Root, root, root for the home team!!!

Now that our tickets were secured, Mel and I just had to get to the ballpark, find our seats, grab a beer, and sit back while all the awesomeness of baseball unfolded before us. The people at the Nats stadium must have know we were coming because they rolled out the red carpet for us. There were tons of people and it was so exciting to be a part of the buzzing crowd.




Once we strolled across the red carpet, we stood in line with the masses and made it through the security check point. The people in line behind us definitely pre-gamed it because they were already toast. Whatever you gots to do to enjoy the game. The gal taking our ticket was super nice and seemed like she was pretty happy to be a part of the buzz.



We located our section and then made a b-line towards the concession stands. Mel wanted one of the commemorative cups. I wanted a beer. So we coupled our ideas and got beers in commemorative cups. It was a lot of beer.

We made our way to our seats. They were pretty high up, but we had a great view of the Navy Yard and the Anacostia River. We found several of our friends from our four hour wait in line, and the dude that was collecting signatures of everyone who stood in line was still at it. He had several pages completely full and was asking the ticket lady who worked for the stadium for her John Hancock. That guy was awesome. I failed to mention that I danced with him when we got our pic taken. He was funny!

The opening game at the new stadium was not without fanfare. The DC National Guard came out and unraveled these two ginormous American Flags. I felt a rush of patriotism overcome me.

As the flags were being unfurled, Denyce Grave, a famous opera singer from the DC area came out to sing the National Anthem. I'm a huge fan of hers because I remember all the performances she gave during several of the 9/11 services. Because of that, her voice is very comforting to me. Anyways, we all sang the National Anthem and yelled out a resounding "Play Ball!!" The president marched to the mound sporting a National's jacket. He threw the first pitch a little high, and from our positioning I couldn't tell you if it was straight over the strike zone or not. He quickly walked off waving. Mel and I almost had to do a double take and asked if it really happened because it was super fast.

Now it was time for the big game! If you want major details on the play-by-play, check ESPN or Andrew - he keeps track of that stuff. I can't even remember what the final score was. I just remember that the Nationals scored first and it was a pretty close game and the Nationals were ahead by one run.

Mel had a lot of work she was neglecting and wanted to leave somewhat early so she could go to work early on Monday. I at least wanted to hang tight until the 7th inning stretch. Mel went and got hotdogs and nachos that are required to make a live baseball game official. While she was gone, she missed the running of the Presidents. Abe, Jefferson, Washington, and Teddy squared off in a leg race from center field to home plate. Teddy went a little off course, the Giecko Caveman entered midway through, it was either Jefferson or Abe but one of those two totally face-planted it in the dirt. As fitting, Washington took first!

We started heading out at the bottom of the 7th. As we approached the ground level, Denyce Graves came back out to lead us all in a hearty rendition of “God Bless America” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” She’s awesome. With her conclusion, Mel and I headed back home. A 12 hour day consumed with lines, baseball, crazy fans, politics, beer, opera, and hotdogs. Not a bad day at all.

But we did miss the final inning clincher. Apparently the Braves scored off a bad play by the Nats, and with two outs, bottom of the 9th, Ryan Zimmerman pops the ball out and scored a homerun giving the Nats their first win at the new stadium. Baseball in the nations Capitol – America at it’s most awesome!

Standing in line because we're awesome!

So Melanie and I are soooo cool sometimes I can’t even stand it!! The Washington National’s just got a brand new stadium built for them and the season opener was promised to be super good times. I thought all tickets were going to be sold out, but my legislative director told me on Friday that they were selling 500 tickets at 3:00 for $5.00. What a bargain!!! I really wanted to go for several reasons: 1) It’s baseball in a new stadium 2) The President was throwing out the first pitch 3) Opera singer and DC native Denyce Graves was singing the National Anthem and 7th Inning Stretch 4) I had nothing else planned for Sunday.

Mel said she would come with. Since the rest of the seats were practically sold out, we thought that these $5 tickets would probably be in high demand, especially since it was the season opener in a brand new stadium. Pretty much, this was the place to be on this particular Sunday. Our game plan was to leave our house at 10:00, grab some coffee/hot cocoa at the Starbucks on the way, walk on over to the stadium, which is about a 25 minute walk towards the Anacostia River, and stand in line for 4 hours to ensure we had tickets to this super cool game.

We got a bit of a late start, but managed to leave the homestead at 10:30-ish. Side story really quick. I learn quite a bit at work. One day, I was informed that dinosaurs were found in DC (no not Robert Byrd), and F St. SE has since been dubbed Capitolsaurus Court. I told Melanie and she didn’t believe me. On the way to the stadium, I proved to her that it does exist.

We made it to the stadium to find that there really weren’t that many people there. We didn’t pop in line right away because we were unsure if it was really the line we needed, but we soon figured it out and secured our spots. We stood for awhile. Then a lady came out and said we would need to reform the line at the opposite end of the wall because secret service had security issues with the location. They handed us numbers so we wouldn’t lose our places and reformed the line. I was number 46 and Mel was 47.

We had a lot of time to kill. Our new buddies behind us busted out the playing cards. I brought out my mp3 player and got the tunes rolling. Mel’s not much of a country fan and I found opera a little inappropriate for the occasion so my options were slightly limited. Mel walked to Five Guys to get some fries. While she was gone, this guy came around with a pad of paper asking everyone to sign. He just wanted to document all the people who stood in line for the tickets as a little memento for the awesome occasion. I got a picture with him.

I was amazed at how fast the time actually passed. Mel went up to the front of the line to see what time those folks got here. The first guy and his son arrived at 6:30, the next guy came at 7:00, and they said everybody else started arriving around 10:00. The line really started to increase around 2:00 and soon it had wrapped back around to where it initially started and past the entrance to the garage. We packed up camp and bought two tickets – section 402, row C, seats 17 and 18. Not too shabby.

