I'm glad everyone's so interested, but you guys I don't know anything more than you do. Please stop IMing me, I will update the evite as soon as I hear anything.
It has been crazy around here since John went to fix the economy. Not only is the campaign suspended, but that's on top of all the normal stuff like doing press and fundraising and making speeches and making sure the ads are running. Believe me, it sounds like it should be kind of relaxing, but actually it's pretty much the same as usual except Steve is always reminding everyone to be "high minded".
The only good thing about all of this is there's a chance that my debate might get cancelled too. Of course I want to talk about the issues (and to show the country that I would be a much better Vice President than boring old Joe Biden). But it sure would be a relief if we could just postpone it a little, or do it by mail or something.
Whew! I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to write more, I have been busy as a bee down
here in New York City. You might have heard about it, I'm on this whole trip to get Foreign Policy experience and meet some of the presidents of other countries that I'm going to have to work with when I'm Vice President. It's kind of like when you move into a new neighborhood and have to go around and say hi to the neighbors. Nerve racking to say the least!
Of course it doesn't help that the whole thing has to happen in New York City, and then at the United Nations besides! That is pretty much the least patriotic place on the planet, I was not looking forward to it. I did feel prepared though, John arranged to have Mr. Bolton speak to me about it on the phone. Actually I'm embarrassed to say we tried to meet in person first, but I just could not stop cracking up at that mustache of his. If you've ever spent any time around walruses or even just seals you know what I mean. I felt terrible but I guess I just had a case of the giggles. Finally Mr. Bolton suggested we talk some other time, and when we chatted on the phone later that afternoon everything was fine. In fact we had a really good talk, he basically said 1. the UN is exactly as bad as you imagine and 2. don't be afraid to stand up to them! From there we kind of got off on a tangent about the Left Behind books. But all in all it was still a really good talk, and I appreciated the advice.
But I still had a case of the butterflies when we started the meetings. I was really tired too from staying up baking the night before -- I thought it would be nice to bring everyone I met with a little zip-lock baggy of cookies, but maybe I would have been better off getting some sleep instead.
Fortunately my first meeting wasn't that tough. It was with President Karzai of Afghanistan, and I think he was running a little behind too (he didn't even seem to have had time to change out of his pajamas). Anyway he really liked the cookies, and then we got to chatting about our sons. His son Mirwais was just born last year, so we talked about what it's like having a baby in the house. Then we got to talking about his nephew Jamil and my Track. We both agreed that they would get along great, so I gave him Track's email address to give to Jamil (I hope that's OK, honey!). It is such a shame that Track was deployed to Iraq instead of Afghanistan, if he had I'm sure they'd be thick as thieves in no time. I said that maybe Track can visit for a weekend sometime, and Mr. Karzai said he thought Jamil would like that.
So that meeting was really good, but next up was President Ooribay from Columbia, and we had NOTHING in common. He just gave the cookies to his assistant and said he'd have them later, which I thought was a little rude but I decided not to let it get to me. I was trying to think of anything to talk about, but all I could come up with was the old episodes of Gunsmoke that I used to listen to with my meemaw, and which I remembered were made by his country's broadcasting system. But I don't think Mr. Ooribay knows Gunsmoke, so we just kind of sat there talking about the weather and those headsets everybody seems to wear around the UN. I swear, it was the longest ten minutes of my life.
Fortunately my final meeting was with someone who is quickly becoming a great friend on the campaign, Hank Kissinger. I think he could tell that I was a little frazzled by then, so he just said "Why don't we knock off early?" and instead we went down the street and got some soft-serve from McDonald's. It was great to get out of that building, and to be reminded that there are people out there who care about me and will help me through this whole process. President Ooribay is just one person, and his country's not very important anyway (maybe they could change that if they spent a little less time being rude and a little more time fighting drug lords!).
Well Im back. And none too pleased about it I can tell you. Not only didnt I catch any fish, I didnt even GET TO FISH.
I'll back up, Terry marched up to me on Friday, he'd been storming around the office all day. He says Todd how would you like to go on a trip? Well what kind of trip I asked. Uh, how bout fishing maybe? he says. Well that sounded pretty good to me. You all know I do some fishing for work when Im not on call with BP. That is hard d*** work tho, this sounded like maybe itd be a chance to relax before things got crazy. So I said sign me up!
