Back In Dubuque

So, I am back in Dubuque, have been since Saturday afternoon. The last week in DC was pretty nice. Without work, I was able to both sleep in and wrap up a few of the sightseeing things I had not yet done. But first, end of classes. I managed to finish off all of my finals without any real issues. All in all, I think the semester went pretty well. I'm definitely looking forward to digging into the meat of my major and minor next semester, but these classes were a lot of fun. Since I've put this off so long, I'm drawing a blank on what I did at the beginning of the week. It seems to me that most days I slept in late and then struggled to work on final papers. On Wednesday, I went in to have an exit interview of sorts with Bruce and got my picture taken. Thursday, after our final, we went to Vittorio's for the last time and then finally went to the Spy Museum. Rather than just touring the museum, we decided to do the interactive spy game thingy, which was pretty fun (though I think we proved to be pretty average spies). Friday, Packy and I had the unenviable task of shipping our stuff home. It was both a pain in the butt and expensive, but I guess it was better than the alternative. Then we all went to Georgetown one last time to have a more relaxed version of it as our last memory there. We got cupcakes and then did some window shopping and just took in the scenery of it all. Then it was down to business as we had to completely empty and clean the apartment before my shuttle to the airport arrived at 3 AM. We got through it, just barely. The initial flight out of Baltimore wasn't too bad, except that my baggage was a little overweight, which was nothing a little bribery couldn't fix. It was my time in Chicago that proved to be a little bothersome. I had a four-hour layover and a constantly changing gate to deal with. I finally set up camp about three hours before my flight was to take off in what was then my gate. After trying unsuccessfully to sleep in a chair, I moved to the floor and napped for about two and a half hours. When I woke up, my gate had changed again, so I lugged all my stuff to my new gate and waited for take off. When I was finally back in Dubuque, I was greeted by mountains of snow, frigid temperatures, and no one being home. I spent most of the weekend trying to catch up on sleep, which I'm still not fully caught up on. I started working at the Y today, and I will be working close to 20 hours per week these next three weeks (time to start rebuilding my funds after the semester in DC). At this point, I make no promises to maintain the blog during Christmas break, but I fully intend to be back to semi-regular updates once I'm back on campus. So, until I next blog, I wish you all a happy and blessed Christmas season and new year. May your 2010 be even better than your 2009.

God Bless,

Jes

Last Day of Work, Last Weekend in DC

So, as the title of today's post would suggest, my time in DC is starting to wind down. Friday was my last day at work in Bruce Braley's office. It was a good day to wrap up work on. I got to do a good deal of my usual tasks, including answering crazy peoples' phone calls, entering mail, and collecting signatures. The office threw me a little party with some cookies and we chatted about my experience. Some time next week I am going back into the office to chat with Bruce about my experience as well. Fittingly, the last phone call I answered was a wrong number. As I think I've said several times, I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience working in the Braley office, and my co-workers in particular.

This weekend I took advantage of the fact that I'm not working this week and can use the days for homework and did some last minute sight seeing. On saturday we went to see the National Christmas Tree in the ellipse near the White House. While it's not the prettiest tree, it's neat that its actually a live tree that grows there. We also got pictures with the smaller trees surrounding it that were dedicated to our particular states, and a group shot with Santa. After that we went up in the old post office tower to get a sweet view of the city. Then we headed over to the ESPN Zone to eat, play arcade games, and watch Florida and USC lose. Today, I went to the Basillica of the National Shrine of the Sacred Heart at the Catholic University. It is the largest Catholic church in North America, and one of the ten largest churches in the world. It was pretty cool to see all of the religious spaces and I took advantage and prayed in a few of the chapels that I felt a particular connection to.

I also have started having my lasts of several things I've been doing regularly. In addition to the fact that this was the last weekend, I had my last trip to farmer's market, my last Sunday afternoon brunch, and my last Sunday evening Mass. I'll continue to update you on all of my lasts and how the semester wraps up. While I can't wait to be home, this has been a fantastic experience and I wouldn't trade the experience or the friends I've made for anything.

Later,
Jes

Thanksgiving Wrap-Up (A Little Late)

So, as usual, I'm not blogging until Thursday evening. Unfortunately, this week it has been nothing but pure laziness that has kept me from it. Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. Three of us from the program went to my friend Erin's house in south Jersey to celebrate with her family. The food was great, a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner, which I really appreciated. Erin's family was fantastic, and so open with their open and their food. The night after Thanksgiving (Friday) we went to Atlantic City, to allow Matt and I to get our first taste of gambling, as both of us have turned 21 this semester. I've got to say, it was a lot of fun. It was like the casinos you see on TV, not at all like the Dog Track or the Diamond Jo. The best part was, I won $10.50!! After we came home on Saturday, I went to the National Portrait Gallery to see an exhibition by an artist from Maquoketa. The exhibition consisted of over 100 portraits of Maquoketa residents (Maquoketans?) and a soundtrack of them talking about life in semi-rural Iowa. In a strange way, it almost made me feel like I was back home for a little bit. Sunday, for whatever reason, I couldn't motivate myself to do much of anything in terms of school work, despite kind of needing to. I think it was a combination of the busy weekend and a slight sense of being ready to be done with the semester. As much as I thoroughly enjoy being in DC and working in the Braley Office, I'm ready to get back home and be a kid again, at least as much as a 21 year old man can be a kid.
At work this week, I've been concentrating on entering mail and answering the phones. I wasn't given a letter assignment, I guess as a gift for it being my last week in the office, but also because we really need to try to knock some of the incoming mail out of the way before I leave the office internless. The only real out of the ordinary thing this week happened yesterday. I tried to get into the House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on the Iraq war that Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates were speaking at. Unfortunately, I was not able to get into the room as it filled up too fast. To make matters worse, I got completely and utterly lost in the Rayburn House Office Building for like 30 minutes. In my defense, Rayburn is not the most logically designed building. As far as I can tell, some of the floors don't wrap around the whole building, and when you take certain elevators to what you know should be the right floor, you wind up in the parking garage. Beside all that, though, this has been a pretty nice last week.
We've also been wrapping up classes this week. Next week is finals for all three of my classes, though my Wednesday night history class is a take home final that we are just turning in on Wednesday at dinner with our professor. I'm relatively excited about the classes winding down. They've been very interesting, but far from the somewhat easier classes you might expect from a semester abroad. Today, our policy visit was to the World Bank, which was significantly more interesting than the International Monetary Fund last week. Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of working at either, but if I had to pick one, it would be the World Bank. We walked to Union Station after that, since it was a beautiful day and we had some time before class. It was nice to take in a fairly large chunk of the capitol area again before we start to run out of time. I guess that's about it for this week. My goal is to post on Sunday and then again next Friday before coming home by mid-day Saturday.

Until then,
Jes

Two Things

So, I have two main points to discuss before the Thanksgiving break. First I will be discussing my classes for next semester, then I will discuss my plans for Thanksgiving.

I registered for classes last Friday. I was fortunate, in that I got all of the classes I had hoped to. I am taking a couple of classes toward my major and my minor as well as my final University requirement, my second theology class. I'll start with the theology class. It's called "What Catholics Believe" and I'm hoping it's pretty straight to the point. My history classes for the semester include a survey of American education, a survey of Latin American independence movements, and a class on the Bloody Monday riot in Louisville in 1855, it will also address violence and politics generally in the 1850's. My classes for my minor include an internship in a South Bend public high school and a class on the psychology of coaching youth sports. I'm really looking forward to all of the classes I'm taking. I'm also excited that I have, once again, avoided Friday classes.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for New Jersey with Matt and Erin to spend Thanksgiving with Erin's family. While I'm a little sad that I'm unable to make it home for the holiday, I'm excited to see how another family celebrates. I'm also excited because I think we may go to Atlantic City on Friday, and I've got some pennies I'd like to get rid of. More on that on Sunday.

The only real news from the weekend to report, as far as I can remember, is that we went to the National Archives on Saturday before the game was on TV. It's a pretty neat place to go, and even though I had been there before, seeing those documents never gets old.

I'd like to wish everyone a blessed, safe, and happy Thanksgiving, and I look forward to updating you on mine (hopefully) on Sunday evening.

