In Praise of Pulled Pork

Lunch was a great success. Everyone enjoyed the much-discussed pulled pork sandwich, along with coleslaw, potato salad, and BBQ beans. Following up with an ice-cream sandwich, everyone agreed, was a splendid idea.

After lunch, we went to the pin trading area away from our dorm. This was important, because we're placed into the dorms by state, so the California pins we had were in high supply and low demand at the nearby trading area.

We met people from quite a few states and countries, and the "pin theory" of introduction proved to be quite accurate. We greeted and were greeted by many people with the simple phrase, "Where are you from? Any interesting pins you've traded for?"

We met the Chinese team, who was trading lots of miscellaneous Bejing 2008 pins -- not quite genuine DI pins, but plenty close for most people. Also hot on the trading list were the Colorado and Poland pins, as well as the Maryland crabs and Massachusetts ducks. Texas was in a pin league of their own, with many individual team pins as well as numerous state and region pins.