Terry wanted to hit the road right away so we flew back home then drove out to some hotel in the middle of nowhere. Terry said it was on the way, I didnt know tho, he told me to just sit tight while he went and made some calls and to not open the door unless it was him. He said Just do this one thing for me Todd and I promise we'll go get dinner at H**ters (Im sorry Sarah I swear I never go on my own but the wings are really good and I never get to try them). I said Id be good.
I was pretty bored by the time somebody knocked. Mr. Palin open the door! they says, but I yelled back He aint here! Well we yelled some more until I said God d***it I ain't opening this door an that's final! And then they left a while an I watched some more Meerkat Manor. But I was getting awful hungry, then someone knocked and said they had a pizza to deliver. I asked what kind, it all seemed to check out, so I opened the door.
Well I didnt end up with any god d*** pizza, and when Terry got back he was madder than a wet hen, you can be sure we didn't go get any wings neither. Instead I just ended up with a supeena in my hand and an empty stomach.
See there's this investigation going on about when Sarah had Mike fired. Its pretty stupid, I mean Sarah was head of Alaska when it happened, obviously she can fire people who work FOR ALASKA, she was everybody's boss! In fact when this whole thing came out she and I put our heads together over a fancy dinner and after a few bottles of Yellow Tail we said "F THOSE GUYS/BRING IT ON!" The next morning she issued a statement about it and everything.
Since then tho it turns out that Obama was behind it all, so the right thing to do is not answer any questions. I guess thats fine, they say theres a chance we could get in trouble for it but once Sarah's elected she can just pardon us anyway, Im not too worried. But the bad part about it is one, no fish, and two I have to start talking to reporters.
All right I admit it I got a little tongue tied around a pretty lady. I dont think thats a crime!
Greta is very nice but Im only used to Sarah calling me first dude, its kind of a thing with us. So when she kept asking me about it it sort of threw me for a loop. Also when she had me talk about my snowmobiling she made me sit behind her on it and reach around her to show her how to hold the throttle. That was weird too.
Anyway this was bad enough but I dont think most of them will be as nice as Miss Van Sustrin, I'm kind of dreading it. I wish Id stayed in that hotel room and just settled for the Chinese delivery guy that came by before the pizza.
Just because I'm running for Vice President doesn't give anyone the right to hack into my PRIVATE EMAIL. OK so sure I used it for talking to people about Alaska government stuff but HELLO I think that was just being smart! Remember a little thing called "Waters Gate"? I dont think the country needs to go through something like THAT again. So basically I was keeping stuff private FOR the sake of america/alaska.
Anyway how the heck did they get my password? It even had a symbol in it! How could anyone ever figure that it was i<3wolves ??? Arrrghh, I should never have changed it. When I first got the account I had the idea to set the password as "password". I'm no Steve Gates, but THAT'S pretty darn tricky.
So, as it turns out, the "Secret" service is actually a bunch of blabber mouths. What good is a code name if everybody knows who its code for? Somebody at the blabber mouth service told somebody in the news media what all of the candidates and their spouses go by when they mention us on walkie talkies. But, now that the cat's out of the bag (or, as we like to say in Alaska, the grizzly's out of the gate!), I guess we can talk about it too! Mr. McCain is Phoenix and Cindy is Parasol (is that another type of bird, like a Phoenix? I don't think we have Phoenixes or Parasols in Alaska.), and the democrats are a bunch of stupid stuff that doesn't make any sense. But if you ask me, Todd and I (hi Todd!!) got the best names in the whole bunch. I'm Denali and Todd is Driller! These were actually both names we had been thinking about in case we have any more kids. But now we get to have them ourselves, it's so fun!!!
Denali is a national park and a mountain in Alaska! Denali means The Great One in Indian. Isn't that sweet? They think I'm great! And not just great, but the great ONE! Like, better than everybody else! It's so cool that the Secret Service is throwing their support behind me like that. Denli is a pretty tough mountain to climb (just as Todd! LOL!), but if you get to the top its totally worth it. And, when you get to the top, you're even closer to Heaven. We're planning a family hiking and hunting trip up there as soon as the election is over.
