I find it interesting how (relatively) unpopular Bush is amongst core influencers within the Republican Party - conservative intellectuals, elected and appointed Republican officials. A large number of these people were reluctant Bush supporters. I think this fact really helps highlight how much Kerry sucked, and how broken and out-of-touch the Democratic Party is.

BTW, you lefties out there who consider your party the party of the “small guy” or the “average Joe”, one way to dissect this assumption is by looking at how well a party and their candidates do among smaller contributors. Well, guess which party did *dramatically* better amongst those donating $1M or more?

The retreat is off to a great start (got here with my bags and no glitches, I’m lucky) - I have seen some old friends and already made some new ones. Went out to drinks tonight with some old ones.

Dinner tonight, while the food was mediocre, was (of course) with amazing company. The thing that makes writing about this event a little clumsy is that there are some rules about it that I have to respect for a few reasons (not the least of which is that these rules are what make it so special). So, I’m honestly not trying to be coy or mysterious, I just need to be a little vague and I’ll try to communicate the fun and the substance while respecting those rules.

Tonight I had wanted to have dinner with an old software hero of mine who’s here but I’ve never met - and it didn’t work out. (Very small tables, which makes for great mealtime conversations…) I “ended up” at a table with one of the best known people in television journalism - a person whose name is synonymous with war coverage - and it was a huge treat to sit and converse about the World with him.

There was also a neurobiologist at the table and we talked about the “difference” (if any) between mind and matter, the observed and the observer, and that made up for the fact that dessert wasn’t very good.

Tomorrow I’ll be speaking (early) about the Internet, entrepreneurship, and the digital economy. I also host a table at lunch where I plan to talk a little about finding joy in life, then later am speaking about blogging and what it means to the media and to “truth”. The hardest part will be getting out of bed at 6:30 or so and making sense all day. Pray for me.

P.S. - Something you see down here that you don’t see up home - hot chicks in trucks.

Pitstop: Charlotte. Last time I was here was 091101. No wireless here, so this’ll post late. First, I’d like to say how cool I think it is that you can smoke in restaurants down here. I hate the smell but I like the fact that the restaurant owner decides, not the legislature. I also like the fact that (female) bartenders call me “sweetheart” and “honey” and don’t think one whit about it. Now, I married a southern girl (I divorced her, too, but that’s another story) and if there’s one thing you can say about these folks it’s that they’re friendly.

The flight from BOS was painless, on time, and the staff were all very nice. No issues at all. Now let’s see if I make Charleston along with my bag.

I flew coach for the first time in a while, but luckily in an exit row. I had a nice (but confused) fat girl on my left who, between chugs of Sprite and moutfuls of Ginger Snaps, thought it was my job to help her figure out how to get to Orlando. Everything she said she suffixed with “, right?” She needed a lot of reassurance.

The guy on my right was one of those eat-with-your-mouth open types. Noisy eaters drive me crazy - so thankfully he had brought along a sandwich and a sizable bag of corn chips. He also thought he had full rights to both armrests. The flight was short enough that I wasn’t going to argue with him on any of these issues and I knew we were all in collective misery so I dozed.

Bunches of people on the flight were sick and hacking up body juices. Let’s hope my immune system continues its excellent work.

I just wrapped up a mild confrontation with several TSA agents at Terminal B in Logan. The situation was cooled off by a very gracious and friendly TSA supervisor. I had just passed security and decided I was going to take some photographs of screeners and passengers. I was confronted initially by one screener who told me I could not photograph the X-ray screen. I had not been doing so, but moved a little just to concede that inch of ground. Apparently the concern is with the settings displayed on the screen with “that kind of lens”. Sensitive security info, eh?