Gob Bless,
Jes

Another Week Gone By

Hopefully I'm not going to be nmaking a habit of taking a week between blogs, it relly makes it difficult to remember what has happened. Friday was my fellow intern's last day in the Braley office as he was moving on to bigger and better things (a paid position) in Harkin's office. As a result, we had cookies and a little going away party, which was nice. I believe we just hung out in the apartment Friday night, so nothing out of the ordinary there. Saturday, after sleeping in, a couple of us went to the mall to go to the Air and Space Museum. It's a pretty neat museum with lots of artifacts from NASA especially. While there, we saw an IMAX about the space station. I must say, it seems like it could be a fun place to hang out. I bought some freeze-dried ice cream from the gift shop, so that I could get the full space experience. It wasn't half bad. After that, we headed over to Taco Bell to attempt the "Grande Meal Challenge." In the interest of everyones' stomachs, I won't go into details of what the challenge entailed; suffice it to say that after I completed it, I regretted it. Unfortunately, both of my football teams lost again, with the ND loss putting quite a damper on the mood here in the apartment. We called it a night kind of early. Sunday we went out for group brunch before I decided to start working on my history paper. As part of the universe's effort to keep me from writing that paper, the internet in our apartment wasn't working. Packy and I went to the Barnes and Noble in Georgetown in an attempt to get internet access, but it was to no avail. By that point, I had lost all motivation to write the paper. I did work on it later that night, when our internet access was restored, but it was a significantly less productive day than I had anticipated. In recognition of our lost day, Packy, Paul, and I walked over to Adams Morgan to get a nice dinner. We settled on a pizza place that, while it had excellent food, had terrible service. I came back to the apartment to work as best as I could on my paper, but ultimately wound up watching the very exciting fourth quarter of the Colts v. Pats game, with the Colts pulling out the win at the end. Monday at work, a new intern started. It reminded me of how timid and confused I was when I started just a few short months ago. I established with my supervisor that my last day in the office would be December 4, which means I have just over two weeks left. I'm definitely going to miss it, but I'm also looking forward to getting back, both to DBQ and ND. Monday night I got a fair amount of work done on my paper, and didn't do much else. Tuesday was pretty much a standard day at work. I can't remember anything out of the ordinary worth reporting. After class last night, I finished off my history paper (which was due today), before hitting the hay. Today was another fairly standard day at work. One thing to report is that our new intern got a paid job elsewhere meaning that, for the forseeable future, I am the loan intern in the office. Naturally, I relish the challenge and responsibility. Tonight, after history class, I decided to reward myself with Chipotle, a reward I always enjoy. I register for next semester's classes on Friday, fingers crossed that I can get into everything I want. In between now and then we've got class day tomorrow. More on that, the weekend, and my Thanksgiving plans on Sunday night.

Later,

Jes

One Full Week

Hello all,

So its been a full week since I last blogged, and I've got a fair amount to talk about. Work kind of sucked on Friday. With the probable upcoming vote on healthcare reform (which did pass on Saturday) we were getting pretty much constant calls on both sides of the issue. When it was finally time to call it a day, we went out to happy hour for one of my co-workers' birthday. It was nice to finally be old enough to go out with my co-workers. Saturday was a long day that I'm mostly blocking from my memory. However, we did make a trip down to Union Station for our favorite chicken salad sandwiches at Vittorio's. Sunday was a good day. First we all went out to brunch, something we have been wanting to do for a while. I got an eggs benedict, which was pretty good. I'd been waiting to have it for most of the semester. After brunch, Packy and I went to the zoo. It was the first time I had been to the zoo since being here, even though we only live two blocks from it. It's actually a really nice zoo. They have a great asia section with three pandas. When we were there, all three of them were eating. It was pretty cute, they were really putting it away. After the pandas, we walked past the elephants on our way to the small mammals, another excellent exhibit. They also had a great ape house and a pretty decent exhibit on invertebrates. Packy reminded me, they also had otters which, many people know, are among my favorite animals. After the zoo, we both went to Giant for groceries. It was a nice little man-date. Sunday night was mass and pizza Sunday. Monday and Tuesday at work were nice because there were no votes which means I don't have to where a suit. It will be the same tomorrow. Also, with the reform bill passing the House, we didn't have a letter assignment this week. So, I've been working on inputting mail and taking calls. Calls have definitely slowed since last Friday, but I doubt they'll stop any time soon. Monday night we watched the first season of The Office and then The Dark Night. Tuesday night I had class and then we went to a bar since there was no work on Wednesday. It actually kind of sucked, because it was far away and not a very good bar. We came home and finished the rest of The Dark Knight. Wednesday I really took advantage of having the day off and slept all morning. I started to work on this year's swim program after I woke up. We also cleaned up the apartment. After history class last night we just hung out around the room. Today we discussed the market in class and then debated the stimulus package. In the afternoon, we attended a discussion on the stimulus at the CATO institute. They provided lunch, which consisted of really classy sandwiches. Then, this evening, we got Vittorio's again. While we were at Union, it was evacuated. We never really found out why, but there were tons of firefighters there. We were ultimately able to go back in and get our gelato which comes with the sandwiches. We headed to the Folger Shakespeare Library for a production of "Much Ado About Nothing." It had been modernized, but very well done, and I really enjoyed it. We came home to watch "Sunny" and "The League." Looks like the Bears lost tonight too, so that's always a plus. Back to work tomorrow, and then we'll see what happens this weekend.
Later,
Jes

News Room and More

Hi All,

Its been a good week thus far for me. Work has been good. I've made a couple of trips to the Capitol to drop off letters and such. Congressman Boswell called the office to talk to Bruce on Wednesday, so that was a little out of the ordinary. Calls have ramped up a little bit in the last couple of days, mostly with the probable upcoming vote on healthcare reform. Additionally, on Tuesday, I went to the DNC and phone-banked for the NY 23rd congressional race. Believe it or not, it was the first time I had actually phone-banked. It was quite the experience.

Today, we discussed policy in regards to the war in Aghanistan. Even after reading quite a bit of literature on the situation, I felt like I could not make even a remotely informed decision. This leads me to wonder, how can these people who call into the office know exactly what the US war policy should be? Anyway, our policy visit was to the local ABC affiliate, which is evidently the most high-tech news station in the world. It was sweet. We got to watch a live newscast, both from the studio floor and the production room. With the stuff out of Fort Hood, the production room was going nuts trying to keep up with all the live feeds. I think it would be pretty sweet to work at a news station, but a lot of stress. After watching the newscast, we discussed some of the problems the general counsel of a news station has to deal with, with the general counsel of the station. Suffice it to say, he has to deal with a lot of disparate issues. The whole experience was a lot of fun. On the way back from the station, I stopped at Starbucks to get a pumpkin spice latte, which was nice. Now we're watching "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," and it's really funny this week. I think we're moving the mattresses into the living room again this weekend. That's about it for now.

Later,
Jes

Halloween!!!

