I just flew back through BWI. Now I am not a fan of BWI. Never have been. The airport seemed like it was a practice airport, on the real airport on-deck circle. Everything was for practice, nothing really counted. A Junior Varsity airport. After this trip, I am reassessing this position. I believe BWI is somewhere between a Little League and a Tee Ball League airport. BWI, in a word, sucks. #1 Services. BWI sucks. The best I can do for food is the City Deli. I was served by a woman, and I am not making this up, who could not see over the mound of lettuce in fixin’s bar in front of her. She practically had to stand on a box to get my sandwich over the sneeze guard that separated her from the hungry angry customers. All in all, BWI doesn’t have much to offer a traveler. There’s the standard news shop. There’s a few Starbucks. Not much to speak of in the way of bars. #2 Ease of Use. BWI sucks. Okay, okay, so the government is testing the new security procedures at BWI. Yes, it does make BWI appear to be a safer airport. BUT, a) they are a huge pain in the ass, and b) why didn’t the government choose an airport better suited to deal with rules. (See Clientele #3) BWI is far away. Let’s not kid ourselves here, it is in Baltimore. It’s so far away that there is a train to reach it. #3 Clientele. BWI sucks. You have two basic kinds of travelers at BWI. The first are the cost conscious folks looking for a slightly better fare with a higher level of hassle. These are typically frequent travelers. They surf the web. They shop for deals. They didn’t want to use precious frequent flyer miles on a short hop flight. They know the usual procedures in an airport and can efficiently get the hell out of my way and through security and onto the plane without causing a ruckus. The other kind of traveler is the first time flier. This is the first time that they have left the trailer park (except for the little drunk and disorderly thing that was cleared up a few years ago). These are the people who complain the airplane seats aren’t wide enough for “normal” people. These are the people who make flying Southwest safe. The problem is that they usually don’t have a clue as to how to deal with the good folks from TSA. They don’t follow the typical convention of “get on the plane and shut the hell up.” Worse yet, they take up parking spaces. #4 Parking. BWI sucks. BWI sucks. BWI sucks. You have three options at BWI. First, you can get robbed blind by the parking lot in the middle of the airport. At $30 a day, there go any savings you might have had on your plane ticket. Second, you can park in an economy lot that is located thirty to forty miles away. In fact, it is easier and more cost effective to park at you house and wait for a BWI bus to come and pick you up. Third, there is the Extra Special Parking lot. And in an ESP lot I did recently realize that we have learned nothing since September 11, 2001. Nothing. Not a single solitary thing. Sunday night, I was returning from Jess and Ed’s wedding (an incredibly fun to-do - a big congrats from the List to them). I hiked across BWI to get to Southwest’s baggage claim. Then the fun begins. Heading outside, I grab a bus to the ESP lot. So far, so good… ish. We weave and wind our way to the lot. The nice driver man tries to lighten the mood of my weary companions, and sadly just makes things worse. We stop at one space and a rather large lady in pants cut from a shower curtain barges from one end of the bus, over my legs, and out the door. Whatever… I just wanted to get to my car and get home. So I pile out at my car and then get in the line from hell. You see, BWI only has one cashier for their parking lots and he has to run from lot to lot to lot to help people get robbed blind and then run to another lot and do the same again. While sitting (it took me nearly thirty minutes to get out of the lot all told) I noticed a very strange driving spectacle in front of me. When the Trail Blazer two cars up would roll forward a foot, the car in front of me would roll two feet. I thought at first that the driver in front of a me was distracted, took her foot of the brake, and absent mindedly rolled too far forward. She surely wouldn’t do it again. But I was wrong. The Trail Blazer rolls up a bit, and this time the car in front of me, driven by none other than the grumpy woman, rolls smack into the back of it. The Trail Blazer keeps his cool and says nothing. But it happens again! This woman rolls into the Trail Blazer again. Well, the two drivers exchange words. At this point I just want to go home so badly I am considering walking. But it’s at this point that I realize why the grumpy woman was rolling forward so aggressively. There was another car coming from the opposite direction that was trying to merge in. He, like all of us, wanted to go home too. This lady was smashing into the car in front of her to prevent this guy from getting in line. No common decency. No courtesy. No, this lady had to be first and she was willing to bash into another car to stay in front. That’s America folks. That’s BWI at its best. Have we learned nothing? Where has our generous spirit gone? Where has our desires to be good to one another gone? Is there any compassion left for our fellow man? Sadly, I think I know the answer. We have learned nothing. September 11 taught us nothing. We are still self-centered. We are still unwilling to sacrifice a little of our own bounty for the good of others. I hope a race of mutant dolphins comes and takes over the world… oh and, BWI still sucks!

