Gee, That’s a Large Picture of the President

Sometimes you notice the strangest things. That is to say, sometimes I notice the strangest things. I was walking into my office building today (Federal Gov’t) and noticed that the pictures of the President and Vice President (hung in all government offices) looked slightly larger then before.

I decided to ask the security officers. The way I see it, they are there all day so they might notice a thing like this. After telling them my suspicions, they confirmed, saying that the pictures were replaced just the other day.

How about that, I was actually right.

This led to more conversation about how the officer would like to know what happened to the smaller picture and how he might want that for his home. I told him that was a bad idea because then President Obama would be looking at him all the time. The guard, who is black, was puzzled and I explained.

You don’t want somebody’s picture on your home wall who is staring straight ahead (unless it’s the Mona Lisa but what you’re doing with a priceless piece of art in your home is another story!). The eyes just fix on yours all day long. Weather its first thing in the morning and you’re enjoying a cup of coffee before heading out the door or late at night when you’re trying to keep the noise down so you don’t wake up the kids...those eyes they are a starin’ right at ya.

Me personally, I like my art ink blot based. That way each time I look at it I can find something different. True that once in a while it will be eyes but the next time it can be a bird or a house or even Al Roker. Wouldn’t that be something.

Rain Rain Go Away...and PETA Gets a Nod for Marketing

What the frig is with the rain? Stop already! I’m trying to go to the ball game tonight and I can deal with out it

Secondly, a nod to PETA (who we all know I really don’t care for) gets my NobodyLikesAJerk Nod for public relations mastery for this week’s attack of President Obama and his fly swatting technique. Sure it was just a fly and the President did what any of us would do and just took a whack at it. In swoops (pun intended) PETA to tell Obama that there are nicer, more ethical, ways of doing that. As my eyes roll, I still think that it’s a good way to get some free “pub”. So good job PETA...just stay out of my ice cream!

Today’s Topic: Things That Are Lost

Yes we’re going to talk about LOST and the kick ass season finale but that will come in just a moment.

Topic One: Snub the President? Calling the IRS!
First I want to touch on our esteemed President, Mr. Obama. It seems that he had graciously accepted the invitation that Arizona State University extended to him. President Obama did not HAVE to go to ASU. He could have accepted any one of hundreds (if not thousands) of invitations to other universities and colleges around the country, including his alma maters (at this point I won’t yet get into the Notre Dame fiasco...although we do have to thank Alan Keys for making the GOP look even more backwards!) But POTUS did decide to go to Tempe, Arizona and give the commencement address to the thousands of students gathered at the football field. He opens with a great joke,

"I learned to never again pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA bracket. And your university President and Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."

And continued on to give the typical speech you’d expect...

Blah, blah, blah. The economy is tough, blah, blah, blah. Consider community service, blah, blah, blah, thank you and good luck.”

Ok the speech didn’t go quite like that (see the speech video here) but the bottom line was that all the students (should have been) were honored to have him there. That sentiment may not have been felt by the regents of the school however as they refused to confer an honorary degree upon the President saying in effect “he hasn’t accomplished enough yet.”. Um...he’s the freakin’ leader of the free world. So other then being the first black man elected president and other then bringing a sense of hope and change to most Americans and other then being an accomplished lawyer, community organizer, local, state, and federal politician yeah he really hasn’t accomplished that much.

Always the diplomat, Obama simply played it off and said (again to the effect of), Yeah I really haven’t done much yet. In effect he’s saying, just you wait. If they snub him again I wouldn’t be surprised to really see the IRS paying the school a visit.

Topic Two: Stop Flapping Your Arms.
Congratulations go to Jerry and Helen for winning their respective categories on the latest season of NBC’s The Biggest Loser. Helen kicked but and beat out Tara and Mike who were the two toughest people on the show. BTW: Tara, if you’re not doing anything next Saturday give me a call. (just kidding Mrs. Bloggerman!) But the real story was Jerry, who, as the oldest contestant ever (65) lost 170 pounds with most of them coming away from the “ranch”. He is a role model for all older people trying to loose weight but now that he has all that prize money I’m urging him to spend a few dollars and get those arms tightened up. They were flapping so much with extra skin that I was worried he was going to fly away and hit the lights in the tv studio they were filming in.