As many of you probably know, I have always loved Halloween. That has not changed at all as I have aged. I guess I should start with Friday at work though. It was Bruce's birthday on Friday and our scheduler made 52 pumpkin cupcakes for the occasion. They were really good. I don't really remember doing much else at work, beside helping to determine the lighting scheme for the front office. Friday night was "guys' night" in the apartment. We had McDonald's for dinner and then got some nice drinks to share. I decided to test out my costume by wearing a few pieces of it around the apartment for a couple hours. We watched Forrest Gump before going out on the town for awhile. Then we came back to the apartment and moved our beds into the common room for the night. We watched sports highlights before calling it a night. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good guys' night. Saturday was Halloween, but it was also a full day of college football. After trying to kill me for most of the afternoon, the Hawkeyes decided to put Indiana away with a huge 4th quarter. In between the Iowa game and the ND game we watched Air Force One, another great movie. We ordered in pizza and wings from Pizza Hut for the ND game, which we won easily over Washington State. By that point I had had my full Neville Longbottom costume on for several hours. After the game was over, the other adults and I went to Murphy's, the neighborhood pub, for a drink and to watch the end of the USC v. Oregon game, which Oregon won (yes). Then a couple of people went out to another bar while the rest of us came back to the apartment to watch John Carpenter's "The Thing". Since our beds were still in the common room, it worked out well, as we were able to lie down and relax while watching the sci-fi thriller. I'd say it was a pretty good movie, and would reccomend it if you are looking to watch something that will make you both jump and think. We called it a night after that and took advantage of daylight saving time to sleep in a little this morning. Today I didn't really watch a whole lot of football. Instead, I caught up with several people from my family. I also made myself mashed potatoes, which were yummy. Aside from that, it was pretty much a standard Sunday. I just got back from All Saints Day mass before blogging. Now we're watching game 4 of the World Series. I've got to read a little bit for my philosophy class before I go to bed, and of course it's back to work tomorrow. That's what's up with me.
Later,
Jes

Lobbying and Halloween Costumes

Work has been work thus far this week. I've had a lot of letters to write, and that has kept me pretty busy. I don't remember if I had already mentioned that I got the girl scout cookies I had ordered a couple weeks back earlier this week, and it would be too much work to check so I'm mentioning it here. They have been good and are almost gone now. Also, I was amazed by how quickly remodeling work gets done on the hill. All of the work in the office has been completed. In fact, it had been completed by the middle of the day on Tuesday. That led to the other intern and I having to help with the reorganizing most of the morning and running lots of stuff up to the "cage," our upstars storage area. The only other thing really worth reporting from work this week was a call I took yesterday. It started off pretty normal, a woman voicing her opinion against the public option. When I tried to get her name to log the call, she wouldn't give it to me because she didn't want any hit men coming after her. Despite my best efforts to assure her that we were not in the hit man business, she insisted that that is how Obama works and she didn't want anything to do with it. Needless to say, I was shocked.

Today, we had a policy visit to a lobbying firm in the morning. It was pretty tame and not really anything I hadn't heard before or figured out from working in a congressional office. After the visit, the guys an I walked through Chinatown to Union Station to get some breakfast. Unfortunately, we got there a little after 11, which was after breakfast had ended at the restaurants there. Fortunately, as we went down into the food court, we were given samples of the best chicken salad sandwiches I have ever tasted. Even better, they came with free gelato. All in all, it was a pretty good lunch. After class in the afternoon, during which we discussed the differences between liberal and conservative ideologies and liberal and conservative politics, we went to the halloween store. While there, I found an actual Gryffindor tie, which completes my Neville Longbottom costume. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and then got a Philly cheesesteak from a restaurant around the corner. Now we're watching the world series (waiting for the office). It should be a pretty big weekend with Halloween, so I'm looking forward to that.

Later,
Jes

Back in DC; Back to Work

Hello All,

So, as usual, I failed maintain my self-prescribed blog schedule and am blogging for the first time in almost a week. Alas, but such is life. The rest of last week was pretty lax, as a week of break should be. I'm going to try to break it down into categories rather than day by day.

1. Swimming: I managed to make it to four swim meets during the 8 days I was in Iowa. I think that's pretty impressive, even for me. I went to the girls' MVC varsity meet the first day I was home, followed that up with the girls' city meet on my birthday, next was the Iowa double-dual with Michigan State and UW-Milwaukee, and finally the girls' MVC sophomore meet. I thought that the Senior girls swam very well in all the meets I saw and I can't wait to see how they do these next few weeks in their championship meets. Jordan is also swimming well this season and the Hawkeyes are 5-0 on the season.
   
2. Food: Since it was my birthday this past week, I went out to eat several times. Included in these meals were my two favorite places to eat in Dubuque: Bandana's and Taiko. Both experiences were amazing, even if I came out feeling like I was going to explode. I also went to Old Chicago in Cedar Falls with Michael on Saturday since he couldn't make it to IC with Caity and I for my actually birthday (Sorry, I had to work a jab in somewhere).
3. Schools: As always, I visited both Mazzuchelli and Senior while I was home this week. While I never went to Mazz, I like to go to help out my mom sometimes and I know a few of the teachers there. Obviously, I always love going back to Senior and visiting with my old teachers. My experience at Senior and my interactions with teachers and administrators since graduating is one of the main reasons that I am considering a career in education at some level.

I think that pretty well sums up my week. On Saturday, while Connor was at the MVC sophomore meet, I managed to catch a little bit of the ND game while Michael and I were at Old Chicago. As I followed it on my phone when I went back to the meet and then in my car on the way home, we managed to escape with a win over BC, which proved to be enough to get us back into the rankings. Speaking of college football, Iowa played two of the most exciting minutes of college football I have ever seen at the end of their game Saturday night. The last second touchdown pass caused my heart to temporarily stop, but also propelled Iowa to #4 in the latest BCS rankings. In a word, it was incredible. Needless to say, I was not able to get to bed nearly early enough for my 3:15 AM alarm for the trip to the airport the next morning. Fortunately, I wasn't driving and I made it to Moline and ultimately back here to DC. After lazing around for most of the afternoon, I went to Mass with several of the guys and then out to the Diner, one of our favorite restaurants here.

Today was back to work as usual. While I was gone, they evidently started work on a major remodeling project in the office. There is no longer an intern desk in the front office and there are two more desks in the back. Oh, there's also a new wall in the front office. Unfortunately, my nemesis, the constituent mail inbox, has thoroughly re-filled itself while I was gone. Today felt really long, but probably because I was exhausted from yesterday, and out of my normal working routine for a week. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things within the next couple of days. It didn't help that nothing out of the ordinary happened at work to help keep things interesting. More work tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be getting back into the routine of both work and blogging here pretty quickly.

Until we next speak,
Jes

Happy Birthday to ME!

So, it has now been over a week since my last post and there have been some changes since then. To start with, I will wrap up last week in terms of work and class. Work was pretty standard, as it has been for some time. The one standout item was when I finally, if briefly, won my battle with the constituent mail inbox. For a few minutes, maybe upwards of an hour, the inbox was empty for the first time since I had started working in the office. Unfortunately, another huge bunch of mail came in pretty shortly afterwards, and the inbox was quite full when I left on Friday. As far as class goes, we had a midterm in my Thursday class, which I think went pretty well.

Now, on to the weekend. My Saturday started early, really early. I had to be up at 2:45 AM to catch a 3 AM shuttle to the Baltimore airport. From there, I took a 6 AM flight to Moline via Chicago. Fortunately, both legs of my flight left on time and arrived ahead of schedule, which is always a pleasant surprise. I got back to Dubuque by mid-morning Saturday. At noon, Connor and I went to the girls MVC Championship swim meet. I thought the DSHS girls as a whole did very well, especially their MVC champion in the IM. During the meet, I was the source of Iowa v. Wisconsin score updates for the deck, and I am happy to report that Iowa is now 7-0 on the season and #6 in the first BCS poll. I left the meet early so that I could actually watch the ND v. USC game. Unfortunately, that game didn't go as well as the Iowa game. Even though ND played well for solid portions of the game, we allowed ourselves to fall behind early in the second half. Despite Jimmy nearly leading us to what would have been an epic comeback, three incompletions in and near the endzone at the end of the game prevented us from tying it up and forcing overtime. I guess you've got to take the good with the bad, and our boys played like champions at the end of the game and that's a good thing. Friday night, Caity and I went to see "The Full Monty" at the Grand. I'm not going to lie, it was a little more old man than I had really planned on seeing, but it was a pretty decent production.

Sunday, in addition to watching/following several football games, I began my quest to find my Halloween costume. My plan is to go as Neville Longbottom, so mostly I was looking for a Harry Potter-esque robe. While I found one at the mall here, I decided to wait until I could find more options to actually purchase one. In addition, I went and helped out Mom with mock trial at Mazzuchelli. Back to the topic of football, I want to point out that despite my having a very solid week for fantasy, Jordan managed to have three or four players have career games to crush me in our match up, which sucks, but watch out for the playoffs, because my team should deliver when it counts. Sunday night I hung out here in Dubuque with friends and prepped for my big trip on Monday.

