Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 6 – Seasons

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”
-  George Santayana

My love for seasons is philosophical. Unlike weather, seasons are tied intrinsically to the passage of time. Without seasons, the most observable unit of time is a day. But 23 hour 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds is sliver of time. It provides no space for reflection, so time passes essentially unnoticed they way distance would be lost if you only stared straight down at your feet. Days run into weeks and years that become drumbeats in a routine march toward oblivion.

Seasons mark a longer beat. They offer perspective of the passage of time. They actually remind you that time is passing, like the mountains on the horizon getting closer and falling behind. I think one of the worst banalities of adulthood is the risk of monotony. As long as you are in school, seasons don’t matter as much because time is marked by the passage of a school year. But once you enter the real world, there is no more summer vacation to mark the passage of time. You forget. Time speeds up.

But Seasons do more than mark the passage of time. They also provide spice (there’s a reason it’s called seasoning). As they advance through their annual choreographed improvisational dance like a celestial Who’s Line Is It Anyway, each season has it’s bitter and it’s sweet. And each flavor plays off the others to make the whole year better. The long days of summer are all the sweeter because they contrast with the short days of winter. The crisp autumn wind is refreshing after the sticky summer heat.

I grew up with Montana’s four famous seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter and Construction. My blood was thick. We do crazy things like wearing shorts to school in in freezing weather and frosting. Then, I moved to Southern California where there are two sort-of-seasons – wet and dry. My blood thinned and before I was done, I was shivering in weather below 70. I know… I’m not proud of it. While I always had school years to mark time in SoCal, the years slipped by quickly. I can’t help but think that one of the reasons Southern California living is so much more laid back than it is on the East Coast is that the absence of seasons reduces the sense of urgency.

Maryland has four distinct seasons. That’s not to say you ever knew what to expect – this year, for example, we had virtually no snow at all. Compare that with 2010 when we had multiple blizzards and ice storms. But as a rule, each season had it’s pluses and minuses. Each minus was complemented by another seasons plus.

Winter

The Good – Fondue dinners; snow sports like sledding and skiing (although Mrs. Link is still learning, she got very good at skiing); Christmas somewhere warm (usually); fires in the fireplace; big snow storms; grilling on the deck.

The Bad – Short days (going to work in the dark and not getting home until after dark); outdoor activities are harder to pull off; feels long,  you can get a little stir-crazy.

Spring

The Good – Trees bloom beautifully; fresh, bright colors; still too early for insects; perfect temperatures; perfect weather for running outside; grilling on the deck.

The Bad – Pollen (resulting in some of the worst hay fever in the world); rain because something has to help everything turn green; short (I swear there were years where the time between bitter cold and sticky hot was 1 or 2 weeks).

Summer

The Good – Hiking; camping; tubing; travel; fireworks; August recess (means big hikes, summits, camping trips) weekends are easy to fill; grilling on the deck.

The Bad – Hot; humid; tons of big, ugly bugs (Mrs. Link and I referred to some of the hatches as plagues); too hot to run outside.

Fall

The Good – Leaves turn; Thanksgiving; Renaissance Fair; perfect temperature for running; elections; grilling on the deck.

The Bad – Not warm enough to keep doing all those summer things without special gear; elections; long – (when’s it going to snow already?)

I’ll miss seasons.

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 7 – Storms

Well, let’s see. There were Hurricanes Ivan, Ernesto, Hanna, Irene and of course “Superstorm” Sandy. There were tornadoes, flash floods, Nor’easters and a derecho or two. There was Snowmageddon, Snowquester and Trafficgeddon. And that’s just off  the top of my head.

Growing up in Missoula, surrounded by tall mountains, clouds jettison their water long before they get overhead. As a result, a bad rainstorm means drizzle for a week – the kind where you can walk from your car to the front door without an umbrella. In California, rain is rare with precipitation taking the form of mist or fog as often as not.

Neither Montana or California reliably produces storms as violent and powerful as the ones we have experienced in Maryland. And here, storms happen among high population densities bolstering body counts and property damage. Add in with a higher concentration of sensationalistic media in the D.C. area and its not an exaggeration to say that the whole country ends up talking about our weather.