Ever played Grand Theft Auto 3? For those of you who haven’t, here’s the gist: you are a low-end punk working your way up the ranks of a crime organization by means of vehicular homicide, stashing bodies, and general murder and mayhem. I find GTA3 hilarious. It’s a great way to blow off some steam. It is just too ridiculous to be taken seriously. But of course people do. And then the fun police come and start breaking down doors and replacing all those cool toys with My Little Ponies and video games that Ned Flanders would approve of. Check out this article for more on the fun. I especially like the Post’s comparison of GTA3 to Pac-man: “In today’s virtual mean streets, Pac-Man wouldn’t last a day. The yellow sphere with the slanted pie-hole that gobbled up pellets back in the ’80s probably would get carjacked and beaten to a yellow wad of pulp.” What does this all have to do with the President? I’m glad you asked. The way I figure it, the W, even with his month long vacation, has not really relaxed in a while. It might be nerves over the fact that he is, in fact, President, and scares even him. It might be that Ashcroft has become insistent that Bush proves he’s Christian and not Muslim. Who knows? But one thing I do know is that he needs to blow off steam. Having seen footage from the Gulf War, Daddy’s video game war, I think W has found his way to relax. He’ll get hisself a big ole war too. And it’s gonna be a great sequel, cuz’ the bad guy from Daddy’s war is still the bad guy. This time there’ll be a killer soundtrack, way cooler graphics, and none of that Declaration of War stuff that Congress keeps griping about. It’ll be so cool. Tell ya what, I’ll offer the Pres any game he wants, in fact, I’ll buy him a whole gaming station, if he promises to respect the Constitution and get a Declaration of War for when he needs a rating boost and goes after Saddam Hussein.

I has always like the Talking Heads’ True Stories… the album (http://store.artistdirect.com/store/artist/album/0,,172362,00.html). I knew that there was a movie (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0092117) that the music was based off of. A little strange… the band recorded an album of songs that characters in the movie sang. I think there are some of the most real and yet positive,uplifting lyrics on this album that I have ever heard. Dream Operator and Radio Head are two great examples of this. At any rate, I now am watching the movie. (Side note, Netflix really is a good service. Thanks to them I have caught up on some of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 I haven’t seen… oh, yeah, and I got True Stories from them.) I am about a third into the movie. It is a combination of Bowling Alone, Leap of Faith, and a Ken Burn’s documentary all rolled into one. And I like it. A lot. And that scares me. Ever listened to David Byrne talk? He speaks slowly in strange off-beat phrases. An example: He is in his red convertible, looks at the camera and says, “I want to saying something about the difference between American cities and European cities… … … but I forgot it. … … I have it written down at home.” I am really scaring myself here. Maybe it is just the heat getting to me.

Ah, Bermuda, the most remote habitable (by British standards) island in the world. It’s a coral cap on top of a very extinct volcano. They drive on the left-side of the road, use dollars as currency, by their gas is liters, measure distance in kilometers… a very confused place. The Bermudian accent is an interesting nut to crack. They say their A’s like Bostonians, their O’s like Brits, and the rest is a big jumble. In fact, it is far too difficult a topic to bring up here. I suggest you check this out for a better explanation. Sitting in the Hog Penny pub and one of the people at the table nearly ordered a Scorched Monk’s Nuts Coffee. This drink involves some horrid combination of liqueurs and a vague hint of coffee. More importantly the Scorched Monk’s Nuts is a very very popular drink among the parishioners of Cardinal Bernard Law. This, of course, brings us to the discussion of the native Bermudian Tree Swine. The tree swine is the only native mammal on the island. Strange things, these tree swine. They look, from all accounts, to be very happy looking piggies. They, when in adulthood, act like completely normally piggies: very large, very lazy, very edible. But the strange aspect of these pigs is when they are a big younger. They have a propensity to climb trees and lay on the branch. It far cooler in the branches and the tree swine can laze happily there. Another amazing thing about the tree swine is the noise these youngsters make at night. It’s fairly high pitched noise, something between a yip, a squeak, and the call of a morning dove. The entire island rings of this surprisingly soothing noise.

