Baltimore Diary

Phoney/Baloney

Dharma: [answering Greg's cell phone] The cellular customer you have called has traveled outside the service area. Please hang up and return to a simpler way of life.

—Dharma and Greg, "Yoga and Boo-Boo" (10/29/97)

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Thursday morning I was heading into a school and, because I was juggling three or four different items, I dropped my cell phone. It landed in the street, bouncing once and settling next to my foot. I picked it up, gave it the once-over, and marvelled at its resiliency, then shoved in in my pocket and continued on my way into the building.

A couple of hours later I needed to use it, so I flipped it open and started to dial. That's when I realized something wasn't quite right. There was a huge crack in the inside display, the one I hadn't checked earlier when I was standing in the middle of Linden Avenue. Along, and to either side of the crack, was a huge sideways V-shaped area of blackness. So the phone worked, as long as I didn't need to deal with text messages or calling anyone in my directory. ("Uh...I think my mother is the fourth M...")

Next day I went to the Verizon store in White Marsh. At this store you have to sign yourself into the store at a computer terminal kiosk with your phone number, your name and a choose-from-the-menu description of your problem. Your name then goes into a queue that appears on a big flatscreen monitor hanging from the ceiling. You are then free to "browse through the store at your leisure" until your name is called. Fortunately I was at the top of the queue very quickly, since there isn't that much to look at.

At the tech counter: "Hi. I dropped my phone and broke the screen. However, as I understand it, I'm insured against exactly this sort of stupidity."

He looks at the screen and taps some information into his computer. "Yeah, you're insured. There's a fifty-dollar deductible—"

Aw, crap.

"—but we're going to waive it because we don't have a replacement phone in stock."

WooHoo!

"So we can send one to your home by FedEx. Then you bring it in and we'll activate it and transfer your phone book. Meantime, hang onto this phone, at least it's working for now.  Unless you want a different phone...?"

"Are you kidding? Clearly I'm not responsible enough to handle this phone." I hate going to White Marsh, even if it's just The Avenue, but I'm not going to buy a phone that has all kinds of crap that I'm not going to use just to avoid the return trip.

Now, two other things happened on Friday (besides the trip to the Verizon store) that may actually contribute to this story having a payoff. I was scheduled to come to the office that morning, and one of the first things I mention to my boss is the broken phone and the fact that it might become wonky before I get the new phone. The other thing is that, on Friday, we have to turn in our schedules for the next week. As it happens, my boss and I both turned in our schedules to the same person at the same time. I also gave him a copy of my schedule, since I know he's going to ask for it anyway.

Flash-forward to last night. I have my phone and I bring it to the store for activation and data transfer. All goes smoothly, although the store was MUCH busier than it had been the other night, so it took awhile. The other thing is that I now have an activated phone with a very low battery (I got my original battery back and hadn't charged the phone since I'd broken it). I go home and plug it into the charger, and pretty much forget about it.

Which means that I didn't have it with me today. Now, my schedule for today involved a lot of travel about the city. First I had to go to Edgewood Elementary, which is about at the extreme western end of North Avenue. Remember, I live in Parkville, now, so it took me nearly an hour to get down there. I do my bit and then drive along North Avenue to my next destination, where I only have to spend about fifteen minutes. My third stop is at a school that is no longer in my area, but I have to help clean up a few loose ends for them. Plus, I go out to lunch with the Social Worker and the Speech Therapist. I really like them both, so I pick up the check. (Plus, I've been getting paychecks and they haven't, yet.) My next and penultimate stop is at another school new to me, where I chitchat with some members of the team and offer up some technical assistance. At this point I have a couple of questions for my boss, so I give him a call.

In short, he's kind of snotty. "Have you looked at your email today?"

"No, I've been on the road all day."

"Did you look at it late yesterday?"

"I looked through it quickly but didn't read deeply. I saw the email where you wanted me to call [thus and such school] and find out what their schedule is, then the next email that shows you already asked them for their schedule, which kind of removed the need for me to deal with it." He does this sort of thing to me, a LOT, assigning me a task and then just doing it himself ten minutes later.

"Where have you been today? I tried calling your phone—"

"I told you, it's broken."

"—and have you looked at your email?"

I opt not to go for the wiseass answer. "No, I haven't."

"So where have you been all day?"

