The plot of ABC’s fantastic series, Once Upon A Time, involves a curse placed on “fairytale” land, a place where all the fanciful creatures and people from fairy tales live. This curse took the characters to a place with no happy endings, namely the city of Storybrooke in Maine, in our world. However, Snow White’s daughter was protected from the curse by being placed in a magical wardrobe that sent her unscathed to our world, to live among us until she could be reunited with the residents of Storybrooke and somehow save them from the curse.

This magical wardrobe had a limit on how many people it could carry. The initial plan was for Snow White to get in the wardrobe before giving birth, so that she could help her daughter, the “savior” identified by the Blue Fairy, understand her destiny. Snow White’s husband, Prince “Charming”, could not go because the wardrobe could only hold one person. Unfortunately, Snow White gave birth early, and so the child had to be sent alone.

So, to re-cap: the wardrobe could only hold one person, namely a very near-term Snow White *or* her daughter once born.

In fairytale land, despite the Blue Fairy knowing the incredible potential of Snow White’s unborn daughter, it was never even a question as to whether or not Snow White could use the magical wardrobe while pregnant. After giving birth, however, the child had to go alone. Now, the reason that the wardrobe couldn’t send more people was because of the amount of magic it had left. It just didn’t have enough magic for more than one person.

Interestingly, I think this means that in the OUAT universe, fairy-tale land is pretty clearly on-board with life beginning after birth, not at conception. After all, if life began at conception, the tree’s magic could not have carried both Snow White and the unborn daughter. If it was some kind of issue of a baby taking less magic than a full grown person, Snow White could have gone along after giving birth. It is fairly clear that something magical (forgive the term) happened at the moment of birth that conveyed full “personhood” to Snow White’s daughter, at least in the eyes of Snow White, the Blue Fairy, and magic in general.

It’s a relatively subtle nod, but I think it’s a very cool thing. I do wonder whether it was a conscious decision by Kitsis and Horowitz (two former Lost writers who have shown amazing attention to detail in this series and that one) or a matter of plot necessity and never thought through. Even if it’s the latter, it goes to show that there is an inherent belief that a person becomes a person at birth, once separated from the mother, not as a zygote or embryo. Otherwise, someone would have raised it in the writer’s room or in any of several reviews the pilot went through.

I'm about to get into some things that are past the pilot, though still not super spoiler-y. Be aware. Read responsibly.

It makes you wonder if fairytale land is pro-choice, if such a concept even exists in that world. For example, does Rumpy perform magical abortions on demand (for a price, of course)? Rumpy does occasionally offer fertility assistance; maybe he does the opposite as well. Does the Evil Queen use some kind of magical birth control? (After all, we know she gets the occasional hook-up in fairytale land, not to mention having been married for quite awhile.) Do normal folk get abortions and such when the situation demands? I doubt the show will go there, but it’s fun to speculate.

I have been racking my brain for the past few weeks trying to think of ways to talk about reason and being reasonable. It turns out, it’s not a simple subject. I am a very non-confrontational person. I am, most of the time, the very definition of a reasonable man. I don’t like telling people things they don’t want to hear. I want people to get along. I want people to like me. I want to find good things in people. I want to understand viewpoints that differ from mine. I want my tombstone to say, “He was nice to work with.”

I have children. I want to raise them in a world they can add value to, that has value to them. I want for them to feel entitled only to working hard at doing what they love in order to be excellent at it and to share their lives and the rewards with those that they love. Of course, I think this is all that anyone wants for their children or themselves. I try and enculcate them with a sense of logic about the world, which means most of the time I’m pointing out things to them that are absurd and ridiculous as a counterpoint and right now, there is plenty to point to.

I console myself, however, with the thought, that for anyone truly paying attention, for at least the last 300 years, the world has always been chock full of absurd contradictions and has always seemed to be going downhill really fast. I get this when I read Thomas Jefferson and Camus. I console myself with the remarkable advances in the sciences. I play a scientist on TV; I am in awe of those that do it for real.

Testable, provable phenomena and the predictions they allow, big and small, brought me here in front of you today and they will take me back to my family when I am done. They allowed me to drive to DC on a bus, type my speech on a screen, ride to this rally in a car, walk on shoes that support my feet, and wear clothes and a hat that protects my pale skin from the sun, to fly on a plane home. That plane I will get on exists and stays in the air because of a million million large and tiny tested predictions about lift, drag, material performance, physics, electricity, radio waves., wear, tear, sheer, checklists, human error, machine error, and redundancy. It is a miracle of engineering. It is the result of an ancient and very human drive, a drive that makes us what we are, in all of our unique specialization, a drive to solve problems.

