March 14
Last week was pretty fantastic. Well I had to go home on Monday after the capitol dome tour, and I slept in on Tuesday but I had to come in because I had a tour for the Young family. It was a dad and his two sons, a senior in high school and the other was a college graduate. They responded well to everything I was saying and it ended up being a fun tour for that reason. They seemed to like me well enough. My voice was dying from my cold though, so that wasn’t any good. It was still fun :)
The next day, I saw a lot of people walking around with ash crosses on their foreheads for the catholic Ash Wednesday. It was cool to see so many people showing their devotion to their religion on Capitol Hill. It was almost kind of comforting. Well, I was to help Welchie give a tour to a group of like 15 girl scouts and their parents. It was fun. I would cut in and say things like “has anyone seen Pocahontas 2?” and other little things that little girls can grasp onto and relate. One knew who Minerva is from that movie Percy Jackson.
Well, I had a tour the next morning for the Nicolaysens of Casper. They were all Casper people this week. They were an older couple with their 18-year-old grandson. I guess they have an art museum in Casper named after them. Their grandson is friends with Elisabeth’s younger brother, so she knows them. Anyways, it was another good tour! At one point they were like “oh honey, you need a drink” because my voice had deteriorated to nothing but scratch noise. But it went super well! Mary even gave me a hug after that. I’m glad it went so well.
After that tour, I had to go with Max from Enzi’s office (different from Indian affairs Max), Rob, and Welchie to the Strom Thurman room in the capitol where JB was hosting a VIP lunch and tour after. I headed over with the boys and Rob had me try to open the door to the room but it was locked. I pulled really hard and it made a huge slamming sound and I ran away bright red and Max and Welchie were cracking up. Rob went to try the door right when JB opened it, so I’m hoping it looked like it was Rob that slammed the door, not me. Well JB was hosting a lunch for his high school reunion buddies from PN. He had the PN senator come in and say hi to them. That senator had troubles with the door too so Max had to let him in. it made me feel much better. JB kept offering us food and so I finally obliged. You don’t say no to a Senator! I made myself a huge awesome sandwich but right when I first started eating it, JB said it was time to go.Max and Welchie were laughing at me as my eyes got all big and i started to snarf my sandwich as quick as i could before leaving. Welchie, Rob, Max and i were basically just there as wranglers and to talk to the VIP guests as we walked around. First the senator took them into the old house hall and then to the old senate hall. the old senate hall gets very overcrowded all the time but since the senator was with his group, they could stay in there as long as they wanted. the redcoat tours got turned around in their tracks. i wish i could take the senator with me on all my tours so the big groups don't push me around like they usually do! in the old house hall, one man asked if that was where the whisper effect was and he took his daughters there when they were young and he thought they would be excited if he heard it again for them. i wondered how many of the other tour groups realized that it was the senator with us. one red-coat tour guide was talking about how he loved senator Alan Simpson.
The tour then took a turn for the awesome. The senator took us out on a balcony off the west side of the capitol that people almost never get to go on and i went out there and took pictures for the tour group. After that, the senator took us to the president's room! that's technically the senate floor so lowly interns like me are usually not ever allowed in there! that room was so beautiful in intricately painted. i was dying. Next, he took us to the foreign affairs committee room in the capitol! That room is so intense that you can't post pictures from in on facebook or anywhere because of how insanely protected it is! Barrasso had a name plate drilled into the table where he usually sits, and the lady in there told us where Obama used to sit. There was a kindly-very-old man in there with us and i saw he was wearing a catholic collar so i went and shook his hand. it turns out that that was a real cardinal! i shook hands with a cardinal!!! There was a meeting that was going to go on in like ten min so we had to hurry and get out of there. Right when we were leaving, an ambassador from... somewhere walked right on in and then John Kerry walked right by us! then Barrasso took all of us up to the Republican cloak room where Mitch McConnel walked right on out. JB yelled "Mitch!" and he came on over and talked to everybody. i was so star struck. Rob said that Mitch was rubbing shoulders with him and he wasn't sure if he should move or not. Rob was all "i never thought i would be touching Mitch McConnel today." that was awesome.