So, I moved to where it would be obvious that I could not be photographing the screen. Another screener then came over and told me I needed to “stay with my bags” (I had moved over one table and left my bags at the first table) and I told him I simply moved so as to make it clear I wasn’t photographing the security screen as his colleague had requested. A female TSA agent chimed in and told me I could not photograph “us” (meaning the agents). I then told the male agent they needed to get their rules straight, and began laying out some of the conflicting information I was receiving. This was not well received (they apparently aren’t used to being stood up to) and I continued to press the male agent and asked him for clarification - is this a rule, a law, or somebody’s personal preference? Could he be more specific? It began escalating slowly and he walked away. They didn’t seem to want to engage me for very long. So, I continued my nefarious activity. I then packed up my camera and began walking to the other side of the checkpoint and was “met” by a very nice man named “Bob” who introduced himself as a TSA “screening manager.” Their trick seemed to be to aggressively discourage me from taking photographs while never actually outright telling me I was violating a rule or law and not going far enough to actually try to stop me. But I admit I was quite friendly and cooperative and if I’d been firing off the camera in all their faces it might have been different. Who knows. I’ll write more later, but I need to catch this flight. I might try being a little more aggressive on my way back through, if I’m not too tired to spend a few hours in a detention cell here at Logan.

The interesting thing is, the photographs came out so poorly that I was deleting them as I went along.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be off (hopefully) to Charleston, SC for a retreat. Since my usual airline (American) doesn’t fly into Charleston, I’ve had the good luck of booking my travel on US Airways. The last couple of days of travel on US Air have apparently been an unmitigated disaster due to some nefarious employee actions like a sick-out or something. I’m not sure I understand the employees’ logic here. Drive nails into your employer’s coffin for what sake? Then again, unionized labor is not one of my favorite things, and I need to keep my mind open to the possibility that maybe there’s some super-secret union-logic that’s beyond my tiny ability to comprehend.

Anyway, I am tempted to re-book on another carrier but with 24 hours notice that is not an inexpensive notion. (Nor one full of lots of lovely options such as sleeping beyond 4am).

So, I will be chancing it and showing up at Logan with my US Air e-ticket and hoping for the best. Stay tuned.

From The Boston Globe today:

“No matter the rules governing them, many women disdain the patdowns.

‘It made me uncomfortable to be touched,’ she said. Still, she said, she’s willing to suffer the patdowns in exchange for security. ‘Whatever will keep us safe.’”

Hey, whatever it takes, right? I know I feel a lot safer knowing that this year, more women were groped in airports than at frat parties. And I paid for it.

I’d noticed this very strange deep humming over the last hour or so and was sort of ignoring it. I then decided to bring out the trash and when I was outside I realized it was the unmistakable sound of an idling locomotive. An odd sound since the only train tracks are the supposedly-defunct ones at the bottom of the woods across from my apartment. These are the tracks that pass next to the Fresh Pond Trail and never in the two years I’ve been here have I seen or heard a train on them. I run on the trail quite frequently, crossing the tracks at least twice each time, and on the contrary I’ve noticed the types of overgrowth on the tracks one would typically associate with an unused line. However, there most certainly was something big and loud down there in the cold dark woods. Since I knew the only way I’d get any sleep tonight was to go down there and see for myself, I donned a scarf and hat, grabbed my camera, and headed down to take a look-see.

As I descended down through the very small patch of woods, I was basically following my ears because it was mighty dark down there aside from some snow-reflected moonlight and an eerie incandescent glow coming from the side of the Thing Making The Noise.

The Thing was, sure enough, a locomotive.. with a few cars behind it. And it was stuck and spewing out bits of fire from the top of itself (as locomotives are wont to do). As is usual for my train experiences, no humans were evidently present. I did not knock on the side of the locomotive or the cars to find out, because idling trains sort of freak me out (especially at night, especially in the woods, especially on supposedly-abandoned rail lines, etc. etc.) I am not an engineer, but the train appeared to have derailed. Since I did not have a tripod and no substantive light was available, I could not capture any photographs from the side or front of the train. I was, however, able to grab a couple from above by setting the shutter speed very slow and steadying the camera on top of a footbridge: pic 1 and pic 2. These suck but you’ll get the drift. Yes, Virginia, that’s fire, but not as much as it looks like.