Topic 3: WTF!
What a great episode of Lost last night. I want to tell you all about it but I’m not sure of what I saw...plus there are those of you who read this who haven’t seen it yet (known as American Idol or Capitols Game 7 Suckas) so in deference to those two hate mongering groups I’ll simply point you to Jen and Liz’ Weekly Dueling Analysis in the Washington Post.

As a side note to that topic we went to the WaPo’s LOST Happy Hour at the Reef where we got to meet Jen and Liz and have a Jin and Tonic, Sex (with Sawyer) on the Beach, and Jughead Juice. No Dharma-tini’s though. Brendan is a light drinker.

Lost comes to Dinner, Classy Moves, New Commercials, and a Dog

See you know you’re a fan of a TV show when you bring it to dinner. Well not quite TO dinner as I doubt that I’d have enough room or food for everybody in the cast (however if they call and reserve a table we can seat most with 24 hrs notice...just in case they happen to be in the area). More to the point, last Wednesday, we brought the themes of LOST to our Passover Seder, much to the chagrin of 75% of those in attendance. It turns out a very thoughtful fellow blogger, Esther Kustanowitz on the site Idol Chatter, posted “The 10 Ways Passover is Like Lost.” Well once I found it (a few hours before everybody showed up) I knew it had to find it’s way into the haggada, just before the break for dinner. Sure most people moaned and groaned but I don’t care. It’s my house and my seder...you don’t like it...go to the White House.

Hats off to Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers for one of the classier moves I’ve seen on Sports Center. Literally. After Reed Johsnon of the Cubs robbed Fielder of a sure home run, Fielder comes back to the dugout and actually tips his hat to Johnson. No cursing, no obscene gestures, no fastballs to the head. Class. I guess that’s that you’d expect from an overweight vegetarian.

The I-man’s back and now he has his own TV commercials. There are three at this link to the WABC Radio New York site. They aren’t too bad (the fat guy is frequent contributor Rob Bartlett).

And finally, Congratulations to the Obama family on their new dog, Bo. Bo is a Portuguese water dog and does has two things that rank him ahead of the previous canine occupants of the White House. 1) He’s not a wussy dog like Barney and 2) He doesn’t have a wussy name like Barney. ‘Nuff Said.

Obama is Good to the Last Drop

Last night we had our second sedar at a friend’s house and he, like many of you who also split the bread of affliction, use the good old holiday standard, The Maxwell House Company Haggadah.

It turns out that you are not alone.

None other then the President of the United States also follows the story of Exodus using one. The First Family held a White House sedar yesterday for staff and their family’s over at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

While we don’t know who’s brisket recipe was served or if the matzo balls were sinkers or floaters, one thing is for sure. Based on this picture the leader of the free world really likes singing “Dyanu”

The Inaugural...Through My Eyes

Words actually escape me when I look back at the events over the past few days and try to sum up what it was like to be at the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. Besides “moving” and “unbelievable” which a) are not my choices and b) don’t really do the scene justice I would add, “breathtaking”.

Let me back up a bit. Mrs. Bloggerman, who some of you know and even more of you love, worked her butt off for longer then either of us care to remember to get to this day and as a reward for all of her BST (blood, sweat, tears) she had entry into a number of the celebrations and events in honor of the inaugural. I as her husband was allowed to come along for the ride and enjoy the moment along side of her (now I know how Bill Clinton feels).

I won’t go into all the details but I do want to share some specific moments with you (Another post tomorrow will feature a link to all the pictures). The first is the inaugural swearing in ceremony from the US Capitol Building. We were very lucky to receive tickets to a “seated” area of the ceremony instead of the general admission standing areas that stretched from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial (a distance of over 2 miles long by more then a ¼ mile wide). In order to get through all the extra tight security we had to get up very early.

