In a staff meeting this week, the Director pointed out that it was time to request vacation. The reason being is that all 20 of us can't all be out of the office at once and since session might not be over until July 1, that only gives eight weeks to scatter it over. At first you might think no problem, but umm you see...we each get four weeks per year. You know a month...so if everyone takes their full allotment...

Anyway, I've been thinking about this since I started in September. Not because I really couldn't wait to go on vacation...but because it's pretty hot here in the summer as you might have heard...and leaving the apartment for a month saves you a decent amount on electricity. Moreover,  our schedule is such to where if you don't plan ahead you get busy right before the time you have to take you vacation...thus...

At first I thought I had this great idea...visit Belize. Unlike Europe, the flight was only $500 and it's cheap accommodation wise. But in my grand vision, I was going to be gone for 3 weeks, not two. And because it faces the Caribbean...I'd be going during the humid-as-hell hurricane season. So I decided against it.

Then I found out my coworker Joy was going to China. We couldn't quite agree on an itinerary, though and she didn't want to take the train very much. That pushed it out of my price range...and hence...she's going to visit her family and friends there without me.

So now I'm thinking...and so far nothing has jumped out at me. I proposed a couple ideas to people already...but what does everyone think?

I knew it was a bad omen when at about 4:30pm on Friday I got up from my desk for the bathroom only to find the office empty. I went into Marcel's office...and found none of his personal effects. I signed off and headed out to watch the Laker game at happy hour. The weather forecast prediction high heat by the end of the weekend, so I figured I would use the gray on Saturday to run a couple errands before heading out to Ed's fundraiser.

Originally I hoped to go swimming and use the pool a lot. But here's the thing. The best pool days are those in which the morning is sort of warm (around 80F) so that you can actually exercise in the water. Then the afternoon creeps into the 90s and as the pool gets more crowded, you feel like relaxing. Saturday didn't deliver. Instead I drove around lunchtime figuring I'd eat at this one plate lunch spot near Sonoran State. But it has summer hours that leave it closed on the weekends. That required me to bounce over to the In-N-Out and get something to go so I could get my camera (back at home) for Ed's BBQ. After finishing my food I still had time to stop by Fry's so I did that and bought myself a DVD player.

Now you might say...what the....but remember the summer gets HOT. You have to have something to do in your abode when the mercury soars. And because my PS2 was ruined a few years ago, I had no capacity to play DVDs without buying a player. So naturally I did some research and bought myself perhaps the best single-disc player on the market. Nervously I left it in my car, not sure what the set up would be at Ed's barbecue.

Luckily, the location for the BBQ turned out to be the office park where his father has his business in the Silicon Desert. (Think "Office Space"). As I was about to get off the freeway however I suddenly felt sick with the stomach flu. I couldn't believe it. I staggered in and asked Ed where the closest pharmacy was. I went, got myself some Immodium Advanced and Gatorade and drove back to the party. Of course, I steered clear of the food for a long time when I returned, which didn't endear me to anyone visiting. Well sort of. I know many of Ed's friend not associated with the campaign. They came and went over the course of the event. But of course, some local Democratic heavyweights showed up to talk a little bit.

As the event was winding down, I ran into Ed's research director. The guys started to pack up the barbecue and Ed invited me into the campaign war-room. (It's part of his dad's area in the complex.) There, I got introduced to all the regulars of his campaign, his strategist, fundraiser, and manager. It's actually against administrative rules me to participate in campaign except in a very minor role. But luckily he has plenty of help because his workers get internship credit. But it's a little surreal to sit around with a bunch of 20somethings running and active political campaign while the rest of Ed's friends concentrate on the proverbial beer n' pussy.

Still, I spent long enough in the war room that Rita began to call me anxiously. I got home around 9pm before noticing the phone ring. She was in Frontierland at a Mom's Club event and planning to meet me so we could go out. Originally Chey was going to join us, but he cited the inability to find a babysitter. (This is a bone of contention with Rita, because she thinks Chey is ducking going out with her.) In any case, Rita arrives and it's clear she's buzzed. The Mom's Club event had been at a sushi bar and included some libation apparently. So I told her I might get something to eat afterwards (because remember I hadn't eaten as I planned at the barbecue). Well on our way to the lounge, she decided she was hungry so we decided to eat at the Kona Grill.