Many tens of thousands of people combined their collective genius to make an impossibly fast and efficient, thin, inflated bubble of aluminum so stable and secure that you’d have to fly for several thousand years before the odds gave you an even chance of being in an accident. Everything that we have that makes our lives possible exists because human beings have tested the things they found in their surroundings, made predictions based on those tests and then improved upon them.

This is reason, the human capacity to make sense of the world.

Here are some other things, that, like the components of the airplane, have been tested and proven. I’m going to call them facts:

• E equals mc fucking squared.
• Force equals mass times acceleration.
• The earth is not the center of the universe.
• Man landed on the moon in 1969 and a few times thereafter.
• Burning airplane fuel caused a tragic, catastrophic collapse of the twin towers in 2001.
• The earth is spherical. And not precisely round-round. It is officially slightly pear shaped.
• Human industry is causing a significant rise in the earth’s overall temperature.
• The earth is over four billion years old.
• Evolution is literally a fact of life.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson says, “Facts are true whether or not you believe them.” Now, here are some of my beliefs that are true to me:

• You cannot teach kids about sex by telling them not to have it.
• I believe that making drugs illegal is stupid and damaging to us as a people.
• I believe that if we take care of our surroundings, they will take care of us.
• I believe that inside of every tool is a hammer.
• I believe that people have an inalienable right to choose what to do with their own bodies.
• I believe that in a community it is our duty that we should take care of each other in times of need.
• I believe that if you tell people the truth and let them make decisions based on that, much of them time they’ll make pretty good decisions, but not always.
• I believe that that which is detestable to you, you should not do to another.
• I believe that while not all people are essentially good, most are trying.
• I believe that rules do not make us moral; loving each other makes us moral.

And finally, I have concluded through careful empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought, giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I am capable of. I believe they know everything I do and think and they still love me and I’ve concluded, after careful consideration, that this person keeping score…is me.

As many of you know and as many have noted, the Republican party leadership turned to being socially conservative even if it makes government bigger and costs more money. In fact, there is no actual “smaller government” movement in the two major parties at all. (Tea Partiers and Libertarians are minority parties in my view.) In ye olden days, my economic republicanism came from two sources: not liking big government and not liking big taxes.

On the tax front, once I had enough money to live comfortably, have savings, have good health care, and donate to good causes without being in debt, I really stopped giving so much of a damn about taxes. It is true that, when you get to a certain point, an extra 1 or 2 percent in the tax bracket really doesn’t make that much of a difference to your day-to-day life. I’m nowhere near the income of a Mitt Romney or Warren Buffett. If I am unlikely to “feel” a tax increase, they’re not likely to either. The fact is that $100 means less to me now than it did at my income level 10-12 years ago. As Mitt Romney unfortunately demonstrated during one of the countless Republican primary debates, $1000 means very little to him. Yet, $100 is the difference between bill collection and survival for an increasing number of American families. Thus, I just don’t see a moral problem with taking $100 from someone that won’t miss it and giving it to someone who can absolutely use it.

Some people argue that taking money from the rich at gunpoint to give to the poor is unethical and immoral. They argue that people have good hearts and will give that money freely. I don’t buy it. The reason I don’t buy it is that it isn’t happening right now. What’s more, that kind of rampant altruism has never happened in the course of American history, even dating back to the 18th and 19th century when there was almost no government regulation. This shouldn’t be a surprise. If you personally evaluate your situation, there is no economic reason to hand money to someone else. It is poor decision making at an individual level to give away any of your income. The benefit is not likely to be seen by you personally in your lifetime. (The one exception may be if ]the recipient is a family member or close friend, in which case, it can be argued that it isn’t truly altruistic anyways. But, needless to say, not everyone is lucky enough to have a well-off aunt or uncle hanging around.) Altruism is a decision made for the benefit of the many, not for the benefit of the few (or the one).

