North Carolina Wedding

I have spent the past two days traveling to Raleigh North Carolina to attend the wedding of one of my best friends, Dan Vallero. Dan and I have known each other since we were babies. Dan is a great guy and a great friend and I am happy I had the chance to see him get married to his new wife, Elise.

Tomorrow I will fly back to Kansas City, but before that I am on a mission to get a real Carolina pulled-pork barbeque sandwich. Carolina is one of four barbeque capitals in the world. I have had Carolina style barbeque before, and I really like it (not as much as KC, but I like it) I will not leave Carolina until I get a real sample of the real deal. That being said, most of the people I have asked about barbeque since I have been in Carolina have failed to provide a favorite barbeque restaurant. In KC you don't have to ask, when people find out you are new to town they volunteer suggestions for where you should go for barbeque. If Carolina residents can't get even pick a favorite, that says a lot about the strength of their barbeque game.

I flew here on US Air, US Air is bankrupt, and cut employee pay by 27% last week, hopefully they stay flying until 5:25 central time.

I rented a car from Budget Rent a Car, and I was impressed. It is hard for a rent-a-car company to impress me, especially when they rent domestic cars, but Budget did it. Rent from Budget the next time you have a chance.

I stayed at Courtyard by Marriott, a great hotel for business travelers which I strongly recommend. The only surprise was that this weekend I shared a hotel with rapper Ludacris and his "posse". Are you kidding? No, Ludacris, staying at the hotel by business travelers, for business travelers in suburban Raleigh. Not to indict Ludacris's street cred, but "bling-bling rollin' at the mid priced business traveler hotel" is not what I expect from the rappers I admire.

Don't worry, I have two posts about the debates/Bush foreign policy/Kerry is a pretender ready to go, you will see them later today.

Timothy Burger