The Right Voice

On Wednesday, Jun 25, I was able to take part in my first Nationals game since coming to Washington, DC. My boss had two tickets. He graciously offered them to me and I went with my friend Jeff to the game.

They were playing the hometown Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in interleague play The seats we had were great. The game was great. The food was sub-par, but it was to be expected. I mean, they did not even have Dodger dogs. The view of the capital was from the concession stand. I could not have thought of better view.

We had a special guest in about the 3rd inning or so. Three helicopters from the US Air Force that (I can only presume) were carying the president. Others around us thought the same thing, so I am pretty sure it was him.

I am upset that Nationals ended up winning (go Braves!), but it was a good game.Thanks to friends at Yahoo!, I will get to see the braves at the new stadium in August.

Todd

Due to security, no cars, no photos, no tours, no access. Just hundreds of buses and thousands of Metro Riders everyday.

Well, the goodbye’s have been said (most of them) and new people have been met. I left sunny Southern California on June 11th and flew into hot and humid Washington, DC. I spent a few days getting my apt ready by getting furniture and other essentials. It was a rough couple of days getting all the furniture bought and built, but we were all done by Sunday night in time for work on Monday. What a whirlwind it was. Here were some of the going’s on.

The whirlwind tour started in May when I was hired in DC. It was time to start saying goodbye to California and friends. They had a nice party for me at work. They even had a cake for me. Everyday, it seemed, someone wanted to have one last lunch with me before I set off. I never knew how many people I knew until I had to say goodbye to them all. On June 4th, it was time to say goodbye to my old job. It was kind of surreal. I was alone in my area because all my coworkers friends were in training, so it was just me. I had my exit interview at 1030, and at 11 I was escorted out of the building. The last few days were really busy. Especially the weekend. Saturday was packed. I met with close friends for breakfast, went straight to a BBQ for another friend leaving town for Indiana. Immediatly following that, I held my own party at my Burbank apt. Sunday. I stopped over at Matt’s. I was really glad to get to see him and be able to say goodbye to him. then I caught up with my Aunt and Uncle and we had lunch at Ribs USA in my former home of Burbank.

Monday, I woke up to the car shipping company telling me they were there to ship my car. After I shipped my car, I went back to sleep and slept until about 1. I woke up and fixed my coffee and started to pack up the last boxes I had to ship. The one extra box I was planning on shipping turned into 7. I was not happy, but all that stuff needed to go. Tuesday, was surreal. I knew I would be driving down the Burbank streets for the last time. I knew I would be seeing people for the last time for a while. I spent most of the day at home cleaning out my room and taking bigitems down to the ally. My bed, TV, shelf, dresser, chair, and desk would not make the trip. I decided that none of that stuff was worth shipping and it was not. My friend Mike picked me up and I went over to his house and had dinner with him and his fiance Christina. After dinner it was time for my last softball game for a while. We won for a change. It was very bittersweet. I had a really good time with good friends, but I knew it would be my last for a while and my last with those particular people. After softball, I got home and played one last game with my roomates. At about midnight, I decided it was time for bed. I went to sleep…on the couch I did not sleep at all.

Wednesday, I woke up at 615 to catch my 8 o’ clock flight. My roomate drove me to the airport and I was off to my new life.

I landed at the Dulles Airport and I gotmy luggage and went over to the Super Shuttle counter to get a ride to my apartment. After about an hour (traffic, go figure) I got to my apartment. I had to wait outside for about 20- 30 minutes because I had to wait for my friend to get off work so he could let me in. The apartment was empty, there was no TV, no Internet, and nothing to sit on. Pretty dull.

I woke up on Thursady, and dropped my friend off at work so I could use his car. I realized that we could connect to the Internet from an unsecured wireless network in my room. I headed over to Sleepy’s and I bought a bed. After that I went over to Ikea and I bought a couch with a hidabed so my friend who is staying with me for 8 weeks would have somewhere to sleep. It also will work for those who will come visit me to have a place to sleep. We went out to dinner on Thursday, and called it a day. Friday was much less productive. I had to go into DC to get a drug test for my new job. Between Metro, waiting for the test, and driving, it took about 4 hours. So that day was lost. We went to a movie in Alexandria and had a pretty good time. The next two days would not be as fun.