Kona, if you are wondering, is the spiritual epicenter of Cougar Country. It's part of the High-Holy Temple for the region endemic religion: materialism. Kona has two floors, a bar and patio and a regular dining room. The bar and patio hosts happy hours (both the traditional and "reverse"). The reverse happy hour occurs at 10-midnight Monday-Saturday. Both are insanely popular because no only are the drinks marked down...but also the food including sushi. I've been there a couple times because it serves food late enough that if I chose to go a movie or something, I can still have a real dinner there afterwards and not Taco Bell. I took Rita once and well...

Among the fallout was that I now know the night manager there, a guy named Shadi. He had given me his card a while back, and so this time it was my turn. He came by to see us on the patio (the waitress also remembering us eerily) and picked our brains for a minute before heading back to his duties. Due to the sudden onset of the stomach flu, I wasn't drinking (and had drove). Sure as shit, by the time Rita was done eating, she was tired and wanted to go home. So we did. My choice of wardrobe did turn a head or two as we left, so I asked her opinion and she liked "the look". [If you are wondering what great idea it was, try a dress shirt and some Dockers.]

I checked the update weather forecast and found that Sunday was to be barely 80 degrees too and I decided to sleep in and relax.

I woke up and headed to US Egg for Sunday brunch. I felt a little tired, but was amused by some strange melodrama between local law enforcement and some "30K millionaire" types apparently off-roading in an empty lot. Resolution was reached before my table was ready...so I ended up with some Eggs Benedict and thinking about if I wanted to try for the pool later. Who walks in though, but Shadi. He and I chat for a minute about Kona, after I quip that he must also had good tastes. But when I got back to my apartment and found that I had a new problem. The TV I had bought at the consignment store didn't have S Video outlets, only CATV. The DVD player had no CATV ports, and the cable box couldn't accept the feed. So that required another trip to Fry's to buy a switcher box. (And then another trip to Lowe's to buy extra CATV wire...but I digress.)

All day I had been short of breath, agitated that Chey might try to avoid going out with me on Sundays. (but also about other things I would guess). The reason being is that I get very few chances to hit up Dons R' Us on Sunday when it's at his prime and I've had to go alone. Chey first called to say he wasn't going to go, and I was pissed..not because he was tired and unable to make it work. No, it's because he waited until the last minute to cancel. As I began to ponder going to the Blockbuster, Rita called back and said Chey would go if it meant that much to him. But that wasn't the end of it, Chey wanted to invite two of his coworkers. My concern was only that we would have a rough time getting in because of the number of guys together and when we would arrive.

I relented, and we arrived at Dons around 10:30pm to be warned that guys wouldn't be let in. Now if this sounds weird, recognize I usually get their around 10pm when they don't care and I usually go alone....but a group of dudes is always problematic. So at first I thought that was that...but then another doorman changed his mind and let us in within a few seconds. We wandered in, and within minutes of one of Chey's associates started tearing up the dance floor with the one gal. (He's a short Asian guy, so this made him seem harmless.) I've seen lots of people there, and this time turned out to be no exception as one of my neighbors Kumar Patel nearly tripped over me. He was busy with a friend who had a table reservation, but it was still hilarious to see just what a small world it was.

As the place got packed, Chey and the other coworker Gary watched me just stand around. They assumed that this was too boring and that it was too loud to talk and they wanted to leave. So around midnight we packed it in. We drove over to an outdoor bar to chat a while. I had fun with Chey, warning him that he had just left the singles hangout in Cougar Country. (Remember he's married.) But also Gary was attached and therefore eager to chat it up. Gary also for good measure worked for Chey's company in Britain before the office here opened up.

By the end of the night, Ken was about to pass out after a few margaritas. Gary was also done, and I couldn't seem to finish my beer. Chey drove us all home, but before getting out Gary was quick to invite me to their weekly happy hour. Now I had a serious dilemma on my hands, given that I had already been frequenting another place.

