Matt's Excellent Keystone Adventure

Let's Hear it For Independents!

I'm in Chicago Midway airport as I write this (not Harrisburg) for reasons that I will explain shortly...all good...

In any event, this is Barack's home town, and it was no surprise (as in Denver) there was plenty of Obama bling for sale at various stands. One did catch my eye, though, in that there was no apparent "equal time" gear for the McCain campaign. I asked the lady behind the counter where the McCain stuff was? She gave me the evil eye and said, "honey, we don't sell no John McCain stuff at MY store!"  (I showed her my Obama button and we had a good yuk over that mean old John McCain together.) Yep, she was an independent owner-operator, a rare enough thing in general and at airports in general. And sometimes being independent also means you can make better business decisions -- the unsold marked down McCain crap I saw at Denver is an indication that corporate equal time is not necessarily the fiscally sound decision.

Putting Some Meat into the Debate

I went to a debate party at the Champagne restaurant on Chelten, which turned out to be a neighborhood lounge and soul food restaurant. And while it turned out the really big local party was at the Obama office, I had a GREAT time with a crowd of mostly regulars and a few special attendees for the party. Several folks recognized my SEIU shirt, including a couple of members and a couple of staffers! So I had some nice warm and friendly company. 

The watchers were not one for the usual boo-ing of groaners from McCain: I got shushed by one lady who said "I want to hear the idiot talk!" Of course later the same lady said loudly, "I can't stand that John McCain and the way he sucks up to Tom Brokaw. 'I'll wave my hand for you, Tom'. I'll wave MY hand at you, McCain!" (Was it just me, or was Brokaw kind of being a shrill schoolmarm about the timekeeping and sticking to the rules?)

Biggest laugh line of the night for the party: the line about the straight talk express having lost a wheel. Low point: when McCain interrupted Barack, which made everybody in the joint start whooping at him.

Oh, I more or less forgot to take pictures, but I did get a nice shot of my meal - barbecue chicken (hot), collard greens, homestyle cole slaw, and biscuits. YUM.

Final Moments of Voter Registration...!

12 hours later, just a couple of hours before the submission deadline, the volunteers were still out in Center City doing voter registration. Things were far less hectic, though, with the registrars seemingly only getting the odd voter when they did a barker-like reminder that you had to re-register if you've moved or changed your name. I talked to a couple of different guys than the ones I talked to on the way in this morning, and one of them said he'd registered 44 people, and the other 78, just on the morning rush. As I said earlier, I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled. But I am optimistic about the outcome of the election at this point, very very optimistic.The scene at left is two registrars in the middle (unfortunately obscured) with some really cool effects from the flah on the guy wearing a reflective vest to the left. The kind of neat thing at Suburban was they had registrars at three levels -- street level, in the station, and again on the tracks. It was sort of like this descending maze of democracy.

I had my first full day of work today, on east coast time, and I'm about all done in - I used the take the bandaid off fast approach to jet lag. Also, I had a cheesesteak and fries for the first time in a gazillion years, and I immediately started feeling like a combination of a sated lion after the kill and a beached whale. Cheesesteaks notwithstanding, every turn I make I seem to run into something quite familiar. Today on the train back one of my favorite "secret" views of Philadelphia, across the Schuylkill River, snuck up on me just at dusk -- the picture was taken hastily from the window of the train. Of course, most of the skyline wasn't even there when I lived here (seriously).

In other exciting news -- Sarah Palin is coming to Philly for a closed-door fundraiser on Saturday, and I'm just going to guess there will be some interesting reaction to it in town. I'll try to be there with the camera.

He's Following Me, or I Him

Maybe I shouldn't take it as a shock that there are Obama t-shirts on sale at the newstand in Denver airport (changing planes to Philly right now), given that the DNC was here. Or that they've sold out every size except for XS (too big for Duncan, alas). Or that the "equal time" Republican-logoed gear here has all been remaindered (50-75%). But I was still happy to see this shirt greet me as I picked up a copy of the Economist (so I could pretend to read it), complete with a quotation from his great Philadelphia speech on racism.

Suddenly, It's 1957!

There's a really cool barn on US 101 North to San Jose, just inside the Monterey county line -- what we call "North County" here, a bit of a throwback rural enclave in that while the family farms may be modest, they're still here, not having given way to factory farming or subdivisions. The barn in question has been painted with a sort of faux baseball outfield wall from the 50s era, complete with advertisements and scoreboard, and the script "Suddenly it's 1957!" is proudly painted on another wall.

I've wanted to get a picture of this for a long time, in particular, in the worst way, last year when we were getting a slideshow for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary (married 1957) together. But there's NO PLACE to get a picture. You can't pull over to the side of the road on 101. The part of the property facing the highway is inaccessible, there's a fence, but you simply can't get there from the feeder road. And needless to say it's a little dangerous taking a picture from a moving car.

But today, on the way to the airport and my big adventure, I was ready, and I got a snap, albeit blurry, of our favorite barn. (Click on the picture for a higher res version.) (Posted from SJC).

Ye Olde Blogge, an introduction

Howdy! I set this blog up so the folks who have inspired and supported me on my adventure to Pennsylvania this month can follow what I'm up to and maybe get a taste of what's going on in the Keystone state (such as I can divine).

I make no pretensions to uniqueness or special insight here, this is meant mostly as a travelogue. I'll try to update frequently and briefly, in marked contrast to my other acts of bloggery.

I'm spending this week getting up to speed on the database software I'll be using, taking care of Duncan while Mika's traveling, getting the house clean and everything in order so Mika doesn't suffer too much as a single parent, and getting ready to go.