My Mind: Lifesized

Friday night was a blast but it made the 6:15 AM wake up call come too early. My Government Affairs Committee meeting began promptly at 7:30 AM, and since they paid the bill I was obliged to be on time. The association's Washington offices are two blocks from the White House so I was anxious to see if there was a good view. At least that is what I was thinking as I said hello to the Indian man who passed me walking briskly. He hesitated at the corner and asked if I was heading to 1717 North Pennsylvania and we were happy to discover we were both headed to the same meeting and so we shared good conversation along the rest of the walk. I soon discovered that he emigrated to the US a decade ago but decided not to jump through the hoops that were necessary in order to continue practicing medicine and had instead gone back into health care administration. His son is a 4 th year medical student in Washington so he visits regularly. I got some good recommendations for authentic Ind...

Friday morning I was nervous as all get out...I had two meetings scheduled on the hill, one with a senior Senate Finance Committee staff member and the other with a staff person from Senator Max Baucus's office. Even though I kept telling myself the meetings would be a breeze, my stomach and nerves weren't so convinced. I took the Metro from the Foggy Bottom station (1/2 block from our hotel), switched at the Metro Center and popped out at Union Station. The sun was shining and I suddenly felt some confidence in my bones. I arrived about 4 minutes late to my first meeting but managed to smooth over the receptionist and front staff. I was supposed to have 15 minutes to share my thoughts on health reform, as luck would have it, I got 40 minutes. We had alively discussion and I left feeling quite good. I navigated my way to the Russell Senate building and was pleasantly surprised at how welcoming Senator Baucus's staff were and how friendly the atmosphere was...there is ...

In November I was notified I'd been selected to be a member of the Government Affairs Committee of my industry association. Pretty cool for me from both a business perspective and personal interest angle. Later that month I was told that duie to the impending change in administrations, they had decided to move the meeting from May to January and from Chicago to the Washington DC offices! Woo hoo. Unfortunately, plane fares and the meeting schedule prohibited me from combining it with witnessing the inauguration, nonetheless I was quite excited. To make matters even better, Jen had never been to DC so we decided to make a small vacation out of it and she came along. My Mom & Dad agreed to come visit and watch Liam for us, giving us our very first opportunity to ever spend this much time together alone as a couple...but that is another story all in itself. So here we are, enjoying the wonder, splendor, bustle and hustle (and incredibly cold winds) of our nations Capitol. We ar...

Jen's sister is visiting us with her two kids Jack(4) and Evan (3). Last night we had Jen and our three (9, 6, 2), Nancy (her sister) and her two, their friend Vicki and her two (6, 4), Jen & Nancy's Mom and their niece all over at the house. It was chaos in grand proportion. Luckily for me, I'm sick. And sick enough to justify saying I needed to get the h-e-double sticks out of the house. So I did something I haven't done in about three years...I went to a movie. It was between Defiance and Gran Torino so I asked the cute girl at the ticket counter for her advice. Without hesitation she said Gran Torino and I am glad I took her advice. I dropped 8 bones on the movie (what the hell is that all about?) so opted to skip on the small bag of popcorn for $5.75. I now understand how Jen spent $55 last month taking 5 kids to the movies! Clint Eastwood is a bad ass who happens to make great movies. i've always been a fan...I even like the flick where had the pet orangut...