The A-Team

Or something like that, anyway...

Dave, Downey, Wegman, and me -

Our last night all together in Alexandria. It was a hell of a semester - cheers! 

Laura - Superstar

Unfortunately, the video is very dark, but perhaps you can distinguish that Laura is playing air guitar, singing, and also showing us exactly how one is supposed to dance to "Don't Stop Believin". She then implores me to "take the fucking picture!" - quite unaware she was being filmed. It's not easy to pull off the duties of Neil Schon and Steve Perry in 44 seconds, but she does it. A masterful performance.

A Fond Farewell

Paul S, me, Laura, Jeohn, Teya, Rob, Sonya, Katie D


 

Union Pub III

Jeohn's the man - he gave me his business card last night to prove it.





I actually met Dominic on a tram in Prague during Eurosim. He was part of the Brockport delegation. I can't remember now if we knew we'd be seeing each other down in DC a few weeks later, but we did. He worked for the Democratic Steering Committee, and apprently talked with Russ Feingold for a while yesterday, as well as getting yelled at by Senator Mikulski earlier inthe semester.

Dom's a great guy to have a lot of different types of conversations with, and there was ample time for that during the commuting we had to do every Monday through Thursday. He's every bit as sarcastic as I am, which is entertaining. 

Union Pub II

Pictured here with Paul S and Rob R. Rob is a staffer in the Press office and was an intern last year. Rob was really cool with me and very helpful while I was down here. He broke a minor taboo by associating with the interns and came to most of our post-work get-togethers.


Georgia and me. Unfortunately for her, I'm not skilled enough to remove that shine on her forehead. A very pretty girl and a very interesting person...


Me with Carly and Paul. 

Last Happy Hour at Union Pub (Unless I Return to DC)

Katie D worked in our office and was a pretty dependable regular for the Union Pub Wednesdays. Katie was a fun girl, and unfortunately I never got a chance to chill out to Pink Floyd with her like we planned.



This was one of those rare pictures that you take of yourself and it turns out well. I feel like Laura and I finally confirmed some previously unconfirmed notions last evening. All too late though. C'est impossible? C'est la vie...


The cheeks got pretty rosy pretty quickly last night with nothing to eat and quite a few beers to drink. You can see that clearly here. Paul was a really good guy I talked to quite a bit. He's traveled all over. He worked in Feingold's office with Carly and Georgia, who you'll probably see in the next batch of pictures. He also worked with another cool girl named Jill, although Jill didn't show last night. 

JKP

This one's for KP. 

Gatemouth Brown at the Smithsonian - American History

This was taken at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I didn't take a lot of pictures in the museum, but this one is of Clarence Gatemouth Brown, whom I saw perform at the Leadbelly Tribute show in Cleveland on Novemeber 7, 2004 - apparently a year before his death. He played guitar and fiddle and switched between them during the song I saw him play. Very impressive guy. 

Segway Traffic

Look past the guy and you'll see multiple people on 'Segways'; there were about a dozen of them that passed us. I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to get all of them in the shot. 

One More of the Capitol

 

Supreme Court

 

What I Did This Semester

This is our shared collection of souvenirs from the semester. They represent what was consumed by the residents of H-410 during the last three months or so.

Note: The Natty Ice, Mickey's, and Schlitz were most assuredly not mine. 

Laura, Me outside the Capitol

Laura's going back to Chicago soon, but we both wanted to get a lot of pictures taken in the time we had left down here in DC. 

Girls & Squirrels

Laura left our office a couple weeks ago. She was our legal intern, and will have her JD in a matter of weeks. She's getting her law degree and I'm finally getting my BA. We're about the same age. Makes me feel great. She's going to be making over 100K soon, and I'm looking around for 30.

Anyway, she came back for a bit today and we took off for a while around the Capitol to get some pictures. 

Outside Dirksen

 

Brumidi Corridors

 

Original House of Representatives

The House was originally in the Capitol, as you might know. As the Union expanded, there was simply no room to house all the Reps. The room is also known as Statuary Hall...not Statutory Hall, as one of my fellow interns once said...

Anyway, each of the states gets to donate two statues, and many of them are housed here.

There is a plaque on the floor to mark the seat location of every Representative who later became President. 

Inside the Capitol Dome

You can see Constantino Brumidi's masterpiece, The Apotheosis of George Washington, as well as what's known as the Frieze of American History, which was begun by Brumidi but finished by two other artists. This was the last thing that Brumidi painted; he fell from the scaffolding and lived on for three months before finally perishing from the complications of the fall. Yep, I only know this because I gave about thirty tours of the Capitol and had to repeat it over and over.

Original Senate Chamber