One of the things that I look forward to every year is the Gettysburg Battlewalks that PCN shows on the anniversary of the Civil War battle at Gettysburg, PA every July 1st-3rd. This is when they show the national park ranger giving a guided tour of the battlefield to a group of people. You may have seen them as you flip past the station and just kept going. Just about everyone I know laughs at me when I tell them how much I love these shows, but I don't care because I find it so interesting. It's superbowl weekend for a history nerd like me!
On the 1st I settled in on the sofa after my morning ride for a big day of battlewalks. I got to see about 45 minutes of footage before it gets "preempted" by live coverage of the PA State Legislature. Apparently they were having trouble getting the annual budget passed so they had these important debates going. But I had no idea what was going on. First I got confused as to why my show went off....then they played one of those streaming messages across the bottom of the screen saying what happened. So I decided to wait it out....I mean, how long could this actually go on? 4 HOURS! It went on for 4 hours before they put my battlewalks back on so I got to catch a little bit after dinner. Ugh.
On the 2nd I am really amped for some good stuff. The 2nd was a big day in the battle (i.e. Little Round Top) so I am really stoked for my battlewalks. Wouldn't you know it? After about 30 or 45 minutes they cut to the budget debates again. I am smart and decide not to wait it out this time. I just decided to watch a movie and go back to PCN after dinner because that's when all the good battlewalks are schduled anyway. I flip back at 5pm and the debates are still going. 6pm? Still going. 7pm? Still going. 10pm????? You guessed it....STILL GOING! These state representatives are like the dang Energizer Bunny. So I just left it on thinking it had to end sooner or later. Then at 11pm it got really wierd...
Apparently there is a rule that the State Legislature must adjourn by 11pm. So I start to salivate becuase I know my precious battlewalk will be on in minutes. But then they decided to make a motion to continue past 11. Apparently they must vote to override the rule that states they must adjourn by 11, and it requires 2/3 of the representatives to vote "yay." They discuss for about 5-10 minutes and are about to vote. Then someone stands up and appeals the vote because he believes it requires a 3/4 vote to override. They argue about this for about 10 more mintes, and decide that the original decision of 2/3 was sufficiet. It is appealed again! Then someone make a motion to just adjourn. This goes on from about 10:50 until almost 11:45 pm!!! They wasted almost an hour deciding if they should continue past 11pm and then just ended up adjourning and going home anyway. THAT is why they get nothing accomplished and have to preempt my battlewalks. I can't belive they argued for an hour about nothing....
Anyway, I didn't expect much on the 3rd. I knew what would happen and when I flipped on PCN I was right. Gettysburg battlewalks preempted. Sigh......I guess there's always next year.
On the 4th I ended up just watching a documentary series about the American Revolution all day. Then I spent the rest of the holiday weekend rediscovering my love of Super Mario Bros. on my sister's nintendo DS. I have been really geeking out so far this summer. I should be going to barbeques and staying out late on school nights and generally just doing all kinds of fun summer stuff like eating water ice, skinny dipping, and taking road trips.
Still plenty of summer left though, so I'm looking forward to it getting better.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment