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