I'm sitting in some cheap-ass hotel in Louisville, Colorado, this morning after playing junior sysadmin-cum-clueless-newbie with an exceptionally helpful hotel clerk who managed to get the super-easy free ethernet / internet connection working after only an hour and a half and 13 calls to the service provider between 3:30 and 5am. Other than that, don't ask.

Thanks.

And of course, while waiting for various callbacks, I turn on CNN. I haven't had cable -- that is to say any sort of television -- for over four years now, so even the ads are exciting for about the first ten minutes. I want to make it clear that the no-TV decision wasn't made from any strongly held ideological perspective. No, it was simple laziness. I forgot to call the cable company in 2000, and by the time I noticed that I no longer had any idea what was happening in our great Republic, well... I was too broke to afford it.

As expat@large points out, this later slide into the lower depths of perilous penury cast certain doubts on my vaunted business savvy. Adding insult to injury, he writes:

Now he is Blogging For Cash over at Chief Blogging Officer dot com for a company that sells access to on-line research materials. Consistent with his noted business acumen, he joined this enterprise several days before Google announced it was going to put the American Library of Congress online.

Yeah, hah-ha, very funny Mr. Large. Be forewarned, sir, that I won't soon forget this gratuitous bit of frippery. Expect, at the very least, a rain of Singaporean frogs. Or perhaps some bit of nasty bio-fluvia in your Slurpee. I have contacts all over the world. I have my ways.

But where was I? Oh yes, TV. CNN. The wonders of current events. Now you could argue that, in The Age of The Internet, not having TV is no biggie. I still have access to a bajillion newspaper sites, I have email lists and newsreader feeds coming out my ears. Yes, I know, but I never look at any of those. Rate me a Bad Citizen, but I'm just not all that interested in what's new. Thanks to the likes of Baba Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle (oh right, I'm sure those are their real names), I'm just not all that interested in Being Here Now. Call it a quirk.

However, I am increasingly interested in Being There Then. So when I learned from CNN at 3:30 this morning that there was going to be some sort of parade in Washington DC today (I think it's today; I was only half listening), well pardner, I wanted to get some historical perspective on these kinds of things. Had there been other similar parades in the past? Thanks to the power of HighBeam Research, I immediately learned that there had indeed been others of this type. Every four years, as it turns out!

Describing the last such, The Wisconsin State Journal begins its coverage by noting, "This isn't his Daddy's parade."

The newly sworn President Bush will have all the traditional military bands playing "Hail to the Chief" and plenty of floats exhibiting patriotic themes, but the inaugural parade of the second Bush presidency [the first having been Dad's] may be most remembered for some, shall we say, eccentric performances....

One of the odder tributes will come from the Precision Lawn Chair Demonstration Team, a group of 13 buddies from Colorado who flip and fold aluminum lawn chairs in time to militaristic chants such as, "I got myself a new beach chair. This is where I park my derriere."

The group espouses no political beliefs, and lobbies only for lawn chair safety. The guys also note proudly that they are the only group chosen to represent Colorado in the parade.

from: Nothing Says Inauguration Like Synchronized Lawn-Chair Folding Along With Traditional Military Bands, Bush's Inaugural Parade Will Feature The Eccentric by Brigitte Greenberg, Associated Press
source: Wisconsin State Journal, 16 January 2001
via: HighBeam Research

Imagine how my heart swelled with pride to know that my own migrant-knowledge- worker-adopted state of Colorado had played such a crucial role in the installation (insert Tab A into Slot B) of an American president. M-a-a-a-a-n, that does it. When I get home, I'm calling my local cable company and getting online with this whole TV thing. I can't believe what I've been missing.