Saturday was the day we were going to get the rest of the stuff for the Apartment. We went to Target and bought everything for the kitchen, and a TV stand. We had already bought a desk at Office Depot the day before, so on Saturday we went to Staples and got a chair. It was close to the Bed, Bath, and Beyond, so we stopped in and got a nightstand. We stopped for lunch and then headed out to Wal-Mart. There we got a coffee table, and other assorted cleaning products. We also stopped at Best Buy and Circuit City to pick up cables. We took it all back to the apartment and built it. We were exhausted. Completely out of energy. The only problem was that we still needed to go grocery shopping. We got a coupon for Circuit City so we stopped there first. We got done with the shopping around 930. We called Domino’s and picked up some pizza (It is literally right across the street). We accomplished a lot and met our goal of sitting on our couch eating pizza and watching The Office on DVD. It was a tiring, but good day.

Sunday was a bit more relaxing. We only had a few places to go and it did not take very long. It was a bit stressful for me because the next day, I was starting my new job. I did not sleep that well on Sunday night.

The firs tweek of work went really well. I am meeting a lot of new poeple and they seem excited about what I can do and the ideas I am bringing them. I am learing a lot and getting used to the new schedule. Days are long, but I am happy. I made the right choice.

Todd

With Barack Obama winning the Democratic nomination today in South Dakota (A state where he does not even know the name of the capital city, by the way) two question were raised for me. Why did people vote for him, and what exactly is his platform? he uses buzzwords like “change” and “hope”, but does not say that much. He has a “Washington outsider” thing working for him. Working for him? That sounds good to the naive public, but not to Washington. For Washington, change is a problem, so they will be resistant. Obama has done nothing in the past to prepare him to be president.

In Washington, and especially in the Senate, there is a totem pole and freshman are on the bottom. Obama is a Freshman Senator. He has never sponsored any bill, he has never been a chairperson or co-chair person for any committee and has no foreign relations experience. I ask again. What makes him think he can be president? What ideas does he bring to the table. Oh, I know. He’s going to withdraw all the troops from Iraq. that will solve everything1 You know, because it’s so stable in the Middle East right now? Iran will just sit idly by and do nothing because Obama is going to talk to him. Well, when Obama convinces the President of Iran to act peacefully towards the middle east, no one will care because everyone will be watching the monkeys fly out of my backside. He is projecting a world of rainbows and butterflies that is impossible to achieve and people are buying it hook, line, and sinker. Not everyone wants peace. Not everyone wants to negotiate. It would be great if this was a perfect world and they did, but this is the reason why it is not a perfect world - because they don’t.

Obama also thinks he is better than most people. That is a slap in the face of every single American. Some elitist prick from Hawaii thinks he is better than you because he is from Chicago. Well, where I come from, Chicago is flyover territory. Second city? Please. More like Capital of the midwest. You can take Chicago and shove it. You don’t impress me. I heard Obama say that he will debate McCain on foreign policy and win. Can you really be that arrogant? Is that even possible? McCain has been in the Senate for 30 years and the Foreign Relations committee for over 20. He knows a whole heck of a lot more about foreign policy then Obama could ever hope to know at this juncture. What does Obama bring to this debate? He brings ideas of things he’d like to happen. McCain brings experience and knowledge of how other governments operate.

A good friend of mine recently sent me a letter Obama composed for his constituents regarding his reasoning for voting against John Roberts. He told me his reasoning was well thought out and he respected his opinion. I read the letter and had a completely different view of it. he
stated somewhere in the letter that he did not vote for Roberts because he thought that he would control the Court and policies.

“is that while adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95 percent of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95 percent of the cases — what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.“

Much like Ted Kennedy’s beef with Robert Bork. The idea that one single Justice could rule America is absolutely unfounded and ridiculous. In fact, it is exactly what Scalia and Roberts are trying to avoid. Constitutionally, the Court is VERY weak. The least of the three branches. Have only appellate jurisdiction and having first say involving foreign dignitaries. That’s it. No where does it say that the Court has the right to review laws and judge them based on the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the President has to listen to the Court. This happened famously when Andrew Jackson, not agreeing with John Marshall’s decision saying:

“John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it”

Only when you read into the Constitution and add things that are not there do you runthe danger ofthe Courts running the country. Roberts and Scalia are not the ones to worry about. Getting back to the point earlier of the interpretations of the letter, while my friend thought it was great, I had a very different take. I read the whole letter and the letter said this: