I'm sitting in the lobby bar at the Westin Horton Plaza in San Diego enjoying a wireless connection, a cup of coffee, and the AEA meetings. Interviewing economists for a position with our school -- the market seems to be very poor, so we're interviewing really outstanding people. A colleague and his teenage son and I sat in a sidewalk restaurant in the Gaslamp Quarter last night and played "Find the Economist". It's amazingly easy -- and frightening -- that we look so much alike. A group of non-economists were surrounded by economists walking by, and I decided they were economists too. But the teen bet me $1 that I was wrong, ran up to them and said, "Are you economists?" "Huh?" Not a bad dollar to lose. (The colleague and son also had a Greenspan sighting.)

I wanted also to express gratitude to the many commenters who appreciated the color of this page after all. Quite the folderol over a choice I orginally thought was, well, phlegmatic.