Mr. Dungan Goes to Washington

Long Time, No Talk

And so it goes, once again, that I fail to update for nearly a week. Sigh.

This last week has been a good one though. Perhaps we can chalk up my lack of updates to the sheer awesomeness that was this last week? OK, it might not have been that great...but I did have a good time.

The work was more of the same: talking to schools and organizations about Mike coming to visit. I'd like to think that I'm really starting to get the pitch down seeing as I'm getting to the point that I don't tense up when I hit the send button on my emails requesting that folks consider Mike as a speaker. Whether this is due to an increase in my ability to sound convincing, or merely a growing numbness to rejection, I still welcome the comfort level.

I am,however, growing frustrated at the number of people who don't respond. While some school groups such as the Young Dems at USC just haven't updated their websites in a long time (it still has Clinton/Gore propaganda...) other student groups just don't feel the need to even drop me a polite "no thank you". I understand that school is busy and if you're not interested in having Mike come and talk to your group, but the least you can do is write a one sentence response...

Luckily, I have gotten a few events booked (i.e. the UNL one I spoke about) and am currently working on more. (To answer your question Kathy, it doesn't appear that Mike will be in the Nashville area...so sorry!)

I have had some good experiences outside of the work sphere in this last week too. Len came down on Saturday and we took a drive out to the Udvar-Hazy Center by Dulles Airport. It's sort of like an extension of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. Simply put, it was incredible. Unlike the other Air & Space Museum, it was actually built as an enormous hanger where they can keep mass amounts of planes, helicopters, and assorted other vehicles year round. And I'm not talking about a Cessna here, and a hang glider there. This hanger has in it the prototype for the Boeing 707, an SR-71 Black Bird, a space shuttle, a Concord, and the Enola Gay. A trip that I expected to take only an hour, ended up taking about 3.5 hours and I enjoyed every minute of it. Had Len not have gone with me, however, I'm sure I would have appreciated it far less than I did. It was nice to not only see all of this with someone else who appreciated it, but could answer any question I asked in full.

Here are a few pictures of the place thanks to Len:



On Sunday, my roommate and I went to Mt. Vernon, which was equally impressive. What I expected to be just a house and maybe a visitor's center was actually acres and acres of gorgeous land open to the public to walk around. Not only was it really intense to walk where you knew George Washington had lived, but they had his tomb open for the public to see which was equally impressive.

Oh yes, and I saw his dentures. Cool.

Coming up this weekend I will be heading to New York with Gina (who is coming to visit tomorrow) for the Young Democrats of America winter conference. I'm looking forward to getting out of DC for a while, and hopefully attending some interesting seminars while I'm there.

And in case you were wondering, or if there was any doubt in your mind, the Kansas GOP is ridiculous. Right now they are essentially blackmailing Governor Sebelius by not allowing her to pay state employees (any of them) unless she approves a bill that has worked it's way onto her desk. I knew that they were desperate for attention, but to actually affect that many individuals in such a negative way is downright criminal.

Also, I'm glad that the Stimulus was finally signed today. I'm still worried, but any concern I have over the stimulus is fueled by my concern that the package is too small. I wish that someone would sit down congressional Republicans and explain to them that not only are they holding back economic recovery, but they're not even listening to those within their own party.

Hopefully NYC is enjoyable, and I'll be able to update on the road.

I'll try to get some pictures of Mount Vernon up soon, so keep an eye out for them.

posted by gdungan @ 5:35 PM