Sure, the rest of the country makes fun of D.C. for closing schools and the federal government at every hint of inclement weather. Usually that mockery is deserved – I went though 12 years of school in Montana and never once had a snow day. Locally, we joke about how bad the weatherman is, knowing full well that the micro climates make predicting weather nearly impossible. You can have tornado clouds in D.C., sun in Columbia and torrential rain in Baltimore… all at the same time. In fact, it became tradition to leave rain in D.C. to find sun on the Potomac River for tubing or over the Shenandoah Mountains for hiking.

Storms in Maryland are fun. They’re a social event. They’re scary. And we’ve forged some great storm memories in our decade here.

Rain

Over the course of an average year, Columbia (42.24″) gets about three times as much precipitation as Missoula (16.63″) or Los Angeles (17.66″). The very nature of the rain is different – instead of long, dreary days, Maryland storms build, break and pass quickly. If you’re caught outside without an umbrella, chances are really good you’re going to get soaked.

In 2011, Montana’s Billings Little League made it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. As President of the Montana State Society, I chartered a bus to take a group of Montanans up to watch a game. As the bus drove back, Hurricane Irene struck with a mighty vengeance. That far inland, the wind wasn’t terrible, but there was a ton of rain. After dropping us in D.C., we drove back up to Maryland in some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen. It was awesome.

There was also a Brad Paisley concert back when they allowed tailgating at Jiffy Lube Live. Turns out, that mud doesn’t get slippery when wet…

Snow

I grew up with snow, but Mrs. Link did not. I only remember one “blizzard” in Montana. As an arid state, usually the extreme weather is cold, not snow. Maryland winters are not as cold, but they are a ‘wet cold’ which makes all the difference. And when it snows, it can really pack a punch. All that heavy rain I talk about above comes down in massive, thick snowflakes and snow can accumulate very quickly.

My favorite snow story was the cleanup after Snowmageddon. It was my first time missing school or work because of snow, but there wasn’t a choice. While main roads were cleared pretty quickly, smaller roads and drive ways were impassible for days. Here’s the thing about a big storm on the east coast: while they have the snow-removal equipment they need, the urban density means there’s nowhere to put the snow when they plow it. We were stuck, and I was a little stir-crazy, so my neighbor and I used his snow shovel Excalibur (he was the only person that had thought to buy one before they all sold out) and started digging our way out. Other neighbors we didn’t know joined the fun, and before long we’d cleared our cars out of the parking lot! We got to know our neighbors, who are still friends today, and since we were all stuck at home for the Super Bowl everyone came over and watched at our place.

Funny post-script. Remember I mentioned that the problem with a lot of snow is that there’s nowhere for the snow removal trucks to put the snow? Well, the nice big patch we cleared manually over the course of an afternoon became the receptacle of all the snow in the entire parking lot. Our good deed resulted in our parking being out of commission longer than anyone else in the neighborhood. Sweet!

Wind

Wind typically goes along with rain or snow, but I put it separate because it’s usually the wind that does the damage. When someone dies, or when 100,000 people lose power for a month, it’s usually because the wind knocked over a tree that grew really big on account of all that rain.

Two times, I have been stuck in the middle of the Potomac River in a bathing suit during extreme winds. Both were Capitol Hill Tubing Society excursions. We always stop on a rock called the Andy Bopp Memorial Rock which is about a quarter mile downstream from where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac River in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Both rivers have carved very deep valleys, and the rock where we usually stop for lunch is at the vertex of those valleys. We’ve tubed through a lot of rainstorms on the river, but twice the combined funnel of those two valleys hurled a mighty wind laced with stinging rain and dirt against our rock. Both times, we were humbled by the awesome power of nature – and sadly, while both storms were newsworthy, the first storm proved fatal when it reached D.C.

The second “Storm on the Water”

And, of course, there was Hurricane Sandy, which I missed because I was working on a Senate campaign in Montana. My wife, who had just given birth to our son, was benefiting from the constant support of family. Support that, it turns out, was newsworthy in and of itself. The following appeared in the Great Falls Tribune on 10/30/12:

Flights also were grounded, but [Sister Link] of Missoula was able to jump on one of the last planes to depart Montana.  [Sister Link] was hoping to arrive in Columbia, Md., before the storm so that she could help her sister-in-law and 2-month-old nephew weather the storm.