Monday was mostly about getting ready for my trip to Iowa City to celebrate my birthday. We left mid-day and got to IC around 4:30. After visiting Jordan and dropping off some groceries, we went to my aunt's house where I was staying last night. Caity and I then went to Carlos O'Kelly's for a little birthday dinner before we went to the mall to look for my Halloween costume some more. I finally decided to just bite the bullet and buy the same robe that I had found in Dubuque. Also, I almost bought my Animal hat from Spencer's, but there proved to be too many character hat options and now I'm trying to decide between Animal and the Grinch, one of my all time favorite cartoon characters. After that, we got a ride down to the ped mall (note: always drink responsibly) to map out our antics for after midnight when I would be 21. The bars were not as dead as you might expect on a Monday night, but I guess that's Iowa City for you. We settled on a few bars near each other and then went to a coffee house to kind of wait it out. After eating again around 11:15, this time at Panchero's, it was finally time. For my first drink, as an homage to "Scrubs", I decided to have an appletini from a martini bar. Then we went to a real bar and I had a couple of beers and a Long Island iced tea. We called it a night at about 1:15 and I headed back to my aunt and uncle's place.

This morning we got a pretty early start back to Dubuque, leaving IC at around 9:30. That allowed me to get home by mid-day and write this post. Tonight I'm having dinner with my family and then going to the girls city swim meet (Go RAMS!). I'll probably write one more post this week before I fly back to DC on Sunday and return to life as usual, but now as an adult!

Jes

P.S. I almost forgot, thank you to everyone who has wished me a happy birthday, either via Facebook or otherwise, I really appreciate it!

Happy Columbus Day!

We had a pretty big weekend this weekend, partially thanks to today being Columbus Day. On Saturday after farmer's market we went to the Taste of Georgetown. The trip there was kind of a failure. We tried taking a bus from Dupont Circle but it never came. Then when we finally gave up, it pulled up when we were about 3 blocks away. So we walked to another stop and picked up a different bus. It turned out to be a good choice of bus because the driver was awesome. He talked to us about ND and gave us a hard time because we wouldn't sing the fight song in a bus full of people who didn't want to hear it. When we finally got to Georgetown, the Taste proved to be a little more expensive than we had planned. Fortunately we noticed a Pizzeria Uno's down the street. As I said in my update from Uno's, we got to sit at the "best table in Georgetown". The food was good, the atmosphere was good, and the table was awesome. The trip to the bathroom was a little bit of a maze, through like four floors and a twisty,turny hallway. After Uno's we went down to the National Mall. We started at Union Station. We checked out an art exhibit made out of Red Bull cans. It was awesome,I'll post pictures later. After that we wondered around the Capitol area before heading to the actual mall. On the mall there were "green" houses built by universities competing for a prize of some kind. They were pretty neat, and I might go back later to check out the insides of the houses. After the houses, we came back to the apartment to watch the Iowa v. Michigan game. For those of you who didn't watch, shame on you. Iowa won and led most of the game, but it was close right up to the end. I'd say it was a pretty good game, but there's definitely still room for improvement. Still, a win's a win.
Sunday we went to Arlington. It was actually the first time that I've been there and it wasn't either raining or at least dreary in some way. We went to the Kennedy graves. It was the first time I'd been there since Teddy passed, so I got to see his grave site. We watched the changing of the guard at the "Tomb of the Unknowns," which is always a powerful experience. After checking out a couple of smaller memorials, we went to the Arlington House which was Robert E. Lee's house before the Civil War. The Union confiscated it and ultimately turned the property into a military cemetery, which is how Arlington Cemetery came to be. It's now a memorial to Lee. The house and surrounding grounds are currently under renovation, but we were able to walk through a few rooms. After that we walked to the 9/11 block of graves which includes a pentagon memorial, before heading back to the Metro. We stopped to get Five Guys, which is quickly becoming my favorite fast food place, again on the way back from Arlington. After we got back to the apartment we watched the Colts and Titans on Sunday Night Football. After that we watched "Heavyweights," which is always funny.
This morning when I woke up I decided that I was taking it easy for the day. I did laundry and went to the grocery store. I booked my shuttle to the airport for 3 AM Sunday morning. Ultimately we discovered that a Star Wars marathon was on, which pretty much ate up the rest of the day. We decided that we wanted to go out to eat and that we wanted wings. That pretty much left us with Hooters as our only option. In hind sight, we probably should have just stayed in. The food really was not very good. We came home and now we're watching MNF. Just four more days until I'm home.

Later,
Jes

The Best Table in Georgetown!

Holy Cow! We are eating at Pizzeria Uno in Georgetown. And we are sitting at the best table in Georgetown! More on this later.

Happy Leif Erikson Day!

I have only just realized that today is Leif Erikson Day. I wish I had realized this earlier so that I could have honored my Norwegian heritage. On a related note, I missed "international talk like a pirate day" this year, it was September 19. Oh well.

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

So, I'm pretty much drawing a blank on most of my week, but I'll do my best. Monday through Wednesday were pretty normal work days. Lots of mail, lots of phone calls, etc. I spent a little more time in the front office this week, which was a nice change of pace. I really think I did something out of the ordinary at work this week, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. I did have really good "Thanksgiving dinner" for lunch on Wednesday.
Thursday we had class. Our policy visit was in the morning to a subcommittee hearing. It was a judiciary subcommittee hearing on the Supreme Court and civil rights. It was difficult to follow, which was doubly bad for me since I was also taking notes for work. I think I did an acceptable job though. After our afternoon discussion session, a couple of us ventured out into the city to check out a thrift store. Unfortunately, it proved to be really overpriced. On the plus side, it allowed us to go to Taco Bell. Then we watched "The Office" wedding and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". All in all it was a pretty good day.
Today I had work but once again didn't have to dress up. I started a new project in the office today. I have the job of calling all of the freshman democratic congressmen and confirming their scheduler. Today was also my immediate supervisor's birthday, so we got cake. I entered an event from earlier this year in which Bruce met with representatives of the Dubuque Chamber. Naturally, there were a number of names I recognized in that group. Since work we've just been lazing around the apartment. With no ND game this weekend we're going to go to Arlington and then to the Taste of Georgetown. Beyond that we'll see what happens. It's now just over a week until fall break when I'll be back in Dubuque.

Later,
Jes

Flaming Death

After lasagna on Friday (which I mention again only to say how delicious it was), we had a pretty quiet night. Friday morning we woke up fairly early to go to an alley sale. Unfortunately, as with garage sales, it proved to be a sale of items in an alley, not a sale of an alley. And I really was hoping to buy an alley too, it would look so good in my real estate portfolio. Oh well, I guess that's life. Since Iowa is finally ranked again, they were on TV not at the same time as ND and I was able to watch them for the first time this season. They did pull out a win, even though they did play way down to their opponent. I guess that as long as they continue to play to their opponents level, they can continue to do well. ND also pulled out a win, but if they keep playing games like these last 4, I'm not going to survive this season. On the plus side, it was the first overtime win while Charlie has been coaching. Also, it propelled Jimmy into the Heisman watch and ND is just outside of the top 25. After the games we went to an Irish restaurant for dinner. It wasn't great food, but it had a really nice atmosphere and a sweet Irish band was playing. Also, the restaurant served sweet potato fries, which I love.

Today I caught up on some of my work for classes. I didn't have much to do though, so I was able to watch a fair amount of football. I really think I did something else during the day, but it really seems I didn't. I did manage to head up the street and have gyros for a late lunch and got to the grocery store. I can't forget to mention that one of my room mates almost burned our apartment down while playing with fire. I'm actually really blowing it out of proportion, but I was in my room when it happened and that's how it was explained to me. We went to that young adult mass tonight. They had pizza afterwards which is always nice. We watched the end of the third Pirates of the Caribbean after mass. That's a movie that I find a little funnier than I think I should. Now we're watching Sports Center to catch up on what little football I may have missed. Probably going to watch some actual TV shows before I go to bed. No votes tomorrow, so I won't have to dress up!

Later,

Jes

**Update**

The lasagna was amazing. I ate so much I think I may explode. So good!!

End of the Week

So work was pretty much just work this week. I do have two small tidbits to report. First, I seem to have lost my capitol ID, which is not awesome. Fortunately, I don't think its going to be too big of a deal. Second, I made it my personal goal this week to make a serious dent in the mail inbox this week, which I'm happy to report I did.

