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Writing from South Dakota now, sitting up at 2 am on Christmas Eve (technically) clearing out the spam on This Old Web Site. It’s a big hassle. I'm thinking that once I get back to Iowa, I'll start testing out the new version of Movable Type over on the test site. (Note to self: this plug-in might work too.) Hopefully I can have something better figured out by the end of the year so that our site can actually be usable again--for us, anyway. But that's where that stands.

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Otherwise: the last couple of months have been quite eventful, haven't they? I've been working like a bastard and not had time to comment on Current Events, but I've been reading the newspaper pretty closely and keeping track of things. My only observation that I don't think has been covered thoroughly is that in my home district, none of the twenty or thirty incumbents up for re-election--from the President of the United States all the way down to the county commissioners--was defeated. Despite all the fire and vitriol spewing forth from all angles about What is Wrong With This Country, it seems like we're pretty happy with things, at least around Iowa. I would hope that it is different elsewhere.

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I'm going to try to keep it short for now but for the record, I stopped by the Ropeadope New Music Seminar when it stopped by Des Moines last month. I didn't catch all of it, but I did get to see Matt Haimovitz, Charlie Hunter, Bobby Previte, DJ Olive, Lyrics Born, the ever-charismatic Sex Mob the lethargic Benvento/Russo Duo and the main attraction: an extremely obese, middle-aged man in a tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt bouncing around the joint like a giddy schoolgirl. Quality.

OK. I'll be in Rapid City through Monday; give me a call if you will too.