Thus, Monday rolled around and I was serious about hitting the pool. So I dressed wearing my trunks after showering and figured I'd grab a bite to eat at Costco. Except, as I seem to forget, Costco isn't open on Memorial Day. So my hope of getting pizza was dashed and I had to settle for something at the food court of the High Holy Temple. This took longer than I wanted, and before long I was at the carwash getting the damage done in the storm repaired. I return home, thinking at last I would hit the water. But instead I was intercepted by none other than Kumar eager to have me join his friends in his pad for some shots of Cointreau. I obliged haltingly and then before long I offered them some of my precious beer stash. We drank outside for a little bit and then they decided to go to the supermarket to buy some more. They told me though they would meet me at the pool. Or should I say, they told me that but I realized the others might not want to do that.

Upon finally getting to the pool, it was still rather cold. Now the temperature was something like you might find in Santa Monica or Newport Beach, with just the right mix of sunshine and breeze. But oh yeah, the pools out here are rarely heated and as such...it was going to be chilly as well as being a race to fight off the Cointreau. And as luck would have it, a huge pool party was winding down and there were actually real live people in the water. I had lain down on one of the reclining chairs figuring I'd get up at some point. But instead as the music blared as the wind jostled the palm fronds I was content...disturbingly so.

No one at the pool introduced themselves and instead I watched an army of muscled types and bikinis fritter about until they finally left. By then it was almost dinnertime I decided to order a pizza and watch the basketball game. This is a very weird place. But I'm not sorry I came. Nevertheless as I left the pool behind I realized that the budget still wasn't done. Many movies have a slow pace immediately precede the conclusion, as a way to create contrast. I could only wonder what awaited me the next day.

Once the mercury hits triple digits in Alta Sonora, locals are usually resigned to the heat lasting for months on end. But this time, something unpredictable happened, and the jet stream dropped a storm into our laps right before the big Memorial Day weekend, making it the coolest its been in months.

But I've been busy staring at something else: the gas price at my local station. Finally, it's breached levels I last saw living in California, rising very quickly in the last couple of weeks. Believe it or not, I budget for very high gas prices already...but at some point...even I would be staggering to pay the cost.

Yet if you can believe it, I've read more than one article this week that predicts the market for oil is about to collapse. Now, I realize that this has been going on for years now. I remember when I started watching CNBC in 2005 and people watched petroleum exceed $40 a barrel.

Here are links to the two pieces in question:

"Oil's Perfect Storm to Blow Over"

"Oil Price Mocks Fuel Realities"

Now in the past, I've commented that I think speculation is part of the reason gasoline has gone so high. In effect, I tend to think the reason for that is that as collateralized debt obligations (CDO's) saw their demand shrivel up, investment banks have tried to think of things which are inelastic in demand, like commodities. [CDO's are what the majority of foreign banks and investors bought that contained the rights to all those mortgages.] The only question that is left unanswered by the earlier articles is what will trigger the collapse in oil prices.

After all, while you might think there's no upside to high gas prices there is one: less terrorism. Strange though it may sound, I actually planned but never completed a research project correlating commodity prices and political instability. But it's not what you might think...the assumption made by several people is that countries highly reliant on commodity exports (like Saudi Arabia) created welfare states which were unsustainable and the poverty created by tumbling commodity prices helped strengthen political resistance via organizations like Al Qaeda.

But if these commodity costs stay high, this would cause Americans and other nations to have a lower standard of living.

What's that you say....I should be talking about my awesome plans this weekend? Uh yeah, how did you think I got myself onto this topic in the first place?

My weekend in a sense began a day early. On Friday I went with one of my agencies on a site visit. We spent half of the day looking at earth fissures, which are a growing problem (no pun intended) across the state. The other half was up in the mountains looking at a landslide that closed a major highway months ago. This whole purpose of doing the visit now is that doing so in the height of summer would be insanity. And for reasons which I can explain more in depth later...I had the time.

The situation with the earth fissures is pretty simple. The agency tries to map them so as to alert people to their potential hazards. You might think that cracks in the earth would be visible all the time...but actually they often get covered in dirt only to reappear at certain times. (One is thunderstorms, the other when the water table drops significantly with pumping.) So while we went to some fairly conspicuous ones, the point was more to show what they like like below the surface and what sort of costs the agency can incur hunting for them. More alarmingly, the funding to track them only occurred recently, and as development has continued and sprawl pushes out into the hinterlands, there is reason to think that several subdivisions of houses are built on them...already.

