A break from policy

today was another awesome field trip. We went to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Testing) and it was awesome. We got to see alot of labs that had the most advanced measuring tools, some that I had only heard and read about. We got to talk to the researchers and ask them what they were researching and how the tool really works up close and personal. I won't get into all the different techniques, but it was nerdom at it's finest. It had a feel of getting paid to be in a well-funded grad school program for ever. Then they had a museum of Standards that had information about how they verify and set standards. Like this is a mole of Copper and a mole of liquid water. Exactly 6.o22 x 10^23 molecules. The next one is how they determine a second, exactly. It's based on the radiation cycles of a cesium 133 isotope at a specific temperature and pressure. The next one is a paper money durability tester. The white square under the metal tip is a dollar bill and they run it until the dollar wears through. Lastly, they did all the research following 9/11 and this twisted metal is all from the World Trade Centers. They had a piece inside of exactly where the plane hit. It was nice to think about real science again. Then it was back to policy in the afternoon, workout, and now I'm at home and will hopefully get a few more things done this evening before tomorrow.

Return to Boston

Dad arrived on Thursday. We met on the mall and went to see our Senator’s offices. Who were predictably not in. On Thursday night we went to dinner at a crab house in Bethesda with Kaitlin Perry. It was a very authentic crab house, with newspaper on the tables. Their resources were clearly dedicated to the food and not the interior décor. Or more specifically, the crabs.

There were only a few things on the menu; crab, corn, and coleslaw. We ordered 6 dozen and they were delicious. Thankfully Kaitlin showed us how to extract every morsel of meat.
On Friday dad hung around Georgetown and the monuments until I was done with work. He also had lunch at Old Ebbitt’s Grill, which is the oldest Restaurant in DC and right next to the white house. Barack was not in, but I’m sure some of his staffers were. We left that afternoon for Boston. Traffic was heavy getting past Philly. We stopped for dinner and had Philly cheese steaks. We decided we were going to sample characteristic foods along our “journey”. This one claimed to be the original, but whether or not it was, it was great. It was located right in historic Philly, we walked past Independence Hall to get there. Many cool restaurants and a very interesting place.

We got to New London and decided to stop for the night and drive the rest of the way in the AM. We arrived in Boston around 1pm, close to Andrew’s Square and experienced a little of South Boston. We took the T in to the city and headed first to Beacon Hill. We walked past 41 Revere and the neighborhood was really nice. We walked over the hill to the commons and then down Winter Street. We saw Locke Ober’s, but they were not open until 5pm. So on to the Union Oyster Bar, which is officially the oldest restaurant continuously serving in the nation, since 1826. We shared a lob roll and clam chowder at the bar. We got to see a lot of Boston on our foot tour, Quincy Market, Faniel Hall, where mom worked in the Financial District; I really got a flavor of downtown Boston. Then we headed across the bridge to MIT and went sailing at the Boat House. It was amazing, they just pulled dad’s sailing card out of one of the lower drawers and out we went. The wind was variable, but it was a beautiful day and really fun to be on the water. Then we walked the Infinite Corridor and saw some of the impressive architecture on the MIT campus.
Then we walked to the first home of Sarah Heilman Widder, 14 Ellsworth. After finding the street, which is characteristically only one block long, we located the house after consulting mom. But dad knew the house when he first walked by, even though it had changed a lot. We walked from there through Harvard Yard to Harvard Square, a much more upscale part of town.
We printed out tickets we had purchased that morning to the Red Sox game and sat and had a beer for a while. Then we took the bus over to Fenway. However, as we were approaching the stadium we realized the tickets were unfortunately for September 8th.

The same teams were playing and this game was sold out, so the internet must have forwarded us to the next available game or something. At any rate, they very nicely refunded Dad’s tickets and we sat in a bar called Game On in the Fenway complex and watched the game.

We slept in Sunday morning, which was wonderful. That’s what you should do on vacation. We both deserved it.
We decided we had had enough of city and headed out to the Cape. We drove to the southernmost part of Cape Cod National Sea Shore, Nauset Beach. It was beautiful, just like White Fish Dunes. A little more crowded, but the beach just goes on forever.