JB had to leave so i led the group back to his office where they all chilled and waited for them. i waited with them so i was there to keep them company and get them water and tell them where to go for certain things like a post card. One lady brought their high school yearbook! she showed me some pictures of JB when he was young, and man did he look young! She also showed me some pictures of others in the group. it was so awesome. I guess JB went to a catholic high school but his religion is Presbyterian according to Wikipedia. One man said he knows a pilot from WY. he gave me his card with the guy's phone number on it so i'll write it here.This man's name is G.M. (Mike) Crump (704-707-6969) and he works for US airlines. he knows a guy named Gary Harney who works at the Cody airport. that guy's phone number is (307)250-3173. anyways, if someone knows Gary, that would be really cool. These people all looked so much older than the senator. I wasn't aware how old he really is because he still has nice brown hair. These people were all so nice too. they were asking me about my schooling and talking to me about how beautiful Wyoming is and the like. It was just a fantastic experience in all. i'm so glad i could be here to do things that pretty much no one else gets to do! I'm also so blessed to be from WY where the senators are cool enough to do stuff like that and invite the interns. :)
I can't remember what room this is...
I think this is the President's Room, which civilians aren't normally allowed to be in :)
Senate Reception Room
More president's rom
Max and me in the President's Room
We also took pictures on the foreign relations room, but I'm not allowed to show y'all on here...
On Friday Welchie and i set up a "hair date" at lunch. we both had appointments at noon at this place at bubbles and got our hair cut. My hair stylist was super cute. We chatted the whole time. Liz suggested her and when i told her that, she gave me a five dollar discount! :) Welchie just got a buzz so he got to leave earlier than me. that was fun. Erin had Welchie and me get a signature from Lindsey Graham on a new Health care bill that Erin drafted. Welchie got that and i had to make 98 labels for all the different senators. Welchie made copies of the autographed bills and we stuffed them in 98 different manila envelopes and put the labels i made on them. Then we split them up according to office building so Welchie, Jon and i could go to the three different office buildings and hand them out on Monday. we all got to leave the office at 5 instead of six for some reason so i decided to accompany the boys to the Capitol Hill club again for the first time in like 5 weeks. Man, we stayed there forever, and i def didn't want to stay that long. i was waiting for the boys to get done so they could walk me home. it was kind of boring. oh well. at least i did something social that night.
On Saturday, i hadn't made any plans yet, but my roommates were still home so i went to the botanical gardens with my roommates Michelle and Clare. That was fun. the gardens were pretty cool. they had a rain forest room with a walkway way up in the ceiling so we could walk around the top of the trees. that was really cool. there was also an herb room, orchid room, endangered species room, and so forth. it was fun! We had a good walk back. we walked on the other side of the house side. I'm never over that way so that was really fun to check out. we were walking way east of where we normally are. DC is strange because there are nice neighborhoods intertwined with crappy ones. it's pretty odd. then we got ice cream bars at the corner market. i know the girls at corner market well, now. the younger one that works there asked me if my eyelashes were real once. :) they're cute.
What some really odd looking tree was named.
Just a pretty sunset that I saw after work :)
Orchids or "orchards." I'm so dumb. haha.
Michelle from NY and Clare from UT
Michelle and me
Clare and me being bears like the plants behind us.
The odd tree I referred to in the first picture of this group.
Jessica wasn't here this Sunday, so i had to find my own way to church. i rode the metro green line all the way to the end to get there and i should have left like a half hour earlier. well now i know. It was fun. i talked to a Nigerian who just graduated from BYU so we talked about that for a bit. i think that black people really like me. It was ward conference and the theme is that Jacob scrupture that's something like now is the time to chose what side you are "as for me and my house, we will serve the lord." Bishop was all "now's not the time to "shop" for a spouse! zero in on a girl and pursue her! that's how i got married." I liked that advice. i think the dating around thing should end after a certain age, and these DC kiddos have reached that certain age. It was funny. one guy was saying to date around lots, but i agree with bishop more. Then i was off on my two hour trek home and that was basically it for my sunday.
Now it's Monday at the office. I've been busy running a new proposed health care bill around to all the offices in the Dirksen then i had to do a couple things for Macy. She had this bright idea that it should be me that goes to the office to get more printer paper. I can't even pick up those boxes they are so heavy! i think next time i am going to send welchie or Jon who have both worked construction before. That was a doozy. Now i'm just working the front desk taking phone calls from crazies and people who are not happy about the Dick Durban bill that is going to make Debit cards more expensive. I must say, as far as i know about the bill, i agree with them. Debit cards are a good alternative from credit cards to keep people from going into debt and i don't think they should be made more expensive. Enough WY people are calling in about it that i bet JB will vote against it. I just read that JB started out quite moderate, but now he's like one of the top six most conservative senators out here. interesting.