Todd's name, Driller, is so awesome. It's "on message" (as the campaign folks always want me to be! sort of!) and reminds people to DRILL BABY DRILL! And you know who drills better than anyone I know? My Todd! (LOL!) And Todd has actual drilling experience in oil fields. And it sounds kind of tough and manly and is just so fitting for the first dude. Even if we're #2 in office, he'll still be my #1 driller!
So that's how we got our names. I wonder if we get new names once we're elected? Or maybe a second set of even more super secret names that only certain secret service dudes know about? What do you think they should be?
Wassup people. I know its been a while--Mrs. P has been changing the pwd here, which is pretty lame if u ask me. Ive been wanting to write more here, specially since I hear it's getting mad traffic from google. I figure you guys would like to know what it's like on the campaign trizail. Also this whole experience has been making me get a lot more serious about my music. Im gonna need a career to support Briss, right? Also, yknow, the baby. You might think itd be hard to do, like with flying around the country & s***, but I actually got the idea from a super-old copy of Spin on the plane where this band the Postal Service recorded a album by sending tracks + vocals back & forth--pretty cool (altho when I got the the album off rhapsody it turned out to be totally gay).
So my buddy Andy lays down his beats and sends em to me, then I record my flow over it (Audacity, son!). Its pretty tight, cept sending biga** files over yahoo messenger always ALWAYS gets f***ed up. Anyway I hope I can post some of the tracks here soon. Id do it now but Mrs. P says I gotta record clean versions.
Right, so the reason for this, Mrs. P said I could put up a photo of the tattoo I got and what it means to me.
This is actually just the start. Eventually I want, like, this huge sleeve--I had it sketched out but I lost it, Im working on doing it over now but need to wait till Im back in W-town, cuz my boy Carl draws a awesome Ryu. Short version--Ryu and Jesus are down by my wrist firing a hadoken at this sweet-a** dragon & his flames run onto my back and THEN turn into shadow demon wings like that guy from The Darkness (the game, not those british p***ies). Eventually I might connect it up with the other arm, Im not sure yet. But so far all Ive got is A) the chinese symbol for "POWER" between my shoulders (I forgot mention that before) and B) what was supposed to be the dragon but looks more like a dinosaur cause I was a dumba** and went tubing the day after I got it. Oh, & C, the ring with Briss's name. I'm not too worried about the dragon tho--thats the great thing about a tattoo, you can always get more ink to turn a old one into something else ;-)
Thanks so much to Mary C. for sending me a link to this site, sarahpalineagle.com. A gentleman named Vann Black was in Ketchikan and took a photo of a bald eagle sitting on an American flag when he heard the news that I was picked to be Vice President! You should really go to his site and have a look. It is a lovely photo Vann, thank you for sharing it with the world. I think it really shows off the grace & beauty & subtlety of the Alaska way of life.
Incidentally, Ketchikan is where that so-called bridge to "nowhere" was going. Vann was kayaking, so that's fine for him but without a bridge other people can't come and see sights like this!
SNL impersonated me over the weekend, you can watch it by pressing the play button on this neat Hulu thing (I guess one good thing did come out of Hawaii!).
I don't want to complain, I think they were mostly fair, although I never said I could see Russia from my house, obviously. I was still kind of disappointed though.
I am actually a big Tina Fey fan, everyone around here loves "30 Rock" (true fact--a lot of Alec Baldwin's lines on that show are taken verbadim from the Republican Party Platform). But I thought she must have had an off night, I just didn't see the resemblance. So it was kind of a letdown. That, plus no good catch phrases ("sock it to me" etc.), so I don't really see how they could make this impression of me a regular feature. I mean they can keep making fun of my accent (although that is kind of a cheap shot) but what else is there?
Hey folks just wanted to say I think Im going on a fishing trip for a bit, no real reason really, but I'll probly not be picking up my mail/email/phone for a while & I'm not sure exactly where I'll be or when I'll be back, dont try to get in touch.