OK, Alaska

Hartford to Cincinnati to Seattle to Anchorage to a rental pick up truck to the hotel in some place called Soldonta. What? Where? After being in the air or in an airport for the better part of 18 hours altogether, I had to drive with the dude I'm paired up with for 3 hours to get to the hotel. He's a nice enough guy. A minister with a wife, 2 kids and a 3rd on the way from California, he's 350 pounds and pretty much an idiot. Fumbles over the easiest words. Says "For realz" (with the z) without a hint of irony. He makes me feel really REALLY smart, so I have some purpose.

The work is pretty tedious. All we do is go door to door and knock. They provided me with an iPod Touch to record the silly survey we have to ask anyone who opens the door for us. Not many people do. Not many at all. Out of 100 people we had to ask, we came across the following:

-24 actual people
-75 dogs, most of them pretty awesome
-12 chickens
-1 vociferous rooster (that little shit needed to shut his fucking mouth
-1 goose in a pen
-1 backwoods weirdo in sweatpants
-0 guns pointed in our faces.

The one backwoods weirdo was straight out of the backwoods weirdo playbook. Scraggly beard, dirty sweats, super angry attitude, phone to his ear with a cord attached to it, and a SUPER shady "home." It was more of a ramshackle methed out lean to than anything else. If this guy WASN'T furiously clacking away at an old typewriter, spewing out anti-establishment nonsense, he's being a backwoods weirdo in the wrongest possible way.

Other than that, there was nothing really interesting. No moose. No bears. Not a whole lot of wildlife. I found that kind of odd, as we were not in a truly residential neighborhood. Mostly unpaved roads with scattered homes, some of them quite lovely, and a lot of virgin forest. Nary a moose to be found. And I was looking, dammit.

The other people in this group are pretty standard Republican. I don't have all that much to talk to them about. There is one guy from Stamford, and he worked with Tom Foley in 2010, so fuck him. And there is one prototype blonde Republican WASP girl who worked with Linda McMahon in her quest to gain a Senate seat. When she found out I was from CT, she asked if I knew a couple of people who worked with her on that campaign. She's an idiot. I wanted to remind her that I don't know everyone in the State, but it was early in the morning and I hadn't drank any coffee yet, so my brains weren't clicking on all cylinders yet.

A lot of the time these people talk, I silently mock them. They are so super stoked to be working for a Republican that it kind of pains me to have to work along side them. I don't share their values. They aren't New London hipsters like I am. They don't have the same background and pedigree that I have. I want to go the bars around here with these people, just to show them how to do things right. I don't know if that will fly. They can't hang with me. Some of them were shocked that I bought beer for the mini fridge. I had to get food, so why the fuck not get some beers. I'm going to do what I want in my free time, and if that means tipping a few back when I get out of work, so be it. If they have a problem with that fuck 'em.

Yea. Fuck 'em.

SD