Well, I guess that it is okay to to slip up in a speech occasionally because everybody's favorite black, though inexperienced, presidential candidate is apparently fallible too.

Obama Overstates Kansas Tornado Deaths

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.

The death toll was 12....

As the Illinois senator concluded his remarks a few minutes later, he appeared to realize his gaffe.

"There are going to be times when I get tired," he said. "There are going to be times when I get weary. There are going to be times when I make mistakes."

( Read more... )

I'm all for honesty in politics, but I suspect that mistake of four orders of magnitude or higher ought not to happen, ever. I can just picture it, "I want to cut taxes by 10,000%... oh wait, I meant 12%"... or I want to put $120,000 into public health care... oh wait, I meant $1,000,000,000."

Well, I promised that I would give some more detail...

It is really quite depressing that I am now on the downhill slide of my stay here in the District. I have had an amazing time here, I've learned a lot, academically, professionally and personally; but the time is literally flying by.

This weekend got off to a bit of a slow start. It had been a very long week between work and my monstrous paper and I really needed to get out. Friday only kinda-sorta came together. But I did find something that makes me love this city even more than I already did. I was walking around and happened to pass St. Matthew's, they had their doors open and their lights on, which was odd because it was almost 10:30. I figured, what the heck and walked up the steps to see what was going on. There was an amazing choir singing. I saw a little sign that said something to the effect of "concert open to the public" so I walked in. The acoustics in that building are amazing, and the voices just seemed so right for it. It was a positively religious experience....

Saturday was a bit more of a standard weekend in DC. I woke up earlyish and went to the International Spy Museum which was a bit disappointing to be honest. There was lots of amazing things to see but it was laid out very poorly. They didn't guide traffic well and there was lots of jostling and bumping; granted it was a bit crowded, but still. It was also the first place I've had to pay admission to since I've been here, which is always a drag. Oh, and when did my dependent's card mean that I can't get the military discount? That's messed up!

That night Meghan, Lauren, Gabri, Latha, Matt, and I all went to the Dubliner, an Irish pub on capital hill, I may have mentioned it once before. It was nice change from the loud and garish scene we've been frequenting. There was a live singer but it was still mellow enough that you could talk to each other. Probably one of the highlights was that we got to meet Miss Meghan's Man of Mystery Erick (that would have been so much better if his name was Mike or Mark or something with an 'M'). He was very nice and quite smart, somehow he wasn't what I expected, which doesn't mean much since I'm not really sure now what I expected. We also got together with a coworker of Latha's. That was... interesting. I've never met someone who was so unsure of himself that he had to tell so many people how smart he is. If you are smart and arrogant about it, I can at least understand; this guy was dumber that shit and thought he was a cross between Immanuel Kant and Giacomo Casanova he even treated us to his own little version of Histoire de ma vie. And besides that, he was obnoxiously loud.

Oh, and I got a little (read "very") toasted there too... Woodchuck Cider very good stuff but you must be very careful, it tastes just like Martinelli's.

But like the good little boy that I am I got up in time to go to church. They did a breakfast served by the Deacons, which was nice... the food wasn't great, but it was nice that the did it. I'm meeting more and more people at the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington DC and I'm still liking the church. Lauren and Meghan need to come with me once...

Sunday afternoon the girls of club 802 and I went to the National Zoo. We had a blast, I'm spoiled by the "World Famous" San Diego Zoo so I did notice a few things that I'm not really fond of, but it was a very nice park. And it was a beautiful day, not too hot or crowded. We really couldn't have asked for better conditions. We had a good time laughing at the Sloth Bear, oohing and ahhing at every moved made by their pandas, and fretting about the baby ducks.

All tolled, it was an excellent weekend. Next week I'm going to Charlottesville Virginia, Lauren has a ticket to go and Meghan is going to try to crash it. I'm pretty excited. In the mean time I've got to make even more progress on my paper, It is coming along but it is still a rather daunting task.

See you next week, same time same station.

I'll post more details latter. If you're interested, here's a LINK to my Flikr where you can see some of my pics of the trip so far.

European astronomers have found a relatively Earth-like planed orbiting an ancient star in Libra. Check it out!

Found 20 light years away: the New Earth

t's got the same climate as Earth, plus water and gravity. A newly discovered planet is the most stunning evidence that life - just like us - might be out there.