“I have’t really experienced something like this before,” she said. “I don’t really know what to expect.”

Link landed on Sunday afternoon, right before the rain started. It continued raining through the night and into Monday, with gusts of wind creeping up around midday.

“We’re hunkering down right now and staying indoors,” she said. “It’s been gallons and gallons of rain all day long and you hear the constant howling (of the wind).”

…

[Sister Link] also was prepared.

“We stocked the house and made sure to have enough food and water and formula,” she said.

[Sister Link]’s brother works for Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont.

Of course, at the time, no one knew Mrs. Link was internally bleeding to death and we were going to lose the election and my job, but that’s a different story that has nothing to do with storms in Maryland…

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 8 – Maryland

I think this one surprises me the most.

Our relationship with Maryland started off on rocky footing. Mrs. Link lived in a tiny Charles village studio that slanted ever-so-slightly toward the outer wall so it felt very much like a sky cell at the Eyrie. I lived in a basement apartment in the People’s Republic of Takoma Park which was infested by house centipedes and camel crickets. Hell, even the geography was out to get me. See, dense vegetation generally limits your visibility to well under a mile while there are no mountains or anything else on the horizon to provide orientation. So I spent the first few years completely disoriented without any of the visual queues I grew up with. Suffice to say, when we first got here, we were counting the days until we could leave again… we were unwilling hostages.

But then something strange happened. Stockholm Syndrome. At some point, I started to actually like Maryland.

It’s hard to pinpoint when the change happened, but I remember vividly the moment I became aware of it. It was something like that scene in romantic comedies where the girl has a sexy dream about a guy she thinks she hates. For me, it was when Maryland revealed their fancy new Under Armour uniforms inspired by the Maryland Flag. The uniforms were widely panned, but I loved them. For the record, I also like the Oregon uniforms before they got popular. Anyway, I realized I liked the Maryland state flag, and that got me thinking… I had actually grown fond of my adopted state.

When did that happen?

Columbia – Moving to Columbia and out of the insect and crime infested urban centers was probably the single most important ingredient in the fundamental change of heart. Columbia represented the space my Montana soul craved. And I don’t just mean the miles of wooded trails. I mean space. Back yards. Lakes. In Baltimore and D.C. a car owner is a pariah to be punished, attacked, taxed, and ticketed. Columbia has welcoming wide streets… and the let you turn right on red!

Annapolis – Baltimore and D.C. are about 30 miles apart. Completing the triangle, roughly 30 miles from each of these urban hell-holes is Annapolis. Judging Maryland by Baltimore alone is like judging Cindy Crawford solely on her mole. Maryland has a lot of really cool parts. It has farm land, ski areas and honest-to-God rednecks (complete with pickup trucks and hyphenated names!). Annapolis became a regular destination for Link family staycations – weekends away from home that felt like you might as well be a thousand miles away.

Renaissance Festival – One of the reasons I like the Maryland flag is its medieval influence. In fact, the medieval theme has worked its way into my design work. RenFen is great – how can you not love a place that sells meat on a stick?

The Wire – I guess those B’more thugs aren’t that bad. Especially Omar.

Inner Harbor – As much as I hate on Baltimore, there are some charming places. Inner Harbor stands out, especially after the awesome Star-Spangled Sailabration when they brought in a bunch of tall ships to celebrate the bi-centennial of the War of 1812. I also enjoyed football at Patterson Park, the watching fireworks on the Henderson’s Fleet Street rooftop and going to Orioles games at Camden Yard with the Bezaks. Still, one of my favorite parts about the inner harbor is the tribute to a tall ship – the Pride of Baltimore – which sank in 1986. It’s commemorated by a hilarious plaque that says “Pride of Baltimore – Lost at Sea”. Yep.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like Maryland and I’ll miss it. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t breath a sigh of freedom relief every time I drove across the American Legion Memorial Bridge into Virginia. Maryland taxes are too high. It’s politicians are too comfortable and too corrupt. There are too many random beatings of tourists in “The Greatest City in America.” Even so there is a certain Chesapeake charm that I’ve grown fond of.

