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Today.
I live on an island across the water from Seattle and we must take a ferry
to get to the city. Well, this morning I awoke at 4:00AM because I was
taking my dad and his family to the airport and had to bee in line for the
5:25AM commuter boat by 4:40 to make it on.
The trip over was uneventful, I was tired, my little sister annoying.
They got to the airport fine I said bye and was on my way back to the
ferry terminal on the Seattle side by 6:40.
When I arrived at the terminal there were police motor cycles everywhere.
They almost blocked my lane to turn into the car waiting area. I saw an empty
ticket line so I veered my car in that direction only to have an officer jump in the way
telling me to go to the ticket line that had a plethora of cars waiting to get in.
I thought this very strange but I was too tired to care.
In the car holding area there were police cars everywhere. I thought to myself,
"Did somebody get shot? What the hell is going on?" Oh well, the boat is here.
I drove onto the boat to find a my mom's best friend in the car ahead of me so I got
out and tapped on her window and said, "hi." She asked if I wanted to go upstairs to the
galley and sit. Normally I just sit in the car and listen to the radio during the half-hour
boat ride, but what the hell. I am thirsty and could go for a glass of OJ.
Upon reaching the galley I found some Brand X Orange Juice that was $2.20!
$2.20!
Can you believe that?
I was outraged but because they had a corner on the market, I had no choice but to
pay the full price I did. I was kind of miffed but tired as well so I didn't care too much.
I turned to go to one of the cashiers and ran full into Vice President Al Gore.
He shook my hand and said, "Hello, how are ya?"
He didn't wait for my reply because he had more hands to shake.
I was still kind of stunned to have my juice adventure turn into this.
Across the restaurant galley was Joe Lieberman talking with my mom's friend
who is a kindergarten teacher. She was praising him for his work for teachers...
blah, blah, blah, good stuff, blah, blah, blah.
When she was done it was my turn to talk with him. I decided not to talk to him about
how I wish he were more liberal because I wouldn't last long in the conversation circle.
So I decided to attack the phone companies. I told him how USWest/Quest (our local
phone company) will not lie high bandwidth lines for our community of 20,000 because
we don't have a dense enough population. This pisses me off. I pay the same amount
for my phone service as someone who can have DSL or at least get 56k dial up access
(mine is 24k, on a good day). I asked him why the hell I should have to pay the same
amount for phone service as someone who gets better service than I do?
Joe was very cool with this, thought for a moment and said, "This is very interesting,
lets go talk with Al about this." I grinned and said, "Well...cool."
ha ha
Joe (We're on a first name basis by this point) and I walk over to Al and Joe says,
"This kid has some good points I thought you'd be interested in hearing what he has to say."
So, Al, Joe and I talked for a while about the f--ing local phone monopolies and Joe
brought up the point that it was very similar to when the phone and electric companies
didn't want to wire rural areas for the same reason; low population density. I said that
it wasn't quite as necessary as that but for me the Internet is a tool that I need as a college
student and Network Administrator and I don't think I should be paying full price for
phone service until I get some damn service.
We talked for about 5-10 minutes which I was surprised to be able to do with two very
busy men. They were very cool about talking with an average citizen and I appreciated this.
My impressions of them was that Joe was very cool and suave. He stood there with his
cup of coffee and was very fluid when he talked very relaxed. Al was stiff, and did look
kind of out of place but he was nice and genuine at the same time. He did have some
sweat beading on his upper lip that I couldn't take my eyes off of.
Note to campaign staff: Take the shoulder pads out of Gore's suit or at least let
him walk around without his jacket on. Maybe he will loosen up a bit.
All of the campaign staff were very nice and easy to talk to and I probably won't wash
my hands now that some famous current and soon-to-be leaders of the world shook them.
It is 11:00 at night and I am still a little dazed at what happened.
They are some nice, busy guys.
Well have a good day, bartcop.
Houston Wade
Thank You.