Mr. Dungan Goes to Washington

Snowboarding and such

This last weekend was one of the best that I have had in a long time. After a rather low-key Friday in the office that consisted of emails and reading, I came home, packed up my laundry, and took off to go see my Uncle Len in Delaware.

It was only about a 2 hour drive, and to tell you the truth it felt really nice to get out on the road and go somewhere. One thing I did notice that was ridiculous were the excessive tolls that I had to pay on the way out there. It was, literally, 15 dollars on a trip that wasn't even 2 hours. Besides that it was a really easy drive and I had little trouble getting there.

After I arrived Len and I just kind of sat around and chatted for most of the night. It is really nice to have someone up here who is not just family, but really feels more like a friend. We stayed up pretty late, and decided that the next day we would wake up late and head up to Camelback in PA to go skiing/snowboarding.

The snowboarding, let me tell you, was great. Granted, I fell quite a bit, and I am rather sore today, but it was really fun. I took a lesson and after learning how to stand-up, stop, and turn I feel comfortable enough about it that I am really looking forward to doing it again. There's no point in taking the lesson once and then just dropping it, so my goal is that by the time I leave DC I am able to say I can "snowboard" and mean that I can do it without going down the mountain on my hands and knees.

Coming back from Camelback, Len and I drove to my Grandma and Grandpa (Dungan)'s house (which was about half of the way to his place) and had dinner with them. It was really wonderful to see them both again. Given that they live in PA and I'm always in the midwest, it is hard to see them frequently, so it was great to sit and talk with them for a while. Plus, Grandma was great and made me a cake, so that's always a plus.

On Sunday Len helped me a bit with my car (It was leaking water into the passenger side whenever it got wet...no good...) and showed me some cool stuff about how the car actually worked. Once again, it was nice to just spend some time with him and hang out with some people outside of the program for a while.

So, that takes me to today. Adam, Mike, and Carla from my office are all in New York for an event, so it was a very laid back day for me and Phil. In fact, I got to leave around 2 pm. That really made my day. With the time off, I decided to check out the museum of American history, and that was incredible. I actually got to see the flag that Francis Scott Key was looking at when he was inspired to write the Star Spangled Banner. I know that it might sound nerdy, but I was completely enamored with it. Just feeling that sort of historical presence was amazing.

So that catches everyone up. I really have got to start doing this nightly seeing as I am not a fan of just writing "I did this....then this...then this..." kind of posts. I like keeping you all up to date, but also being able to just talk about random things, as well as share my opinions. Hopefully I'll get better about this soon...

One cool thing that did happen during work was that I was able to watch the town hall style meeting that President Obama held to talk about the stimulus bill. I thought the entire thing was brilliant. There was no screening of the questions so it felt natural, and he was actually answering the majority of the questions with (somewhat) straight forward answers. I think the President plays so well in those kind of situations that it might be the best way for him to get his message across to people about what needs to be done.

Along those lines, I am watching his press conference as I type this, and am enjoying it for the most part. I wish that he had straight up said "yes, I will overturn the policy banning media from covering the bodies of soldiers who are killed overseas as they fly back into the states". I 100% agree that it is shameful for us to just slide them in without letting anyone know what is going on. People need to a.) see the men and women who have died over there, and b.) realize that this ridiculous war in Iraq is affecting people every single day whether or not we know it. Hiding the bodies as they come off of those planes is like trying to convince us that nothing is really wrong. It really, really bothers me.

That is about all I have for now.

KU is playing Missou tonight...so, go Jayhawks.

Hope you're all well. I miss you.

posted by gdungan @ 8:17 PM