At a corporate level, altruism makes even less sense. Corporations exist to make profit, and they’re naturally short-sighted (specifically by the investment time of a stockholder and/or the tenure of a CEO). It doesn’t make a corporation or the people that run it bad or immoral; it’s just a matter of recognizing the goal and aligning accordingly. Thus, a corporation will never act in long-term interest on its own unless it is acting illogically, even though such acts could benefit the corporation in the long term.

To me, this is the place of government. Government exists as a representative for the people, not the person. That is an important distinction. Government exists to protect the interests of a group, and government is ensured of its existence for hundreds of years. Government exists to think in the long term and to make decisions that, while painful in the short term, ensure future success. This goes for many issues where economic externalities or short-term thinking will lead companies and individuals down an ultimately unsuccessful path.

I do not believe that government has no role in business. I believe government regulation will actually help businesses perform better by incentivizing changes that would otherwise not be profitable in the lifetime of a CEO or investor but which will benefit the company and the nation in the long term. I believe government has not just the right but the obligation to help effect social change for under-represented groups, whether those groups are defined by race, gender, sex, class, size, or any number of other categories. Though it hasn’t been part of this discussion until now, I believe strongly that religious dogma should not dictate government policy, that religion and government are two distinct, separate, and valuable resources. I believe abortion should be available and also avoidable, through affordable and obtainable birth control for both sexes. And, I believe that no human being should ever be put in a position of choosing to not pursue necessary health care, or choosing to not treat another human being, because they can’t afford it.

All together, that makes me a Democrat.

In the interim, I suggest doing business with Discover or Capital One, as they will not bill you for these fees. (Capital One pays the fee that Visa charges. Discover simply does not charge a fee.) Otherwise, make sure you know thoroughly where your purchase originates and may be processed, or else you may get hit with a surprise fee of up to 3% of the total purchase.

If you do not want the TSA to have a naked picture of you for whatever time period they deem appropriate, with whatever level of privacy they determine, you will be subject to an aggressive pat-down search. Your groin, genitals, and breasts will be touched, with whatever level of pressure the agent feels necessary. Various TSA sources have said that it’s a “back of the hands” pat down and that they are to not touch more than is necessary to “meet resistance”. Nonetheless, individual passenger accounts tell a different story. Even by their process, if you are a woman wearing an underwire or padded bra, you may be asked to remove it or may be subject to “more aggressive” search. You can, of course, ask to be patted down in private. Honestly, I’m less nervous about being pulled into the “back room” at a casino than I am about going into a private room with the TSA. At least a casino has to worry about me going public, whereas the TSA has a massive PR machine just waiting to discredit people who object to their practices. Plus, if I were a person who got off on feeling up people against their will, guess what job I’d be going after? (BTW, if any TSA agents out there are offended by that, recognize that every bit of this policy assumes that I’m a criminal, and I figure it’s only fair that the assumption goes both ways. None of us are guilty, yet.)

So, first and foremost, these scanners accomplish neither of the two main objectives of passengers in screening: security and convenience. When these were being initially mentioned as a possibility (when the very first naked scanned lady pictures came out), it was touted as that you’ll be able to keep shoes on, belts on, outerwear on, and even carry a small handbag. They said it would be faster than the disrobing+X-ray process. In reality, it is slower, by a good 15-30 seconds per person, not counting the time for voluntary and involuntary pat-downs. You still have to disrobe. You still have to put your bags on the conveyor, pull out toiletries, etc. Being that these scans don’t also increase security significantly, this enough should be reason for the machines to never have been purchased, IMO. Certainly, at my company, before making this level of investment, those two things would have had to be proven via a beta test. The supplier would have had to prove the claims. The amount of lost productivity as a result of these scanners, if you figure the TSA agents and the passengers at just minimum wage for their time, will total in the millions before the end of this week. Any company worth its salt weighs risk vs. reward when making an investment. There are formulas to estimate the value of lost time, the value of lost property, and even the value of lost human life. (The cost of insurance isn’t a shot in the dark, after all.) As Secretary of State Clinton pointed out on Face the Nation, we need to consider the real risk of terrorism and what we’re costing ourselves trying to avoid it.