Above a calm, dark ocean, a huge, bloated red sun rises in the sky - a full ten times the size of our Sun as seen from Earth. Small waves lap at a sandy shore and on the beach, something stirs...

This is the scene - or may be the scene - on what is possibly the most extraordinary world to have been discovered by astronomers: the first truly Earth-like planet to have been found outside our Solar System.

The discovery was announced today by a team of European astronomers, using a telescope in La Silla in the Chilean Andes. If forced bookies to slash odds on the existence of alien beings.

( Read more... )

The planet falls in the "Just Right" Goldilocks Climate zone, has a gravity twice that of earth (obviously sufficient to hold on to an atmosphere), and a stable orbital period of 13 days (not much of a growing season). But perhaps more importantly, the star that it orbits is ancient which means that if anything were to live on this planet it would have had several billions of (Earth) years to evolve.

But even if this planet doesn't support complex life, or any life at all, It adds credence to the idea that Earth isn't all that unique. On the scale of the Galaxy 20 light years isn't all that far away (out of reach for the moment, but hey) and, like the article says, it is rather serendipitous that not very long after we develop a telescope capable of detecting an Earth-like planet, we do. I literally think this is the coolest thing I've heard in days!

h/t: DRUDGE
see also: Potentially Habitable Planet Found

Max Schulz: Americans consume lots of myths with their energy

Six myths about America’s energy use

Energy is central to virtually every activity from sun-up to sundown, yet Americans hardly know much about it. Though we use various sources of energy to power and illuminate our day-to-day lives, we are fairly ignorant about many of the basics of our energy economy. The ultimate implications extend beyond mere ignorance; sound policy decisions require a well-informed public...

MYTH » Most of our energy comes from oil. Nearly two-thirds of respondents believed this to be the case.
FACT » In reality, 60 percent of our energy comes from non-oil sources. Growing electricity use accounts for more than 85 percent of growth in our energy demand since 1980; this deserves greater focus from policy-makers and media.

MYTH » Saudi Arabia provides more oil to the United States than does any other foreign country. When asked for the largest source of foreign oil, 55 percent guessed Saudi Arabia.
FACT » Canada provides the United States with more foreign oil than any other country.  An erroneous belief in our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil leads to an illegitimate fear of having energy used as an economic weapon against us.

MYTH » The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was fatal.  More than 80 percent of respondents did not disagree.
FACT » No one died from the accident at Three Mile Island.  Untenable safety concerns prevent a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved by turning to nuclear power as an energy source.

MYTH » Our cities are becoming more polluted and our forests are shrinking.  Nearly 84 percent believe cities are increasingly polluted; 67 percent believe logging and development are shrinking our forests.
FACT » Trends suggest that the air in our cities is becoming cleaner and we are experiencing annual net gains for forest area.  Inaccurate assumptions about our environment encourage onerous regulation and limit urban development.

MYTH » The Kyoto Protocol would require all countries to cut emissions.  Almost 60 percent believe that is, in fact, required by the protocol.
FACT » The Kyoto Protocol has exempted large emitters like China and India; analysts have shown it would be unlikely to reduce global warming.  The cost to the American economy, however, is estimated to be between $13 billion and $397 billion in 2010.

MYTH » The U.S. can meet its future energy demand solely through conservation and efficiency measures.  Nearly 70 percent agreed with this statement.
FACT » We will need 30 percent more energy in 2030 than we consume today — not a demand that can be met through mere conservation.  Our needs will be met by introducing new energy sources — like nuclear power.

Source: The Center for Energy Policy and the Environment, The Manhattan Institute

( Read more... )

I ought to just label these by week numbers, might make it a bit more straightforward.

Anyway, My weekend was quite eventfull, and I didn't spend too much money... Friday Megan punked out on me. We were supposed to go to a piano bar called Mr Smith's of Georgetown, in Georgetown of all places (the first place I found turned out to be gay), but apparently the week had caught up with here and she wanted to stay in... she ended up going out anyway, but we wont comment on that (just giving you shit Megan).

