3/23/09 update: Maybe I should delete this entry now that Daschle is not quite as cool as I originally thought…

Obama Nominates Daschle for HHS

President-elect Barack Obama formally nominated Thomas A. Daschle to become the next secretary of health and human services this morning and said the former Senate majority leader would lead efforts to reform health care.

Most excellent. I'm a big fan of Tom Daschle for a couple of reasons: one, I got to meet him in person five years ago, and two, my friend Peter worked for him as a summer intern.

Peter's probably going to roll his eyes because I'm showing this pic for the 3000th time, but I can't help it, it was VERY exciting to meet the current Senate Minority Leader… it was basically my one and only face-to-face interaction with a national 'celebrity.'

At the Wright Brothers' Centennial Celebration dinner in 2003. It was held in a hangar at National Airport… very fitting. (And COLD!)

John Travolta was also at the dinner, but personally I couldn't have cared less. Besides, who's cooler — a senator from South Dakota or a celebrity whose movie about his Scientology 'religion' (Battlefield Earth) won 7 out of 8 nominations for the 2000 Razzie Awards? Yeah, I thought so.

Additionally, Dad thinks it's funny that Travolta prides himself on owning/flying a Boeing 707, which apparently is a pretty crappy airplane. Not only does it have a terrible record (thanks to its predisposition to doing a "Dutch Roll" motion), but it's considered to have crummy fuel economy and is noisy as hell. To put it in perspective, the last Brazilian Air Force One was a 707-300, also known as "Sucatão" ("big junk").