I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend. I got back from Palm Desert (not to be confused with its gay neighbor, Palm Springs) on Sunday. Palm Desert is a slice of heaven. Here's how the trip went:

Scott and I woke up at 4 a.m. on Saturday and caught a flight out of Sea-Tac at 7:30 a.m. I got bumped up to first-class. Scott sat in coach between two fat people. I was happy.

Gramps and Grams picked us up at the airport. We toured their sweet condo, had a sandwich and went to the pool. The weather was an easy 90 degrees with a slight wind. I drank Red Hook and worked on my tan so that Moos could no longer call me "Powder." Scott and I found some paddles and foam balls in the pool and created a game we call "Pool Tennis." The rules of Pool Tennis are as follows:

Rule #1: Don't talk about Pool Tennis.

I would tell you the rest of the rules but that would break the first rule and I would have to kill you.

After Pool Tennis (We're in talks with ESPN 2 about a Pool Tennis tournament) I took a nap. I woke up and Gramps and Grams took Scott and I out to the Elephant Bar, which has a menu as diverse as Red Robin, but it's double the size. At dinner Gramps suggested going to a club called South Beach. Because Gramps is a pimp, we took his advice.

Scott and I arrived at South Beach (aka The-Greatest-Club-Ever) at 10 p.m. The bar had UFC on pay-per-view so we gladly sat at the bar and watched the fights for about 2 hours. We were strategically located near the spot where people, mostly girls, ordered drinks, so we worked our game there and met many women, including a few bachelorettes.

Later in the night, the club got crowded. The girl-to-guy ratio was about the exact opposite of the Up&Up in Bellingham, so we were looking at about 6 girls to 1 guy. It was a gold mine. Jagermeister provided some beautiful dancers for entertainment, too. I was so happy, I cried.

The club had an excellent live band that played contemporary Top 40 music and, in between sets, the DJ played some good hip-hop. "Golddigger" came on and I couldn't help but bust-out my Kanye shoulder-shimmy, which attracted the attention of a group of attractive girls who suggested that Scott and I join them on the dancefloor.

These women could shake what they're mommas gave them, let me tell ya. I had never seen some of the dancing I saw that night. "I've never seen anything like this in Montana!" Scott proclaimed, amazed - all while thinking of his beautiful girlfriend Courtney, for clarification.

We all took some pictures together, got some phone numbers, and then Scott and I headed back to my grandparent's condo. Scott managed to spend $50 on Bud Light at South Beach and was hurting later from all the beer consumption. Sadly, Scott's cell phone was killed in action.

The next morning, I joined Gramps and Grams at their community's clubhouse to watch some tennis and eat donuts. Eventually Scott returned from his hungover slumber and we played another round of Pool Tennis. Then we went back to the condo, packed up and headed out to catch our flight at 7:30 p.m.

On our last day, at the pool, Scott said, "We need to come back here next weekend. This place is heaven."

"We will," I replied. "We'll come back."

Lest we forget Palm Desert.

Freedoms of speech, religion and assembly are cornerstones of American society. Unfortunately, some citizens have reached a point where their excercises of freedom disrespect those who protect it. I am saddened to read an AP story today reporting that Congress has to go so far as to ban protestors from disrupting military funerals at national cemeteries.

While I support the freedom to protest, disrupting the funeral of a soldier who fought to protect the very freedoms protestors have the luxury to excercise is just plain disrespectful.

According to the story, the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act "specifically targets a Kansas church group that has staged protests at military funerals around the country, claiming that the deaths were a sign of God's anger at U.S. tolerance of homosexuals." No word yet about how Congress plans to silence Pat Robertson.

The act, approved by Congress and sent to the White House last week, would bar protests within 300 feet of the entrance of a cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery from 60 minutes before to 60 minutes after a funeral. Those violating the act would face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison. Of course, the ACLU is fighting the bill.

In the meantime, the Patriot Guard Riders, a motorcyle group including many veterans, has begun appearing at military funerals to pay respects to the fallen service member and protect the family from disruptions. The Patriot Guard Riders are to protecting the funeral services what the Minutemen are to protecting the border. When the government is slow to act, once again, ordinary citizens are stepping up.

Taylor Hicks was announced the winner of American Idol last night, at the end an impressive season finale episode. With loads of guest performances, the show's entertainment value came from quality musical performances, rivaling the Grammys and AMAs, rather than the hype of announcing the American Idol winner.

"I was in awe the whole time," said my co-worker Karla. "I loved every second of it. I don’t know what to do with myself now that American Idol is over... I’ll have nothing to look forward to – except for the concert and next season, of course."

Some highlights included:

• A stand-out surprise performance from Prince.
• Chris Daughtry singing with Live.
• Clay Aiken surprising a lookalike.
• Toni Braxton awkwardly humping Taylor Hick during a duet.
• The Brokenote Mountain Cowboys.
• Katherine McPhee. The girl is flawless.
• Elliott Yamin singing U2's "One" with Mary J. Blige.
• David Hasselhoff crying after Taylor Hicks was announced the winner.

There. I'm done. No more American Idol. I'm now off to reclaim my masculinity.

Scott and Courtney on the Jumbotron

Last night, after cooking a magnificent feast for friends and watching a mediocre "American Idol" finale, I received a call from my old high school friend, Theanne.

"I'm at the Mariner's game, and I just saw Scott and Courtney dancing on the JumboTron! It was hilarious!" she said.

Today I called Scott, bracing for the worst. He couldn't have less rhythm if he were deaf. Scott confirmed the news.

"It was my worst moment of the last year," Scott said of the event. "You know I'm not the best dancer, and it was totally embarrassing... It was the one day Courtney didn't wear make-up, too."

On a side note, Scott and I just scored a 3.57 GPA for our first semester in the MBA program at the University of Montana. I say "we" scored the GPA because Scott goes to the classes, but then I end up writing or editing his papers. Keep in mind that Scott graduated from Western with a 2.9, without my assistance.

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National Guard Stacks Up at the Border

The U.S. government plans to build a triple-layer fence and put National Guard troops on the border in effort to limit illegal immigration and human trafficking and to protect the country from threats of terrorism. But we can't keep out Mexican president Vincente Fox. He's visiting Washington State tomorrow.

In addition to meeting with Washington's major corporate players, Fox will be hanging out in Yakima, of all places. Why? Because, according to the Seattle P-I, six out of 10 farm workers in Washington are immigrants, mostly of Mexican descent. About 40,000 workers are needed to pick and process the apples each year alone and most of these workers live in Central Washington.

Fox is coming to show support for Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal. This comes at a time when Mexico is being exposed for encouraging its cities to ban non-natives from local jobs as firefighters, police and judges, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens. In an act of blatant hypocrisy, Mexico is pressing the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants all while enforcing its own strict, internal immigration policies that makes assimilation in Mexico challenging, to say the least.

But the fact of the matter is: Mexico's immigration policies don't really matter because no one wants to be in Mexico. According to the Seattle Times, "Ten years ago, 260,000 illegal immigrants from Mexico were entering the U.S. each year. That number is now estimated at around 500,000."

Mexico has undoubtedly suffered from corrupt leadership for decades and as a result Mexicans want to get the hell out. Mexican officials don't mind. That's 500,000 less people to worry about each year. They know the U.S. will shoulder the burden of supporting the impoverished. Fox is in town to make sure of that.