What is even worse to me though is that, even before this came up, I already felt incredibly powerless at the airport. I feel like I can’t express emotions or thoughts that are natural, that I’d express in any other service situation. If a TSA checker does something wrong and I object, whether I’m right or not, whether I’m polite in my objection or rightfully angry, I’m putting hundreds of dollars of travel expense at stake, not to mention my personal time and energy. The obvious best course of action is to *not* object, to be pliant, submissive, and quiet…even when I’m wronged. And that bugs the crap out of me. It makes me seethe inside, even when nothing has gone wrong, when no one has done anything bad to me…simply because they *can* be a dick about things and there’s nothing I could reasonably do about it. Now, with this…I know, going to the airport later this week, that something wrong is going to happen to other people if not to me directly, something that I feel violates human rights let alone my/their rights as a US citizen…and every part of me will want to scream and object and protest, loudly and logically.

But, just as John Pistole wants, I will feel guilty for my anger. I will think about my nephews who are dying to see me, the presents for them in my checked bag. I will think of the fun I’m going to have with family and at WDW. I will worry that my objections will cause problems for people behind and around me, that those people will complain, call me names, and not support me even though I’m trying to do what is right. I will think about the TSA employees, who are likely good people trying to do their work and get paid, same as me most of the time. I will think of the money and time I will waste, and how even if I waste it, how nothing will change. In the end, I, like thousands of others, will be pliant, submissive, and quiet. I will be weak. And I will hate myself for it and cry afterward, even if nothing goes wrong.

This may spark controversy, and I think it’s important to support Dr. Benjamin in this position. I’ll be writing her a letter expressing my support. If you’d like to do the same, the relevant info is below:

Office of the Surgeon General
5600 Fishers Lane
Room 18-66
Rockville, MD 20857
Telephone: 301-443-4000
Fax: 301-443-3574

Original Source: BigFatBlog

• With a picture of Sarah Palin: I wrote this Valentine on my hand, so I wouldn’t forget.
• With a picture of George W.: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED …oh wait, I haven’t sent it yet.
• With a picture of Mitch McConnell: Don’t expect any Republican support for this Valentine.
• With a picture of Scott Brown: I wrote this Valentine from my truck.
• With a picture of Mark Sanford: Let’s hike down the Appalachian Trail for this Valentine’s!
• With a.p.o. Jeff Sessions: I will give you this Valentine as soon as you give me funding.
• With a.p.o. Lieberman: Do you mind if I’m their Valentine, too?
• With a.p.o. Sarah Palin: How’s this Valentine-y lovey stuff workin’ for ya?
• With a.p.o. Tom Tancreto: I’d like to be your Valentine, but only if you can pronounce or spell it in English.
• With a.p.o. Dick Cheney: This Valentine deserves no constitutional rights.
• With a.p.o. Larry Craig: Tap three times if you’ll be my Valentine.

Any other ideas?

I can’t decide if my favorite part is that they’re raging grannies or that they perfectly summed up my views on this latest debacle.

On Wednesday, I arrived at DC’s Union Station with my luggage and headed out. I quickly found the Metro and checked the class map to see where the hotel was (where the class was leaving from). There was a red pushpin right near a Metro stop near K-street, so I took the Metro there. After getting out, I looked around but couldn’t spot our hotel. I kept staring at the map and still couldn’t find the hotel. It turns out that the map wasn’t centered on the hotel; it was centered on one of the myriad of places we’d be meeting people at during the week. So, I was in the wrong place. At this point, I’d be running late to get to the hotel, and I realized taking Metro there meant a 4-6 block walk with my suitcases, so I took a cab. I checked into my room and then called the instructor to see where to meet them. It turned out that I’d only missed like the first ten minutes of meeting with Congressman Kind, because he had been running late, too. I took a cab from the hotel to the Longworth building. For reference, here’s a quick map of the House and Senate buildings I’ll be referencing in this post. (Google Earth/Maps is also helpful here.) Longworth is one of the House buildings toward the bottom of the map. So, that all worked out okay, aside from me already being a sweaty mess. Meeting Congressman Kind was relatively uneventful. Most of his talk was about how he sees many common issues between the parties and believes in bipartisan efforts.

Our next stop was Union Station (hey! I was just there!) for lunch. I didn’t really get to hear the guy that met us there for lunch. I was sitting kind of far away, and there was alot of ambient noise. However, Ed Greelegs was sitting near me, and I got kind of a private audience with him, which was great! I really enjoyed talking to him. Then, we walked to the Dirksen Senate building to meet with Deb Whitman. Deb was really enjoyable. She went through the real version of how a bill becomes a law. She gave an example of a bill that she’s been working on for two years for her congressman, a relatively unobtrusive one that would prevent people convicted of violent or abusive crimes from working in nursing homes. Even though there’s no opposition to it, it’s still taken years for it to even get into committee. (It actually moved out of committee and made it onto the floor list while we were in DC. She texted us to let us know that we were her lucky charms!)

