Just flew in from Chicago and boy are my arms tired.

My appologies, I was called away on pleasure suddenly and have been out of town in the Windy City and environs for the past few days.

Here's a very short slide show.

This is looking out the door of my room... there was a 150 ft long winding brook running through the atrium with giant goldfish in ponds, and waterfalls, and it sounded like you were camped next to a mountain stream.

When I checked in, I was in a big hurry, so I jumped in the elevator and turned to face the doors, as usual. As the elevator began to climb though, I noticed some movement and turned around. The interior walls of the elevator were glass and I was now zooming up about 8 floors above a huge atrium. Kind of a startling thing to see when you turn around in an elevator.



And since I know how much readers love mystery pictures... who can be the first to I.D. this FOD (friend of the Dope)?




So what did I miss while I was gone?

I see Obama set up the old exploratory committee. Bill O'Reilly was a guest on The Colbert Report. The legendary Art Buchwald passed away, but only after recording his own death announcement message. James Brown is probably going to need a brand new body bag pretty soon, as they haven't buried him yet. Bush has lost what last remaining shreds of credibility he had left and is at last revealed for thinking the U.S. is a monarchy, though there's been abundant evidence of that for the past 6 years. They now say they'll abide by the FISA courts for secret wiretaps, despite arguing loud and long that the security of the country demanded that they bypass the court. (where are the commenters who defended that attack on the constitution now?)
A high ranking justice department lawyer said that Bush's corporate cronies should threaten to withdraw business from law firms who have members representing prisoners at Guantanamo prison, giving the finger to due process, and didn't get fired.
And the Democrats are holding true to their promises to address several crucial issues right out of the gate.

Feel free to comment on anything that caught your eye.

NOTE: To the buttpipe who thought they'd dig up my e-mail account and try to request the password, just how stupid are you? Wait, I already know. You spent your time trying to dig up an email address by poking around on my website code, then spent more time going to the ISP's site and trying to see if you could trespass. While there you saw a link to click if I'd forgotten my password.

Maybe I should be grateful that I'm blessed with blithering morons for enemies, but this takes the cake. You actually thought... what? That they'd just provide my password to whoever asks for it? Or did you think they'd somehow send this information to YOUR e-mail address?

How do I know you did this? Well gee, if you weren't so pathetic, you would have realized that they'd send me something along the lines of "Here's your password reminder that you requested", and since I hadn't requested it, it would be clear proof that you were trying to steal it, (albeit in such a dumb way that it's almost laughable.)

Give it up already, eh buddy? You're making an ass out of yourself and it might just get you in trouble. Just fair warning.