Feb 22 1

I had been focused on updating my blog, and now I can’t quite remember when I last wrote. I think it was Monday, but I can’t be sure.  I’ve been back to doing nothing really, although yesterday was quite the day! Kelsey and I had CHIP training from 9-1. CHIP training is training for giving tours so that I can officially give tours at the capitol all by myself. Kelsey and I had a lot of fun, although the training was a bit of a bore. At first, they were telling us that in case of an emergency, we need to follow exit signs.  That was very helpful advice… But they did talk a lot about disabled constituents that we might have with us and what we are to do with them. That was, in fact, very helpful. The enclosed stairwells in the capitol are over pressurized with fresh air and two hours safe from a heavy fire. It all just seems so intense.

After that, a redcoat guy gave us a tour. The red coats give people who don’t have staff led tours. He wasn’t very helpful at all. I took up my time with a bit of people watching. There was this one girl who was pretty trendy. She was wearing trendy everything and trendy hair and had a coach bag. She was trendy in the severe kind of sense, like in all black and in all black. Anyhow, she found the gorgeous guy that was in our little group… maybe they found each other. They said high at first, and then didn’t talk the rest of the time and she pretty much just followed him everywhere. He was ok with it. I mean, she was really pretty. It was just funny and really awkward. Finally by the end of the tour, she was all ‘so… what’s your name?” anyways, that wasn’t very interesting. That’s just another boring thing that I try to entertain myself with during office hours. But I think that guy wanted to talk with Kelsey and me. We were giggling the whole time and just having a good time.

We had to give 3 minute parts of the tour each. I feel like I did a pretty good job at my portion. Everyone laughed at me when I talked about how John Quincy Adams passed out on his desk, and then died in some room where the couch he died on is still there. They all know about that incident, but I think I must have said it funny. At least I was more interesting than other kids. But the room with the couch J.Q. Adams died on is only used by women of the house of reps. No one else is allowed in there! I think that’s pretty wild.

On our way back to the office, I noticed that I got a half hour old text from Macy saying that John Barrasso wanted to go to lunch with us interns and we were to go to the office ASAP. We were a little worried and a little annoyed just kind of thinking “didn’t they know we would be at CHIP training?” we got back to the office and Macy frantically told us to go to the Senate Dining room in the Capitol to meet with the senator. Well we got there before the boys even ordered food, at least. The Senate Dining room is only for current and former Senators and senator wives and their guests. Barrasso pointed out to us John Glenn JR, the first American to orbit the earth! He is a former senator of Ohio. That was really cool to see.

I ordered a veggi Panini. I figured a Panini would be easy to eat. Well, in fact, a giant bun full of juicy juicy veggies was placed in front of me and I was like “how in the world am I supposed to eat this??” so I avoided it while I could, but then Barrasso said something about it, and I said I was a little afraid to bite into it in case it exploded everywhere so he joked “are you going to get a box and then eat it in a dark room after?” so I started eating it. And it was messy. Jon was eating his hamburger with a fork and knife which made me giggle. He was struggling. Welchie just attacked his hamburger saying that he didn’t have any manners no matter the situation, which apparently Barrasso muttered under his breath that that seemed to be true.

JB (as they call senator Barrasso) asked us all to tell a little about ourselves. I kind of hate that question here, because honestly,  I don’t have great career aspirations for myself, and everyone else here really does. I just basically said that I go to BYU, majoring in European studies, and I would maybe either like working for the Department of State or Department of Defense as a civilian but that I still don’t really know and am trying to figure it out. I also hate that question here because Welchie majorly steels my thunder on that note. He basically wants to do the exact same thing as me and work at an embassy abroad.   Max apparently wants to work on a campaign for the upcoming elections and he says that he ideally wants to work for Jon Huntsman who he got to know when he went to Utah State. Barrasso was talking about how there’s brackets, and that one is for wealthy Mormon men, lol. Other brackets include the Tea Partiers, and former governors and former Senate men, I guess.  It would be really interesting if the GOP race was between two Mormon guys in the end.  I just hope it’s not that Huckabee bible-belt guy.

 The floor was then open for discussion after that when everyone else was done telling about themselves. Kelsey and I were ready to have casual discussion but the boys decided to talk about policy. Pretty much every time that either Jon or Welchie opened their mouths, Kelsey and I would exchange looks. Jon ran by Welchie and me one time that he thought we should raise taxes really high for a short amount of time and just pay off the debt soon that way so that he “wouldn’t have to pay for our debt.” Welchie and I both told him how stupid that idea was and that that would mean that we would end up paying for all of it at once if we did that. Anyways, he ran that idea across JB and Welchie and I exchanged glances like “oh no, not this again.” Jon also has a slight difficulty getting his ideas across sometimes. I can relate to that because I have that difficulty a lot. The only thing I mentioned to JB was when we were talking about the health care and I brought up how dad talks about it comparing it to military care and such and JB agreed. He said that there are so many surgeons who are threatening to retire if Obamacare really does go through. He said that people would be like “I have the right to health care!” but the problem would be where will they get their health care from? There will be fewer places, longer lines, and less quality. I find that pretty wild that people aren’t thinking about that problem. Kelsey asked how Barrasso went from being in Pennsylvania to Wyoming. JB basically answered that as a surgeon, he can make money anywhere, so why not go somewhere he loves? It’s true. In Wyoming, it’s super hard to start a way legit business in WY and make a lot of money there. A doctor can make money anywhere, though. He had to leave early, but he invited us to order desert and take our time at lunch.