So Saturday, Megan was supposed to be going to Charlottesville with her elective class (am I writing about her too much? hmm) but -------------------------------------------------------------------------------(edited for the protection of the innocent) she begged off. So I, thinking I had nothing else to do that day, decided to take advantage of the gorgeous day and take a walk down to the Mall and see some monuments. I asked the roomies but Gabri is drowning in work and Matt and Latha were being Matt and Latha, so I went by myself. I saw the Lincoln, Vietnam, Korea, and Einstein Memorials... I'm putting together a Flikr that I'll post the link to so my readership of three can see my pics.
I was on my way back to the center and waiting in line for lunch when I get an amazingly well timed phone call, from none other than -----, who I fully expected to be in -------. Having discovered that her ----- was miraculously ----- she and Lauren wanted to go back to Tortilla Coast for more all-you-can-eat chicken fajitas. I said "sure, that sounds much nicer than Wendy's". So I high tail it back to the center and head out again.

They also wanted to go see the monuments I'd just seen, but, not really wanting to do the same thing twice in one day, I suggested that we cross the river and go see Arlington instead. Lauren, -----, Darcy, and I saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the tomb of Pierre L'Enfant, and the home of Robert E. Lee, Arlington House.

By this time all four of us are dead tired and we make our way home to enjoy a fantastic traditional Italian dinner prepared by Gabri.

And that's just Saturday. Bright and early Sunday morning, I hopped on to a bus and rode up to Baltimore to see the Orioles take on the Blue Jays. The game took a little getting started, but it picked up around the fourth and turned out to be really great.

I spent most of the time after the game catching up with Evan Engardia (sp?), a blast from my middle school past. I'm not sure if he is as smart as I am, and therefore annoying, or if he is just an ass. He made some rather peculiar comments about people, about relating to and manipulating them, especially women. He expects to go into politics, good for him, but unless he can re-evaluate that attitude, I don't think he'll go that far. Besides, saying "I'm going to lead my community in as an elected official" is a lot like saying "I'm going to be a rock star when I grow up".

But you see, trips like those are when I really wish Tori was here with me. By this time in the program everyone has already formed their little groups. Their not as inaccessible as a clique, not yet anyway, but they are definitely social groups. And when you don't have the one you've formed close at hand it can be very difficult to enter into someone else's, especially if you are by yourself, if you are with someone else it can be easier. And besides, I really like going to ball games with Tori.

Megan is going to try to get a flexcar for next weekend so we can go eat blue crab in Annapolis and I told them I'd try to get them onto the Acadamy so they can flirt with sailors.

Love you Tori

I have been lax in my updating. Well, it is more like I've been busy with everything else! Lets see if I can hit the highlights.

So, Friday we took our picture in front (or rather behind) the Capitol Building. It is amazing how much effort is required to to get 5 groups of 20-odd people together, all at the same time... It took much too long and it was blinding cold, so no one was feeling very nice.

Since it was cold, Lauren (one of my favorite girls from Club 802) decided that she had to have margaritas, which worked out nicely because there is a Mexican place called Tortilla Coast at the base of Capitol Hill. When we got there we realized that they serve all-you-can-eat chicken fajitas on Saturday. So Lauren, Meghan (my other favorite girl from Club 802) went back, had lots to eat and, due to some clever bar tending error, about a pitcher-and-a-half of pomegranate margaritas.

That night was my roommate Latha's 21st Birthday, so guys of 608 and the best girls of 802 went to Perrys in Adams Morgan for dinner. It is very nice, everyone else went for sushi, but I'm not big on raw fish or intestinal parasites... but I tried a piece, just a piece, and it wasn't that bad. I've noticed a trend in restaurants in this city: many places, Perry's included, don't put their name outside their doors, and where they would, they put their address instead; I guess it is an extension of the "if you have to ask you cant afford it" rule, kind of "if you don't already know the name you can't afford it."

Well, then we all came back to our room and drank cheap champagne and toasted Latha and his Birthday. But, Lauren being the partier she is, decided she wasn't done yet and dragged Meghan, Latha, and I back out to Frontpage. Meghan and I decided that while that sort of atmosphere is fun, we would both prefer something a little quieter and with fewer people bumping into you. She and I are going to The Banana Cafe and Piano Bar next weekend.

I guess those are the high points, I've spent just about every waking moment since then writing my paper and studying for class.... I do have to be academic after all, but I'm making progress and having a great time.... Now, I just need to remember that money isn't free and budget a little better... :gulp:

THIS is why I love country music! No one could have said it better.