This part kind of pissed me off. He has my schedule, I haven't deviated from it except to ADD stops to help people out. I resent the suggestion that I'm slacking off just because he doesn't know my exact longitude and latitude at a given moment. So I gave him my day in excruciating detail, including that I took a couple of people to the Paper Moon Diner and that I paid the check, and that I still had one more stop to go. Yak yak yak, chat chat chat and I hang up the phone.

At this point I start looking for my keys. They're nowhere to be found. At least a half-hour later, we discover that a teacher passing through the room had inadvertently scooped them up and left the room with them. I zoom to my last destination, hoping that people are still in the building. Fortunately, they are. I sit with them and discuss their upcoming meetings and schedule, and in the meantime I finally take the time to look at my email. One of the emails is from my boss, from earlier in the day:

[Area Boss] and I did not receive your schedule for this week.     Please email it to us with the changes that I emailed you about.  Thank you.    Make sure that we get your schedule every Friday.

Dammit, now I'm irritated. I handed in two copies of my schedule, they're both lost and it's somehow my fault. I email back:

I handed my schedule to both you and [the secretary] around midday Friday. What happens to it after that is a mystery to me.

He emails back: Email it to me again.

Now, I don't EVER email my schedule; I simply print out a calendar page from Outlook and turn that in. So why he keeps telling me to email my schedule is beyond me. Why he assumes I'm dicking around when I'm running around like a maniac helping people with this new computer system is a mystery. And why he assumes that when I don't have my phone, I'm somehow off the leash is just plain insulting. And he better cut it out, because I haven't had much vacation this year and my patience is short.

And I'll tell you what: When I hand people paperwork that they need to deal with and they claim they didn't get it, my solution is to make them sign for it. So guess what's going to happen when I turn in my schedule this Friday?

Kentucky Fried Money Orders

Chandler: I'm gonna be moving out, so you are gonna be in charge of paying the rent.
Joey: Right! And when is that deal?
Chandler: First of the month.
Joey: And that's every month?
Chandler: No, just the months you actually want to live here.

--Friends, "The One on the Last Night" (11/4/99)

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I've been having some trouble with the people renting my Morrell Park house. (Because it's important that I make the distinction that it's the Morrell Park house I'm renting out, I'm so goddamn rich. Heh.) Anyway, they've been late on the rent for awhile. June's rent was a month late, and as of last week July and August hadn't been paid. So on the advice of an attorney (who usually specializes in the tenant's end of things), I composed a letter outlining the history of my attempts to collect rent and giving them ten business days to get things straightened out. Last Friday was Day 10, and I heard nothing. So on Monday I went to Rent Court to get a date for an eviction.

Rent Court is in the courthouse on Fayette Street, so I parked in the garage on Gay Street and walked over. As I went in, I had to empty my pockets so my stuff could be run through the X-Ray machine. The guard looked in the tub and asked if I had any change, since it could set off the metal detector. I had none and walked through.

Neither I, nor the guard, nor the metal detector ever noticed my glasses perched atop my head.

Got my stuff together and went down the stairs to the clerk's window. I was second in line and we waited several minutes before someone finally got to us. I explained what was going on and I was handed a form, fill in all these spaces please and press down hard with your pen.

Pen? Damn. I took the form outside and walked a couple of blocks to a convenience store and bought a pen and a bottle of soda. Back to the courthouse and emptying my pockets again, this time including change. Glasses still made it through the detector.

I sat down and filled out the form, then brought it up to the clerk. She reviewed it, had me fill out a blank space I'd skipped, then told me to take it to the cashier's window.

The fee for an eviction comes in two parts. Part of the fee goes to the court, and another part goes directly to the city. The cashier asked me first for the city portion, which is five dollars, check or money order only.

"I can't pay cash?"

"Not for this fee, no."

I can't believe I'm going to leave the building again. "Where can I get a money order around here?"

"There's a place around the corner," she told me. Go out the front of the building, then around to the left, and turn right. There's a fried chicken place. You can get them in there."

"Fried chicken, right." This, she found kind of funny.

Out of the building again and off to my first stroll along that section of East Baltimore Street that they call The Block. Sure enough, there's a fried chicken place. I go inside and it turns out that there are at least four businesses in there. The chicken place, another place that sells cellphones and other gizmos, then there's a booth that sells only lottery tickets, and all the way in the back is a liquor store. This is where I get the money orders.