Keep in mind though, the landslide is not directly related to this phenomenon. Instead, it's a function of civil engineering and more antiquated geological survey techniques. However, because the slide and the current construction is on the southbound side of the road, the Director, one of his deputies Mimi, and myself had to turn around on the divided highway to get to the construction site. As we did this, we saw a huge cloud of dust. At first I thought someone had just slid off the road. But as we found out, it was actually that someone had flipped a truck off the highway and into the brush. Mimi, trained in emergency response leapt out while Dr. Allison and I kept going to inform the Department of Transportation crew about the accident. Department of Public Safety officers already had arrived by the time we went to go get Mimi. But it turned out that the injuries appeared not as severe as they could have been...the baby, the driver and another older woman were all walking around, and talking. They were able to clean the blood off using just the baby's sanitary wipes, apparently. Still, this wasn't exactly without risk as the highway remained open to the side of us and there was broken glass everywhere.

Finally, after a few minutes we left and went back to the landslide. The managing contractor was present to actually give us a presentation on the progress. A new, steel beam reinforced wall would be built after the dirt was pushed back. Inclinators (which measure movement of rock) had been installed to measure future changes. Other than though, there was little of interest, (unless you are a geologist). But it was important for me to see to figure out just what the agency does now correlates to what additional studies on landslides could involve. Needless to say, I don't know the answer to that yet.

Returning back to Cougar Country, I had been warned that Sunday would be the first triple digit day of the year out here. Because of the dry heat 100 degrees Fahrenheit isn't as dangerous as it is in say...New Orleans. But wanting to be prudent I did all my errands on Saturday...from Costco to the car wash. As for Saturday night, I didn't have much going on...so I ended up closing it down with Rita and Chey....at Chuck E. Cheese. Their son clobbered me in air hockey so I had to end the night avenging myself. (For some reason, this Chuck E. Cheese closes at 10:30pm on weekends...allowing us to stay for a long time.)

Ironically, with everything resolved for the weekend I didn't expect much and instead was corralled by ... my neighbor....busy watching the Celtics and Cavaliers duke it out in Game 7. I ended leaving to get a sandwich to go and watching Boston's gritty victory on his couch.  Afterwards he went to the pool leaving me to huddle in my air conditioned apartment and hearing rumors that the week ahead would be a strange one. Record high temps on Monday and Tuesday giving way to much cooler weather just in time for Memorial Day weekend.  Some may like it hot, but let me tell you that was music to my ears.

Back in 2003... I went to visit my friend Teresa in Nashville as part of a cross-country tour to look at law schools. She had enrolled at Vanderbilt, and I arrived just in time for spring. Nearly every night I was in town she and her friends/colleagues went out to a bar and I got to come with. The last time, I was approached by some guys from West Virginia who found me absolutely entertaining. (This happens a lot...don't worry.) At one point, they pointed out that Al Gore had lost the White House because he didn't win West Virginia. And in some sense is true. Since 1960...West Virginia only went to the Republicans during the tidal wave re-election campaigns of Nixon (1972) and Reagan (1984).  But then Gore lost the state by 40,000 votes or so and it's never looked back.

So for that reason, Barack Obama decided not to contest the state too much. Had this been the case on Super Tuesday, it wouldn't have mattered I think. But because it happened one week after the Senator became the "presumptive nominee" I think this is a problem.

Yes, you heard me...I think Hope of America....Barack Obama in '08 may have jumped the shark. And I'm not trying to be defeatist (which I am constantly accused of).

See, I always thought that Hillary Clinton's real problem is that her campaign exuded an air of entitlement. That she tried to communicate a sense of de facto incumbency. Even though, as I have mentioned before on blog comments...that's a bad idea given that most successful Democratic candidates in the general election were in fact insurgents like her husband Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter. Running the campaign of "inevitability" sucks.

So why is Barry pulling a Hillary? I don't really know, perhaps the donors are telling him that McCain is doing so incredibly well or that it's a zero sum game and he has wasted precious time. Still, would it have killed him to spend a little more time in the Mountain State. I realize....you think it's a lost cause...but don't you want to come back in the general? It's obvious that remaining primaries won't decide the nominee...that's up to the Democratic Party insiders...both because of the superdelegates but also because of the credential committee meeting on May 31 to decide what to do about Michigan and Florida.

