Follow me to the DNC on Twitter

Notice I wrote to the DNC, not into the DNC. See, I don’t have tickets. I’ll be one of tens of thousands trekking to Denver ticketless to be in the noise.

I probably won’t be posting a lot here, but you can follow me on Twitter.

Why would anyone travel 1,000 miles from Indiana to do such a thing?

Personally, I think it will make for an interesting story. I’ve gone a heck of a lot farther in pursuit of interesting stories. This blog for instance.

I tried to get a press pass, but I was about 5 months too late. Here’s how I described it to Jared, traveling partner for the next week and – for our purposes here – a very experienced photojournalist:

I called the DNC. They pretty much laughed at me when I asked for access to the convention/speech. Apparently, they think they are dealing with two jokers trying to pass themselves off as actual journalists. Jackasses. I told them that I was converting to Republicanism.

Chances are that we’ll just end of tailgating ala Jimmy Buffett concert.

I do have a couple of assignments, but I doubt I land an interview with the candidate or, for that matter, anyone not painting faces or selling hot dogs. The story I get will probably be titled something like “The Inside Story Outside the Convention.”

If you happen to be someone visiting this blog to check my credentials: How dare you question them! I am a very serious journalist who has written on such important issues as farting on airplanes and disposable underwear. I have a very loyal blog following of highly intelligent, very witty (so witty that you probably wouldn’t get them) individuals.

(Note to such individuals: leave lots of comments under multiple aliases. Make them full of wit and intelligence.)

See you on Twitter.

Stupid things people say when they wake from a nap

Last night Annie sat up at a start when I woke her on the couch.

“What day is it?” she said, as if the answer would have life or death importance.

“It’s Sunday.”

“Oh.”

USA Basketball and…

My shorts: Redeemed!

How much does it mean to me? It’s 4:39am and I’m wearing my shorts, proud as can be. In a way, I think I deserve some of the credit.

On writing on Vagablogging

If you don’t get your fill of me babbling about writing and traveling here, today, you can here me babble about writing and traveling over at Rolf Potts’ Vagablogging.

It’s (probably) a girl!

We recently learned that it (as in our fetus) is probably a girl. The lady doing the ultra-sound said that she would put the probability of it being a girl at 80%. As long as it’s one or the other, I’m happy.

I’m in trouble. Just what I need, another girl in the house (Annie + the Cat + Princess Timmerman = 3 of them and 1 of me). I’m not in trouble in the sense that I’m going to have another female walking all over me and bossing me around – Oreo is the only one that does that – but because I’m not sure how much complete adoration for others in a single house one fella can muster before imploding into a tulip.

I had a dream a few months ago that the baby had Annie’s eyes. I woke up and coughed up a petal. When we first heard her heartbeat I almost cried – a self-watering tulip.

So many people have told us to wait; that it’s exciting to wait. But Annie wanted to know and I wanted to know. The sooner I knew the sooner I could start (directing all of my failed hopes and dreams onto another) focusing all of my emotion into this little thing growing in Annie’s tummy.

Everything I do right now, I think about what it’s going to be like to do with her. I can’t wait to…

…take her on a picnic
…roll with laughter on the living room floor as we sing a duo on SingStar
…read the Chronicles of Narnia to her
…do activities out of the Dangerous Book for Girls and (what the heck) the Dangerous Book for Boys
…teach her how to swim

The list goes on. I’m sure I’ll think of new things tomorrow.

Only four months more to go and I’ll get to hold my new best friend. She’ll be a sweet little girl. I’ll be the tulip in the palm of her little hand.

The sun is alwasy setting and rising

Somewhere the sun is always setting. Whether that somewhere is into the ocean, thunder clouds, a prairie, a desert, a city skyline, depends on where you are.

Lucky for us, the site Constant Setting takes us to where the sun is setting right now.

(I saw it on WorldHum)

A Petition: Make “Coming Home Barbie” Available to Everyone

If you haven’t been following the recent discussion in the archives about “Coming Home Barbie,” you are missing out. In that discussion, Cindy Sue points toward this unbelievable petition:

To: Mattel Corporate Office

To: Mattel Corporate Office
333 Continental Blvd
El Segundo Calfornia 90245

We the undersigned, parents, grandparents, relatives and friends of children adopted from China and Asia, offer this petition to you and ask that you reconsider the decision to offer the “Coming Home Barbie” exclusively at the White Swan Hotel in China.

Many of us traveled to China and Asia to adopt our children prior to your introduction of the “Coming Home Barbie” available exclusively at the White Swan Hotel. Therefore were not given the opportunity to obtain one of these dolls for our child(ren).

We would like to have the opportunity to purchase one of these wonderful keepsake Barbies for our children, grandchildren and friends. We feel confident that allowing the “Coming Home Barbie” to be sold here in the United States and other countries would generate substantial interest in the product as well as awareness to international adoption in general.

Please reconsider and make the “Coming Home Barbie” available to everyone.
Thank you.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

There are so many causes that one can take up (world hunger, poverty, AIDS in Africa, genocides) and there’s actually a group of people petitioning that a company make a specific toy for their children. As if Mattel is imposing upon their rights as a consumer and not sufficiently meeting their needs to spoil their children. Capitalism has let them down, and by God they aren’t going to take it any more.

I’m thinking about petitioning Mattel to produce a “Ken doll” in my likeness. I’d buy it.

An Engaged Consumers Shoe Shopping Guide

I’ve yet to see a “fair trade” shoe that didn’t deserve a name like “The Blister” or “The Air Blister.” I don’t care where you stand as an engaged consumer, if you’re looking for a shoe that you actually want to perform, your options are pretty much limited to the big boy shoe manufacturers.

National Geographic’s Green Guide helps us determine which one of the big boys we want to support.

Do we want to support a company that publishes a list of the names and addresses of their suppliers, but places a higher volume of orders in non-union factories?

Or do we want to support a company that Oxfam notes “has probably done the most research and thinking” about living wages for Asian factory workers, but does not publish a list of their factories and suppliers?

I’m in the market for a new pair of kicks and you can bet that I’ll be consulting Maureen Ryan’s piece in the Green Guide: Sizing Up Athletic Shoe Makers.

If Annie and I mated

Which I guess we did. Could this really be the result? Poor kid.

Is the Paul McCarthy that designed my book cover this Paul McCarthy???

GENEVA (AFP) — A giant inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again, the museum said Monday.

The same Paul McCarthy whose Wikipedia page has one picture on it – this picture?

I can’t say for sure that it isn’t that Paul McCarthy, but I doubt it, seeing that my book cover is devoid of inflatable dog turds and Santa Clauses holding sex toys.

(Thanks Karly, for posing the question.)