I piled into the car a little after midnight on Saturday morning so I could drive
to the airport which was 4 hours away. Due to fiscal reasons (I'd rather spend
my money on Chinaco and Juliefest tees than on plane fare.) I flew out of Louisville.

The plane wasn't supposed to leave until 10am EDT, but there was a time change,
and it would be better to go on no sleep and be plenty early than to go on bad sleep
and cut it close. I got to Louisville by 6am (after a few stops) and checked in. I even
asked if I could be moved to an earlier flight. I was, and ended up in DC 3  hours
before I was scheduled.

Well, I was actually pretty wired for the occasion so I headed into the city to visit
the Natural History museum. Also toured some of DC on foot, including making
myself familiar with where West 24 is. They had the barbecue going, and it smelled
pretty damn spectacular.

Skipping over some time... I came back to West 24 later, dressed for the
occasion this time, and found a *large* load of people waiting outside.
I stood in line for a bit and the next thing I knew, Kent the Videoguy
wanted to ask me a few questions. Let's just say that part went really
poorly from my side, stammering through such simple questions as,
"What brings you here?" I hope my part gets cut out.

I made my way inside, and it was packed full of people like, well, me,
except without the weight problems of me. I didn't get to talk to very meny
people. A short list, and it is short... Wallace (enjoy the honeymoon), Joe
from CT, Augustino from down the street from me (if the street is 20 miles
long), Michele of BartCook, Marc Perkel himself, and oh yes, BC. Joe
and Marc had a spirited discussion about free trade and whether or not it's
really done any good. I admit to being a little confused when I first saw Zomar,
but that didn't last. I also got a tee from the folks at BuzzFlash, partly because
they thought enough to have one in XXL. Chocolate was as good as advertised,
and the Chinaco was, well, Chinaco.

My thoughts about Julie: Physically, she looks really small. But of course,
that's only relevant to the broken leg she had; it has nothing to do with the
inner strength necessary to stand up to Starr's goons. And even though she
lost everything that was material, she kept what was important, her self-respect
and Adam. Adam didn't say anything to the crowd at large, but then if I was
11 years old in a roomful of strangers, I'd have been the same way.

Other slightly self-embarrassing bit: I showed Bart the map of Arkansas with
six identical mistakes near the picture of Mike Huckabee (R-Arrogant sumbitch).
Now just remember there are differences between the stray typo in any issue of
bartcop.com and a state map. The state map has editors and a few million taxpayer
dollars behind it. Also, the only way bart or I make the same mistake 6 times is
if it's intentional. I should also note that when the previous governors (who could
THAT be?) put out that map, that mistake wasn't there.

Finally I left between 11 and midnight because I was really shagged out from
the day and being awake for 40 hours. I got a really good night's sleep for the return trip.

So that's the report and I'm sticking to it,
Chris