Again, this goes back to why I think John McCain wins the Presidency this year... See if you go back to the 2004 electoral college map, all you have to do is figure out what states shift from "red" to "blue" if that's enough electors...Dems win....if not....they lose. But I think McCain has played his cards right left the Democrats with an uphill battle. So where does West Virginia fit in?

Clinton is going to argue her victory is what makes her competitive there. But she ran as the populist with a conservative touch to take the primary. McCain is running as the conservative with the populist touch...so that negates that. Obama on the other hand can hit McCain head on about Iraq and tie it the hardship in West Virgina. (Both the economic suffering and the fact that it led to many Mountaineers enrolling in the armed forces and bearing much pain from the war itself.) But by not even attempting to hit the college towns or the rubber chicken circuit there....he's not going to be a hot date in October.

Of course Obama is going to say that in fact, he is doing well in that other mountain state, Colorado. But Bush won there by almost 100,000 votes (4%) in 2004. But that's not where Obama decided to go recently, he went to Missouri. There John Kerry fell by 150,000 votes and endured a 7% margin of defeat. (If you are curious which states were the closest...it was Iowa and New Mexico the states which Gore most narrowly picked up in 2000.)

But Gore, don't forget, was still a few electoral votes short. The Democrats need 19 more electors this go round to win outright. 18 would send the election to the floor of the House at the start of the next Congress. Now for the shocking part....there are only three available pick ups for the Democrats that have more than 18 electoral votes: Texas, Ohio, and Florida. Otherwise, more than one state has to turn blue for the Dems to get the White House back. And worse yet, if it's Iowa, New Mexico and West Virginia in 2008 to join the Democrats...that is (surprise, surprise) exactly 18 electors. Just as it is if it's Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada.

Feel free to put in the comments what states you think the Dems have a shot in this time around. I'll let you know how many electoral votes that is (if you don't already).

The seasons, in Alta Sonora, are not marked by beautiful foliage, nor changes in precipitation. Indeed, here one tends to appreciate how subtle the "leaves" turn if you will. Moreover, there are really five seasons in Cougar Country. From Thanksgiving to President's Day...it's winter...which means a few rainy days interspersed with night cold enough to warrant the heater. This is followed by spring, which stretches until Mother's Day. Then until the 4th of July marks the dry summer...when temperatures soar and people begin to flock indoors more and more. This is exacerbated by the arrival of the monsoon...the switch to subtropical wind patterns that fuels hot, humid and utterly miserable conditions..that is if the afternoon thunderstorms fail to cool off the neighborhood. Last but not least...the monsoon season abates and produces the shortest of them all...autumn.

But don't be fooled and thing no one looks forward to hot temperatures. Low humidity means that 90 degree days are surprisingly bearable. And night temperatures stay balmy, which has an allure all of its own. No, really.

Although you are loathe to find much written in official channels, one cannot escape hearing references to having sex outdoors this time of year. For it's ever so common to see 80-degree temperatures persist after the sun set...but again...with that dry air...it's apparently perfect for life's ultimate purpose.

Naturally you wonder have I caught anyone in the act so far? And the answer to that would be, no. I suspect that this is holdover from the days when people lived further apart and slept outside. No really, prior to air conditioning, it was very common to slept outdoors during the summer when heat would often be trapped by fixed walls. But as concrete gobbled up more of the pristine desert, so did the city gained a higher heat capacity and thus making sleeping outdoors akin to torture. It could be worse however, in places like Chicago where brick is used extensively the heat actually is retained very well...often cooking elderly residents alive during heat waves.

Nevertheless, I'm sure that somewhere, as we speak, someone is in flagrante delicto. I, on the other hand, have been sort of a recluse lately. With Ed off to run for County Supervisor...my neighbor smitten with a new girlfriend, and Rita preoccupied with other things...I found myself back at my pool around Saturday at noon...swimming. Mind you, it took very little time to realize how out of shape I was. But once again I had the water to myself. More than one group of girls sat there sunning themselves, while a younger mother took her baby out for a splash. The pair would dash their toes into the water...but leave me alone. As I got out...exhausted from my poor form in the water...I heard them and one of the gals talking about moving out here. It turned out the mom had just moved her so her husband could take a job at Sonora State. The "eye candy", they confessed to moving out here seven years, hailing from Nebraska.

