It's been a while since I blogged. I was wrapped up in a special project -- which is running Jan. 4. Keep an eye out for it. It's gonna be awesome!
I just got off the phone with a woman who saw my story about hotels and motels in York County getting booked up in advance of the Obama inauguration. She has a big house, she's thinking of renting out rooms to boarders and she wanted some advice on how to get started.
I referred her to the York County Convention and Visitors Bureau, as my knowledge of putting up boarders pretty much begins and ends with letting drunk people crash on my apartment floor.
So anyway, how about that? Accomodations in York Freakin County are getting booked up for this event in Washington, D.C.! I'm going to display my uncanny grasp of the self-evident by predicting that this should be quite an event.
We're covering it, of course. Jeff Frantz, one of our staff reporters, is accompanying the congregation of a York AME church, who are renting a bus for the trip to D.C. I'm sure he'll do a great job, as always.
I'll stay in York County and cover the inaugural ball that local Democrats are sponsoring. That will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 20 at the Yorktowne Hotel on E. Market Street in York.
My editors decided that I'd be better off covering the event in York County, since I'm more familiar with the local political types because of my beat.
I've got mixed feelings about not heading down to D.C. On the one hand -- regardless of how you feel about the prospect of an Obama presidency -- this will be a genuinely historic event. It would be cool to see it first-hand.
On the other hand, getting in and out of the city on that day is going to be a logistical nightmare. And the assignment will likely involve a lot of time standing around outside on a January day.
Not to sound like a wuss, but I still have traumatic memories of covering Ed Rendell's inauguration parade on a brutally cold day. It was so cold that it drove all the parade spectators off the street. Those that hung around took refuge in hotels and restaurants along the route to watch through plate glass windows.
Through no fault of his own, Rendell ended up looking like some demented Roman Emperor as he stood virtually aone on his reviewing stand, watching thousands of suffering marchers parade past in a spectacle that appeared to be staged for his personal amusement.
So I have no problem with inauguration balls. But when it comes to event planning, I think that the concepts "parade" and "January" just aren't a good fit.
Oh yeah. You can download an invitation and RSVP to the local inauguration ball at www.yorkdems.org.
You can't just show up. Tickets are $44 per person ($440 for a table of eight) and you have to RSVP by Jan. 10. Maybe I'll see you there.
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