I got to walk along the beach while dad did a postcard watercolor and made a commemorative sand sculpture for James’s 22nd year. It had 21 objects in a grid and then one “transitional” crab shell and a sun dial. We only had a few hours, but it was worth it. The beach is always so regenerative. Afterwards we went to the beach clam shack

and had a clam roll.
Then began the epic journey back, which was long and dark and rainy. We stopped at an Italian place in New Rochelle, NY for dinner to break it up, but didn’t get back until late. It was a wonderful trip and quite an adventure, but that just makes life all the more interesting! Now I am back in DC and getting back into the routine and trying to get myself motivated to go to work. I might go to the grocery store first, because that is more fun.

Pax River

Sorry, no pictures were allowed today. But it was a really fun day, a good break from working. We went to Pax River Naval Base and went to several different facilities to learn about the different technologies DOD was working on, from communications to unmanned spacecraft. We even got to fly in a flight simulator and see testing on the Firestorm, the navy's unmanned spacecraft. They also always had the managers or important people come to talk to us, so they could answer all our questions, which was cool. At the end of the day we got to see boats too, which I thought was the coolest part. They have boats that run on jet propulsion instead of props for the navy seals and we got to see them and ask questions about how they work. Then tonight I went to a UW alumni event with Sarah A (the girl from my work). There were lots of interesting people my age there, and even another 09 grad. Mostly soft science majors, although there was one EE guy who worked for DOD. It was fun to talk all of them and made me miss Seattle alot. But it does mean I didn't work at all today. just means I'll have to work hard tomorrow. Night!

life in the city

DC in the morning is full of people bustling, hurrying with their blackberry in one had and a Starbucks coffee in the other. Full of ideas and self importance. And I don't say that in a bad way, but DC is full of people who are rally smart and think they are right. Big decisions are made here and it's important to feel that way if you are going to make them.
These are all pictures from my walk to work. Notice the Caribou, at first I was so pleased when I saw one, but they are everywhere.

CVS is the other thing there is alot of, one on every street corner practically. They are a drug store sort of thing. Convenient, but a little much.
I didn't have to wear a suit today, which was nice. I wore khakis and a button down shirt, and felt dressed down. It's weird. I stopped at the cobbler to pick up some shoes on the way to work too. It's just such a city life.
The other cool thing about DC is that on the way to work I pass by all these cool places. Like everyday I pass by the IMF, or the World Bank. I never thought about those places actually existing before, that they were physical buildings. You can work there. I could work there. But I probably wont.
The rest of today. I just worked. I finished the first draft of my white paper, one of 3 documents I am writing while I am here. And I only have 2 weeks left to write, so I am definitely feeling the pressure now. But I'm trying not to take it too seriously. I left at like 6:30 and went for a long run to give my brain a break, which was great. I'll work a little but more tonight and then we are going on a feildtrip to Pax River tomorrow. I'll report when I get back, and maybe even take some pictures, if you're lucky. :)
Oh, and this last building is the building I work in, ACS.

better late than never

Hello! Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, it has been a busy week. I've been working like crazy to get my draft done. I am almost done with all the writing and I spoke with Stuart, the guy from Energy solutions that is helping me with my paper, and we hashed out what the different papers would look like. i wrote outlines and started cutting and pasting yesterday and I feel like it is finally coming together. On Thursday morning I went to an AIA sustainability conference with Caitlin, called design dc. I went to an interesting presentation about solar installations from normal PV, to built-in pv and transpired solar or solar hot air, like we have on the cabin. Then I heard about all the things they are doing to make the AIA headquarters carbon neutral, which was pretty cool. They are cutting shafts in the building to facilitate as much natural lighting and ventilation as possible. They call is "passive building, active user" and it is part of AIA's 2030 campaign which is a carbon/energy reduction campaign they have to make buildings carbon neutral by 2030. It gave me a lot of respect for dad and how long he has been pushing for this kind of design. I mentioned that on the way out of the conference and, for an example, was telling Caitlin about dad's wind turbine design. She said, someone is already doing that. I said "who?" and she said she had found a video on you tube and emailed the guy to try to get one at University of Miami because it is the only wind power that will work with the low wind speeds they have there. I said "what did the video look like?" turns out it was Dad's wind turbine and she has emailed him about the project. What a small world. Speaking of a small world, on Friday I went to Nuclear Waste Policy briefing by the Brookings Institute, which was interesting. But the most interesting thing was that I after I had asked some questions at the conclusion of the conference, I was turning to leave and someone taps me on the back and says "Sarah!". It was Sarah Anderson, a girl I used to work with at the candy store. In the back of my mind, I knew she had moved to DC, but had forgotten and she is probably the LAST person I expected to see there. She was an english and journalism major and is working as a reporter for RadWaste monitor. It was amazing and took a good half hour to get over it after the encounter. I went back to the office to finish the draft, yay! and then I met her up in Bethesda where she lives with her boyfreind, who I also know, and we had dinner. It really feels like all roads lead to DC and the longer you live here, the more you start to know everyone, somehow. I'm going to a show at the Kennedy Space Center today of Space Pictures accompanied by the symphony in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11th mission. Then I might work a bit, go to a museum or two, have a slow day. Hot outside, maybe go sit down by the river. 3 weeks left. Yikes!