Thursday was our class day. We talked about value arguments and then discussed the merits of either legalizing or at least decriminalizing marijuana. It was a surprisingly spirited debate. Our policy visit this week was to the Kennedy Center to see the National Symphony Orchestra. It was a really amazing concert, probably the best classical music I've ever seen/heard. At the end of November, they are playing a Music Man pops concert, and I'm hoping to go see that too.
Tonight, we are having lasagna that one of the girls made in celebration of one of the guys' birthday. It looks good, gotta go!

Jes

Big Weekend!

Hello All,

I'm sure anyone who knows me can understand why I'm referring to this weekend as a big weekend. Let me start, however, with Wednesday. Wednesday was a work day. If memory serves, Wednesday was the day that I started logging Bruce's events into the same system we keep the mail in to help the scheduler keep track of people he has met with. Other than that, I don't think I did very much out of the ordinary on Wednesday. I did learn the procedure for walking people over to the Energy and Commerce committee room when Bruce is there for hearings, markup, etc. As of now I haven't actually walked anyone over, though.

Thursday was a long class day. We went to the Hill for a panel discussion on health care that Boston University put on. It was pretty informative, but, to be honest, I'm getting kind of tired of hearing about health care. That afternoon, we went to a downtown law firm for the class portion of our day. We discussed the Supreme Court and how Justice's ideologies rarely change drastically over the course of their careers. We also tried to work our ways through the legal argument behind allowing or disallowing gay marriage at the Supreme Court level. It was a pretty interesting intellectual discussion, though I'm not sure we made a whole lot of progress. That evening, we had another panel discussion, this time just for ND students, discussing the implications of the Obama presidency. I really enjoyed it, and I actually got involved in the discussion, which was a lot of fun.

Friday was another work day. I went to another briefing, this time on campaign finance reform, specifically a system of public financing for federal elections. I also took a resolution over to the Capitol, which was sweet. I guess I didn't do much else on Friday, at least not that I can remember, and therefore it must not be very noteworthy.

Saturday was another big day. Went to the farmers' market again. Bought a whole bunch of pears and apples, as well as a loaf of apple bread and a half pound of smoked, jalapeno cheddar cheese. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about my purchases. Then we headed downtown to the National Aquarium. to be perfectly honest, it was not great, and it cost $7. It was also not terrible, and there were some pretty sweet fish which I took pictures of. (I swear I will post pictures to some blog posts eventually.) After the aquarium we headed down to the mall, and through the National Book Festival and to the American History museum. We went through the water transportation section. At this rate, I will get through that museum before we leave. After the museum we went to grab some dinner. We went to Five Guys, which is a DC institution. It...Was...Amazing! In addition to really good burgers, you get fresh-cut, fresh-made fries, and you get a ton of them. I think I've found my new favorite burger place. We got back to the apartment to watch the ND game (I was also following the Iowa v. Penn State game on my phone). The ND game was pretty rough. It was a close game throughout, though ND led most of the game. We played without three of our four best offensive players for most of the game due to injuries. Purdue took the lead with a couple minutes left and Jimmy had to come back in to lead a game winning drive. It was an exciting drive, capped by a fourth and goal touch down pass, but it would have been nice to win by a bigger margin. On the other hand, for the second straight year, Iowa knocked off an undefeated, top-five ranked Penn State team. This year, Iowa won big, hanging 16 points on the Nittany Lions in the fourth quarter, and 21 unanswered points after the first quarter, to win 21-10 in Happy Valley. The win propelled Iowa to a number 13 ranking in the polls and talk of Big Ten championship possibilities. All in all, it was a great college football night for me.

Today was another big day. We went to the DC United (soccer) game at RFK Stadium. even though United lost, it was a cool experience to go to a professional soccer game. I even bought a United t-shirt. To make up for United's loss, the Pack did win today. It's not looking so great for my fantasy team though, the old reliables didn't score well today. I may be able to eke out a win still, but I'm not sure. We have now made it a goal to get to all five major professional sports teams in the DC area. So far we've hit 2, we've still got to get to the Wizards, the Redskins, and the Capitols. We had Chipotle afterwards, which is kind of becoming my Achilles' heel here in DC. It was especially good today, though. Then we went to Mass. I'm liking this mass so far, it's a nice substitute for dorm Mass. Now, in an effort to negate anything we may have gained from Mass, we are watching "Old School". Back to work tomorrow, but at least there aren't votes tomorrow so I can dress down a little bit. I'll try to remember to blog more often this week.

Later,

Jes

My First Briefing

In the tradition of my blog, my title refers to something that will not be addressed until much later in the post. I begin with the weekend, which I have managed to not recap until now. Friday was a work day. I didn't really do much else. Saturday was a long day. I woke up early enough to go to the farmers' market behind our building. I purchased a few enormous Gala apples, which were delicious. I also bought a loaf of pumpkin bread, which has really been a fantastic treat over the course of this week. After farmers' market, a couple of us went down to the Ellipse to take a look at the White House. You can't get especially close anymore, but it was nice to get a view. Afterwords, we managed to hurry through the American military exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It was the first time I had been to the museum since it underwent a major, year plus long renovation. I think it is safe to say that they are not entirely done with the renovations. We managed to make it back in time to watch the ND game. The game did not really go according to plan. While we pulled off the win, it was not pretty. In fact, were it not for a stroke of luck at the end of the game, we would not have managed to win. In other news, Iowa won comfortably over Arizona, even though I was unable to watch it. By the time we got through all of that, we decided to hang out at the apartment for the night. We started watching the HBO John Adams miniseries Saturday night, which we are continuing to watch tonight. Sunday was a nice, relaxing day. I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and do my homework on the National Mall. It was nice to actually be outside for a change. Unfortunately, while I was doing my homework, the Pack lost to the Bengals. While I'm sure the two were unrelated, I still take a little of the blame on myself. That night, after Mass, we watched "All the President's Men" with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. It was for one of the classes that I'm not taking, but I really enjoy the movie so I watched it anyway.

On Monday at work we had a special visitor to the office. A lady named Helen from Dubuque, who is a big time Braley supporter and one of my regulars from the Y was in DC. She stopped by to say hi to the staff. It wasn't a real big deal, just a nice change of pace. Not much else exciting to report from Monday at work. After work, I had to finish my paper that was due for philosophy tonight. I also got to watch the Indy v. Miami game on MNF. Indy won while only holding the ball for less than 15 minutes. Also, Dallas Clark's big receiving night sealed my fantasy victory.

Today at work I attended my first briefing. It was pretty cool. I mean, the briefing itself was kind of boring, but the fact that I got to be the representative for the office was kind of cool. It was a briefing on One Web Day, and the initiative for universal broadband service. Other than that though, it was really just a standard day at work. We had class again tonight. As usual, by the end of the class, my head hurt and I wasn't sure what was going on. My general understanding is that morality and law are connected, but it is not necessary that they were connected.

I think that pretty well sums up the last few days. Like I said, we are watching the Adams miniseries, and he was just elected vice president. This reminds me that the stuff we watched over the weekend made me want to watch "1776". Alas, that is for another day.

Jes

Illconcival

Today's title will be explained later in the post. I've had a pretty good week thus far. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary, and, as a creature of habit, I like that. Monday and Tuesday I got my first taste of the House's intern aerobic exercise program. By that I mean that I got to wander around the three House office buildings and gather signatures for official proposals. These weren't actually bills, more like the step immediately below. It was a nice change of pace, but walking probably a couple of miles in my dress shoes was not so nice for my feet. Outside of that, I mostly just did mail and the phones. That is where today's title comes from. One of the letters I read on Wednesday called the health care reform effort "illconcival" which we decided was a combination of "ill conceived" and "inconceivable". In case you were curious, it is not a word and, according to Google, doesn't appear on the Internet, as the search kicked back no results. My other favorite term from yesterday was a constituent who told me that the president had "quad-tripled" the number of policy czars. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be quadrupled or multiplied by 12 but, again, it's not a real word.

