December 30, 2004

WASHINGTON — After four years of legal wrangling, George W. Bush was finally
declared the winner of the 2000 presidential election yesterday.

Bush, a Republican, will take the oath of office at noon today and serve
until Jan. 20, 2005, a term of about three weeks. Then he gives way to the
winner of the 2004 presidential election, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton.

Facing a drastically shortened presidency, Bush attempted to strike an
optimistic tone last night. “We have a lot to accomplish in the next three
weeks,” Bush said. “Reforming Social Security alone is probably going to eat
up four to five hours. Let’s get to work!” Aides yesterday were calling
temporary employment agencies in a frantic effort to fill Cabinet posts.

Bush’s victory ends a four-year court battle between him and Democratic
candidate Al Gore over the results of the 2000 election.

While the dispute raged on, the nation installed an interim president: New
York Yankees Manager Joe Torre. Torre admitted that running a country and a
baseball team simultaneously has been a strain. “At times, it’s been
difficult to keep the two things straight. Although, in retrospect, trading
Jesse Helms to the Red Sox turned out OK.”

Torre’s four years in office were marked by continued prosperity at home and
relative calm abroad. His most controversial move was appointing Yankees
bench coach Don Zimmer to the Supreme Court. Critics charged that Zimmer
lacked experience. He also spit tobacco juice on Antonin Scalia’s shoes,
angering conservatives.

Torre’s boldest foreign policy initiative was making Cuba the 51st state in
an effort to improve U.S. pitching.

Torre was planning to vacate the White House by midnight tonight, with Bush
moving in immediately. Eager to give an aura of permanency to his three-week
administration, Bush rebuffed suggestions that he sleep on a bare mattress on
the floor and live out of suitcases.

Gore, meanwhile, has yet to concede defeat. The former vice president issued
a statement today saying, “It would be improper and disrespectful to the
democratic process to act hastily before all the facts are known.”

The legal tangle over the 2000 election began with a Gore lawsuit over the
confusing design of ballots in Florida. When the courts sided with Gore, Bush
filed suit, arguing that the Oregon results were invalid because some ballots
were yellow and others pink. Gore countersued, charging that the West
Virginia results should be thrown out because some people failed to receive
“I Voted Today” stickers.

Through the years, various officials proposed compromises to resolve the
impasse. All were rejected, including:

* Establishing a co-presidency, with the two men sharing duties and splitting
the White House. Although never implemented, the idea gave rise to a hit TV
show, East Wing, West Wing.

* Establishing temporarily separate nations, with each candidate ruling the
states he won in the 2000 election. Gore, who failed to carry his native
Tennessee, balked at the idea because it would mean showing a passport every
time he went home.

* Letting Jimmy Carter sort it all out.

Observers said the biggest challenge for the Bush administration will be
working with Congress, which adjourns tomorrow and isn’t expected back until
after Bush’s term ends. “One day may not be quite enough time to overhaul the
tax system,” a Bush aide admitted. “But maybe we can get started and then
finish it later with a big conference call or something.”

Meanwhile, Bush also must work on his legacy and prepare to transfer power to
President-elect Clinton. Clinton yesterday wished Bush well and asked if she
could start moving some boxes into the White House basement.

My mom sent this item to me; I don’t know where she got it, and so I apologize to whoever I stole it from, but I like it anyway.

As for me, if I had Photoshop, I’d be working on a Bush/Lieberman image, because I wouldn’t be surprised to find that’s how this mess really ends.

Well, actually, I should have said, “I got mine,
Al”, since I was referring to my flu shot. There were vaccination campaigns at my office and at Diane’s, but I managed to be out of town for both of them, so today, I visited the nearby Albertson’s and got my shot — and, at no extra charge, they gave me a sample pack of Advil.

I also heard from the TV repair guy — the culprit was a capacitor in the power supply which had lost all of its smoke, and it’ll cost $75 to fix. That’s a lot cheaper than a new 27-inch TV, much less what I’d really want to buy, so I told him to go ahead, and I hope to get the TV back on Monday (and maybe by then, the muscle ache from the flu shot will have gone away and I’ll be able to lift the TV).

I’m studying and taking sample tests so I can take the exam for a license upgrade on Monday, traffic permitting. I feel pretty confident about the General Class exam (the electronics is pretty straightforward stuff that I’ve mostly known for years; the hard part is memorizing the answers to the FCC rules questions, since they follow no useful pattern); passing Extra Class will be harder, since, as you’d expect, the electronics knowledge required is significantly greater (and the FCC rules are just as arbitrary), and I don’t have the Extra Class study guide! I wonder what a Smith Chart is….

