MARC train madness

As everyone ought to know by now this years presidential inauguration promises to be insane due to the expected number of people in attendance. Despite that fact my family and I along with several of our family friends our planning to go the the inauguration and from Baltimore the mass transit of choice is the MARC train (commuter rail train between Baltimore and DC), the good folks at MARC being intelligent capitalists set a specific date (this morning 12/20/08) when inauguration day MARC tickets would go on sale and jacked up the price, from normal round trip price of slightly over 10 dollars to 25 dollars. Despite this as 9am approached we all sat hunched over our computer screens ready, eager and willing to make our purchases. Needless to say the website crashed, then it came back up and at every turn there were error messages, undeterred we called around to see who was having success, tried different browser types, and hit the refresh button innumerable times. Finally, one of our friends/neighbors in exasperation decided to drive down to the ticket window (about 10 minutes away) while her husband continued to try to purchase tickets by web, and lo and behold there was no line. She was quickly able to buy tickets for her family, the family that's staying with them, and our tickets. At about the same time the poor website gave up the ghost again and crashed, not to be up again for at least half an hour.

So we all have our tickets, I pity the poor folks who are still trying to get them by web. See you, or not, at the inauguration.

Welcome

I have decided to start another blog (because I am so good at updating the first one). This blog will be focused on policy analysis of political proposals, some political analysis, sports, and anything else that I find interesting/amusing. My goal will be to post at least once a week on Fridays. Feel free to follow on twitter.