Today was a class day as all Thursdays are. In the morning we visited the Library of Congress. It was pretty cool. In addition to seeing some of the more famous spaces, like the great hall and the main reading room, we saw a couple of cool collections. They had a first edition Gutenberg Bible on display. We also saw draft copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Finally, we got to see what remains of Jefferson's original donation to the Library after a fire destroyed 2/3 of it. They have since worked to replace as many of the books as possible, but only if they can find the exact edition that Jefferson had owned. They are only missing about 200 more. The highlight of today, though, was probably finding a Taco Bell for the first time since being here. The only down side of the Taco Bell trip was being accosted by an out of work black gentleman who appeared to be dressed as a sea captain. He didn't like that we were well dressed and getting Taco Bell. To each their own I suppose.

Now its time to watch "The Office" and then Joel McHale's new show. Work tomorrow, but I don't have to wear a suit, which is nice.

Later,

Jes

Big Weekend

This will more than likely be the new format for the blog, the recap of several days rather than every day. So, here goes.

Friday:
I went to work, as usual. There were no votes, which meant we could have worn casual clothes. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of that and showed up in a suit. Not really a big deal, but it could've been nice to not be in a suit. After work we all met up at the National Sculpture Garden for jazz. It was pretty sweet. It felt like we were all grown up and stuff, meeting up in our work clothes and what not. We didn't really do much else Friday night.

Saturday:
If Saturday had had its own blog, it would've been titled "Fail." Even though the day started well with a blow out win for the Hawkeyes, there wasn't much else for me to get excited about. To begin with, the place where we thought we were going to be able to watch the game turned out to be a bar, strictly 21 and older. Fail. So then we tried going over to the ESPN Zone about a half mile away. When we got there, just before the game was about to start, we discovered there was an hour wait for a table and the game wasn't on anywhere you could see it while waiting. Fail. Then we ran back to the apartment via the Metro to watch the game. While it went decently for the majority of the game (close but not out of control) even that didn't go completely according to plan. The pizza we ordered shortly after getting back didn't get here until into the third quarter. Fail. Then, the worst possible end to the game happened, with Michigan winning on a TD pass with 11 seconds left. Fail. However, there was one shot left to redeem the day. If Ohio State could have beaten USC it would have made the day bearable. For most of the game it looked as if OSU was going to pull it off. Then, at the end of the game, reminiscent of earlier in the day, OSU fell apart and lost. Fail. Fail, fail, fail.

Sunday:
Today was a much better day. We walked over to the nearby neighborhood of Adams Morgan. The were having their Adams Morgan Day festival, a street fair not unlike the Taste of Dubuque for my readers back home's perspective. It was a lot of fun. I got some lemonade, chicken fingers, and fresh cut fries, which were delicious. I also got some sweet knock-off aviators. I also got a Nationals lunch bag for knowing the Nats official colors. We went to Mass at 7:30 tonight. It was geared toward young adults, which was nice. Now I'm back at the apartment watching the Pack v the Bears (Go Pack!), and one of the girls is making us sloppy joes.

They're done, gotta go,

Jes

Can I Get Some Defense?

The title has a dual meaning today. The first refers to the fact that we visited the Pentagon today for class. It was pretty cool, even though it wasn't as in depth as the tour I took with NYLF in high school. I think I appreciated the tour more this time around since I'm older. The building is actually a lot different than the last time I was there because its been undergoing renovations for almost 15 years. We went to the 9/11 memorial in the Pentagon, which was particularly powerful considering that tomorrow is the 8 year anniversary of the attacks. Overall, the tour was very informative and a lot of fun.

On the way back we met with issues on the Metro. Evidently, a Metro worker was struck by a train causing major delays on the line we were using. We wound up having to take a train moving in the wrong direction on the tracks. At one point we were staring down an oncoming train, which was somewhat disconcerting, but it all worked out.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty relaxed. We did have class, and there was some heated discussion, but it's not really anything worth rehashing. Then I had to do laundry. I hate doing laundry. I really wish I could use St. Michael's while I'm here like I do on campus. Then one of my room mates made dinner for all of us, which was awesome.

Now back to the second meaning of the title. Tonight is the first NFL game of the season. To carry the defensive theme even farther, the game is between the Tennessee Titans and the Pittsburgh Steelers, two of the best defensive teams in the league. So far the game's been sweet. We just saw Troy Polamalu catch an interception with just his left hand. It was insane. I'm also pretty sure that he has made like 80% of the tackles in the game so far.

Back to work tomorrow, then jazz in the National Sculpture Garden.

Til tomorrow,

Jes

Big Day at the Office

I'm sure you're curious what my title means today. Well, I answered some pretty important phone calls at work today. The first came from Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Bobby Kennedy. She called wanting to talk to Bruce about something, and I was ultimately able to transfer her to our scheduler. I can only hope she ultimately got to talk to Bruce. What I do know is that she was very understanding of my difficulty in getting her routed to the right person. After that call, my next call doesn't seem nearly as important, but I still thought it was cool. It was from state representative Ray Zirkelbach, I believe of Monticello. If my memory serves, Rep. Zirkelbach was unable to sit in the Iowa House during most of his second term because he was serving in the war in either Iraq or Afghanistan. As with Mrs. Kennedy, he was really only interested in talking to Bruce, but he did ask me for my name and thanked me for my help, which I'll admit my help was minimal.

Outside of work the only thing I really did was went to class. Once again, I came back from class with my brain hurting from talking about what right is actually guaranteed by the 15th amendment and how that can be enforced. Don't ask, I'm still not sure myself. Tomorrow we go to the Pentagon for class and then I have to present on Jeremy Bentham and Utilitarianism in the afternoon. I'm excited about one of those things, I'll let you guess which one.

Jes

Back in Session

As the title would imply, Congress was back in session today for the first time since I've been working. As such, I had to dress up like a real grown up in the government for the first time today. Also, today was the first day that pretty much everybody was in the office, including the congressman. I met Bruce officially about mid afternoon when the office took a break to enjoy some bread pudding that one of the staffers had made. He seems like a pretty cool guy, which is nice. I had another interesting call today, this time from a guy outside the district who wanted to talk about alternative medicine including marijuana. To say that it was interesting is really an understatement. Aside from that though, today wasn't really any different than the other days I've worked, except that I did sit in the front office for the first time.

When I got home, I had to pretty quickly get ready for class. We talked about the relationship of obligation to being obliged, which wasn't too bad, and then about what makes a law valid. The latter half was a little more involved as we also talked about how you can know that what makes a law valid is also valid. If that makes your brain hurt, welcome to my world.

Back to the old grind again tomorrow, but at least I get Thursday off for class.

Jes

Labor Free Day

God bless Labor Day for allowing me to not work on a Monday. And God bless Congress for not working on Labor Day and letting me actually have the day off unlike a normal Labor Day at ND. Being the class act that I am, I took full advantage of not working today and slept in until 10:30. Don't think that I completely wasted the whole day, though. I did do a lot of my reading for this week. I'm presenting one of the readings for our Thursday class this week so I have to read it more thoroughly than usual. In addition to reading, I went for a brisk walk in the light rain, which was very refreshing. When I returned to the apartment, the best gift ever was waiting, one of the girls had made us chocolate chip banana bread. It was/is amazing. Know I'm watching football, waiting for the big Florida State v. Miami game tonight. Also, since it's Monday, I'm more or less responsible for feeding myself, which will probably mean soup.

Tomorrow will be my first day of work while Congress is in session. I'll actually have to dress up for the first time since I've been here. I'm hopeful the work load doesn't increase too terribly much, even though I'm fairly certain the number of calls will increase. I suppose this will also be the time that I would have an opportunity to sit in on meetings and such, so I guess increased opportunities will come with increased work load.

As for the rest of tonight, I'm probably going to do a little more reading and watch some football. I'll get to bed a little early so I'm nice and rested for work in the morning.

Until tomorrow,

Jes

Go Nats, Go!

Exciting day today for those of us here in DC. We went to a Washington Nationals game this afternoon. It was awesome. The Nats won on a walk-off 2 run homer in the bottom of the ninth. It was my first professional baseball game. We had decent seats and they were super cheap. That really took up most of our day, but it was totally worth it. We had BLTs again for dinner. Its quickly becoming one of my favorite meals because it's such a team effort. Then we got ice cream. Like I said, the Nats game took up most of our day. No work tomorrow, probably going to do some reading. Not much else to say I guess.