Back to the courthouse for the third time. By now I've figured out the bit with the glasses and don't even worry about them when I go through the detector. This is pretty much how Don Lucchesi bought it, as I recall, the deadly glasses routine. But, whatever. Back to the cashier's window, where of course there's a line now. I finally pay my fees and have a court date.

But here's the weird part. About an hour after I got home I got a phone call from the renters' daughter. It turns out that her parents abandoned the place, leaving her pretty much in the lurch. She wants to stay in the house, however. Stay tuned, this could get interesting.   

The One Where I Get Dooced

Sam Malone: So, how did your meeting go?
Rebecca Howe: It was very nice. I met the new boss, Mr. Teal. We exchanged pleasantries. You're no longer the co-manager and have been demoted to just bartender.

--Cheers, "Executive Sweet" (11/10/88)

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Late yesterday I got an email from my boss. It read:

[Bigshot at North Avenue HQ] reads your blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I'm sure somebody's out there reading it. I don't get those 40 hits a day for nothing; it can't all be 10th District campaign staff.

Actually, my boss called me before I saw the email. He asked me, "Did you know that [Bigshot] reads your blog?" I told him I didn't know that as a fact, but OK. It doesn't bother me; I don't (usually) name names and I'm neither libelous nor slanderous. Then, of course, he asks me, "What's a blog?" Heh.

Then, "What do you write about?" I told him pretty much whatever I feel like writing about at that time. He found that oddly funny.

So last night, out of my usual "who reads this tripe?" curiosity, I look through my stats. It turns out that someone's been repeatedly Googling this person's name and then reading the site. What bugs me about doing it that way is, they're coming in by reading only all the posts that are tagged with "Bitching About Work", which could lead someone to believe that that's all I ever write about. I hope someone clicks the "Main" link soon, so they'll see that my job isn't my whole life; I have plenty of things to complain about. Snerk.

Frankly, I've Had Warmer Welcomes

Morbo: Morbo will now introduce the candidates...Puny Human Number One, Puny Human Number Two, and Morbo's good friend Richard Nixon.

--Futurama, "A Head in the Polls" (12/12/99)

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Today was the day that teachers report back to school. It's a day of getting rooms ready, for gearing up for the new school year, and for people like me who are new to their buildings, it's a day for meeting and greeting a new staff. Usually the first thing that happens is the principal calls a staff meeting for everyone, and today was no exception.

What was different this time around, though, was the way that I was introduced to the staff. I knew going in that the principal was not happy that I'd been transferred in to replace someone. This wasn't a comment on me, or on her. My old school had been changed to a different area, so I needed a school in my area. Simple as that.

I, and my assistant, have been in the school for several days, as we report before the teachers. Since the principal had been away on vacation, I hadn't met her before today. My assistant and I went into the meeting knowing essentially nobody in the room. We took a seat and a minute later, the principal came in.

Early in her remarks, she pointed us out to the group as "the people who will be replacing [our predecessors]." She then noted to the room that she had no say in the decision to move me in or the other person out, and that she'd work her hardest to get her back in, since last year she had a dream team.

Yeah, we're feeling welcome now.

On the Bright Side, They Weren't in Blackface

Scarecrow: Barnum said there's a sucker born every minute.
Tinman: I was there when he said it, but I never thought I'd be one of them.

—The Wiz (1978)

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This weekend was my annual pilgrimage to Long Island to see the play that Daughter has been working on. As usual, she wasn't on the stage. She did the two big signs that get posted outside for drivers to see and admire, and she works on lighting. Having said that, however, because she's a kid it's not like she gets a whole lot of say with regard to how that lighting should be done.

My perennial complaint about this particular local theater group is the de-emphasis on the kids. (Funny, I just noticed for the first time that the titles of both those posts, written a year apart, are the same. At least I've broken precedent.) Once again the teens and tweens who work on this thing are just so much cattle and are little more than an afterthought. At least we didn't have to deal with a Glamour Shot this year.

Last year (assuming you didn't read the link just now) the kids did Fiddler on the Roof. The kids tried hard but they just didn't carry it for me. At the time I wasn't sure if they were just one generation removed from the history that the story represented, or if they, being mostly Catholic kids, couldn't wrap their minds around the Jewish experience, or maybe there was another option. This year I was convinced that it was, in fact, Door Number Three.

