For the events of Wednesday, June 3, 2009

7:11 AM – Just got up and turned on the TV to NBC’s Today show, which I watch every day on my way to work on a video podcast. This morning, Matt Lauer is here in Boston doing his part of the show in front of the Quincy Market, which I was just at yesterday afternoon! It was really cool to see – but I didn’t go downtown to see him live, as I don’t know you’d be able to anyway. He interviewed Mitt Romney, who ran for President with the Republican party (and lost to John McCain in the primaries).

Matt is here to follow a story of a guy in court today in Boston who calls himself Clark Rockefeller and claimed for 12 years to be part of the famous wealthy family. But he’s really Christian Gerhartsreiter, a native German who moved to the U.S. as an exchange student in the late 1970s. He became the subject of an international manhunt after abducting his daughter from his ex-wife during a supervised visit. Now he not only awaits trial on kidnapping charges in Boston, but has been identified as a “person of interest” in a double homicide during the mid-1980s in California. His wife was a corporate climber that at one point was making $40,000 a week, but he took control of her money and she couldn’t even access the account balances online! Why she felt she needed to be married this idiot (and he’s ugly too!) is the mystery that has got this whole city talking for quite some time now – big story here.

Also, other big story today is the announced sale of GM’s Hummer division – to a heavy construction company in China called Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery! If you are reading this and you own a Hummer – sell it this afternoon, as it won’t be worth it’s weight in metal tomorrow. What on earth would these peopleknow about fixing and making Hummers? Even analysts in China say it’s a bizarre potential deal. Maybe they don’t actually know what a Hummer is. This goes in my special “stupid story of the day” file.

8:00 AM – When I just went to get my breakfast at Au Bon Pain, I was wearing shorts and it was a bit chilly. Big change from yesterday afternoon where it was hot hot hot. Overcast but supposed to be burn off by early afternoon and then rain overnight, which is just fine with me.

9:30 AM – headed off to Convention Center. Forgot Dr. Keown’s poster at the booth, which is being torned down at noon, so have to rescue it from behind the booth this morning. Then going to head out to the JFK Presidential Library – should be interesting.