diminished because people are now recognizing what the rest of the world saw a long time ago.

I also think we need to do something about health care. We have a lot of people who have no health insurance, and they're one illness away from having nothing. One illness away from having their house taken, from being on the streets. And I think that's something that needs to be addressed at the federal level.

I have lost confidence in the ability of Congress to accomplish anything. It'll be interesting to see if the Democrats can accomplish a significant change now that they're the majority of both houses.

My biggest pet peeve is people that won't listen to reason. And that may be because most of the time I think I'm right, you know? When I've thought something through, whether it's work or down here, when it just seems to me that reason would lead you to one conclusion and people aren't there with me, that's something I'm getting used to.