This year, the play presented was The Wiz. Let me say that again a little differently. The play that was presented by a bunch of white Catholic Long Island suburbanites was The Wiz. This time they were clearly WAAAAY in over their heads.

I don't know whose idea this was (actually, I think I do), but this was a terrible idea. The play is written with a lot of 1970s black vernacular. When a 2000s white teenager says these things, either it's going to fall flat or it's going to be offensive. In this particular case, fortunately, the material fell flat. For ANY white acting company to stage this show, there's a very fine line to walk, here.

What's more, they didn't always "get" what the intention of their lines was. The Wiz himself was a good example of this. After he gets busted, he explains to Dorothy and Co. the story of preaching in a revival tent in Omaha when a storm blows him out to Oz. Got that? He's a preacher. So in the next scene, when he's trying to explain to the denizens of the Emerald City about how it's time for him to go, he's supposed to be using a preaching cadence, with appropriate intonations of pitch and timbre. Good preaching is practically music, and the voice is the instrument. Instead, this kid basically recited his lines. He didn't get that he's supposed to be slipping into Preacher Mode at this point.

I'll say this: the Scarecrow and Tin Man were pretty good. The Lion wasn't bad, although he got a lot of the vernacular lines I mentioned above (a lot of "y'all" and slangy lines) and this hampered his delivery. Dorothy? Was just awful. According to Daughter, hers was a casting based on nepotism. (No jealousy here, she's content not to be on stage.)

What's more, Daughter told me that the adults sensed that Dorothy wasn't doing well and sent her out for singing lessons on top of the rehearsals. I can't even imagine what she would have been like without the extra training. Another girl was bad enough that a decision was finally made to have a girl in the Pit Chorus sing her song while the girl onstage lip-synched. How humiliating for these two poor youngsters, to be put in that kind of position!

Even for a professional company, The Wiz is a much harder show than it looks, and having this group of kids put it on was just plain mean, in the long run. The adults who organized this should be ashamed. The parents, who tolerate this abuse without question, should also be ashamed.

Making Digital Tracks

Goober Pyle: You know that's not as stupid as it looks, readin' a day-old paper. I do it myself sometimes - kinda gives you a sense of power, don't it? I mean knowing how everything's gonna come out.

—The Andy Griffith Show, "Goober Goes to an Auto Show" (2/5/68)

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As the race heats up in Baltimore's 10th District, I've noticed my hit count going up as well. Through a few tools I'm able to tell how people got here. I've noticed that several people are entering the candidates' names followed by "Baltimore" or "10th District" or some variant thereof, into various search engines.  Why anyone wants to know what I think of a particular candidate is beyond me, but all right.

The cool thing about the Internet is that if you put something out there, chances are someone's going to find it. Some things come up quickly and easily in a Google (or whatever) search, but other things do not. This is often referred to as the Hidden Web, or the Invisible Web. Stuff on these sites is usually archived material, or material that you need to log in to access, or non-HTML pages, or something else. It takes some deep searching to find this stuff, but it's there. And this, to me, is the more interesting material.

At any rate, I was looking at a list of search terms that led to this page and began to realize, Hey. I don't have to be the one GENERATING the material all the time. I can just be a conduit for other people's stuff. So what I did was backtrack through other people's searches on the 10th District candidates to see what else they might have found.

Let's start with the incumbent, Ed Reisinger. The first thing you get when you look him up in Google is the link to his page on the City Council website. Nice photo, that. I'd say that it looks like his high school graduation picture, but according to a questionnaire he submitted to the Baltimore Sun, probably not so much. There's also an Ed Reisinger website that's out of date, short on information (a lot of "coming soon") and rather poorly designed (e.g. photos forced into shapes they weren't meant to have).