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 9 – Food

When we first moved here, all we could talk about was the absence of “good Mexican food” – a criticism that holds fast to this day despite finding a few places with adequate south of the border fair. Our problem was that we were expecting Southern California cuisine in Maryland. As time has passed, though, we’ve found some excellent local favorites that we’ll miss as much as we missed good Mexican when we left Cali.

D.C. is famous for good restaurants, something I never really took advantage of. On one hand, 2006 ethics rules put most of these restaurants out of the price range of a mid-level congressional staffer, and on the other the quality was lost on my cardboard palette.

Let me use this opportunity to assure you I am by no means a food concessionaire. Apparently, the very number of taste buds people have is variable – some super-tasters are particularly susceptible to nuanced tastes. These are the people who enjoy a flavor of 63-year old Shenandoah Valley Oak in their wine, suffused with a hint of blueberries picked on a Sunday. Mrs. Link is one of these people, or at least on their team.

I am not.

I’m more of a comfort food guy. I love mashed potatoes and Kraft macaroni and cheese. I like steaks medium without any marination. I like pasta – but I have no clue why they make it in so many different shapes. I believe that you can predict the quality of a hamburger by the presence or absence of tater tots on the menu. I like to smother things in gravy.

Here are the comfort foods I’m going to miss.

Hickory Ridge Grill – We stumbled across HRG quite by accident early in our Columbia residence. We were so lucky! Our first time, Mrs. Link ordered an uncharacteristic vegetarian sandwich called the Full Mazzi and I got a pasta dish called Diablo Chicken. Both became instant favorites. Then we met George, the owner and proprietor who wears parachute pants and lives in Virginia (I thought my commute was bad). Mrs. Link always orders the Full Mazzi while I’ve never found anything on the menu I didn’t love. What makes HRG so good is that it never disappoints. Too often, I’ve found that you end up chasing a good dining experience with mediocre followups. Not at HRG. Every time is perfection!

Fondue Dinners – Someone mentioned how much fun it was to eat fondue at the Melting Pot. Someone else mentioned how unbelievably expensive it was. And so, Fondue Night was born. With the possible exception of the gawd-awful pear schnapps, the three courses – bread/cheese, meat, dessert – never failed to satisfy. As much fun as the food was the company. Mrs. Link and I will both miss Fondue Nights.

Grilling on the Rock – I love to grill. I’d include that on this list except there’s absolutely no way I won’t bring grilling with me wherever we end up. What I will miss, however, is grilling in the middle of the the Potomac River on the Andy Bopp Memorial Rock. We only do it once a year, but man… after a few hours on the river and a few beers, there’s nothing quite as tasty as a cheeseburger. And one of the best parts is the reaction of other people as they they float by use realizing we’re grilling on a rock in the middle of the Potomac River.

Crabs & Crabcakes – Maryland is proud of our crabs. And rightly so. They are fresh and they are good. It seems like every street corner has a hole-in-the-wall boasting about its crabcakes being the best in the state. Fact is, they’re all pretty good. And while Mrs. Link loves the crabcakes, I’m a huge fan of steamed crabs that you have to de-shell by hand, pulling and sucking the meat out as you go. They’re a lot of work, but it’s a ton of fun. There’s also something special about Old Bay.

Cheeburger Cheeburger – Sure, it’s a chain. Actually, it’s a bigger chain that I realized. But it’s a rare chain, as in there isn’t a Cheeburger Cheeburger on every corner. Just dang good, reasonably priced hamburgers with a huge assortment of toppings, great fries and delicious milkshakes. Also, Mrs. Link and I may have gotten our pictures on the Wall of Fame for eating the 1-pounder a time or two.

Cafe de Paris – The restaurant is as eclectic and unique as the website. Like HRG, the owner and his family are always around. Unlike HRG, it took us a long time to figure Cafe de Paris out. The menu changes dramatically. The hours are erratic. No one can really tell you what to expect until you get the menu in front of you. It’s a place that is quite affordable if you know when to eat (early bird, before 6 PM) and expensive the rest of the time. It’s also a place where patrons and servers actually speak French and if you let yourself, you can forget you’re in Maryland and actually feel like you’re in Paris. The food is darn good too.