Then, we walked to the Hart building. I can’t remember if we met with someone or if we just went over there to see something. What I do know is that we found out that the Senate hearings regarding Health Care were being held over there, and we eventually tracked down the room. We didn’t have enough time to really sit in, but we got a quick glance inside the room:

There was also a Calder sculpture in the lobby. I took a picture, just because it’s a tie back to Chicago (where Calder has a famous Flamingo sculpture).

Our next stop was a lobbying office on Constitution. I found the location using my G1 and had GMaps give me walking directions, but the class ended up taking a different and longer route such that we walked a mile for what should have been a half mile walk. The view from the office of the Capitol was spectacular; I took 2-3 photos. At the office, we heard from a person, not affiliated with the office–he just met us there, who (by his own description) makes conspiracy theorists stay awake at night. He manages public opinion, which is to say, he does things like push polls, hiring protesters, hiring people to ask questions at town halls, and drafting opinion letters that aren’t real. Ironically, I can’t recall his name. Then, two of the lobbyists spoke to us about their job.

One of the things that most people in our class found shocking (but I already knew) is that lobbyists serve a valuable purpose in the system. They provide information to the Congress (via staffers, usually) that the people might not otherwise know. Congresspeople aren’t experts on every topic, and lobbyists primarily give briefings. In the 80′s and 90′s, they’d gain Congress’ ear by taking staffers out to dinner or having fancy parties. But now, staffers aren’t allowed to accept things from lobbyists, which really sucks for the (incredibly underpaid) staffers…and has basically made it such that you have to be independently funded (i.e., your parents are rich) to be a Congressional staffer…and being a staffer is the #1 way to get into more influential positions later. So, by cutting off lobbyists from staffers without compensating staffers, we’ve created a system that kind of sucks and will eventually really screw with the quality of our government. At any rate, yeah, the lobbyists are trying to sell the staffers on something, but every single person we talked to, lobbyists included, noted that staffers, even back in the “good old days”, couldn’t be bought. A staffer can’t force a Congressperson to vote a certain way, and it was rare to come across a Congressperson who could be bought. That is, the scandals were scandals because of their rarity, and they got overexaggerated. What lobbyists do for staffers generally is to help them get briefed on side effects of legislation that they might not understand, to keep the Congressperson from voting for a bill that might not do what (s)he thinks it will do. And, staffers are generally smart enough to take what lobbyists say with a grain of salt. Many DC-ers commented on Obama’s anti-lobbyist policy and said it’s a huge mistake. They said it will end up with him getting less-qualified staff because he’s enacting a rule that eliminates anyone with any real history in DC…as you pretty much go into being a lobbyist when you aren’t working on someone’s campaign, if you’re good at understanding and working the system, have contacts, etc. So, I mention all of that because it seems like it’s still not really understood or well-known.

The class split up to head back to the hotel. Some people wanted to take a cab, and others wanted to enjoy the (now cooler) weather by walking to union station. I ended up leading the walking group back to the station and eventually to the hotel. Along the way to Union Station, we came across a memorial to the Japanese Americans that were held in internment camps during WWII. I formed a quick friendship with the girls I walked with. Their names were Karen and Linda. One was a fan of Amazing Race and the other was a West Wing fan, so we had things to talk about.

We ended up back at the hotel. A bunch of people were going with the instructor to dinner and a night walk around the monuments, but I was tired of walking and tired in general, so I didn’t want to go. Neither did Karen or Linda, so we met separately and had dinner near the hotel. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a Walgreen’s. I wanted to buy a cheapie cup to use for soda at the hotel, and one of them needed a toiletry item. I ended up getting a DC souvenir glass. While looking at souvenirs and postcards (including the one that those of y’all on my postcard list got), I saw lots of camo-print items with a panda on them. I was like, “why are there pandas on DC things?” I had no idea that DC had a National Zoo that had pandas. Apparently, they’re a source of controversy because it costs alot to maintain them. After buying my cup, I went back to the hotel and crashed.

