Did I mention lately that I love my job?

I do. And thanks to Nicole, I got hooked up with some serious governor love this weekend, resulting in tons of fun.

Friday evening I helped welcome Gwyn back to the human race (although I suspect she'll be leaving again soon) and also met two of my oldest friends from my hometown. In between I met some chafee people who seemed nice, including an attractive woman with an odd boyfriend who kept joking he was "her brother", eliciting an icy look of death to rival Helena's. (Can anyone say salt rivers?) I also managed to tick off a pair of Louisiana & North Carolinian Republicans, who seemed to be somewhat confused about their civil war history. For the record, people from Texas, Florida and Louisiana do not count as southerners. South Carolinians clearly do, as do Virginians, Georgians, 'bamas, folk from Mississippi and Tennessee. North Carolina counts as much as Kentucky, both of which count less than Maryland. (Still south of the Mason-Dixon line, though!)

Since Virginia originally chose to stay with the Union, and then voted (by a few votes) to secede only after a GOP President chose to draft Virginians to go to South Carolina, I'm comfortable saying two things:

1. Every vote matters. Two-three votes could've turned a huge war with catastrophic losses (as many people died in the civil war than in every other war America has ever fought in combined...around 620-650 thousand men died) into a regional six month contest with little hope for the South. Virginia provided the Confederacy's capital, as well as most of its experienced generals, and a major food supply source (the Shenandoah Valley). Without these three advantages, the South would've been in a desperate situation from the very beginning of the war.
2. The South's loss ended the debate between federal and state power for several years. After reconstruction, the "state's rights" argument was used to codify racism, and only quite recently has it been used to support anti-progressive taxation.

In short, as I claimed then, all good Southerners are Democrats. The original reason was racist, but now, economic populism combined with individual freedom all point to the South being predisposed towards Democratic ideals. Besides, as the Virginia House just showed, we're somewhat anti-authoritarian. This is exactly what got us into trouble with the second vote to secede, but the contrarian streak remains alive even today. New Hampshire may have "live free or die" but we've got a goddess with attitude who's just defeated a tyrant and has her foot on him.

So anyway, these pseudo-southern GOopers get annoyed at me. Good riddance. I ended up having a blast anyway.

Saturday Nicole hooked me up with a party invite (mardi-gras themed) and a free food/drink opportunity courtesy the governors again. I met some cool people there (some of whom I'd met before...) and saved a huge bundle of cash. So far, my weekend was unbelievably fun, yet my wallet was still intact. Fast forward to Sunday, when I scored an invite (again...Nicole rocks!) to Abe Pollin's box suite at the MCI Center to watch the Wizards play the Bucks. The Wizards got killed, but the free food and drink and great seats were to die for. I was amazed...I really will never view another game at MCI the same way. It was disgusting lavish, including a late game dessert spred that seemed almost Roman in its level of decadence.

And tonight I get to do it all over again, at a DGA event. I'm lovin' it! Nicole rocks! My job rocks! I rock!