Carousel Frozen Treats – Not anywhere near Maryland, Carousel is on the way back to Maryland from Shenandoah National Park, where we indulged ourselves after many hikes and camping trips. Always something to look forward to.

The average age of Capitol Hill staff is a lot lower than you’d expect. Long hours and low pay mean that when you’re working on The Hill, you’ve pretty much got to be married to the job. Turnover is high. Starting a family is rare.

In my decade on the Hill, I saw people put their personal lives on hold. Engagements postponed, weddings scheduled around campaigns and kids? Well, when a co-worker announced they were having kids, it was like giving 9-months notice. The lifestyle is simply not compatible with the requirements of raising a family.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not writing this to be critical. The job is what it is, and for Mrs. Link and I, it worked great for the time she was busy with medical school. But when we got pregnant during an election year – and eventually started trucking the baby around the Hill, we both noticed something funny.

In most public places, people smile when they see a baby. Not on Capitol Hill. On the Hill, the reaction is often the opposite of a smile. Babies invoke looks of sympathy – even sometimes carnal fear. It’s as if they are terrified that babies are somehow contagious.

Recently, Mrs. Link and I brought Ryder to a Montana State Society reception in the U.S. Capitol. At one point, our friend Jocelyn (who, by the way, is the exception to the rule when it comes to Hill staff and babies) wanted to hold him. Now, let me preface this by saying that Jocelyn is awesome and all night she was in the middle of the action surrounded by people. That’s why this is so funny. Look what happened when she picked up a baby. That’s a good 10-feed quarantine around her as an entire section of the room cleared out. I’ve added the red circle for effect:

Want some elbow room on Capitol Hill? Bring a baby with you

The 2012 Yearbook is finally done, and wow… what a year! You can see all the albums from the year here.

The events and excitement of the year required a record 126 pages. This blows away the previous record of 108 by a substantial margin. Will this be the longest Yearbook yet? Only time will tell.

You can browse the pages below.

Did you get our Christmas card?  Is that why you’re here?

If so, this video is for you.  And while you’re here, make yourself at home – there are a lot of fun pictures and posts.

Imagine an alternate universe where George R. R. Martin – the acclaimed author of the Game of Thrones series – has penned the Harry Potter story instead of J.K. Rowling.  Here are ten things that I think would have been different:

1) Slytherin wins – Simply by virtue of the fact that they care about it more, ambitious people find a way to win against opponents who care more about bravery or loyalty or being smart.  A whole group of people sorted together because of their ambition is going to find a way to win – even Rowling gets this.  Until Hogwarts professors throw fair play out the window and arbitrarily award the winning points to Gryffindor for “being brave,” Slytherin wins.  And they should win. (by that standard, shouldn’t’ Slytherin get points for “being ambitious”?).

2) Ron gets laid… a lot – Rowling didn’t think that much of Ron.  He’s written as Harry’s also-ran friend who sulks in the massive shadow of his heroic best friend.  Ron has issues with self-worth that manifest themselves in fits of jealousy.  Here’s the thing.  Harry is a moral archetype who’s going to be unavailable to the countless women who want him.  Those women will take the next best thing: Ron.  And since Ron has a low self esteem, he’s going to accept those offers lustily.

3) Hermione dies early – In Rowling’s fiction, the most powerful warriors on the field attract little special attention from the mobs they fight.  Martin understands that reality is much different.  On a true battlefield, the greatest threats – tanks, machine guns, strong leaders or precocious young wizards – are the first targets.  You marshal your forces to take them out and level the odds.  That makes Hermione an early target.  If they are restrained by a self-imposed moral code that keeps the on the predictable straight-and-narrow, all the better.  Hermione dies in Book 1 or early in Book 2.

