2004 started off with a bang quite literally, as I spent new years on a Boston Harbor New Years Fireworks cruise. The next weekend my adopted little sister Jess accompanied me to a friend's wedding in Norwalk, Connecticut. While there we were able to steal away to NY for a day. I've been in Time Square a couple times before, and every time I get so overwhelmed that I end up walking out into traffic. Famous for my ability to show a girl a good time, I thought it would be fun to do a little self-advertising while we were in the Square. So I dragged Jess into this photo booth inside the Time Square visitor's center.

"NY head shot"

"ha! ha ha! ha ha ha ha!"

I made it up to her for plastering her face across time square by taking her to Strawberry Fields in Central Park. Who doesn't like John Lennon?

"Imagine"

"The city that never sleeps"

"Best of luck to John and Rachel"

The next couple weeks after the wedding were spent teaching an winter intersession course in American Politics. Teaching six days a week certainly made January fly by, and before I knew it it was time for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. Having been there to help John Kerry get started during the summer, I had to be there for the end. On the way up to one of the regional offices in Lebanon, NH I stopped to do some XC skiing. The downside of driving a roadster is that there's only one way to fit my skis in the car.

I arrived Sunday. The weekend leading up to the primary was one of the coldest in New England history. We were up at 5AM on Monday to do some visibility during people's morning commute. It was 17 degrees below zero! After standing outside for half an hour I had an entire list of body parts that I couldn't feel.

"negative 17"

"back at the office"

I did a little bit of everything while I was up in NH. Sunday night I took telephone calls from people who had specific policy questions about Senator Kerry. Monday morning I went door to door in Hanover, reminding Kerry supporters to get out and vote on Tuesday.

"Door to door in NH"

That afternoon we had heard that CNN was taping an episode of Crossfire at Dartmouth College, so we piled into a convertible and drove laps around the campus in front of the news camera.

"Extreme Visibility"

"Dartmouth College"

The evening was spent running around in sub-zero weather hanging reminders on people's door-knobs. Up at 4:30AM on fateful Tuesday morning, we delivered the last of our reminders and I headed over to a law office, where I ran a phone bank, coordinating a team of volunteers as we targeted groups of voters (say, supporters over 65) and pleaded with them to go vote. It seems like small potatoes, but when you consider that the last Presidential election was "decided" by a few hundred votes, that's where it all comes down to campaign field work. We closed down the phone bank around 7PM and headed back to the campaign office to watch the returns. We laughed. We cried. We headed up to Manchester and got drunk.