One of the most disturbing things I found, however, was an article in the City Paper from October of 2004, shortly after the last primary but before the general election. It doesn't bug me that Reisinger reportedly had a blood alcohol level of .068—he was in a bar, after all—it was his repeated denial of having more than one beer. Ed's about my size, maybe a little bigger. One beer just ain't gonna get that job done. But the article goes on to quote him as saying he "doesn't have a lot of faith in Baltimore City juries". And in my eyes, that's a metric boatload of "Wow." There's also a couple of pieces here and there about his attempts to get the property tax rate lowered, and a recent piece in the Sun about a bridge on Fort Avenue that quotes Reisinger. My impression from this piece is that the Sun isn't too thrilled with him, given the way the quote was placed near the end of the piece and reported thus:

"Am I worried about it? Yeah, yeah," says City Councilman Edward L. Reisinger. "You got school buses going over there to get to Fort McHenry and to school, you got employees of Tide Point coming and going. I mean, that bridge is used, a lot."

It wouldn't have killed anyone to cut the extra "yeah" and either paraphrase or quote him with a couple more verbs. But I admit I'm a bit of a grammar snob, so maybe that's just me. Incidentally, the online edition doesn't have the extra emphasis on the word "lot", however it was there in the print edition, which is why I put it back in there.

I'll take the challengers alphabetically.

Donnie Fair also has kind of an odd photo on his website. Donnie wears glasses and looks good in them; I don't know why he took 'em off. I'm also not sure I get the picture of the Key Bridge on the webpage. Did the bridge move into the 10th? Why not use the Hanover Street Bridge? I think Hanover Street has a great-looking bridge. The rest of the website looks pretty nice and clean, although again it's light on information (again, a lot of "I'll have more to say about that soon" stuff). Donnie appears to be playing the "outsider" card, which works exactly once when it works at all.

Apparently, Donnie did NOT reply to the Baltimore Sun's questionnaire, so I can't link to it. There are, however, some links to an article in the Examiner that appeared a couple of weeks ago. The article was about the 10th District being one of the "races to watch", but the article itself doesn't mention him. Instead, the comments following the article (they're listed in reverse chronological order) are all anonymous (with two exceptions) and written by supporters of both Donnie Fair and Terry Hickey. Reisinger's supporters are nowhere to be found in this one. The article itself kind of rides the fence but doesn't commit to anybody. A fun little mudslinging contest, that.

Donnie did make it into this Examiner article, along with the other challengers.

Donnie Fair made it into the City Paper a couple of years back, as well. I'd be curious to know if the plan ever made it to fruition, with or without him.

Here are a couple of interesting things that Donnie posted to the Web

He contributes to a forum called bonnevilleamerica.com, which is for enthusiasts of a specific kind of motorcycle . Among the comments he posts (you have to search deep to find these) are:

  I sometimes find myself riding in Washington, DC, the land of flaming retarded drivers.

And, in another post, responding to a question about "loud pipes" on his bike:

Q: What clued you in to them being too loud, the car alarms going off?

A: I'm 1/2 of a baffle away from straigh [sic] pipes (no reducer either). Living in the 'hood such as I do and taking the occasional ride through the ghetto, my personal best is 3 alarms in one afternoon. Sweet!

Nice, that. He mentions the "ghetto" in another post, too.

This is an interesting comment he made a couple of years back. Scroll to the last item. As near as I can figure, Donnie's letter was lifted from the Baltimore Sun and reproduced at this website, but I can't be sure.

One more thing about Donnie Fair before I move on: I have it from an Informed Source (thanks, Edna Source) that the current crop of candidates are doing a bunch of their campaigning based on lists of people who voted in the last primary. Donnie Fair's name appears to be absent from that list. Oops.

Next up is Terry Hickey. Hickey's got the best website of the three, but one thing that it does (actually I think Donnie Fair's site does this too) is, when you click on the "Contact Us" link, it automatically launches your default email handler. Now, I have a few email addresses, as many people do (and should). I have my "A" list address, but I also have a couple of "spam collector" addresses in Hotmail and Yahoo. This is the address I'm going to use in most cases when it's not a relative or close friend. With these sites, I don't get a choice. This also means that, when I'm on my work laptop, say, I'd be giving out my work email. That's not going to piss off the guys in IT very much. So my alternative is to say "Screw it, I'm not writing to you at all."

(Of course, I can parse out the email address from the automatically-opened window, but that's not the point. The point is that the website is being presumptuous.)

Anyway.

Hickey's responses to the Sun questionnaire are quite detailed, far more so than Reisinger's (which is presented as a series of bullet points). They may, in fact, be too detailed. I don't know how many people have that kind of attention span, but you can't say he doesn't have his act together.