The mom said only "hi" to me as I passed...ignoring me for reasons we can only imagine. I'm a guy, and I was by myself, and I was wearing my new goggles. I spent the rest of the weekend realizing it might be time finally to join a group of some sort. (Not that I haven't tried...just that I felt uncommitted before.) So far though...I don't have many ideas. Any thoughts?

Over the past couple of days I have been using the relatively slow pace at work to finally start addressing my student loans. Ever since I started working, I had calculated how I could set aside for loan repayment. (But keep in mind, I have so much debt that I could put every dollar I make per month against the total and it wouldn't be enough...and don't think I'm the only one in this situation.) Because of all of my debt will have to be restructured with the exception of one very small private loan I took out at the end of my time at USC, it took more work than I first thought to figure out what to do.

And as it turned out, it's Graduation Day ... er...Commencement at Sonora State. But as you can imagine, that wasn't the catalyst for this post.

Instead, I'll begin with my commute to work. Usually I listen to NPR for no other reason that it has very reliable coverage of state politics. (Nevermind that it's National Public Radio.) I'm told that a commercial radio station also covers my bread and butter but in stereotypical right-wing talk radio style. In any case, today's guest on the "Diane Rehm Show" was none other than George Soros, who was talking about how the last 30 years have been a "super-bubble" environment that has seen numerous smaller bubbles including the "mortgage meltdown" and the "tech bubble" and the "savings and loan crisis". The eponymous host went on to ask him about his current prediction of almost total economic collapse by pointing out that he had predicted the same thing ten years ago. The question obscured the fact that most Americans still do not realize or understand how close we came back then as well...largely because the major development then were in Asia, not here in the US.

In any case, you ought to know that student loans are often sold in vehicles similar to collateral debt obligations (like those famous subprime mortgages). But the way it works is that a company acts a servicer to collect payment regardless of who ultimately owns the debt. The company that I have the loans with though however, does not do it's own servicing, instead partnering with a municipal corporation based in Kentucky. (Don't ask.) I ended up on their website for a while, confused about how to set up various payment plans for private loans. It was then that I saw the following notice: posted incongruously on the homepage:

Due to the ongoing impact of the capital market crisis, The Student Loan People must temporarily suspend all new loan activity. Click here for more information. [link]

Except it didn't say that this morning...only mentioning that it had suspended all new borrowers. Clicking on the link brought you to another statement saying this moratorium applied also to renewal borrowers. But now if you follow the link mentioned you get this statement at the top of the page:

Due to the ongoing impact of the capital market crisis, The Student Loan People must temporarily suspend all new loan activity.

Please note: The Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (H.R. 5715) has passed both the House and Senate and President Bush is expected to sign the legislation into law soon. This Act is expected to provide lenders with opportunities for securing additional funds to make new loans. New information will be made available as the bill becomes law and appropriate administrative and regulatory processes are defined. [link]

On the surface, this looks like a logical explanation. But it actually isn't. For even though it's true that "capital market" upheaval has diminished the attractiveness of student loan CDOs...lenders still receive subsidies from the Federal Government to offer such things. Only thing is, recently these were pared back by the Cost College Reduction Act of 2007. [link] So I'm not really sure what to think here, because there are two separate possibilities:

1) These guys really are hurting and they can't move any new student loans onto the market to be bought by Deutsche Bank, ABN AMRO...or some other foreign investors.

2) The company is playing dead...upset that Washington has moved its cheese and now wants to frighten the politicos into giving them another lucrative subsidy of some sort.

I've heard so far that student applying for loans are only having trouble at places like the University of Phoenix, where the graduation rate hovers at around 13% or so and are for-profit institutions with no real cap on what they could charge for tuition (except of course federal loan limits). Good old nonprofit and state-run universities and schools might be using different lenders, but no one has dropped out of school. This scenario points to 2) above and if so is not terribly newsworthy.

More alarming to me of course, was that this announcement was effective May 1, 2008. If so, that means that the credit crisis is getting worse, despite plenty of people like Warren Buffet proclaiming the contrary. How much worse, of course, depends on how much this student lender is posturing or telling the truth.

It was only later in the day that I learned it was Commencement across town at Sonora State. I don't envy them...this has got to be one of the most challenges times in recent history to leave school and face our uncertain world. But hey it could be worse...we could always bring back the draft....