These were really too much to pass up...

Cold, rain cuts short global warming rally

More than two dozen demonstrators braved cold, wet weather Saturday in Reno to attend a rally designed to draw attention to global warming.

The event was cut short by heavy rain and sleet, said organizer Lisa Stiller of the Northern Nevada Coalition for Climate Change.

( Read more... )

A regional rally for a global problem

WILMINGTON -- A mix of snow and fog at the foot of the Whiteface Mountain toll road made it a white-on-white world Saturday as 15 people -- and two dogs -- started the 2,500-foot ascent to the top.

The group was skiing up the state's fifth-highest peak -- which was wrapped in early spring snow -- to call attention to the damage that global warming could bring to the Adirondacks.

( Read more... )

Something just tells me that their message isn't coming across... and the second one seems to imply that snow at the bottom of the mountains is a sign that global warming is disrupting snow at the top of the mountain (someone will have to explain that to me one day) and that the winter temperature on the mountain has risen since 1970 but that the current snow load is a "normal occurrence". So which is it? Has global warming destroyed the Adirondacks or was there just a few bad years three decades ago and things are back to "normal" occurrences?

Okay, so I will have been in DC for two full weeks at around 5:00 this afternoon!

It was a very nice weekend. I ended up not making it to the National Cathedral for Easter, which was a bit disappointing. I guess I read the bus schedule wrong, and it was freezing cold waiting for it, so I decided to go to Mass at the Catholic Cathedral just a few blocks away. It was interesting, apparently the Bishop is what they call a "resurrection theologian" anyway so it wasn't as foreign to me as it could have been. And besides, it is the Easter story, I've heard it 21 times now, once a year.

Another interesting thing about the Catholic service was how fast it was, less than a hour and every one was out of there, no messing around. And since it was so very early I decided I might as well go the Baptist services too, so I did. It was also very nice, the choir did several songs from Handel's Messiah and so I went around humming the Hallelujah Chorus all day.

That afternoon, Gabri, Latha, and I went to the Hirshhorn Museum, which is modern art and the National Gallery of Art, which is everything else. We had a very nice time, after we got there. I don't know how it happened but I got us totally lost in the totally opposite side of town.

Then Monday night Gabri, Matt, Latha, and I went out to dinner at Bertuccis, a nice little brick oven pizza place. The food was good and the company was great but the service blew... c'est la vie, we had a good time anyway.

And then last night, Gabri has a friend who went through the UCDC program last quarter, another exchange student, only from Australia. She has now graduated and spending 10 weeks traveling around the world. They've been to California, now they're hitting the east coast and then Europe and Asia... must be nice. Anyway, they were in town and wanted to see Gabri and he invited me along. They had drinks at the Beacon and then dinner at this very nice little Italian place in Adams Morgan. It is in a little converted house, great food and atmosphere.

The Aussie friends were hilarious too, very fun people. It was interesting to hear what they thought about American culture, apparently our orange cheese really bothers them. They said they might call me and go out again tonight... we'll see.

Well, that's the highlights I guess, film at eleven...

I feel a little bad. I've spend the last two and a half hours researching for my paper rather than for the project they want me to be doing... They've been telling me all the time that this is supposed to be an opportunity for me to do my paper as much as it is for me to work for them, but I think they are under the impression that I want to write my paper on the Flotilla. I'm actually writing on something they included in the last volume, but in a very different way.

I guess I should spend the rest of my time here working on their project. If I did that it would probably be okay. And besides, it isn't like their standing over me asking for hourly updates on what I've found... I worry too much...

I'll update on my weekend when I get home this afternoon.

Well, tonight was a very fun, busy, different, but lots of fun. It started with a rather productive day at work, both for the stuff I'm working on for them but also for my seminar paper. Then I went with my seminar TA to Georgetown to see their library. They have a gorgeous campus, their main building looks more like a cathedral than a school. The whole lot makes UCR look pretty shabby. I found some useful material, but I didn't check anything out, got some names and dates that I'll have an easier time getting from work rather than taking the bus all the way across town.

That sounds like a fairly productive afternoon, but that is really only the very beginning. I then went to the Kennedy Center where I saw Yundi Li play Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, one of the most technically difficult and complicated pieces ever composed, like it was nothing at all. I didn't even know that a person could move their hands that fast. And the National Symphony Orchestra was phenomenal with Ravel and Prokofiev.