I’m glad that we’re getting to the end-of-the-year holidays and general slowdown; perhaps that’ll let me catch up on my mail a little bit. And maybe today was the last gasp of people trying to create work before they go on vacation, because I sure was busy doing stuff — nothing worth writing about, but stuff nonetheless.

My flight home on Midway was as pleasant as the flight on Tuesday; I’d happily fly them again, at least in First Class. My seatmate said that she’d flown to Raleigh in Coach and it was one of the worst flights she’d ever taken, but she was also very happy about the service in the front of the plane.

Shabbat Shalom!

But this time, I had two things going for me: first, the only flight on Midway left at 3pm, giving me not enough time to be useful at IBM and plenty of time for a visit; second, I’d been specifically invited to visit — thanks to my second-line manager’s homepage. John, besides being one of IBM’s best Internet ambassadors, is a long-time ham (I don’t know how active he is), and got a query from Jim Haynie, W5JBP, the president of ARRL, asking whether IBM had any ham radio clubs. John passed the question on to me, since he knew I’d been involved fairly recently (sometime, I might tell the story of the Loma Prieta earthquake), and I was happy to be able to tell Jim that yes, we did have active clubs. We kept corresponding, and he invited me to let him know if I was ever going to be in the area because he’d ensure I got a good tour. So last week, when this trip came up, I dropped him a note, and he made good on his promise.

I got to ARRL Headquarters a little after the 10am tour time, but that wasn’t a problem; they were expecting me, and the League’s Executive Vice-President, Dave Sumner, K1ZZ, came out to meet me and chat for a couple of minutes before going back into his meeting; he turned me over to Brennan Price, N4QX, who gave me an individual tour of HQ and then took me over to W1AW so I could go on the air.

I could have gone on the air on VHF or UHF, but there would have been nothing interesting in doing that — that’s where I’ve done all my operating. I wanted to operate HF, where there was a chance of contacting someone far away. I’m currently a Technician-Plus, so I’m only authorized to operate voice in a narrow sliver of the 10 meter band (28.3-28.5 MHz) — there was no point in trying to operate Morse Code, because I haven’t used it since passing my original exam, 12 years ago.

So a few minutes later, I was sitting in front of a brand new Yaseu Mark V FT-1000MP, connected up to a serious antenna farm, ready to go on the air with one of the best-known callsigns in Amateur Radio. I called CQ and waited. And waited. And waited. Then I changed frequencies and kept trying. And waited. Then I rotated the antenna in hopes of working a different part of the world — I could hear stations, but I couldn’t get anyone to respond. I even waited for contacts to end in hopes of getting in touch with one of the stations, but that didn’t work, either — at 11:45, Dave came to pick me up for lunch, and I still hadn’t worked anyone. Oh, well, I can try again another time, and I did get a nice certificate confirming that I have operated W1AW.

I also renewed my ARRL membership (to be more accurate, I rejoined, this time as a Life Member) and picked up the General Class study guide; now that I won’t need to pass another code test to upgrade, I shouldn’t have any problems doing so, and then I’ll have more chances to make contacts on my next trip.

It was still a good way to spend the morning. Now, on to my flight home!

73, David

I know I’m tempting fate by typing this before I’m safely home, but life is for the brave.

My trip out here yesterday was amazingly good. The flight from San Jose to Raleigh left only a few minutes late but arrived on time; the food was good; the flight attendants were friendly; the weather was decent. Midway doesn’t have power outlets on their planes, but that was OK — they gave all the first class passengers DVD players so I didn’t have to use my laptop to watch movies anyway (so I finally got around to watching The Matrix). The flight from Raleigh to Hartford was almost empty (two other people in first, counting my colleague who they let come up when I said I wanted to share the sandwich I’d brought from home with him (the flight was too short for them to provide anything more than a snack), and perhaps 15 people in coach), which, by definition, made it good.

And Midway still lets people use GPS receivers in flight, which was fun, too — especially after my friend showed me how to use the window shade to suspend the GPS so I didn’t have to hold it!

Murphy was back on the job today, though; the high-speed connectivity out of this hotel isn’t working (I spent 30 minutes on hold with tech support), and, of course, I spent the whole day in meetings (that is, of course, why I was here, but I still don’t have to like it!).