Month: May 2002

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.