Welchie took Jon's pile of bills to distribute in Russell and Jon was really mad about that. DRAMA :). i went and ate lunch with the boys, too. Jon told me that his roommate brought home a girl last night and was naughty with her. It really makes me angry because not only are they roommates, they sleep in a bunk bed! i told jon that he better tell his roomy forcefully that next time he better get a hotel. I would be so pissed off. Heck, i'm pissed just thinking about it! How trashy can you be??? That makes me so glad my roommate never came. Jon was then talking about how he gets kind of grossed out when boys are all disrespectful about girls so that made me like jon more. We were then talking about skiing and getting in car wrecks. i guess Jon has been in a lot so we teased him about never getting in the car with him. Welchie was saying all proudly that he's been skiing in the Alps and then i was like "well... so have I!" and jon loved it, haha. It was a fun lunch, though. I also had a good time grossing out jon explaining how i cut my leg shaving and the blood was running down my leg.
March 15
Welchie had to stay late yesterday and i thought it would be me staying late tonight, but I guess jon actually really wants to stay the extra hour because he has reading he needs to do. that's pretty chill because I still have to do some cleaning, laundry, and packing. Jon's pretty cool that way. Yesterday, Welchie was really upset because Safeway charged his debit card twice and he had to get that taken care of. He was about to cry at one point. I figured he could get it fixed. well his bank is filing for fraud so welchie can get his money back. he will just be debit cardless for a few weeks which sucks. But it's like when that girl rear ended me. it sucked, and it was a hassle, but in the end, i got my car back and it was like nothing ever happened to it. That's kind of how it is with welchie. in the end, it will be like nothing even happened. I'm almost glad that rear ending happened because now i see how easy things are to fix as long as you are persistent about fixing it. Next time someone rear ends me, i will know exactly what to do and i won't get so stressed out about it. Hopefully that will carry over to other fixable things like getting charged twice and the like.
Hm, today, as far as i know, i have nothing to do. that's good and bad. i've already looked through everything on Nordstrom's, Macy's, and Dillard's, Betsey Johnson... There's nowhere else to online shop! well there is, but i can't think of anything. I also have done a lot of shoe shopping and jewelry shopping. I guess it's now for i can has cheeseburger again. I am also all caught up on go fug yourself... ai ai ai. failblog! or d*** you autocorrect. (just was trying not to laugh out loud for two hours straight... maybe it's not the best for an office).
I just went to run an errand for JB as instructed by Macy. I always get half instructions, and when something goes wrong, or i ask too many questions, i get in trouble. That's so annoying. well macy had me go meet the Lummis' intern, jessica. Macy told me to go to the end of the Senate trains in the capitol. as i was waiting for the elevators, JB came out of his office and asked if i was going to go meet with his group. I said yes so he had me follow him into the senators only elevator where another senator was already. that was neat. When i told JB where i was to meet Jessica, he thought it was dumb because a house intern would never be able to find the senate train system (i agree... i have no idea where the house train system is...) so he suggested we meet in the rotunda. He called Kathi (his scheduler) and i called Macy. Macy wasn't catching on and i was just like "look, the senator says rotunda, Kathi is on board, why aren't you?" and she thought i meant the senate rotunda which is in the russell building and i was just like "no... like THE rotunda" and she never caught on. Anyways, i talked to Kathi who told me that she set it up so we were meeting in the rotunda. The senator showed me how to get to the rotunda from the Republican cloak room to wait for them. It was really fun walking with the senator, just him and me, through the capitol building. it made me feel official, and no one messes with you when you're with the senator. Well i was waiting there and Welchie was giving a tour so he was all "behind you is a cute redhead who is another intern for senator Barrasso." He told me later that he heard a boy say "yeah, she's cute!" flattering :) but anyways, i waited for a bit, called Kathi, found Erin (health care LA) and Laura (press shop person) and we waited together. Finally Jessica found us and brought the group by. Erin tried to take them to the republican meeting room but we didn't have the right badges for them so we had to take them downstairs to get that for them and while we were down there, the senator found Welchie and asked where we were. well it was all a huge mess. Erin and Laura didn't know what they were doing either. everyone was confused. I kind of complained to Erin about getting half instructions and then being held accountable and she was just like "yeah... welcome to my world!" and it made me feel better. I like Erin. Well, i hope it all worked out. I left when we finally got the people to their room. When i came back, Macy asked if we met in the Senate rotunda and i said that i wasn't even sure where that was (and if I didn't... a house intern would have no clue!) and i was just like "no... like THE rotunda under the dome." and I'm still not sure if she ever got it. well moral is: our office is a bit of a mess.