I am speculating that some dude made a wrong turn back near Alewife and is now trying to figure out what he’s going to tell his boss. No idea, really. But I am hoping the thing doesn’t explode and/or isn’t transporting nerve gas, because I’m now going to try to get some sleep since my curiosity has been (partially) satiated.

Hrmmm.. well it’s a bit hard to describe.. it’s, like, a thump-thump kinda sound, right under the dashboard on the passenger side…

[Nick Knight photographing Angela Lindvall for Christian Dior]

I am in the middle of a dispute with the service department of Herb Chambers Infiniti in Boston. This is for some work they did on my i30, which I recently retired for my new S4.

After doing some online research, I found that customer complaints against Herb Chambers’ service department are quite common. Before I get into too many details, I am giving their service manager, Paul Dineen, a few more days to propose a way to make things right. Thus far they have been mostly ignoring me. Those of you who know me know how much I love that.

I suppose the best way to summarize things for the moment is that they sold me several thousand dollars worth of duct tape, and tried to blame it on me. “Wow, that’s a lot of duct tape!” you might say. But actually it really wasn’t a lot - just a couple feet of it. So, I guess it’s just really nice duct tape. *sigh*

Update here: Herb Chambers update.

Well … fama PR had our third annual Holiday Bash last night. By my count we had 26 people. It was really great - we had it at Smith & Wollensky. I was very impressed by the food and the private room we had. Overall, an A+. It helped that we have the best people anywhere - so to have great food and great company are the makings of a great night. Some of us went over to Whiskey Park afterward, and that was its typically overstuffed scene with plenty of pushing and spilling and lots of 32 year olds pretending to be 19. But, I digress.

A few photos of the party are here and for the truly curious there are some pictures of our office gift swap over at Ed’s site. The staff bought us an amazing gift - a bubble hockey game! I got a few shots of some of us playing … very very cool kids, all.

Finally, I grabbed a few pictures of last night’s sunset, which was quite breathtaking. My primary complaint is all the stuff in the way like cars, telephone poles, wires, buildings, etc. Oh well, it still looked great.

I’ll start by saying I don’t mean to imply that all psychedelic experiences are beatific and profound. Trust me, I’m fully aware that sometimes you just lie on the floor for four hours trying to talk a seven-foot bag of Skittles out of stealing your sofa while Abba endlessly sings the theme to Welcome Back Kotter.

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Antony Flew, athiest philosophy professor, has had a considerable change of heart about the nature of the Cosmos and the concepts of intelligent design. I don’t think I’ve ever truly considered myself an athiest, perhaps I felt closest to it while rebelling against fundamentalist Christianity as a teen. But I firmly believe something else is going on underneath the surface that we are completely incapable of understanding. We can dance around the edges - occasionally catch a glimpse out of the corner of our eye - but we can never fully grasp It.

How can anyone say that Tenet’s Presidential Medal of Freedom is not a political move? Not that Bush hasn’t cheapened everything, but today’s Medals to Bremer, Franks and Tenet seem to be designed to give stupid people the idea that since the President awarded them Medals, then the President’s ideas about Iraq must have been right. Or something. The Agitator helps us understand this. “They played pivotal roles in great events,” said President Bush. Ohhhh now I get it.

I went out just now and took my car for a drive. You know why? Because it was there.

Now that the break-in period for the engine is over, I can drive it with fewer boundaries. It’s great fun and I am starting to feel like I am getting used to it. The harder I push it, the more comfortable I feel in it. I was a bit disappointed not to be able to take it up to my PopTech meeting in Maine this weekend, but the loaner Corolla from Clair delivered a solid second-place performance. Hell, at least I saved a few bucks on gas.

Made my flight and hotel reservations for my New Year’s trip to SC and also received a tentative schedule for the event. I am very much looking forward to the whole thing - seeing some old friends and making new ones. If it’s half as good as Monterey was, I’ll be thrilled.