And no, that is not all. About 10, after I'd been home for maybe half an hour, Lauren and Megan, also from UCR who live two floors above us, came over to see if Gabri and I, the two "of age" fellows in this room, wanted to go out with them to The Front Page on Dupont Circle. In a move that is totally, completely, 110% out of character for me I said "sure" and three weeks to the day past my 21st birthday I went to my first club. It was an... interesting experience, we ran into some other folks from UCR and a friend of Megan's, Heath, who is apparently a Secret Service agent. (I wasn't convinced at first either but he's got a fairly authentic looking ID)

Before we even got inside Megan was freaking out because she though she'd forgotten her ID, Lauren was giving her a hard time about it, but Karma being the bitch that it is struck back. Megan finds her ID and she and I walk in first, then Lauren realizes that she has forgotten her ID. But the guy totally gave her the opportunity to get in with out it: "Oh, your friend has your ID? Go in and get and bring it back out. :wink, wink:" But she totally missed it. So, back to the center we go, laughing all the way! It is a good thing that we only live down the street.

Now they are saying that they want to go Karaoke tonight... I don't think I've ever had enough to drink to get me up there.... And Gabri wants to cook "his" Italian dish tonight, which sounds a bit more exciting than endless drunken renditions of "I feel like a woman". But we had a really fun time, and I have been officially dubbed as "awesome".

:sigh: I like this city more and more, I miss home but if I had to live here, it wouldn't be torture. Of course I say that as the snow is dusting the roof of the building next to mine...

I got to see my mom last night. She is in town for her quarterly meeting with her counterparts in the Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard and took the earlier flight so that we could spend the evening together. We had a nice time, she took me to a very nice lunch and then a movie (TMNT, its nostalgic, not childish!) and then we just stumbled across these Lantern Walks about the cherry trees that the National Park service does around the Tidal Basis. It was actually a lot of fun and gave tons of history about some the more out of the way places and smaller monuments that don't get seen very often (of if they do no on knows what they are for).

The ranger was funny though, she was not a naturalist, she was very much an historian, apparently all but one or two of the Rangers in Washington are historians. Which is kind of ironic with my situation, Tori could be a greener at the National Arboretum or one of the River parks and I could be a historian in the district and we could be a whole family of people with funny hats! How cool would that be?

I have class tonight, which should be interesting, so I probably won't get to do much else today. But I suppose that I am here primarily to learn something. And Friday I am going to a show at the Kennedy Center, a Liszt recital. I am quite excited! Well, I've got to go.

Love you Tori

I had a busy weekend. It was a bit of a fault start on Saturday, no one wanted to let me into the federal buildings with my pocket knife. So I went to see the United States Navy Memorial and the National Geographic Society instead. They have a nice little exhibit hall and a Japanese Garden. By the time I got back to the center, where I'd planned to put my knife away and go back out again, most of the day was gone.

But Saturday night was interesting in its own right. I was not aware but apparently college basketball was having a championship game last night and after three years as a college student I went to my first college party. My roommates and I were invited to another room to watch the Georgetown game, but that was more drinking and cavorting than game watching. But after that one was the UCLA game, and since just about everyone here is a University of California student of one type or another we were all rooting for the home team, too bad they didn't win, or there would probably be another party tonight.

( Lots more behind cut )

Ich liebe Dich Tori! Tschuess!

Well, for all intents and purposes (I hate that phrase) I am done with my first week in Washington. I have actually only been here since Tuesday but this is a weekend and it is simpler to just refer to this as "week 1".

Anyway, mostly more of the same this week. I started real work at the Center but it was a bit misguided and lacked direction, I've got a better idea of what I'm looking for though and will be do better on Monday.

I ventured north into Adams Morgan today. The transition is really rather abrupt between the Golden Triangle business district and the more urbane locality across Massachusetts Avenue. As soon as you cross the street the number of pedestrians is slashed by a factor of four, the ties immediately disappear and everyone is inexplicably wearing sandals in place of their wingtips. All the buildings transition very quickly from eleven story edify of gray stone, glass and steel, into three story (or shorter) hovels of red brick with little gardens and steps lined with wrought iron fences. I went there ostensibly to get groceries and I really felt silly wheeling the centers little cart out of Urban Bohemia and back into the Capitol of Capitalism.