If W’s statement about running this country like a business holds out:

• The dollar will be worth about 60% less than the Euro
• He and Disappearing Dick will get zero interest government backed loans so that they can buy T-bills.
• Female federal workers will start posing for Playboy’s Women of Federal Government issue.

Why is it that this administration has decided to isolate America from the rest of the world? We won’t back the Kyoto accord. We waffle on supporting the War Crimes Court. We decry other countries for abusing the basic freedoms of its citizen while ours are brushed aside by an Attorney General so afraid of the human body that he has nude statues covered. Self-interest. This national is firmly wrapped in itself. Certainly, that is what our leadership displays. And in this day and age, that kind of self-interest imposed isolation is dangerous. It’s time for someone to it this nation’s leadership down and teach them about the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Mathematician Albert Tucker created the prisoner’s dilemma and it has become the classic zero-sum game example used in biology (see Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene), computer science, social science, etc. It boils down to this: You and I have been arrested for supposedly committing a crime. The guards put us in separate interrogation rooms. We have the following options, taken from this website, a very good description of the prisoner’s dilemma and discussion of its implications):

I’m back. I’m very sore, but I am back. I have returned from Estonia, specifically Narva-Joesuu. What was I doing there? Would you believe learning a new sword form? Check out http://www.grtc.org/swordfestival for a bit more info. Basically I worked out for eight hours a day for six days straight. We stayed at a Russia worker’s paradise… if given the options to stay at a Russia worker’s paradise, turn it down. Did you know that Gritte is a brand of toilet paper in Estonia? Estonia is a very nice country. Things are extremely cheap. The people are friendly enough. In the summer they get about 20 hours of real daylight which is nice… except it rains, consistently, twice a day, everyday, in Estonia.

So the Poo Poo Palace has a bit of a plumbing issue. My rental unit (a.k.a. Den of the Chef) has a bathroom. (This, apparently, is law. I guess you can’t rent someone a cement cell with nothing more than a chamber pot. I, as a newly minted slum lord, am in to oppressing tenants.) At any rate, the bathroom had a nasty old vanity in it. Joe and I were ripping it out when we discovered the walls behind it were a bit soft… like t-shirt material soft. We explore a bit. To our horror, we discover that the numbskulls who installed the vanity drove a nail into the drain, thus cracking the drain and causing an undiscovered leak… a very damaging one. Enter Kenny the Plumber. I am at the new place one day. I am upstairs writing some pl/sql in German (more on that later.) One of the, in all likelihood illegal, immigrants who were painting my house comes running upstairs quite excited: Painter: “Meester Glazer, there is a man.” What a truly deep thought. So I follow him downstairs to discover a guy that looks like a character actor whose name I forgot. Short white dude. Tattoos. Earrings. Plumber: “I’m the plumber.” Did I mention the Lenox Lewis look-a-like assistant who didn’t say a word? That would be, I later learn, Joey. Joey was far more eloquent that Kenny. Ian: “The plumber?” Plumber: “Yeah.” Needless to say, I was expecting someone in a dirty coverall, a la, the plumbers in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. We eventually establish that, yes, these two guys were in fact the plumbers I called. So Kenny and Joey take a look at the drain. The damage is worse than expected. The crack runs under the concrete. Kenny: “You’ve got three options: bootleg plumbing, trying to seal this one, or dig up the floor.” Ian: “Bootleg plumbing.” Kenny: “Yeah. You know… bootleg plumbing.” Bootleg plumbing, I learned, is essentially illegal plumbing. Things that don’t meet code. Things that may have severe sewage laden repercussions. I have also learned there is the analogous cowboy carpentry. All of this gave me images of Robert DeNiro in the aforementioned Brazil… the Renegade Plumber. Forward ahead a few days… picture Ian, Joe, Fitz, Todd, Big John, Sarah, and Dianne all at one point or another looking in the bathroom, attempting to fix it. Notes from the repair job:

First, San Sebastian was awesome. (No, I wasn’t in Oklahoma as Josh (A big thanks for Josh for the PanAm Tuesday Night) suggested; I was in Spain.) It was an incredibly relaxing vacation. We pretty much ate, walked around the beach, ate some more, and then drank very good cheap wine. Walking about San Sebastian, a town which does not really cater especially to the tourist crowd, I found two stores that were too funny not to mention. The first being a burger joint called La Vaca. (La vaca means cow in Spanish.) They had a cute cow as their little mascot. This is clearly a marketing campaign that would not work in the States. PETA would be on any place calling itself The Cow serving meat… it just wouldn’t happen. The second funny store I found was Don Huevos. Yes, that’s right a greasy spoon run by Sir Egg. The mascot (I took a picture and will post it sooner or later.) was a regal looking fried egg. I guess that’s like the British having a store call Duke Fish N’ Chips. BTW, while in San Sebastian I did travel to nearby Bilbao to see the Gugenheim Museum. The building is amazing. The collection is okay. The city is fairly boring. Second, Paris is extremely expensive. But, Ian, you are saying, Paris is always expensive. True. But after the introduction of the Euro (Euro, spelt E-U-R-O, pronounced D-O-L-L-A-R) the Parisians in true capitalist fashion, jacked up prices. Had a great time there though. In Paris I mostly ate, walked around, ate some more, and then drank expensive good wine. Third, the home jouryen was interesting. I get to JFK and stare out the windows as hundreds of bags get loaded on to the plane. Then I realize there are a lot more bags still sitting outside and the crew is getting ready for take-off. Clearly, there is a problem here. Eventually, the captain comes on a says that they are having a bit of a problem with the aft cargo section and will have it fixed in 10 minutes. 15 mintues go by and the captain says, we need to redistribute some weight in the cargo sections. They have to move some bags and, get this, load 2500 pounds of sand into the back of the plane. This is a MD-88 for god sakes, not some puddle jumper. Needless to say, I have been picking sand out of my luggage for most of the day.

Good afternoon to all of you on the east coast, and good late-maorning to all of you on the west coast…Drea, you’re in the middle, so good whatever time it is there. As the east coasters know, Ian’s out travelling in some exotic place (I think he’s in Okalhoma or someplace fun) this week and asked me to do the weekly east coast e-mail. So I hereby deem this the first Pan-American Tuesday Night e-mail invite. Let the games begin. So whether you’re at Toledo at 9:30, or the Tunnel Top around 6:30 or 7, think of your cohorts on the opposite coast. Again, if you’re in the middle, think of people on both coasts who are simultaneously enjoying the joys of a Tuesday night out with friends (and cheap beer). Through these simple steps, maybe we can work to end the tragic east coast/west coast (aka Biggie/Tupac) fighting that has kept us apart for so long. Now there is a certain irony to the fact that neither Ian nor I are likely to be at our respective bars (and no, we won’t be at each other’s bars…though that would have been amusing) because I don’t know if I’ll be back from Sacramento in time (you east coasters are really missing out on the glory of California’s state capital), but the rest of you should definitely enjoy. On a personal note, my long educational nightmare is over. I’ve decided on a grad school and will be joining the Penn posse (a large part of this joint list) in January, but that’s a long way off. Also, from a shameless self-promotion standpoint, Tom Daschle has named my boss Democratic Leader of the Week. Check him out at www.dashpac.com. We’re all very proud of him.

It’s protest time in DC. It’s that wonderful season right after Cherry Blossoms that indicates that summer is almost here. The tourons are in town. Traffic has gotten gummy. The weather (we’ll get to that in a moment) is pleasant enough. Kids on titanium Treks are protesting globalization. Dude, you want to do something productive?… sell the bike and donate the cash to the Peace Corp. Better yet, join the Peace Corp and stop bunging traffic around Dupont. I saw a Ford Taurus with a bumper sticker that read, “I’d rather be smashing imperialism.” Um, hello? You are driving a piece of the cultural imperialism. You want to smash imperialism, fine, that’s your perogative, but I think you ought to do so wearing sack cloth and ashes, not a dirty J Crew outfit. On that subject, a great number of the protestors running around DC these days look like members of Clown College out on Spring Break. It’s hard to be taking seriously if you look like a juggler from some third rate touring circus. You want to change the world? I think Eat Static really summed up the best strategy to change the world. “We’re not dropping out. We’re infiltrating and taking over.” It’s 39 degrees in Boston right now. There’s a good chance of snow throughout New England. It was 94 three days ago. Heck, it was 101 last week here. Trying driving to Norfolk, VA in a suit in 100 degree weather… it just ain’t fun. You want to fight something… fight what we are doing to the environment, use public transportation, walk more.