In case you are wondering...Cinco de Mayo is not a big holiday in Mexico. It's like St. Patrick's Day...more popular abroad than at home. But given Alta Sonora's precarious position near the border, you know that it's as good an excuse as any to get out and party. Yet, as it turned out...I didn't do anything at all...confounded by the fact that everyone else had plans. (Not that "everyone" is an expansive list.)

Regardless, I slept for a long time on Saturday morning...to the point in which my back and other muscles were very sore. So I decided to try and recuperate...afraid to mosey on over to the pool and break in my new swim googles. But I didn't. I also elected not to go see a movie or do anything else. I ran a few errrands...but mostly gathered dust. I did end up watching part of the Celtics game with my neighbor...but he had to cut it short to play a round of golf. Not that it mattered.

At first I thought I might be dehydrated or something...but as the weekend wore on I realized that my posture was probably bent out of shape from using this laptop on my coffee table and leaning forward. At a certain point i believe my back was basically putting too much pressure on my shoulders and hunching me over. In any case, I went out and bought a special cushion for my laptop to allow me to take it off the coffee table and at a more ergonomic angle for me. So far the results have been positive.

Feeling kind of sad though, I decided to buy myself a six pack of Negra Modelo to celebrate Cinco de Mayo...on my own. But wouldn't you know...I got home with my dinner on Sunday and forgot that I didn't have a can or bottle opener. So I had to drive back to the supermarket and buy one.

Si se puede, my friends, si se puede.

It's the Super Bowl for street demonstrations, as workers, agitators, and the general public help fuel protests across the world in honor of the spirit of labor. And as you can imagine, turnout in Alta Sonora was small. So small in fact that traffic in Pueblo Grande flowed normally. (Okay, so I'm not sure there was any event at all...) There's more interest about where to go this weekend for Cinco de Mayo...but that's just...well....a Sonoran thing.

This week has seen a few developments though worth noting:

• My favorite radio station fired their morning host. Now, while I didn't think he was as good as KROQ's Kevin and Bean, I was more stunned by what triggered the move. Fretting about "low" ratings, the management decided to dump the locally based host and replace him with Adam Carrolla. I know all about this guy because Adam got his start on the very same Kevin and Bean Show when I was a middling teen. Even though he had lots of success on "Loveline" and "The Man Show" I really thought he was playing above his ability. In another twist, I personally know the dismissed DJ because he used to sponsor Monday Night Football watching parties at a local dive bar. They were great fun and I have no idea if he will get to bring that back at another station. As for his current employer, I almost thought Carrolla was moving to Pueblo Grande to take the job. I realized afterwards it just means his show will play here through syndication. I really hate that...and I'm a strong proponent of local control for media. (In fact that is the reason I held out listening to NPR for so long.) So I changed my clock radio to a new show that I almost like better. (It's a hard rock station.)

• The management company decided to reallocate parking spaces due to some long ago injustice. The result is that I get a much nicer parking spot, even though it's almost right next to my old one. Reason being is that covered parking is big deal here in the Sonoran Empire. The summer sun can make your interior cab awfully toasty in no time. My old spot was at the end of the row, so some sunlight poked through from the sides. Now I'm closer to the middle, which means less sun just in time for the hot season.

• Governor Mike Easley of North Carolina endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton. While this might seem innocuous, keep in mind that Clinton won both Pennsylvania and Ohio after getting the state's Democratic governor to endorse her, not Barack Obama. It's true that in both states she still was very competitive in the polls...and that's what makes this time more compelling. Obama's lead in North Carolina has shrunk, but he's still ahead. If the Clinton wins, it not only validates the role Easley's endorsement played but it also gives her the nomination. Yes, you heard that right. Of course there is a caveat: John Edwards could pick a candidate and that alone could sway the race. But given how close it is, he probably will remain neutral.

• The NBA playoffs really aren't living up to the hype yet. The Suns lost to the Spurs (again), putting the best chance for an upset in the Eastern Conference. Philadelphia had the Pistons seemingly on the ropes, but came back to win the series. Boston struggled with Atlanta, and now has the Hawks on the verge of elimination. And don't even get me started about the 4 and 5 seeds. At least the second round should be better...right?