5am: I was up and out from our hotel room complete with bleary eyes and a hankering for coffee. Instead, I went out to see if I could pick up a commemorative copy of the days’ Washington Post. I backed off when the guy on the corner wanted $2 for it. My feeling is if I can’t pay 50 cents, it’s not worth it. That is until I decide I really want one and have to pay $8 on line. Oh well.

530am: We headed out for the 6 block walk through arctic DC to the gathering point for the buses that would take us down to the ceremony. A quick note here, most people had to walk through all the security, we were very lucky here again!

6am: We got to the staging area and made a v-line for Starbucks which was open and kicking complete with a line of customers at least 25-30 people deep. Armed with coffee and a bathroom break we headed outside to wait in line to get on the buses.

730am: We finally made it though security and on to the buses. We were fortunate to have the Secret Service set up a screening zone at the hotel so we didn’t have to go through with everybody else on the Hill.

830am: Even with a police escort it took nearly an hour to make a 5 minute trip because of all the pedestrians and visitors. It was still quite a site to see so many people out (many more then you’d see on a regular work day)

920am: We’ve now made it past all the gates and into our seats. I can’t believe how close we are. I’d estimate we were about 30-50 rows back from the platform above the Capitol where the ceremony was being held. We could make out the presidential seal on the podium (through the 2 ft of bullet-proof glass. We also could see close up on one of the jumbo-tron screens. The production team had video showing people already lined up back at the Lincoln Memorial.

10am: It is really cold and we’ve been out for almost 5 hours now. However the musical introductions have begun and a choir from San Francisco has started. They are pretty good.

1045am: It’s now only 15 minutes away from the start of the program and we’re getting really excited. Which is good because it actually seems to be getting colder as we go on. Congress has just been sat in the risers behind the stage

11am: The rest of the introductions begin and the crowd (now completely filled in the entire length of the Mall make the loudest sound I’ve ever heard when Barack Obama is introduced.

12pm: President Obama takes the oath of office and gives his inaugural address (follow this link for the video of the event from the White House website). The picture is the one at the head of this post.

1pm: With the events on the Hill over, we head back to our buses (with a quick stop in the port-a-john). The good news: we had over 100 port-a-johns to choose from as this was one of the best part of the event logistics. The bad news: the buses we came over on seemed to have lost a chunk of seats or picked up people that weren’t on them on the way over because we got 2 of the last seats on the last bus. While we were waiting to get on we got passed by all sorts of vehicles, from motorcycles and other buses, to horseback and pedestrians. But it was all worth the wait because the buses proceeded back, we followed the President’s parade route (the parade started about an hour or so later) down Pennsylvania Ave and dropped us of square in front of the White House. Everybody along the parade route was waving to us and excited....I don’t think they really knew who we were but ok.

130pm: We headed back to an hotel a few blocks over to view the parade from one of their suites and get ready for the evenings events.

I’m only going to touch briefly on our experience that night at the “Biden Home States Inaugural Ball” which was both of our first inaugural ball experiences. Besides being able to say we were in the same room with the Vice President (for 6 minutes) and the President (for 3 minutes) there is not much worth writing home about. Except of course for the natural beauty of Mrs. Bloggerman and her stunningly handsome husband.

I will close with this thought (which I’m appropriating from Don Imus’ show this morning). There were over one million people on the Mall for the swearing in but not one arrest. The feeling over the course of the Inaugural events was one of happiness, celebration, and joy. Nobody (in any of the events or areas I was in) was short or yelling at somebody else. If you were in line at an ATM and one of the two machines wasn’t working, we just waited and chatted with the people around you. I’m under no misconception that this mood will last in this town or that we won’t be back to business as usual in DC come tomorrow, but for a few days we had “hope” and a vision of the future of things to come. And that by itself was worth the frostbite.

Bloggerman out!