Swamp Thing, Day Three

My third day in Cenla, and I've already settled in to a routine. Although the job site is in Jena, and the construction crew is staying there, I am staying elsewhere. Before I left for this trip, the construction foreman called me to advise me that the local hotel was fine, but I should bring my own pillow and he'll take me over to Walmart so I can buy a pad for the hard mattresses. I heeded his advise and booked a room 36 miles away at a Hampton Inn in Alexandria.

So each day, I'm up well before sunrise, shower and shave my head, and eat breakfast at the buffet at the Hampton. Then I'm off to Jena, carefully setting the cruise control to obey the speed limits and avoid getting pulled over again.

By the time I get to the job site, the day's work has already begun and I spend the next half hour trying to catch up on what's going on. After everything's been settled, I can log in to my email, and keep up with my other projects as I monitor the day's activities at the job site from the field trailer.

After the crew has finished for the day, I get to drive back to Alexandria in time to change my clothes and go out to dinner with one of the project geologists who's also staying here instead of at the hotel in Jena. After dinner, I go back to the hotel and am asleep by 10 o'clock so that I can get up for the next day.

Such is my life this week.

Meanwhile, I see in the newspaper that although many of his policies are geared more toward big cities than rural areas and he hasn’t spent too much time south of the Mason-Dixon line, that doesn't necessarily mean that President Barack Obama doesn’t like the South.

“I love the South,” Obama told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday. Asked why his cabinet and senior staff at last count includes seven Midwesterners, five Northerners, six Westerners and so far only two Southerners — namely spokesman and Alabama native Robert Gibbs and EPA administrator and New Orleans native Lisa Jackson — Obama acknowledged he doesn’t keep geography in mind when looking for advisers.

“I’ve got to admit that we have thought a lot about finding the very best people for the jobs, and haven’t been thinking with great intensity about regionalism,” said the president. “Because partly — except for food and sports teams and the weather — we’re one country,” he said. “And I think people are so mobile these days that I tend to think of ourselves as all just Americans.”

Obama may love the South, but his Vice President clearly hates Idaho. According to the Washington Post, “Vice President Biden hosted officials from every state but Idaho for a conference today designed to serve as a workshop and warning on how they should use their billions of dollars from the stimulus package.”

Idahoans apparently need not apply, but Obama said, “If you’ve got some great Southerners who want to work for us, please let me know, because we’re always open.”

I hereby announce that I will accept a nomination to the Obama cabinet. I think there's still an opening at the Department of Commerce, but I'll accept anything.

You can tell the Administration that I've never even been to Idaho.