Wall - E

It is always weird to look out your living room window to see this:

Yup, that a wall being erected in our parking lot. When in doubt wall it in - but make sure you leave window holes.

My initial thought was, "Hey someone's building a Mardi Gras float in our parking lot." But I was wrong. C's initial thought was, "I hope I didn't park over there" (she had to leave for school). For once C was thankful to have a terrible parking spot - well away from the wall.

It turns out this wall isn't for a MG float, but its the new facade for the 10th floor of the building. They've delivered a few more since this day and now the side of the building is starting to look like a graveyard for wall segments. Odd? Yes. Interesting? Not really.

Inauguration with 4th Graders...

While M was off celebrating at the actual Inauguration, someone had to go to work - yes, that would be me. Although I have been dreading the day for weeks it turned out to be a wonderful day. I had 12 out of my 19 students - the upper school had a whopping 50 out of 750 students, CRAZY! We began our day putting our desks in one big table that we referred to as the dining room table, we talked about rituals at Morning Meeting, we moved on to some fun with presidential math where we compared the weather of all of the president's Inauguration days using our knowledge of minimum, maximum, range, mode, median and mean. We talked about rituals and took a look at LBJ's journal notes from his Inauguration Day that we turned into skits - they had a blast and I have realized that I will be providing more opportunities in class for them to create skits...they LOVED it! After an indoor recess because it was to darn cold to go outside, all of the 4th graders gathered in the cafeteria to watch the Inauguration. To watch my children staring, mesmerized at the screen was something I will never forget as I got to sit next to my colleagues. What I felt was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day because every other school appeared to be closed in the DC area and I had to go to work and was not able to go to the Inauguration festivities turned out to be a most spectacular day. And to top it off my friend T and I hit NO traffic, that's right - NO TRAFFIC! After dropping T off after school (by the way we got to leave early, a perk of working a dual curriculum school and teaching in the mornings on Tuesday's) I was on my way to lululemon to watch the parade with my girls, but who do I spy on my way - M of course! I picked him up, we popped in the store and then made our way home where we camped out on the couch and spent the afternoon watching the parade. It has been a day that I will never forget and I look forward in watching Obama lead our Country!

Inauguration Mania!

C & I had a great long weekend…so great we may need another long weekend to recover. Our inauguration started off on Sunday with the kick-off concert. It was packed by the time we arrived; so crowded that we were in a mass of people a mile a way from the Lincoln Memorial (we ended up on the Washington Monument). For more pics of our crazy concert, click here.

C & I in the crowds by the Washington Monument

Obama & Lionel Richie on the jumbo-tron

Today was, as you know inauguration day, and yesterday D (my brother) and K (his g-friend), along with C, were able to scrounge up tickets to stand in the Silver section – a mere 3-4 blocks from the Capitol.

Knowing that the crowds would be HUGE, I left our apartment with ticket in-hand at 7:20. I walked to the nearby metro station, went down the escalator and BAM…there was a HUGE crowd of people waiting to go down to the train platform. Because there were too many people on the train this early in the morning, they shut down all of the metro stations in Arlington. Good for the people way out in the ‘burbs, but lousy for me.

After failing to get on the metro, I went to the nearby bus stop. However, after 15 minutes of waiting and watching 4 full buses drive by, I decided I would walk to the capitol. After 5 miles of walking, a beautiful sunrise, an hour and a bazillion people later, I arrived at the silver zone (the standing section where my ticket was good for). Not surprisingly, the silver zone was more crowded than the full buses that passed me in arlington. Eventually, I settled in and found a great spot (see below) on the backside of the Capitol reflecting pond with which to view the inauguration.

Sunrise on the frozen Potomac | My spot

Well after waiting a couple of hours, the inauguration began…and while I didn’t vote for Obama, it was well worth the walk and wait to be there. It was great to be in such a large, yet positive, crowd of people. I was joking with the guy next to me that I’ve never been in a big crowd where everyone was happy to be there – usually the only big crowds I’m in are at sporting events and typically half the people there are grouchy their team’s losing while the other half are intoxicated. Regardless, it was a great time. You can check out some of the photos below, or see them all here

M from his viewing spot | The view from my spot

Me, Ice skating on the frozen reflecting pond

Guess Who's Coming to Town?

When C & I moved to DC, we hoped to meet and interact with all sorts of cool people and Washington-Big-Shots.

Thursday was no exception, Former-Senator Jim Talent (of all people) was speaking on campus about WMD's and terrorist. Evidently he & Bob Graham (former Senator from FL) chaired "The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation & Terrorism." The Commission, a Congressionally appointed follow-up to the 9-11 Commission, just issued its report & G-town brought him to campus to speak about it.

I found it humorous that halfway across the country I still see the same big shots. It was good to see him again, although I did not get the opportunity to chat with him - had to leave for class. After all, Jimmy T was one of my professors at WU, helped get me my first job and subsequently offered me a position in his Senate office. Here's the photo (I sat in the back):


In other news, I will be assisting a professor with research this semester. For 5 hours per week I will be looking up information on product recalls and the Consumer Protection Commission. Then I will likely be helping do some number crunching to determine how businesses price the costs of product recalls (the professor specializes in managerial accounting).

First Day of School...Again

After a lengthy winter break (w/C's parents and 5 days in FL - pics coming soon), today is C and my first day of school, again. The break and holidays were good (we did lots - stories coming with the pics); however, they may have been too good. It feels like I haven't been in school for months (or longer) - I fear I'll have to relearn everything I learned over the past 1.5 years before my afternoon classes start today. Oh well, that's the fun of winter break I guess.

For those wondering, here's my class load for the quarter:
1) Corporate Finance (continuation from last quarter's finance class)
2) Management Science (We'll get to dissect managers)
3) Operations Management (mmm... more management)
4) Client Based Projects (I, along with a buddy, will get to analyze the current programs offered by the City of Alexandria's Park and Rec Dept and then recommend strategic changes - it should be a lot of fun).

Yup, only a paltry four classes - I have to decide if I want a 5th over want to do something else.

Happy First Day of Classes, again, everyone!

M on his way to school