4) Malfoy is popular – In most modern stories the big mean bully is a social outcast who picks on the meek but lovable kid who everyone likes.  We do that because we like to portray the bully as the villain who deviates from the expected norm.  That’s the story Rowling tells us.  Martin would be honest.  In real life, bullies get their power from social support.  It’s the popular kids who pick on the outcasts.  They get away with it because they are popular – outcasts don’t have the social capital to pick on their equals let alone popular kids.  Malfoy’s family is rich.  He’s attractive in that bad boy kind of way that girls love and guys want to emulate.  And he’s well connected at Hogwarts and I the wizarding world.  There’s no way Malfoy doesn’t have a much bigger circle of friends than two bumbling henchmen.

5) Death Count – Here’s D-Day as imagined by Rowling: Allied forces land on the beaches of Normandy, held by the Nazis.  They proceed to throw rocks at each other attempting to knock one another down or knock the guns out of each other’s hands.  Suddenly, a Nazi squeezes off a shot – a real bullet.  An Allied soldier is hit and dies.  Taking advantage of the pregnant pause that results in the shock of the death, the Germans make their escape into the French interior to skirmish another day.  In a hot war for world domination in which each wizard is essentially armed with the ability to do literally anything if they know the right words, the combat will be much more lethal.  Rowlings uses magic to captivate awe, carefully tucking away Unforgivable Curses to shock when necessary.  Martin would use this magic primarily as shock and awe with magical mass murder.

6)  There’s a wizard army – Okay, duels are dramatic and entertaining.  They might even have a root in history among the battles waged by champions in single combat.  But duels require both sides to share an understanding of rules, and the Death Eaters don’t play by rules.  The stakes in Rowlings Harry Potter are nothing short of a magical takeover of the magical world, nothing short of what the Nazis tried to do in Europe.  Would such a fight be waged by a handful of people who spend most of their time in secret safe houses trying hard their best to withhold information from Harry Potter?  Of course not!  Martin’s Harry Potter pits an army of Death Eaters against an army of wizards.

7) Hogwarts isn’t a school – Castles are military installations.  Hogwarts is a castle.  We know it’s defenses are formidable, and that it’s full of items that make it a tactical focal point.  And Rowlings fills it with children.  Sure, in times of peace, it makes sense to make use a castle for other things, like the Navy uses F-18s for Blue Angels, but in times of war, the State has strong cause to recommission military assets.  Imagine the Battle of Hogwarts manned not by children – who belong in the countryside away from the fighting, they way they were sequestered during the Battle of Britain – but by trained wizard soldiers guarding military command directing a much broader military campaign.

8) Voldemort has some good qualities – Osama bin Laden was apparently a family man.  Adolf Hitler was a charismatic public speaker.  In real life, pure, visible evil doesn’t attract loyalty.  It doesn’t attract followers.  It doesn’t motivate armies.  True, scary evil wraps itself in a cloak of good intentions, lofty ideals and even minor good deeds.  Why exactly were the Death Eaters so eager to fight for Voldemort again?  Giving the villain some good qualities makes him more interesting and complex – it also makes him scarier.  And it makes him more realistic.

9) Spells go really wrong – You’ve got a school full of wizards using magical powers they know nothing about.  In particular, you’ve got Harry, Ron and Hermione doing all sorts of magic behind their teachers backs.  Rowling has fun with the inevitable mistakes.  Martin would raise the stakes dramatically.  Getting it wrong would mean permanent damage – severed limbs, dead classmates and damage to the fabric of reality.

10) Harry Dies – Look, I know he dies in Rowling’s version too, but then he comes back to life.  Martin has been known to bring characters back to life – but only as evil zombies.  Harry Potter has to die, but if he doesn’t stay dead, you wish he had.  I’m willing to allow that Martin would at least let Potter live until the end, but only because the series is about the character, not the events.

I was supposed to get an invitation to the final Space Shuttle Launch, but that got flubbed somehow.  So they brought the Space Shuttle to me.  Sort of.

This is the last flight of the last Space Shuttle Discovery.  It did a few laps around D.C. before landing at Dulles International Airport to make it’s way to the Smithsonian where it will be from now on.

Have to say, it was pretty cool, and even though I am kicking myself for forgetting my camera, I did get to see this first-hand.  I’m not complaining!