An extensive R&T review of two great sedans has the C55 winning by one point but the S4 kicking butt on the “subjective ratings”.

Something I can vouch for from the first night I drove mine:

“To the driver, wheeling the S4 is all the more satisfying, thanks to remarkably linear and reassuringly firm steering. It’s unflappable from corner entrance all the way through big power applications on corner exit, so the sensation is one of simply dialing in steering lock as required. This is uncanny when charging, as it feels the S4 will never run out of grip because the steering effort remains unchanged. Of course, the S4’s tires eventually approach their limits, as announced by a distinct notch of understeer magically appearing with Bela Lugosi flair at the stroke of cornering midnight. It’s as if the S4 gives free rein, then flips on the understeer switch just before any unpleasantness unfolds.”

cocky - \’kä-kE\ - adjective : boldly or brashly self-confident
brash - \’brash\ - adjective : heedless of the consequences : audacious

My friend John Perry Barlow has decided to go public with his drug bust story. It is a symptom of a broken system that anyone thinks this is a reasonable use of law enforcement resources. It is a disgusting affront to liberty and an outrage to common sense. I will write more on this - lots more - soon. In the meantime, be agitated and for God’s sake, do something.

On Saturday I had to bring my cable box back to Comcast. They blamed the box for the fact that the whole thing doesn’t work very well. I watch very little TV, so the box has sat there malfunctioning for six months and I just haven’t cared enough to bring it back (or sit around at home and wait for a service guy) - the three channels I actually watch mostly come in fine. It’s that pesky moment when I might want to watch one of the other 200 channels when things get tricky. Anyway, winter’s almost here, and well you get the drift…

So there is this a location in Cambridge down on Sherman Street where Comcast has an outpost sort of thing. A very small office where they take payments, do box swaps, and close for an hour for lunch. (I got there, of course, during said hour. There were people camped out. When they saw me turn to leave they were aghast that I wouldn’t just WAIT - I mean, it’s only 10 more minutes. But I decided to come back when they were open.)

Anyway, it’s a residential part of Cambridge with a park and duplexes and apartments and a very small office building with three or four companies - a tiny pharmaceutical office, a small deli, and this Comcast outpost.

What really started my whole freak-out is when I returned and found myself walking past the front of an apartment and saw three or four other people within a block, all with a cable box under their arm and either wandering toward or away from the little outpost. I realized what an odd neighborhood this would be to live in. Hundreds of people a day walking past your front door or window, lugging cable boxes in and out of this weird place.

I suppose if you’d lived there for years you’d resent it a bit. It’s not exactly like the neighborhood going to hell but the neighborhood permanently transforms into some twisted Space Quest episode 9 hours each day.

Anyway, after all that, she gave me a box that won’t work with my home setup (not the right connections). So this was not an upgrade.

Ok - I received a shipment confirmation for my Treo 650 tonight. I think that means they’ll be handing it over to FedEx tomorrow for a Tuesday delivery. Yayy.. received the same notice from B&H Photo about my new lens, too.

Ok, after listening to the DD album another time I am beginning to think it sucks. A bit too manufactured and unoriginal. Happy-go-lucky, etc. I don’t always like sad albums - and I can take more ear candy than many. Lots of the stuff I loved growing up - from Cure to Boingo to U2 and REM - all shared some roots in the post-punk new-wavey stuff that came to life in the early 80s. Duran Duran never had that same talent or power but I was thinking that after 15 years they might have been able to put something fairly decent together… oh well.

Anyway, moving on to the Evanescence album I grabbed - I like Evanescence. They were the first new band in a long while that I really enjoyed. Too bad the co-founder of the group started shagging Avril Lavigne and basically split the band up after their first album so he could go play with her (literally and figuratively.) This was packaged as a new album but is essentially a music CD of a live performance in Europe (Paris, maybe?) perhaps 18-24 months old and a DVD that I haven’t watched yet. This may be the label’s attempt at getting their money out of a band that went poof too soon, but a bummer nonetheless.