There are a lot of links on Google to various organizations that Hickey either started or is involved in, and of course there are the Examiner articles I noted above. There's also a City Paper review of a play called The Mineola Twins which gives a Terry Hickey a pretty good review, but I have no idea whether it's the same Terry Hickey. Another review has photos in it, and the bottom photo does kind of look like him, so who knows. As a Long Islander, I have to appreciate any play that's about a town on Long Island. (Plus, Hickey's a Native New Yorker, but he's from upstate so it doesn't count.)

I chased down a whole bunch of posts on a home theater forum that I thought was him, but I was mistaken. That was irritating, but I can't hold it against him. But the bottom line is that I couldn't find anything from Hickey that gave me pause, despite there being a LOT of stuff out there.

The last Democrat on the ballot is Hunter Pruette. He doesn't appear to have a website, or really much of an online presence at all. There's a blog that endorses him, and he's mentioned in the Examiner article. Oh, and he did submit a response to the Sun's questionnaire. But that's about it. Other than that, Pruette's the Invisible Man.

Finally, we have the Republican candidate. His name is Duane Shelton, and according to the City Paper, he's the chair of the city's Republican Committee. This is the same Duane Shelton who ran for Mayor a few years back, and garnered about 400 votes. And that's about it, (no questionnaire for the Sun) so he's pretty invisible too.

So there you have it, the online footprints of the candidates revealed. If you have something else you found, feel free to share it with me. This was a fun exercise AND led to probably my longest post ever.

Stuffing the Mail (ballot) Box

A. J. MacInerney: The President doesn't answer to you Louis!
Lewis Rothschild: Oh, yes he does A.J. I'm a citizen, this is my President. And in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders it's our responsibility!

--The American President (1995)

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I heard rather a disturbing story this week. It's second-hand, so I don't know if it's true, but the person who told me is pretty reliable.

Everyone agrees that the outcome of the election in the 10th District is going to depend on voter turnout. As a result, at least two of the candidates have people among their volunteers who are authorized to register people to vote. The candidate talks to someone, discovers that they're not registered, and calls the guy over to register them. More voters is always a good thing, so this isn't the disturbing part.

What IS disturbing is that, according to my reliable source (Ms. Edna Source, of 1609 Harman Avenue), one of the candidates has been registering people AND giving them an absentee ballot besides, so that they'll simply mail in their vote right away. Now, this doesn't sound correct, given that the City can't send out an absentee ballot without a written, signed request from the voter. So this candidate may simply be handing out the request forms for the absentee ballots. If he's handing out actual ballots, he could be in for some legal trouble.

As I said, however, this comes from Ms. Source, who was told by one of the potential voters involved. Do with it what you will. But I genuinely hoped that the race would be a little cleaner than it's been so far, anyway. 

Why, Yes, I AM Old, Thanks for Asking

Catwoman: Not even in office yet and already an enemies list, hmm?
The Penguin: Those names aren't for prying eyes. Say, why should I trust some cat-broad, anyway? Maybe you're just some screwed-up sorority chick who's trying to get back at her daddy for not buying her that pony when she turned sweet sixteen.

--Batman Returns (1992)

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Just a quick one to note that Daughter turns Sweet Sixteen today. Happy Birthday, sweetie!

News Flash! It's hot.

Adrian Cronauer: [doing a Walter Cronkite impression] The weather out there today is hot and shitty with continued hot and shitty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance of continued crappy with a pissy weather front coming down from the north. Basically, it's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut.

--Good Morning Vietnam (1987)

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You know it's hot when the cactus plant on your windowsill starts screaming in pain.

I reported "back" to work on Monday, and the first two days were training sessions for us, so today was my first day in my new assignment. Yeah, I got transferred again; my last school was switched to another area in the big shuffle, so I had to move to another school in my area.

There's really no good way to get to my new school from home, so I'm going to have to leave earlier than I thought I would. As it is, I got in about 20 minutes later than I'd counted on. My new assistant was there already, and since she's brand-new, she didn't really know what to do with herself. She and I started running reports, tentatively scheduling special ed meetings for the year and such. The biggest problem we ran into was that they're renovating the school. All the windows are getting replaced, and this means that the air conditioner allocated to our office was now sitting on the floor, waiting to be re-installed. Not so great when the temperature is rapidly approaching the three-digit mark.

