It’s going to be a bit more challenging for her parents, though.  Normally when we make this trip (and I think this is my 28th time since August 2007) I do all the driving and my wife rides shotgun…or perhaps it would be better described as sleeping shotgun.  However, this time she’s going to have to drive the entire 475 miles northbound because I’ll be driving separately in a rental truck.  The original plan called for making the entire trip starting very early on Sunday, but we’ve decided to break it into two more manageable pieces and after loading up this morning we’ll be headed north for an overnight in Santa Nella, about 319 miles away.  That will give us a pretty easy ride on Sunday morning.

Of course, the new apartment is basically an empty box and she doesn’t have any of the furniture that the school provided in the dorm, so her bed, dresser, nightstands, bookcase, piano (which is already there), and all kind of other stuff of hers will have to go up via truck.  Since she wasn’t able to come down here to help us pack up or figure out what to take and what to leave, we were able to use some great modern technology to work it all out.

Thank you, Skype.

One night I set the laptop up on a bookcase in her old bedroom and started a video chat with her in her dorm room.  For about an hour or so we pulled stuff out of drawers or storage areas and were able to hold them up where the webcam could see them and she was able to decide what she wanted us to pack.  It’s also been a great way to stay in touch since being able to see her is much more fun than just talking on the phone.

And, it’s free.

I remember when I was a kid you’d see stories about the future that usually involved some sort of videophone where you could see the person you were talking to.  The future is here and it’s a lot of fun.

Today we’re packing the truck heading out.  The bedroom will really look empty without all that stuff.

The laptop is staying home this weekend so any posting will be by cellphone.  After driving 475 miles we’ll still have to spend some quality time unloading the truck and helping her organize stuff.  Regular blogging should resume on Wednesday.

The Internet is a large-scale version of the “Committees of Correspondence” that led to the first American Revolution — and with Washington’s failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.

People are asking, “Is the government doing us more harm than good? Should we change what it does and the way it does it?”

Pruning the power of government begins with the imperial presidency.

Too many overreaching laws give the president too much discretion to make too many open-ended rules controlling too many aspects of our lives. There’s no end to the harm an out-of-control president can do.

Read the rest of it. Even if the GOP takes control of Congress this November we’ll still have to deal with a president who seems intent on getting his policies enacted with or without Congressional approval.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the State of Arizona’s motion to expedite the appeal from thepreliminary injunction enjoining key provisions of S.B. 1070. (h/t Michelle Malkin) The Department of Justice hasobjected to an expedited briefing schedule.

The case now will be argued the week of November 1.

That may make DOJ lawyers happy, because they will have more time to put together their brief.

But it will not make Democratic politicians happy to have the Arizona case on the front page as voters are walking into the voting booth on November 2.

Democrats wished too hard for something, and they got it.

That will be a nice little reminder of why Democrats should not be trusted with the majorities for another session of Congress.

Louisiana has reopened key commercial fishing areas that were closed as a result of the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a statement released by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.
The news will be taken very well by local fishermen who have been sidelined as a result of the spill.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries opened up specific areas to allow the fishing of shrimp and finfish east of the Mississippi in New Orleans, St. Tammany, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes yesterday the statement read.

I guess it won’t be 50 years until the Gulf recovers after all.

A failed shot at making transit greener than green has some in Shakopee (MN) turning a deep shade of red.

Scott County’s first transit station, which opened three years ago, was billed as “eco-friendly” for its paving bricks and rain gardens. It turned out to be a $50,000 “oops.”

The porous pavers, designed to let Mother Nature cleanse pollutants in the soil rather than sweep them off into nearby bodies of water, sank under the buses’ massive weight. And the rain gardens turned into a decaying, weed-infested mess.

Scott County’s public works chief, Lezlie Vermillion, isn’t mincing words. “We failed,” she said.

“I learned from a professor at the U,” she added, “if you are afraid to show the public your mistakes, skip civil engineering.”

Liberal ideas always look so good on paper.

Michael Reagan, eldest son of former president Ronald Reagan, is selling @reagan.com e-mail addresses, CBS News reports, “with an appeal to conservatives to stop giving their money to companies he casts as tied to liberalism.”

The pitch: “Well, every time you use your email from companies like Google, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Apple and others, you are helping the liberals. These companies are, and will continue, to be huge supporters financially and with technology of those that are hurting our country.”

GENERAL MOTORS introduced America to the Chevrolet Volt at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show as a low-slung concept car that would someday be the future of motorized transportation. It would go 40 miles on battery power alone, promised G.M., after which it would create its own electricity with a gas engine. Three and a half years — and one government-assisted bankruptcy later — G.M. is bringing a Volt to market that makes good on those two promises. The problem is, well, everything else.

For starters, G.M.’s vision turned into a car that costs $41,000 before relevant tax breaks … but after billions of dollars of government loans and grants for the Volt’s development and production. And instead of the sleek coupe of 2007, it looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius. It also requires premium gasoline, seats only four people (the battery runs down the center of the car, preventing a rear bench) and has less head and leg room than the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze, which is more or less the non-electric version of the Volt.

In short, the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build. Unfortunately for this theory, G.M. was already committed to the Volt when it entered bankruptcy. And though President Obama’s task force reported in 2009 that the Volt “will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term,” it didn’t cancel the project.

Read the rest of it here. Even for an electric car the NY Times can’t write a glowing review.

And courtesy of Iowahawk, the Chevy Volt song and dance team (I actually think this is legit and not a parody):

“We have no intention of allowing the Republican tax increase — that their policies would lead to — to go into effect for working Americans. Period,” he said. “We’re going to act and make sure that the Republican phase out and increase in taxes does not end as they provided for in the laws they passed.”

Bush wanted to make those tax cuts permanent. Democrats threatened a filibuster if there wasn’t a sunset provision included in the law. In order to get his tax cuts Bush compromised on the sunset provision, but now, in the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the “chickens are comin’ home to roost”.  Democrats must either pass an extension of the Bush tax cuts or America will be hit with the largest tax increase in history, and it won’t be a “Republican tax increase”.  It will be solely the responsibility of the Democrats who oppose it.

Nice try Steny.  Most Americans aren’t as stupid as you hoped.