I got into Dallas/Ft. Worth last night after 1AM... Atlanta airport is bar none the worst in the United States when it comes to delays. Dallas airport is HUGE... bigger than Atlanta. 7 main terminals plus a separate off-site terminal only for the car rentals. Today in Central Texas it was 100 degrees w/little humidity - it was actually not too bad.

We audited a facility only a couple miles away from Crawford, TX and the infamously silly Cindy Sheehan fiasco. To an extent I think she is being used by the press, which I think is an absolute shame. I feel badly for her. I don't particularly care about peoples opinions for or against the war, but I think we can all agree that this situation is pathetic because it has made her A)family disavow her in writing, including her own grandparents B) husband divorce her, C) an eager and willing pawn for the mainstream media. CNN, ABC, NBC are eating this up yet its utterly meaningless and ratings couldn't be lower... so its also evident that noone is watching. She got to talk to the President once already and even accepted a kiss on the cheeck from him... nobody cares about her politics concerning Israel, and the most interesting part of this whole thing is that she intentionally wanted the media attention and now has the balls to complain about it! None of the locals I asked could have cared less about Cindy Sheehan, and if you believe in ratings that also holds true for the USA.

In general Texas is a beautiful state - people here are very friendly. There are lots of Texas stereotypes and none of them are true, except in rare instances that make people who know nothing about Texas pipe up and talk basically a lot of nonsense. Its a massive state with plenty of prarieland that stretches for miles and miles. Truly beautiful scenery. We ate that this authentic Texas-style BBQ place for lunch.... it was ridiculously good. I am going to learn how to make brisket now! Of course, the ladies here are gorgeous and are actually ladies, unlike plenty of specimen from the north. Its about as affordable to live here as it is to live in Buffalo, there is more opportunity, theres plenty of art-inclined things to check out here, including a great symphony orchestra - I think Texas jumped above Georgia on my list.

Southwest Airlines opens their online check-in at 12:01. I print my tickets out at 12:02, and I am NUMBER TEN!!!!

What does that mean?

It means that there are nine people that are apparently more obsessive/compulsive about being in the "A" group than I am.

I'm number one with my connecting flight from Baltimore from Buffalo though! What a coup. I hate open seating on airplanes.

(e:paul) - I'm using an iBook G4, and I keep getting this object error... and the Freedom Chat will not work properly - i.e. when I type something in it will not appear. Odd - This is the first time I've had a problem. I'm using some version of IE. I wonder if Java is not installed on this machine or something. These are the problems I usually have (e:jason) solve for me.

(e:jason) no I have not downloaded the David Banner track yet - but I will!

I freely admit that my job has a lot of interesting benefits but there are weeks where the glamour is non-existant. In particular, this little town I'm in now makes me want to slit my throat. 11,000 people, and my choices for dinner tonight were chinese buffet (in the middle of nowhere in NC, fuck that), Wendy's or Bojangle's. We chose Bojangle's. If you want fried chicken I think that Popeye's is infinitely better.

Anyhow Wal-Mart is an omnipresent monolith - there is no escape. Seriously... there is nothing here but there is a Wal-Mart supercenter. To my surprise, you can buy beer at Wal-Mart, so I bought a six-pack of Tecate for $5.14! Bling bling. I'm going to drink myself to sleep, get up early, and I'll be back in Buffalo by 6PM.

I'm looking forward to Las Vegas next weekend. See thats what I signed up for when I joined my company! Free vacations in cool spots because you have to be there for work anyhow.

The place I'm at actually has a wireless network!

I'm in Mayberry... as in Andy Griffith Mayberry. No lie.

(e:paul) you read what you wanted to in my post, not what I actually said. I authored the post, I am the one who knew what I was getting at. The post was about how nukes are BAD... end of story. You can take it to the bank as again, I am the one who actually wrote it and as such I'm the final arbiter of the actual meaning of what I wrote. It could be argued that I wrote a poorly worded post... and I actually agree with that. :) And to think I got all "A" grades at UB in English, and actually tested out of the undergraduate writing requirement! Instead of acting in a knee-jerk way you should have asked me what I meant... I think a lot of unnecessary drama could have been avoided. Anyhow I'm glad that you understand that we actually agree on the subject.

Moral of the story - if you aren't sure about what somebody meant just ask them instead of freaking out and flaming them. And before you get your feathers ruffled, thats not a flame! I've done the same thing before as have most people that communicate with others via the internet.

Wireless networks at hotels are, in general, piss poor. elmwoodstrip barely, barely, barely loaded here. Its like trying to load a media-filled page using a 1200 baud modem. It makes me want to cry.

In general, the South is superior to the North. Naturally there are people that could never live here, as it would force them to break out of the boundaries of their comfort zone. However, the cities here are cleaner and just as big, there is an abundance of cultural things to check out, the girls are finer and not as unjustifiably bitchy as they are in Buffalo, and most importantly - people here are 1000% more civilized and polite then they are up north. NYC is the capital of obnoxious people. I would hardly call the place civilized and it would take at minimum a $150k a year position to even get me to consider living there. Seriously, people there act like animals. I'd take Atlanta over any major northeastern hub 99 times out of 100.

There is not much happening in NC though. Lots of woods, a big lake where many millioniaires live, Duke/UNC basketball, John Edwards (if you forgot about his absurd "Two Americas" theme fret not, you are about to get an earful until 2008), NASCAR fanaticism, and a lot of highways cutting through said woods. For the first time I can't wait to get home.

Coming up its going to be nice though - we go to San Antonio, spend the weekend in Los Angeles, take a detour to Las Vegas, go back to L.A. to work, then back home! Allegedly the virtually brand new white dress shirt that a cleaning lady generously "liberated" from my shit is at the same hotel we are going back to.