I should note, I had a roommate, who was also nice generally. But, she went to bed late most nights, and I went to bed early. She got up early in the mornings, because she took *hours* to get ready, literally. I woke up at the last minute I could. I don’t know how she exists on so little sleep. Also, she wore 2 inch heels every day. Granted, she took cabs many times that I walked or Metro’d, but still! I’d die if I were her.

The next morning, I met Karen and Linda in the lobby, and we Metro’d to our first stop of the day. We stopped in Union Station for breakfast along the way. Then, we headed to the Dirksen building for the Durbin/Burris town hall meeting. (IL senators have a longstanding tradition of holding a weekly town hall versus holding individual meetings with visiting constituents.) The meeting started with introductions from every group represented at the town hall. Then, they opened it up for questions, and anyone could ask any question. That didn’t mean you got an answer…but you got to ask. The highlights were:

• Burris accidentally introduced Durbin as “the senior citizen” instead of “the senior senator.”
• Burris meant to reference that there’s no intention of death panels for senior citizens, but instead said that there’s no intention of giving the death penalty to senior citizens.

So yeah, generally, Burris was a dolt, and Durbin was impressive. Then, we headed over to the house buildings for meetings there. Congressman Ryan struck me as a balanced and reasonable person, with good and innovative ideas. He also had what I jokingly call iPod nipples when DH has them…that is, he had an iPod Nano with lanyard tucked under his shirt, so that the headphones look like nipples.

You can see the list of people we met with in the post before this one, so I won’t itemize. Suffice it to say, we ran all over the place. I tracked it on Gmap pedometer, and I did around 8 miles of walking that day. I went on the Capitol tour, which sucked. I don’t recommend it. I mean, it’s free, which is nice…but you don’t get to see anything anymore. They’ve shortened it considerably since 9/11. The tour is less than ten minutes long. I really enjoyed meeting with the EPA. The two people who met with us were young and really enthused about what they do.

That night, the class went to a restaurant near the hotel. They had a martini drink that I loved. I had several. We all laughed and told stories, and it was a blast. Some folks stayed out late, but I crashed, as usual.

The next morning, I was awake before my roommate. My plan was to check into my hotel for that night before leaving with the group to go to our first stop of the day. So, I went there first thing. I took a cab, even though it was only a few blocks away. The hotel location was awesome, right around the corner from a Metro stop. Also, I was able to get into my room at 8am, which is amazing. Then, I had another busy day of meetings. The two most interesting were Paula Pfingsten, a member of the press corps, and Grover Norquist, a Conservative leader and author. Norquist was an eloquent speaker, but he started off his bit by saying that the Republican party is the party of freedom and the Democrat party is the party of loss of freedom. He said many other things that bothered me, but that’s just a joke. Neither party is high on my list of defenders of freedom these days, but Republicans are far lower on the totem pole than Dems. So, I began making notes of all the freedoms I could think of that Republicans have either denounced or removed in the past decade or so that Dems have generally supported…you know, like the right to marry, the right to an abortion, freedom of speech to criticize one’s government, free borders (which goes hand in hand with free trade), the right to not have a cellphone company hand over your phone records to the government without a warrant…stuff like that. When Norquist asked for a question, I brought up all of this and asked if he still considers Republicans the party of freedom. His answer, in short, was that government security is important, the only vital mission of a government, and basically implied that rights should be sacrificed for security and/or those rights aren’t important enough. He did not give me a chance for a follow-up.

We ended up having a long lunch break that allowed for sightseeing, due to some cancellations and whatnot. I spent my lunch at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I’d been to it before, but they had a Darwin exhibit that had inspired a smattering of picketers, and that made up my mind for me. I learned that Darwin was an avid beetle collector. I also went through an indoor butterfly garden with hundreds of butterflies flitting about. I saw tents being set up for the National Book Fair and resolved to look up more info about it, to decide whether to make it part of my agenda.