Jes

Finally, an Opening Day to Remember!

For the first time in my time at ND, we had an opening game worth watching. Absolutely spanked Nevada, like a red-headed step-child, as my dad would say. So far its been a great day, chock full of college football. Woke up fairly early for a Saturday and watched the tail end of Sports Center. Then I caught most of Gameday before heading to the farmers' market behind the building. Ultimately, I didn't buy anything this week, but it had some pretty nice stuff that I may invest in before the season is over. Then we watched Ohio State v. Navy, which was a surprisingly good game. Navy almost pulled off the upset, which would have been sweet given my distaste for all things OSU, particularly football. I also tried to follow the Iowa v. UNI game during that time, with little success. Fortunately, the Hawks squeaked past UNI, but it looks like it could be a long season if they don't get a few of these issues cleaned up with the O-line and the running backs. Then it was time for the big game. We jumped out to a 28-0 lead at halftime and ultimately won 35-0. Pretty much a flawless display of football prowess, what you would traditionally expect from ND. We also made football snack foods throughout the afternoon and had chili dogs for supper. It was pretty much the best afternoon of football you could have without actually being at a game. Now it's time for the night games, BYU v. Oklahoma and Va. Tech v. Bama.

Nothing else really to report. Probably going to a couple of museums tomorrow. I fill you in in tomorrows blog.

Jes

Less Than 24 Hours...

Until real football starts!! Both ND and Iowa kick off their 2009 seasons tomorrow afternoon. More on that later though.

Work today was good. I had a meeting with my internship supervisor and the ND program director. My meeting was the first of the semester, eventually everybody will have one. We didn't really talk about much, since it's only the second week of my internship, but it was nice to get it out of the way. Then, towards the end of the day, they let us leave a half hour early!

On the way home, I decided to try to go find a Spencer's so I could get a baseball cap with Animal from the Muppets on it. Unfortunately, my idea of assuming that if there was a mall in Bethesda it would be right at the Bethesda Metro stop. It was not. So I came home hatless.

Then a small group of us went back down to the National Mall for jazz music at the National Sculpture Garden. We got there a little late so we were only able to walk around because there was no where to sit. We're going back next week after work in order to fully enjoy the experience.

No we're back at the apartment watching football. Getting up early tomorrow to go to the Farmers' Market behind our building and then get pumped up for the game.

Go Irish, go Hawks!

Jes

Fish and Chips

No work today!! We did have class though. It was pretty cool. We talked about whether or not people have natural rights. Then we went to the Supreme Court. We got the official spiel from one of the tour guides. In addition to being thoroughly informative about not only the Court but also the architecture of the building, this guy was hilarious. He told the only "Supreme Court Jokes" I've ever heard, but I don't think they would transfer well to written form.

After our tour of the Supreme Court (we wondered around the basement afterward and got some pictures of busts of former justices), we headed to Union Station. I love Union Station. A couple of guys bought hats at LIDS, while I bought the first three seasons of Fraggle Rock. I am so excited about my investment in Fraggle Rock. I think I'll get a lot of use out of it.

After sitting around the apartment for awhile, we went out for dinner to an Irish restaurant. I had fish and chips (hence the title). It was really, really good. The fish was flaky and the batter was amazing. I guess, beyond this stuff, my day was not terribly productive. I really feel like I didn't have very much to report. On the plus side, college football officially started tonight!!! Watching Boise State and Oregon, which is sweet. Three day weekend coming up as well, with Notre Dame and Iowa's first games this weekend as well.

Looking forward to the weekend,

Jes

Starbucks Fail

The title will be explained later in this post. I want to start by briefly re-capping my day at work today. It was pretty much like any other day. I got yelled at on the phone a lot and read a lot of mail. Just want to put this out there, to anyone who may call their congressional representative: (1) Generally speaking, you will be talking to an intern who is at most in their late 20's; (2) Said intern is probably not an expert on the issue you wish to talk about or the congressman's position on the issue; (3) If you don't give your name and at least the city you are calling from, your concern is much more difficult to pass on. Additionally, regarding mail, no matter how much you may want to yell at a congressman who doesn't represent your district, your mail will still wind up in your congressman's office. Now that that's out of the way, I did get one really funny piece of mail today. Without going into specifics, the constituent was urging the congressman (Braley) to support legislation that "was introduced by Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA)..." Just thought it was kinda funny.

I did laundry today. It's kind of a pain in the butt because I have to lug it all the way down to the basement. Not to mention actually folding the laundry. Plus, I usually wind up with things that don't get completely dry or things that wind up wrinkled. That's my rant for the day.

Now to the blog's title. After class tonight, we decided that we wanted to go out and get something to eat or drink. Our first choice was Starbucks, which is just up the street. Unfortunately, Starbucks had closed at 8 and we didn't get there until close to 10:30. Then we went to Baskin Robins, which had closed at 10:30. We finally wound up at CVS, where we were able to get pints of ice cream.

I guess its been a pretty slow day in terms of news. Tomorrow is class and no work. I think we are going to the Supreme Court in the afternoon, but I'm not sure.

Later,

Jes

Another Day, Still No Dollars

I want to start by issuing an apology to my aunt Cass who pointed out that she also reads the blog pretty regularly. From now on I will address things to both Michael and my aunt. Now that we've got the administrative issues out of the way, time for news. There's actually very little news to report today. I realized that it already feels like I've been doing this (the internship, living here, etc.) forever. Most of the office stuff is starting to feel like second nature. I've got to have a meeting with the director of the ND DC Program and my internship director to discuss my internship I suppose. Moving on, I'm really kind of getting into my philosophy of law class. Some of it is kinda dry, but for the most part its really interesting. Obviously it's the sort of thing that I've been interested in for a while. Not much else going on today. Probably going to hit the hay soon, since I'm evidently an adult now.

I guess that means goodnight.

Jes

*ALERT*

While I was writing this last post, one of the girls started choking on water. She claims none of us did anything to help, but in actuality I was attentively making sure she started coughing as per my life guard training.

Anywho, I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Second Week of Work

Hello All,

I'm back on an actual computer for the first time after a week of phone updates. Back to the grind today. Actually, it really wasn't that bad. Lots of mail and phone calls. I got to start researching for mail responses today as well. Today was also an important day for me starting to develop realistic habits for work. I installed my gel insoles this morning. It was literally like walking on air. I can't imagine having to walk without them ever again. I also finally packed a lunch for work. It probably saved me two or three dollars, which will really add up over time. I'm really starting to feel like an actual part of the office, and I feel like I fit in pretty well. When I got home I had to study for my class for tomorrow, which is really less than ideal. I think that the professors forget that we have close to full time jobs in addition to our classes this semester. In addition to having to read, I had to make my own dinner, since a lot of the other guys and the girls had a class. Surprisingly, I did not end up having a very sophisticated dinner. I ordered the last of my books today, as well. In addition, I ordered rolls of white paper, which we are going to use to cover one of the walls of our living room/dining room/kitchen to use as a means to write things to do, places to go, etc. Now that everyone is back, we're relaxing and watching MNF. Btw, Michael, I am in the process of a major overhaul of the full site, which it says on the site. I address this to you because you are the only one who I know regularly visits the blog or the site. That pretty much takes care of the news for today. As my time here moves forward, I may stop writing daily and instead only write when interesting things happen, we'll just have to see.