Mel and I trekked back home to unwind for a little bit and grab dinner before the 8:10 game. We bundled up and left the house at 6:30.


Up next: The Big Game!!!

Story of my life

Apparently I was not meant to be best friends with Laura Bush. My chances of meeting her are slowly fading away, and my one sure fire chance vanished right before my sleeping eyes.

Michelle was in town to work on the White House Easter Egg role. She got me waived through. I wanted to be there by 9:00. As luck would have it, my alarm didn't go off and I didn't wake up until….you guessed it….9:00. I check my blackberry and have several emails from Michelle and Mel, "Where are you?" "When are you getting here?" "The President and First Lady are here." Of flipping course! There was no chance of making it over in time to even get a glimpse of the First Couple, so I got in the shower and tried to get over before I missed anything else. I made it by 10:00. Not only did I miss the first couple, but my camera is a piece of crap and drains the batteries the instant you put them in. Luckily, I was able to borrow a camera, otherwise this whole Easter experience would just be a memory with no visuals.

Michelle hooked me up with an early lunch from the staffers tent, which was very welcomed since I skipped breakfast in my haste. I met up with Troy and Karen on their way down to the Ellipse. Michelle's dad is a magician in his spare time and he's so awesome that he got to perform at this year's Egg Roll. We watched his show and he's quite good! We strolled back up to the South Lawn since Norm had another show to do. It was pretty much a repeat of the first show, but he's still good! Torrey got there around this time so I strolled around the White House lawn with him for a few minutes before he headed off to work. I stuck around for a bit longer since I didn’t have anywhere to go so I walked around the White House lawn for a few more minutes because I was there and I could. Plus, when else I’m I going to be able to freely meander across the WH lawn? Probably not for a while.

So who else did I miss? My favorite Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, football star Troy Aikman, tons of cool Sesame Street Muppets, the Jonas Brothers (a travesty for missing them, I know), and a slew of other WH officials plus I think the first dogs were out there. That’s alright. It was cool to go anyways!

I met up with Michelle’s parents, Troy and Karen at 4:00 to go to the top of the Washington Monument. Never done that before so it was way awesome! The view from the top is Ah-MAZING!!! Afterwards, we met up with Michelle, and we all went to Old Ebbitts for dinner. It was very good. They have the best peanut butter pie ever! We hung out in the bar for a few minutes afterwards and then parted ways.

Good times were had by all this Easter Monday. There’s still 9 more months to try and become best friends with Laura Bush. We shall see….

A visit with POTUS

So Mel, friend extraordinaire (see 'Ode to Mel') works for the President in a round about way – she's an assistant to the director of an executive branch agency. Every year, the President and Vice President hold a pep rally of sorts for the 'section C appointees' (I think that's what Mel told me they were). She asked me if I wanted to come. I said yes right away, but had to think twice when she told me it was Tuesday mid-afternoon and that I'd probably be away from work for three hours.

I was hesitant to ask our boss just because it would take so much time, but I really wanted to go so I sucked it up, asked, and got the okay. I plopped into a cab and rode over to the Daughters of the American Revolution Building. Never been there before, so I can now cross that off of places to see.

Taking the cab was smart because I would never have made it via metro/hoofing it before security shut down, plus it gave me some time to navigate the chaos and track down Mel to get my ticket. We got settled into our pretty awesome seats amongst hundreds of executive branch employees. A slide show from the President's Africa trip played across one of the screens. Apparently I was pretty tired because I definitely started drifting off to sleep. That's one thing about me, I never have problems sleeping – anywhere, anytime, any situation. Airplane, class, church, conference, President's pre-speech slide show, you name it and I've slept through it.

First up was the Vice President. He was pretty much just Dick Cheney being Dick Cheney with that little smirk that always seems to form on the corner of his mouth. This event was three weeks ago so I don’t remember what he said. I just remember that Dick Cheney is pretty cool for such an old dude. He can totally hang. However, it must have been awkward for the lady sitting next to him. What do you do when you sit next to the VP of the US? Is your arm accidentally allowed to brush against his or is that a breech of security? Can you make jokes w/ the veep while the president is speaking? It just seemed really awkward for the lady.

Next up was the President. Obviously, with a crowd full of Republicans, he was received rather well. A standing ovation, actually. With a friendly crowd, Bush is truly quite funny. He let his guard down and just kind of rolled with the punches. I laughed a lot. Everyone laughed a lot. It was a fun afternoon.

I can understand and appreciate that a lot of people don’t like his policies, but what I don’t understand is how people can hate him so much as a person. Brush politics aside, and you’ve got yourself a guy who’d probably be pretty cool to shoot the breeze with. Carter, I think, didn’t do a whole lot of good for the country and I’m not fond of his policies, but I don’t hate the guy. Anyways, that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Busy, Busy, Busy

So it's been super busy at work. And after 8+ hours sitting in front of a computer, I haven't wanted to come home and sit in front of a computer to blog about everything. Appropriations are due by the end of this week, so I don't know how much time I'll actually have to catch up on stuff I want to post on the blog. But we have a two week recess coming up so there will be plenty of time to get caught up if I can't this week.

Here's an overview of what you have to look forward to: Awesome meetings with tons of constituents, a visit with the President and Vice President (for reals!), the long awaited picture with super Ah-MAZING soprano Renee Fleming (did I mention Ah-MAZING?!), hanging with the office peeps and a planned trip to Atlantic City, a weekend in Quantico with Sam (high school Sam, not Connecticut Sam) and the god-son, my first stint as a Capitol Tour Guide, and various observations or musings that come to mind as I see fit.

So sit tight, more to come for sure!