Your Taxe Dollars at Work, Thanks!!

Your Tax Dollars at Work!
I’m safely arrived in D.C. Let me tell you, your tax dollars are at work this week, and I’m enjoying it! I arrived yesterday around 2 PM. I headed to the hotel and met up with my sister there. Let me tell you, my hotel is SWANKY! The Hotel Palomar (http://www.hotelpalomar-dc.com/) is located in DuPont Circle. It is definitely Fancy Pants. The place is super fine. The hotel has Free wine and beer and tapanade from 5-7. They also have a free coffee and tea in the morning. For a big city like DC, this is about as good as it gets. You don’t get free stuff at these types of conferences – so any meal savers are happies. Plus, you know you are swank city when the soaps and lotions in the bathroom are L’Occitaine of Provence!

I ate lunch with Katie Grace, and went over to her store. It is about 3 blocks from my hotel. I got fitted for new running shoes, and got a good discount! Yay for that. Then, Kate had to start doing inventory, so I left. She was doing shoe inventory until late, and then was supposed to be at work at 6AM today, so she stayed with me. I went up to the conference hotel to get my week started. I wasn’t sure if I would be doing much of anything, but the TRB fates intervened. I was headed to the UT Austin Hospitality room when I ran into my friend Dennis from my M.S. at UT. We sat in the bar with his co-worker Dave, and we caught up. I was about to go to the ARA hospitality suite when I ran into my boss. We had a few moments chat, and then I did hit the ARA hospitality suite. While there I was able to catch up and do some schmoozing, then I got to meet up with the U of I kids! I miss them!!! My Airport Chick, Carrie was there – we were the best team ever! We started and finished a complete semester project in the course of about 3 days, during finals week. I also got to see Creepy Bob – my Ex-officemate. Bob is the Token White Boy in his part of the department, literally. I think that after 6 months together I have status as a full friend of his. Minnesota Matt, my friend who also knows all aboot how to show the structural kids that we are just as good as them, except that we are actually better than them. Amanda gave me some good news – the professors don’t’ have a clue about what my QE will be about. It was good to see the posse! We went to this cool place, the Brickskeller, which had 500+ different beers (http://www.lovethebeer.com/brickskeller.html). When we decided to call it a night we headed toward the Circle, and I realized that we were actually around the corner from my hotel. Excellent choice!!

Yesterday, I gave my presentation and hit some committee meetings. It was rather lame, but good. I skipped the conference stuff this evening, and then I met up with Katie Grace. We went over to Georgetown for dinner. It is definitely a cool area. There are a million shops, both expensive and cool boutiques. We ate this awesome Italian restaurant, Papa-Razzi (http://www.georgetowndc.com/mapit/86). I had this delicious chicken with proscuito, fontina cheese, mushrooms, and a marsala sauce. The portion was huge, and I couldn’t finish it if I tried. Kate had a fabulous farfalle with chicken and broccoli in a olive oil and garlic sauce. We even sprung for desert – cream puffs filled with gelato instead of cream. Super Yum. And, not at all a bad price – I paid almost as much for my chicken kabob lunch at the Afgani Café, and that didn’t include desert and had slow, poor service.

I'm too exhausted to summarize today's events - I'll leave that for another day.