Until we next speak,

Jes

Just a Lazy Sunday

Nice lazy weekend day again today. Slept in nice and late after our late night trek to the monuments last night. After getting myself awake and moving, I went to the grocery store to get some food for lunch over the next week. It was a nice refreshing walk on the way to the store. Unfortunately, when I rode the train back with my groceries, I seem to have caught a train with no air conditioning or possibly with its heating on. Other than that slightly uncomfortable metro ride, my trip to the store was a success. When I got back, I took some time to get the Senior Swimming site updated (I'll throw a link up some time in the future, along with a link to the DASH site which I also maintain). I then put together a Google map of the remaining monuments so that we can be sure to get to all of them before the end of the semester. I've recently realized that I refer to "us" and "we" and things like that a lot, but I've never really talked about who that refers to. Generally speaking, its safe to say that I'm talking about the four other ND guys and two of the ND girls when I say things like "We went to the monuments." There are a few other people who may, from time to time also hang out with us, but the 7 of us are pretty well always together. Speaking of group activities, the 7 of us all worked together on dinner for tonight. We had BLT's, potato salad, and eggplant fries. I fried the bacon, go me! It was really good and a lot of fun working all together. Now I'm watching the Bears and Broncos on Sunday Night (pre-season) Football and debating when I'm going to bed. I'll probably stay up til midnight because tomorrow is one of the guys' birthday and I'd like to stay up to wish him a happy birthday. Anyway, back to work tomorrow morning, which I'm kind of looking forward too.

Eagerly awaiting "real" football,

Jes

Monuments at Night

Today was a good day. I slept in real late, almost til noon. Just kinda laid around the apartment for a while. Sometimes its nice to be kind of lazy. Then we walked to Target. It was a much more successful trek than the last time we tried to walk there (see first DC post). After some more lazing around and watching "The Breakup", we got some dinner. After that we waited until it got dark and took the metro down to the National Mall to see the monuments. It took us a couple of hours, but we managed to see the Washington Monument (outside only), the World War II Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials, the FDR Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. It was really cool seeing all of them at night. I'll post some pictures of them tomorrow. By the time we were done with all of that we had walked quite a bit and I was getting tired. So now we're back at the apartment watching YouTube videos. All in all it was a good day.

More tomorrow,

Jes

End of the First Week

Well, I made it to the end of the week. This whole hot weather nonsense needs to subside or I'm never gonna survive. On the plus side, I did get to take a hot shower this morning. Today was a little busier at work. I finally felt comfortable enough to start answering the phones. Most of the calls I answered were misdirected faxes though. I did get my ID today, which was nice. I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. It stopped by Target on the way back to get gel insoles for my shoes so that my feet don't fall off. I'm definitely looking forward to having the weekend off and getting some well deserved r & r. I probably won't get up til mid day tomorrow, which will be awesome.

Later
Jes

Public Policy on Capitol Hill

Today was our first day of our big class, Foundations in Public Policy. The morning session consisted of a lively debate over the "enhanced interrogation" techniques used by CIA operatives at Guantanamo Bay. It was interesting to hear the widely varied opinions held by the students in our class. In the afternoon we had a visit to Capitol Hill. We started at the office of Joe Donnelly (D-IN), the congressman for the district ND is in. Two of his staffers then took us on a tour of the Capitol. We got to go through the tunnels under the office buildings to get into there. Since the last time I was there, they have added a new visitors' center with a movie. We were also able to go up to the rotunda and view the old senate and house chambers. It was really hot today, so wandering around the Hill in our business clothes kinda sucked. It was still a fun experience in all. We decided to go out for dinner tonight. We walked over to the Adams Morgan neighborhood to a 24 hour diner. I had a Monte Cristo and it was really good. Now we're back in the room just kinda hanging out. I've got to work again in the morning so I'm not gonna be staying up too late. I'm definitely looking forward to my first real weekend in DC.

Later
Jes

*A Quick Update*

I felt it bore mentioning that Sen. Ted Kennedy died overnight last night, which made for a somewhat somber mood in the office today. To anyone who reads this, consider observing a moment of silence for the passing of one of our great legislators of the last half century.

New Responsibilities, New Classes

Second day of work. Fortunately, no issues with the train on the way into work today. I mostly just filed mail today. However, I did sort snail mail which meant I had to scan the letters into the system. Also, I answered the phone today, something I'm going to be doing more and more of. I got lunch from the Cannon House Office Building cafeteria. It was nice, but I really need to start bringing a lunch if I want to make it through the semester with any money left. So, on my way back from work I stopped at Giant and got some lunch foods for the next week. There was a short delay, but nothing too serious. I came back to the apartment and managed to change clothes and even rest a little before heading to my history class. It's a class on race and American politics, and I think it should be really interesting. After class, we went and explored some more of the city. We walked to Dupont Circle. While there, we met some Canadians who were studying law at American University. One of the most interesting things about them was that they were actually on an exchange program from a college in Australia. They seemed like pretty cool people. We talked to them for about an hour before heading back to the apartment. Since we have class tomorrow, I'm able to stay up a little later because I can sleep an extra hour and a half. Still, its getting pretty late, so I'm gonna hit the hay.

Until tomorrow,
Jes

First Day of Internship

I'm blogging from my phone tonight more because I can than out of necessity. I started my internship in Congressman Braley's office today. My trip there was, unfortunately, less than ideal. Just after switching lines in the metro, I learned that the line I needed to take to get to the Capitol was delayed due to a train that had to break in emergency and unload ahead of us somewhere. I ultimately got off three stops early and walked across the national mall, getting to my office just barely on time. Fortunately, I guess, my supervisor was also caught up in the mess. After getting a general orientation to the office, I got to work filing incoming mail into the computer. Aside from a lunch break, that was what I did for the rest of the day. Since Congress is on recess, there's not much going on in the office. On the plus side, we get to wear reasonably casual clothes. I took my lunch with another intern, a legislative assistant in Braley's office and an aide in another office in the same building. We went to a burger joint that was evidently started by someone who was on "Top Chef". It was really good. On the way back I stopped to get some more brown socks. After getting the socks I once again got stuck on the metro, this time due to a fire somewhere ahead of us. When I finally got back to the apartment, I had just enough time to change and grab my laptop and notebook before my Philosophy of Law class. The class was dense to say the least, as we discussed the two major schools of thought behind legal philosophy. After walking to the 7-11 for some food, I finally got back to my apartment for a meaningful amount of time at about 10:15 after leaving at about 8:15 AM. Hopefully tomorrow isn't quite so hectic.

Now I'm off to get some rest!
Jes

First Weekend in DC Recap

Hi All,

While I'm sure everyone has given up on this blog (to be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure I'd ever post anything more), I've decided to use it to keep track of my experiences in DC. I'm doing this as much for myself as for others, so bear with me if some things seem unnecessary. I arrived in DC on Saturday the 22 and made my way from BWI airport to the Boston University Center in DC, which is where ND students stay, via DC Metro. This was an excellent idea from a financial point of view, the trip from the airport was only about $6 rather than $30 for a shuttle or $60 for a cab, but kind of a pain in the but from a convenience standpoint. After getting checked in at the BU Center, my four suite-mates and I decided to take a look around the area we'd be living in for the next four months. We live in the Woodley Park neighborhood of DC, about a block or two from the National Zoo. It's a pretty nice neighborhood. Unfortunately, it was raining while we did our exploring, which made the whole experience a little less fun. We did manage to find several restaurants and a CVS, which more or less took care of our needs. We then came back and said hi to some of the other ND students in the building before trying to walk to a target about a mile away in the rain. Needless to say we got hopelessly off track and wound up taking the metro instead. After that excursion we pretty much called it a night on Saturday.

Sunday we were able to sleep in before setting out on another day of exploration. Being the bold Domers we are, we decided to turn right out of the front of the building, which I had not yet done at that point. We walked past the zoo, and up two or three more metro stops, finding shops and restaurants along the way. We then hopped the metro down to union station for lunch and sight-seeing. After lunch we went to the US Postal Museum, which was actually pretty cool. It talked about the early formation of the US Postal Service and had some interactive, although kid themed, exhibits/games. From there we headed back to the BU Center for our ND orientation and some pizza. We hung out with some of the other students on our floor that night (last night), which include students from ND, Grinnell, and Ithaca College, before calling it a night.

This morning, I decided I should bite the bullet and go figure out where my internship office actually is. Fortunately, its only a short metro ride away and then about 2 blocks from the metro station. I start work tomorrow at 9:30 AM, so I'm looking forward to that. Besides finding Congressman Braley's Office, I pretty much just hung around the apartment the rest of the afternoon. We're having dinner with a couple of the girls from down the hall later tonight and then I've got to take a look at some readings for my class tomorrow night. Hopefully all goes according to plan and I am able to update this reasonably frequently.

Later,
Jes