However, being good little soldiers, we worked pretty steadily until about 1:30, at which point we both decided to bail for the day, since the student files had spontaneously burst into flame anyway. She had an errand to take care of at North Avenue, and I decided I could work from home the rest of the day. And so off we went. This assistant is such a breath of fresh air compared to last year, I don't know what I'm going to do with the extra time once she's fully trained. Although I'm sure my boss will have a couple of ideas. 

Political Animals

Deputy Pell: You got no right to be here. This is a political meeting.
Ward: Doesn't smell that way to me, Deputy.
Deputy Pell: It's a damn political meeting, Hoover Boy.
Ward: Oh, it looks like a political meeting, but smells more like Klan to me... with or without the Halloween costumes.

—Mississippi Burning (1988)

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Saturday night there was an event in Morrell Park that was billed as an "Olde Tyme Political Rally". The website of the Morrell Park/St. Paul's Improvement Association publicized it thus (and I reproduce it here, unedited):

"Come out to a Free old Tyme Politicial Rally and meet those that are running in the September Election. Find out their views, Who will support our projects Like The Rec Center, Indoor Pool, Pavillion,Bringing our School back to top status. This will be an important night for alll of Morrell Park. Know who supports us before you VOTE !!!!!"

Given the spelling and grammar above, I'm not so sure that "Olde Tyme" (which doesn't appear above but does, in other places) was spelled that way on purpose. Anyway. Since I still own property in the 10th, I'm naturally interested in what's going on down there, so I sent an email requesting two passes (it was a free but ticketed event), one for me and one for GF.

I didn't get a reply to my email, but admittedly I sent it kind of late. So, since I was in the neighborhood anyway, I figured I'd swing by. Either they'd let me in or they wouldn't. I wasn't going to take it personally either way. The guy at the door (Hi, S) took pity on me and gave me a ticket, noting that it's good to have friends in high places. Later on, the guy organizing the event apologized for not responding to my email.

As I got there, there was a group of people representing Terry Hickey, in addition to the candidate himself. They were stuck in the doorway; I was told later that Hickey was given a set of rules that he had to agree to before being granted entry (no flyers beyond a certain point, etc.). This was supposedly done for all of the political candidates who weren't endorsed by the association. Well...it's their party, they can make the rules, I guess.

After I got in, they were about ready to start, so I took a seat at a back table, alone. Hickey's table was next to me. In front of me was a table full of Ed Reisinger's supporters. Beyond that was a table with Reisinger's father and what looked like several of his fellow American Legionnaires. Reisinger himself perched at a point roughly between the two tables. Behind me, at the kitchen pass-through, some people stood, including a woman who was quite drunk. As people got up to speak, she'd mutter something at them that, if I could have deciphered it, would likely have been rather rude. I know at least one time the door guard walked over to her and had a word with her companion.

The purpose of the event was for the association to announce their endorsements for several Baltimore City election candidates, all of whom got up to address the crowd. Again, since the point was to give these folks a little bit of a forum and get their supporters pumped, it was no-harm, no-foul that Hickey, Sarbanes and (later) Jill Carter weren't given an opportunity to speak to the room. (I don't know if any other unendorsed candidates were there; I know I didn't see Donnie Fair.) This didn't stop them from doing some circulating when the formalities broke up and the food was served, and nobody gave them a hard time about it.

While the food was served (or, more accurately, when the buffet opened), the drunk woman got some food and plunked down next to me. Apparently she was peeved that this event was keeping her from doing something or other. "This is MY legion hall, not theirs," she said a couple of times. Then she complained about the small child who was at Reisinger's table. "Leave 'em at home, this is no place for little kids." If only she'd done the stereotypical thing and gone face-down in her food, my evening would have been complete. Of course, I wasn't really helping matters by replying, "Damn right" and such every time she spouted.

The door guard urged me to eat but I, not knowing they were serving food, had just eaten. I settled for some bottled water instead. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get one with the Sheila Dixon logo on it. Just plain ol' Deer Park water. Ah, well.

So in general, it was a pretty positive event (if a little on the self-congratulatory side) and everyone played nice. I'm frankly not especially clear on what was achieved, since there was a lot of "preaching to the choir" in this instance, but I guess sometimes folks need that bit of a boost.