We ordered our desert. I had a black forest cheese cake which was really good! Jon asked our server if he could take pictures of us there. The server was really chill about it and took like five, and then had us stand up for a picture. We thanked him for his service and he said “I like senator Barrasso. He treats m well. I’ll give good service to his crew.” :)

The pictures at JB's lunch that the server took for us. (we giggle that i look like a little kid in these pictures)

I just ran an errand for Kathi, JB’s scheduler.  I had to buy highball glasses from the senate gift shop, get them packaged, make a label, and send it off from the post office. That was kind of fun. Kathi is a fun person, too. She’s pretty nice and funny. I came in to get the credit card from Kathi and she said “oh I see it in your eye, you want to go shopping!” Max was in there for some reason so I said a quick hi and made him green with my mindless task.

Northwest College had to cancel a trip to Egypt and is now going to Greece instead. I’m starting to wish I had done a photography program at Northwest. That sounds like fun! I don’t think Jamison gets to go on as many trips with BYU’s photography group as the Northwest photography students go on! And I wish I had done something more artsy and hands on. I still have my whole life to do some really fun stuff, though. I would like to take up painting… just as a past time. It’s probably too expensive to have as a hobby though.

I’m back to looking at phones and back to just wanting a simple original keypad. The Samsung Convoy looks pretty good. Paying for web service on your phone adds about another 10-30 bucks a month, so I’m thinking it’s not worth it. And, unless one can find a way to use an original keypad on the touch screen instead of a keyboard, that idea is dead. The CDM8975 is alright too. Bad picture quality, though. I think I’ll get the Convoy. I’m such an old lady :) I also lament that they don’t make cool flip phones with normal keypads anymore. Maybe that trend will come back? Anyways, enough of this boring phone talk! Trying to be thrifty just got me thinking about it.

I like the train to the capitol building. If I look out the front, it feels like I’m on a crappy Disney ride. And I learned today about a Mark Winzenried who was an Olympic runner.

Feb 11

Today, I had a bit of a hold up at the metal detector going into work. It ended up being my necklace. The guards said it couldn’t be so, but I had nothing else on me. Well it was under my giant scarf, so that was hard. And then It got stuck in my hair! So I was standing there trying to untangle/rip my necklace out of my hair and everyone had to walk past me. One bro was like “it’s just her necklace, can’t you let her go through? Oh, now it’s stuck in her hair.” And one lady asked if she could help get my necklace loose but she had already gone through and it was a mess, but kind of funny. I’m pretty sure I was bright red.

Today I had a tour. They came pretty late so we were going to miss the movie. I thought it was going to be just me and the lady I was giving a tour for, but three doods arrived with her. I was down. They looked pretty stern and official, but they ended up being really nice. She and her spouse were from Rock Springs and the other guys work here I believe. One complimented my Puma flats saying “those shoes have got it going on! Are you a ballerina too?” to which I laughed and told him how my big sister was, and I have another big sister who played rugby for BYU, and  I was in-between and played tennis. We were all having a good time chatting and walking to the russel train only to find out that the capitol visitors center had been evacuated because of a suspicious package! I didn’t have a backup plan, so I decided to show them the senate gift shop and see if they would be ready after we were done with that. It was not so. We talked about my schooling and they found out I was European Studies and they exclaimed that I need to go to law school or get my masters for that. Yucky. Maybe later. One guy has a daughter in the air force so I talked about dad being in the air force, and he said his sister in law was in the second graduating class for women in the academe. One guy was asking me about housing because his son might do an internship for his congressman in CO. I said I was in WISH housing, but his son could live with him and just take the metro to work. Well it wasn’t meant to be because when we went to check again, it was still closed and they said it prob would be. It was too bad, but at least the folks were so nice.

I got an email from Macy saying that there was cake in the conference room. I guess one of the security guards has a crush on Faith and he has remembered her birthday and given her a card for that and for Christmas every year. She told me not to talk to him too much.

Shae brought his fluffy cute dog to work tonight. He is bounding across the office. Brad doesn’t like the dog, but he’s cute and social. The other day Kelsey and I saw some middle aged bigger guy walking a fluffy white tiny dog through the capitol building! I like how the capitol is dog friendly. At least for the people working here. It’s pretty awesome.