On my way home last night from the Dean rally in Keene, NH, I was thinking about how the event compared to the political rallies I’d seen in Canada. Then I realized that, since Trudeau in 1980 in Hamilton.

The rally was held in the large 1,100-seat auditorium of Keene Middle School. The hall was full — every seat taken — and there was a crowd in the cafeteria watching on closed-circuit television. Fortunately, I arrived around 6:00 p.m., so I was able to get a seat.

I took several photos of the event; I was some distance from the stage, and the light was poor (to say nothing of my skills as a photographer), so the photos are best seem as being of “to show I was there” quality only. Dean’s own website has much better photos.

Things got started around 7:15 p.m. The Mayor of Keene, Michael Blastos, came on stage, welcomed the crowd, and the introduced a young woman who would sing the national anthem. Americans still sing their national anthem before events, apparently. Although I hold a U.S. passport, short of a hockey game on television, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it sung live. And, truth be told, I couldn’t quite figure out what it was about — lots of phrases about the flag still being there, and things burning down, etc. To avoid being kicked out as a Canadian infiltrator, I mouthed the words as best I could.

Mayor Blastos then introduced the actor and director Rob Reiner. Reiner spoke for about 5 minutes about why he supports Dean, concentrating on Dean’s support for and interest in early childhood education and “first start” programs. He then introduced Dean.

After hearing Dean speak for almost an hour, I certainly understand his appeal. He is a compelling speaker, and is obviously smart and imaginative. He spoke without notes on topics ranging from health care to education to defense. And, somehow, he managed to come across as honest and forthright in a way that didn’t make it seem like he was trying to convince us that he was.

The formal speech wound down about 8:15; after that there was 30 minutes of questions from the audience. When things finally ended for the night, about 9:00 p.m., Dean headed downstairs to the cafeteria overflow room where he spent 15 minutes answering questions.

And then we all headed off into the cold, cold New Hampshire night.

I’ll be at the Dean in Keene rally tonight in Keene, NH. The event will be webcast.

“South,” is, of course, a relative term. I’m not going where it’s warm.

I’m off first thing tomorrow morning for Boston, and then from there up into southern New Hampshire to work with my colleagues at Yankee for the week.

As it’s New Hampshire Democratic Primary week, I’ll also be playing “Primary tourist.” Tentative plans are for a Dean rally tomorrow night in Keene, a hockey game with John Kerry on Saturday followed by a Lieberman Town Hall, and a John Edwards rally on Sunday night. I think I’ll be spending Primary Tuesday in and around various places in Manchester.

See you on the flip side…

I have purchased Canadian postage stamps twice in the last month. Both times I have been sold self-adhesive stamps that do not require licking. The last time I recall purchasing such stamps it was as part of a “special experiment,” but as far as I can tell, self-adhesion is now the norm rather than the exception.

Kudos to CCRA for releasing their Payroll Tables for the Mac. This was previously a PC-only program.

I was eating dinner at the Town & Country Restaurant on Queen Street tonight (they’ll be in business 40 years this April; make sure you congratulate them next time you’re in). While I was sitting there eating my cheeseburger platter I realized Catherine and I had sat at exactly the same table the night before Oliver was born. We went home and watched a Kevin Costner/Paul Newman movie, spent a fitful night of contraction weirdness, and were at the QEH at 9:00 a.m.

This got me thinking about other significant restaurant meals in my life.

There was the time that Catherine, before “our time of dating,” took me to The Only Café in Peterborough only to act as a decoy lest her almost-old boyfriend show up. And then, several months later, our first of many Indian meals, at a restaurant in Waterloo. And a little after that when her parents came to visit for the first time and I ended up suggesting, completely by mistake, that we go and eat at the most expensive restaurant in town.

Much earlier, in the years before Catherine, there was the meal at The Parkhill Café where my girlfriend of the day took me and revealed that while I’d been away on the coast for two weeks she had started dating the man only known as “the folksinger.”

And several years after that there came the end of another erstwhile relationship, which suddenly imploded after a bizarre discussion about the merits of World War II.

I remember the time that Catherine and I took Oliver out to eat for the first time: he was about a month old, maybe even a little less, and we went out to the Lone Star, the now-defunct TexMex place in Charlottetown. He sat on the table in his car seat and just stared silently for the entire meal.