After our speakers finished up and the class finished a wrap-up talk, I had just barely enough time to Metro back to the hotel, change, and then Metro over to Chinatown to join up with my scheduled Segway tour. Though my feet were aching, I signed up for a Segway tour, which means standing in one place for 2-3 hours….’cause I’m brilliant. Anyways, I had tons of fun on the tour. I was one of the few that never took a tumble. Most people fell getting on or off, or they brushed a wheel against something and lost control…or one person didn’t realize she was about to drop off of a curb at the last second and jumped off. During the Segway tour, we saw the president’s helicopter land at the West Wing, which was pretty darn cool. I briefly saw an Obama head. The Segway tour was actually a great way to get the lay of the land before my day of touristing on Saturday. The tour guide recommended a few things that I hadn’t thought of doing but ended up doing, like lunch at the Native American Museum (the newest Smithsonian), the Japanese art exhibit, and seeing the pop culture exhibits at the American History Museum.

I had dinner in Chinatown and then Metro’d back to my hotel to crash. I spent some time on the internet, during which I found that the one author at the book fair that I’d want to see (Gwen Ifill) would be speaking too late for me to do. It was also supposed to be rainy, so I opted for touring the Smithsonian campus rather than doing the National Zoo. I decided to wake naturally instead of an alarm, which worked out fine because I didn’t sleep in much. I got everything packed up and checked my bags with the porter before heading out for the day.

My Saturday was as follows:

• First stop: Freer Gallery – Japanese art exhibit
• Next stop: American History Museum – saw the pop culture exhibits and the musical instruments area
• Next stop: Swung through the book fair – saw one author speaking, didn’t recognize her, got a tote bag and a picture with Bullseye at the Target tent
• Then, I walked along the mall to the Hirschhorn Museum (contemporary art) and sculpture garden – was interesting, but I wasn’t in a mood to contemplate art
• Walked up to the American Indian museum to have lunch – had to wait in line for a half hour to get lunch, mainly because people DO NOT UNDERSTAND BUFFET SERVICE. You do not have to wait in line at a buffet-style service unless the space demands it. In most large buffet setups, you just dart from station to station, like a bee in a garden. I’m so tired of people not getting this. THIS IS WHAT MAKES BUFFETS EFFICIENT, PEOPLE!!! So, anyways, the Mitsitam cafe at the American Indian museum has stations that serve food from each region represented in the museum. You can get South American food, Alaskan food, or lots of others. I got Midwest food. (Hey, I had to eat from my own region!) I had a pulled buffalo sandwich that was dee-lish. It came with Chayote squash slaw, also good. And, I got Fry Bread with Cinnamon and Honey for dessert…yummy! I also got Prickly Pear Agua Fresca to drink, which tasted kind of like watermelon juice. Then, I went upstairs in the museum and wandered around. One of the cool things about this museum is that it’s got all these story stations, which are basically cozy areas around a speaker or TV that has a recording of someone telling a story about American Indian life. I heard stories about how the stars came to be. It was a very cool museum.
• My final stop was the Portrait Gallery. I decided to see if Colbert was still there somewhere. If he was, I couldn’t find him.

After that, I took the Metro out to Reagan International to pick up my rental car. People, do not rent from Enterprise near DCA. First, they’re off-site. Now, I knew that going in…but they have a shelter area that is marked for the Enterprise shuttle that is NOT where the rest of the rental car shuttles go. So, I had to hunt for this special shelter which took awhile. Then, the shuttle driver didn’t even stop at the shelter…he just did a slow roll to see if anyone waved at him. I didn’t, because I was in the shelter with like eight other people, so I figured him stopping was a given. It clearly wasn’t until I flagged him down. When I got to the site, the service was SO slow, and they were overly enthused about the upsell, even after I kept saying I was in a hurry and really didn’t want to upgrade. The girl wanted to give me a ten minute lecture about getting their insurance because it was sprinkling rain. She tried to sound ominous, and I just laughed. I have insurance. I don’t need theirs. Rental car insurance is a rip-off, in part because the only people who get it are the people who need it, if you know what I mean. So, finally, I was on the road back to my hotel to pick up my luggage. Fortunately, my generous tip to the bellhop when I dropped off my luggage paid off (the bags were very heavy), as he was super-speedy in getting it to me, so I tipped generously again ($5 for 2 bags). I ended up with plenty of time to make it to my friend’s concert out in MD that night. I even got to stop for ChickFilA on the way there. Woot!

