Early Arrivals

I had a great weekend back home, spending it with my girlfriend and 50 or so closest friends (fraternity bros.) near Grand Rapids. We spent the weekend playing broomball, huddling around a bonfire, and dancing until the music ran out. Getting to Minnesota was quite an adventure. I ended up being just under 12 hours later than I should have been, mostly because US Airways decided to not tell me and 4 other MN-bound passengers that our plane was not going to continue on as originally planned until we landed in Philadelphia. So we got bounced around and ended up going to Milwaukee before making it to my destination very early in the morning, around 4 am.

On the way back I had better luck, the plane was aided by a strong tailwind, allowing me to just make the next flight to D.C., three hours earlier than scheduled, and I was in bed at about the time I should have been leaving Philadelphia, for a total 5 hours of travel, and 6 with the time change.

This morning, I arrived early for work, an hour to be exact. I wish I could just kind of bank in and out my letness, but that was not my intent. My dad called me at seven, to make sure I was awake after a weekend of little sleep, and put me into thinking that I should be to work at 8 am, like I would be in the Central timezone. Well after I realized there was no line to get into my building at 8 am, I remembered when work usually started, and treated myself to a breakfast in our cafeteria.

Today at work I wrote letters to two very important people, the Secretaries of State and Defense, Condoleezza Rice and Robert M. Gates, respectively. I don't think I can go into details about what the letter said, but basically it needed to be perfect, so I printed it like 30 different times as we called and understood the format and content it should have. Another interesting thing is the addresses that Cabinet members have. I have written to Johanns and the DOE Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, and just a name, big building name, and zip code (most buildings have their own zip code for federal departments). We have two hearings coming up this week, on Wednesday and Thursday, so there will again be a herd of press waiting outside our doors nice and early. Then Thursday is a full committee meeting for our budget views and estimates.

It is a little chilly here, but temps look to inch towards 60 by the weekend, which is what I am looking forward to.