And the time in Phitsanulok, Thailand when the wait staff whisked Oliver off to the kitchen. He reappeared, magically, on the makeshift stage, in the arms of the young woman singing U.S. power ballads in a heavy accent. Oliver had the microphone in his hands, and was trying to sing along.

My brother Mike and I had our “first adult conversation” (in the sense that we were adults, not children) in Charlotte Ann’s, across from the Peterborough Examiner.

With my friend Stephen Good, nee Elliott, I used to go out to Kelsey’s Road House, on the Lansdowne Street strip in Peterborough, every week after our meetings at The Systems Group at Trent and talk about life for a while. Every week we earned another “decorative Coca-Cola glass.” I think I accumulated a half dozen. By the time they got to Charlottetown I was sick of them, and in a fit of insanity I tried to crush them between cutting boards, which succeeded mostly in impregnating the cutting boards with shards of glass.

My Dad and I used to go to the Beehive Restaurant, at Clappison’s Corners near Hamilton, every Friday after I was done at the YMCA. It was the best diner, ever. And the Coca-Cola there tasted better than anywhere before or since. It’s gone now, replaced by a Tim Horton’s and a Wendy’s.

When we were kids and visited my grandparents in Cochrane, Ontario, my Mom’s home town, Dad used to smuggle us out every day after dinner and take us to the Chinese restaurant downtown for french fries. It was a welcome antidote to the roast beef and potatoes.

I remember the time my grandmother came to the Island and we took her out to the lobster supper buffet in North Rustico and, mindful of the astronomical $20 price for the meal, proceeded to eat ever dessert in sight so as to ensure we got our money’s worth.

And the time that Oliver and I snuck over to Mcdonalds in Bangkok while Catherine was shopping for quality Thai crafts and Oliver ate his first french fry (delivered in 60 seconds or it was free).

And the meal that my brother Steve ordered for us in Seoul on my second day in the country. After ordering in passable (to me) Korean, he admitted that he’d had no idea what he ordered. We ended up with a hearty melange of broth, eggs and bits of squid.

My first big meal without my family was a trip to Hamilton’s Mr. D’s Restaurant with my YMCA friends Steve, Sam and Tom. It was a big deal, and we got dressed up. There was sorbet to “cleanse your palet, Sir.” And the total bill for the four of us came to over $100, which we thought was amazing.

I had a spate, about 6 years ago, where I wrote a monthly restaurant review column for The Buzz here in Charlottetown. It was, to be honest, mostly a failure. I realize now that this is because I like restaurants not for the food, or the decor, or the service. I like restaurants for what’s happened in them. And what will.

I am a sucker for good design. And there’s no doubting that Belinda Stronach’s website is well-designed: it’s simple, bold, and set apart from the dull competition.

And so I think “hey, maybe I should look at that Belinda Stronach — she’s got a well-designed website after all!”

And so I do. I surf around the website, like what I see, process-wise, and get a good feeling from all the “My vision is clear. But I believe in an open, inclusive, consultative approach to getting there.” rhetoric.

Maybe, ancestors turning over in graves aside, I will consider even voting for her.

Recall at this point that I still have no idea what she believes in or espouses.

Now, later in the day, I cringe at my naivety, as the site starts to fill up with content like this, and some of Stronach’s views are exposed.

Note that these are just points, and use policy codewords that I may or may not fully understand. But it’s pretty clear that Stronach and I don’t share a neighbourhood on the political spectrum.

Which makes me realize how easy it is to be seduced by the power of good design.

Still, it’s an awful swell site…

Interesting sidenote: do a Google search for Stephen Harper and you’ll likely see a Belina Stronach text ad.

Obviate has got to be one of the better words going:

To anticipate; to prevent by interception; to remove from the way or path; to make unnecessary; as, to obviate the necessity of going.

I used it for the first time today.

Here are pointers to the events calendars for candidates in the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire next week:

• Clark
• Dean
• Edwards
• Kerry
• Kucinich
• Lieberman
• Sharpton

There’s also a Where the Candidates Are page on the New Hampshire Democratic Party website.

I have found newspaper paradise. Newspapers from around the world. No propriatary software required. Updated around the clock (for example, today’s National Post is now available; it’s only midnight in Toronto). Cool.