So then I spent that night and part of the next day with our friends in MD. We played Pillars, and we caught up on things. I had an uneventful drive to the airport and then…more reason to not rent from Enterprise at DCA. They weren’t clearing the returns fast enough, so there was a line backed up out onto the street to get in. I waited 15 minutes just to be able to pull the car into the garage. Then I was standing by it for another 10 minutes waiting on an attendant. Finally, I gave up. I left the keys in the ignition, locked the doors, left the “turn in” copy of my receipt in the car (keeping my copy), photographed every side of the car and the keys in the ignition and then headed out to the airport shuttle just before it left. Then, I called the office and told them where the car was and why I’d left it there. They were friendly about it and admitted to being crowded, but still…it was just lousy service all the way around.

The flight home was uneventful. Oh, yeah, people were stupid at the Midwest Airlines check-in counter. Midwest and Airtran’s counters were right next to each other. Airtran’s “first class only” line was right next to the normal line for Midwest. And then on the far right, Midwest had their “online check-in baggage check” line. So, the normal line was empty, and the online check-in line had 30 people in it. What’s more, there were 3 “check-in luggage” machines, but only one was getting used, though all three were functional. I had checked in online, but this seemed ridiculous. I examined the signs three times, looked at the people in the line and then went through the normal check-in line. While in it, I looked at one of the people in the online line and asked why they were all standing in that line. The man was like, “That line is for first class.” I said, “No, it’s not. The line over there (pointing) is for Airtran’s first class. This is just the normal line…”, I paused and caught the eye of a desk attendant as I walked up to the counter, “…right?” She nodded. I shrugged and checked my bags in at one of the two free machines. I got many dirty looks from the line of people. But, as I see it, politeness only dictates that I inform them of their error, not that I let them go ahead of me once I confirm the error. (And honestly, it’s Midwest’s job to manage their line. One of those attendants should have fixed this problem.)

So, that was my DC trip. Pictures are posted in the gallery, as per the usual way of things.

Wednesday, September 23rd
11:30 – 12:00 – Congressman Kind – 1406 Longworth HOB
12:30 – 1:30 – Neil Hare, President, Global Vision – America Restaurant in Union Station on the 2nd Floor – 50 Massachusetts Ave NE (lunch included)
2:00 – 3:30 – Debra Whitman/Ed Greelegs/ Chris Brown – Staff Director Senate Committee on Aging – Room SDG – 31
4:30 – 5:00 – Steve Palmer at Van Scoyoc and Associates—see www.vsadc.com. 101 Constitution Avenue NW
5:00 – 5:30 – Bill Knapp – 101 Constitution Avenue NW

Thursday, September 24th
8:15 – 9:30 – Town Hall meeting with Senators Durbin and Burris. Russell Office Building Room 385
Walk to
10:00 – 10:30 – Congressman Paul Ryan – 1113 Longworth
10:30 – 11:00 – Congressman Manzullo – 2228 Rayburn House Office Building
11:30 – 12:00 – Congressman Danny Davis – 2159 Rayburn House Office Building
12:30 – 1:30 – Capitol Tour
OR
1:00 – 1:30 – Lieutenant Colonel Luke Knittig – ActionAid Office – 1420 K Street, 9th Floor – Suite 900
1:30 – 2:00 – Tim Kay – ActionAid Office – 1420 K Street, 9th Floor – Suite 900
2:00 – 2:30 – Dan Mendleson – Avalere Health – ActionAid Office – 1420 K Street, 9th Floor – Suite 900
3:00 – 3:45 – Andrea Wilkinson – Director of Federal Government Affairs-Takeda DC –
725 Ninth Street NW Suite 725 (5th floor)
4:00 – 4:30 – Karen Ignagni – President and CEO America’s Health Insurance Plans –
601 Pennsylvania Ave, NW Suite 500 South Building
5:00 – 5:30 – Billy Tauzin, President and CEO of PhRMA – 950 F Street, NW Suite 300
OR
5:00 – 5:30 – Environmental Protection Agency – Mollie Lemon, Stratospheric Protection Division – 1301 Constitution Ave. NW EPA West Building

Friday, September 25th

9:30 – 10:00 – Kristen Hedrow – MPH, Assistant Director of Regulatory Affairs and Quality
Improvement Programs of the American College of Surgeons – ActionAid Office
10:30 – 11:00 – Paula Cruickshank – Washington News Bureau Chief – ActionAid Office
2 – 3pm – Peter O’Driscoll – Executive Director, ActionAid – ActionAid Office
3 – 3:30 – Grover Norquist and Hal Morse – ActionAid Office
3:30pm-5pm – Wrap-up/Conclusions