Well, I guess those are the highlights. I plan to go back to the Mall tomorrow and hit the museums but I am looking forward to sleeping without fear of an alarm clock... not that I will likely sleep in all that late of course.

Mi amas vin, Torio

I am quite satisfied with those, I'm not really sure what I would complain about.

Okay, now things are starting to get rolling.

I started my internship this morning... and I was late which I hate! It took me a bit longer to figure out the buses than I had anticipated. But once I got there and met the folks I decided that I am going to like this.

These people are real historians in the most academic sense possible, they don't teach, they don't worry about making money with the books they write and they aren't overly bothered with annoying administrators. In fact they were actually complaining about the journalist types who read the dull multi-volume treatises that they publish and then write a book of their own. I thought it was a bit funny.

I am going to be working on sorting through thousands of micro-filmed documents to find stuff regarding the Delaware Flotilla. You probably haven't heard of it, which is why I'm researching it, to change that. Its academic you see.

There is also a prodigious amount of information for me to use on my seminar paper, which is excellent news. The one draw back that I've seen so far about this whole situation, at least with the internship is that I will have to get up painfully early again, it takes almost 40 minutes to get there on the bus. blerg

I have class in twelve minutes, The Political Culture of Democracies: A Comparative Historical Approach. I've heard the Prof. Speak and he is passionate and engaging. And he tries to be funny, which is pretty funny in itself.

There is one other thing I'd like to complain about for a minute. They've got us living right smack dab in the business district (The Golden Triangle to the locals). Which isn't bad in and of itself. But it does mean that there is nowhere to get a cheap meal, only $15 burgers and mojitos. There are none of the little chain restaurants that were so damn convienient in SoCal. And I haven't found the fabled ethnic and small-time cuisine yet... although I'm going to venture into Adams Morgan, the neighborhood to the north of us which is supposed to be "the most ethnically diverse part of the city", it sounds promising. We shall see.

So, I walked around some today... Went up to Dupont Circle which was supposed to be this amazing cultural local... I'm not convinced, but I was there fairly early in the day and I didn't go down any of the side streets. I'm still holding out hope.

Apparently I am living right in the middle of the business district of the Federal City. We're flanked by the National Geographic Society, the Embassies of Australia and the Philippines and the Human Rights Campaign. With lots of National Associations of This That and The Other Thing within a few blocks.

I do like that there is a statue of someone on just about every corner. Right out my door are Daniel Webster, antebellum statesmen (he looks a bit cranky); Winfield Scott, he played a small but important part in the war of 1812 and then went on to conquer Mexico; and Samuel Hahnemann, who's greatest claim to fame is that he invented homeopathic medicine, a dubious distinction to say the least. I've also seen David Farragut, who is damning the torpedoes by the Metro station and Martin Luther who stands behind General George Thomas, who I'd never heard of before.

After all my orientations I wen to World War II Memorial and the Mall. I'd seen most of the other things on the Mall before but that one wasn't built the last time I was out here. I'll be going back to the Mall a few times a week, probably after work, to check out all the Smithsonian museums.

Well, I think that does that. There is a building social in about an hour which should be fun. And I start work and class tomorrow, so I should have some more first impressions to share.

Okay, so after an inordinate amount of airport hassle, I am officially into my new home in Washington DC.

First, the inordinate hassle:
I was supposed to be here yesterday. I was in the plane and all packed and everything, we were even on the runway. When the captain informed us that (notice the quotes) "This plane is dead". Not the best beginning of a cross country flight. It wasn't until 2:00 that afternoon that I finally got my luggage and out of the freaking airport! But anyway, here I am a day latter but not late.

Unfortunately tomorrow doesn't look all that exciting, I'm stuck in a variety of orientations until 2:00, after which I hope to go look around the neighborhood some. Try to figure out what there is to see in the immediate few blocks, find the metro stop and the grocery store, that sort of thing.

I start my internship bright and early on Thursday. Which will no doubt give me a great many more things to talk about. But so far, so good.

More to come I'm sure.

Oh, and I saw this at the Minneapolis/St.Paul Airport... in case you can't tell, that is an iPod Vending Machine... what is this world coming to?