oh. my. gosh. it's not even three yet... At Least i'm not staying till Seven like i was planing... So I've been up front since before lunch. It's busy up here! I had like 4 lines on hold and then group after group coming in to meet with the senator. Actually... speaking of... The senator asked me if you, parents, were planning on coming to DC. i told him you were to pick me up. He said that he would love to meet with me. SO! you need to call 202-224-6441 and say you want to come meet with the senator at such and such a date and whoever up front will forward you to Kathi, the scheduler. I think you should! it's easy. the senator himself said he would love to meet with you :)
Well like i said, it's crazy up front! well, it's been fun. one crazy man called in wanting to talk to Dan the chief of staff. In a fit of mad spasms, i couldn't get Dan's extension number right for the life of me. I kept trying and then one time, i saw that i got it wrong, and instead of hitting release, i hit transfer, so i transferred him to the wrong person and released. i thought i hung up on him! well for some reason, i would burst into some mad giggles over my mistake for like ten min after.
Hanna
Ps, if you're totally bored, i liked this article from Rawlins :)
What's in a name? Saratoga recognized for motto
By NICHOLAS DEMARINO Rawlins Daily Times
The Associated Press
RAWLINS, Wyo.
After Saratoga's chariot races galloped by in February, Stacy Crimmins thought outside interest in the community would dwindle.By NICHOLAS DEMARINO Rawlins Daily Times
The Associated Press
RAWLINS, Wyo.
"There isn't an upcoming event that drops for a while," said Crimmins, Saratoga/Platte Valley Chamber of Commerce executive director. "February, March and April are definitely our slow time of year."
But an msnbc.com article counting Saratoga's motto, "Where the Trout Leap in Main Street," among the nation's top nine doubled Chamber website traffic from 2,000 unique hits to more than 4,000 recently.
"We've also had an increase in the number of visitor and relocation packets and had website guestbook comments that specifically said they read the article," Crimmins said.
The list of "nine of the best, most enduring and most colorful" slogans also included Eagle Pass, Texas; Yuma, Ariz.; Austin, Texas; Albuquerque, N.M.; Hershey, Pa.; Atlantic City, N.J.; New York and Las Vegas.
You can read contributor Chris Rodell's article, "These city slogans are a mouthful . of something," on msnbc.com's travel section, under destinations and then U.S. & Canada travel. The direct link is http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
Although Saratoga's slogan _ loosely rendered as "Where Trout Leap in the Streets" _ isn't Bill O'Neil's precise 1927 quip in Outdoor Living Magazine, Crimmins said it's not something to lament heavily.
"The real point is our little sleepy town in the middle of Wyoming was compared to places like New York City," she said. "That's what was so exciting about it."
A good slogan expresses an experience that can't be duplicated anywhere.
And according to Eric Swartz _ president of Tagline Guru, a San Mateo, Calif., verbal branding agency _ Saratoga's "Where the Trout Leap in Main Street" does even more than that.
"I think it's very fanciful, has a lot of whimsy and it's very visual," Swartz said. "It's totally unique _ no one's got anything that's even close to that."
It seems Swartz would know. Five years before being consulted for the msnbc.com article, he created a list of the top 50 U.S. mottos and monikers from an initial pool of 1,200. Saratoga placed 40th.
"Towns and cities have to decide what their appeal is and who they want to be in the eyes of the rest of the world," Swartz said, adding, "And if you say, `Hey, we've got great outdoor attractions,' then nature is going to be the nature of your appeal."
Crimmins concurred.
"Historically Saratoga wouldn't have been a community if it weren't for the hot springs, the river and the mountains being so close," she said. "The combination of those three resources has definitely shaped the community."
And although the Chamber has already made an attempt to stress recreation in the area _ they represent the "Good Times Valley!" _ Crimmins said branding efforts could be expanded.
"Looking at our website and the town's website, I realized it's probably not used as often as it should be," she said.
And although the community has a lot to offer, especially considering its 2005-09 U.S. Census population estimate of 1,615, give or take 229, Crimmins said tourism is still the number one draw.
"Whenever I'm doing marketing outside the community, I really do emphasize tourism, because obviously that's what gets people here in the first place," Crimmins said. "A lot of people who relocate to the area say they vacationed here first."
No comments:
Post a Comment