Back in Business

It seems like forever since I've last written on this thing. Blogging is habit forming; twice last week I sat down to write, realized I had nothing to write about, and only then did I remember my sabbatical from blogging for the week. After I got rid of the habit, I forgot to start up again yesterday. But I'm back at it...

Last week went pretty quickly, we had very few meetings and were scratching around our office trying to find work to do, even with an hour off each day. But, when the phone rings, we must answer, and when someone knocks, we have to open the door. The nice things about the off week were, number one, casual dress. I could wash everything I had little by little and take suits to the dry-cleaners. Number two was the lack of emergencies. The small amount of time we were wrapped up in something, we were never called away to do something "double time."

This week has been somewhat crazy. Yesterday the Chairman was supposed to be in Morris, but ended up in D.C. because of the weather. There was not too much going on on the house floor, and meetings were few and far in-between (as he had a full day scheduled in MN). We were back in the swing of things though, having enough work that we were looking for something not to do, and trying to balance our heavier workload with meetings and moving around.

While the jump from college to Washington is by no means monumental, the change of scenery, as in my desk, is something I think I am just starting to adjust to. For those of you who know me, I am a pretty large guy. I am close to 6'4" and I am no stick. Living on a farm and playing three sports, I could eat basically as much as I wanted, and I would stay the same weight throughout high school. Then I moved onto college, and after a few months realized I was not quite as active, so I toned down the amount of food I put on my plate (which was actually not good economically because Bailey Hall made you pay $9.00 for every stinking meal, whether you had a salad or a whole turkey). But my lack of activity has come to its highest level since I broke my arm and when I was 3 years old, in the same bed for a month. I went to a reception tonight and was full after just a couple of miniature sandwiches, that's not me, and I don't know if I could let that continue much longer.

I apologize, back to making sense, yesterday evening the fine folks from MARL's Class IV picked me up and took me out to Gadsby's Tavern. MARL stands for Minnesota Ag and Rural Leadership, and from my impression was kind of the who's who of Minnesota Agriculture. While they claimed I was their guest of honor, I was honored to be in their presence. I ran into many people I knew, including a next door neighbor, some old friends and a couple of Alpha Gamma Rho alumni. Be sure to read about everyone in this year's class by clicking on the links at the beginning of the paragraph, because I want you to learn, but also because they decided to embarrass me and give out my blog address last night.

So, while Gadsby's Tavern may sound like a good place up the street to forget about your hard day of work, it could be. But this was not the reason we were there. The place is rather small, yet one of the best restaurants I have ever been to. If you go to their history page, you can learn that this is basically one of the original buildings in Old Town, of Alexandria, VA. This place, minus the electricity, looked like something out of the year 1785 (which it is). The owner also claimed it to be the origin of the meaning of the word "bar", as a tavern. The food was great (a choice of Prime Rib, Chicken or Salmon) and came with a salad and a choice of desserts. The group of 30 invited a couple other Minnesota natives as guests of honor as well. Our table's talking started with politics, but of course with 5 men at one table, ended up by talking Gopher sports as time rolled on. On the way out to Old Town (a 30 minute subway ride) I was destined as the fearless leader, because I "knew" the area the best. Well, what they did not know did not end up hurting them.

Today I was able to attend a presentation by Texas A & M, about the nationwide research they do. Using the NRCS and FSA data, they said they were able to basically tell you what to expect as far as runoff in every 2 digit watershed (i.e. the Upper Mississippi, Missouri, Red River) for phosphorus or nitrogen or whatever else they have data on. That made sense on a national scale. But what I thought was amazing was their ability to look at 4 digit (i.e. small divisions of 2 digit watersheds) or even field by field by matching up your characteristics to their charts. They said they have now finally created a use for the data that we had years ago, and can possibly create a TurboTax-like system, where you plug in different scenarios and are able to see how much run off you will have, including variables like how many acres of which crop, where, and estimated chemical use.

Later today, the MARL group that took me out last night had a meeting in one of our rooms and the new Dean for the College of Food, Agriculture, and the Natural Resource Sciences, Allen Levine, among others, stopped by to talk to our staff. Right before that happened, we had my second ever fire alarm, so both the previously mentioned groups were able to experience the chaos of exiting the building, waiting for the all-clear 30 minutes later (a smokey computer in this case) and then the 15-20 minute wait to get back in.

The evening ended with a reception put on by the National Grain and Feed Association, where I picked up my two mini sandwiches, a couple of quesadillas, an egg roll and a few gingerales (so maybe I had a little more than just two sandwiches).