Weekend

These are some pictures from our visit to the state department on Friday. We got to tour the diplomatic rooms, which were beautiful. They were full of American antiques and our guide kept telling us how expensive things were and knew so much about their history.

That night we went to Jazz in the Sculpture Garden. It was packed as you can see. That's one thing I don't really like about the city, fun ideas, but TOO many people. But it was fun. Then we went to dinner and a movie all as a group. We saw MOON, which was this really good sci fi movie about this guy who lives on the moon. Saturday I went on a long bike ride and then we had a group dinner for Jen's birthday. We made ice cream sundaes for her birthday, and played Apples to Apples. We play a way where the person who picks the winner picks the top two or three and gives each top cards 10 seconds to defend their card, which is a really fun way to play. This morning I went for a run and went to the Farmers Market. Also very crowded, but fun too. There were some guys playing blue grass and lots of free samples of really yummy cheese.

Then I went to work for 5 or 6 hours and got some stuff done, which felt good. Except for a moment when I thought I had forgotten to save it. Minor heart attack, but I found it. Yay!

Then I went to the Air and Space Museum, which had a really cool Universe Exhibit. This is a stained glass they had of the wavelengths of light. I really liked it. They also had a cool exhibit about using satellites to monitor the earth and about the Apollo missions. Now I'm at home and getting ready for next week. It was a normal, but pretty fun weekend.

Meetings on the Hill

The past few days I have spent running back and forth from the hill, and trying to get some work done in between. I went to the first hearing about the comprehensive energy policy bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It was a very interesting discussion and you could tell it was going to be a heated debate, but was also encouraging because it seemed like people on both sides of the aisle wanted to make progress on the issue of curbing carbon emissions and wanted to find a solution that had bipartisan support. The problem is we don't know if that exists, but we hope so. Then I went to see Franken sworn in MN's second senator, which was exciting, and met with one of Rep. Keith Ellison's staff members that someone my mom works with knows. It was an interesting meeting, and I might get a white house tour out of it, which would be very fun. I worked the rest of the day and went to sleep as early as i could. This morning I went to an energy efficiency housing news briefing about the new Green Acts in the house and the senate. It was really inspiring and made me really excited about my new job at PNNL, since that is what I will be working on. It reminded me that, while I am happy I am learning so much about nuclear, I really believe that conservation is what I want to work on and what I am the most excited about in the near term. And hopefully these bills will get some traction. There is similar language in the Climate Bill that passed the House, but it seemed like they wanted to introduce these bills in case it got cut or to maybe strengthen it. Then I went to a brunch with the other girls, one of our program coordinators Melissa, and the CEO of SWE. They were very interested in how what we were doing here, how we got interested in engineering, and wanted us to start blogging about our experience here for the SWE community. I decided not to offer my blog because I like not having to worry about what I write too much. Plus the other blog all of the girls are going to share, which will be fun. I will give you the address when it is up if you are interested. Then I worked all afternoon until we had a meeting with Rep. Gingrey from GA, who our faculty mentor Dan works for. He is a staunch republican, and it was very interesting to hear his arguments about the recent climate bill. Now, I am going to try to keep the momentum rolling on my paper so I can get a draft out by next week. More later, and hopefully pictures too.

Celebration

This past weekend Kurt came to visit me for 4th of July and we had the best weekend ever. It started when Kurt arrived on Thursday night. We went to dinner in Adams Morgan, which is a neighborhood in the north of DC at an Ethiopian restaurant. DC is supposed to have really good Ethiopian, and it was delicious. They serve lots of little piles of curry like things all on an injera (a special kind of crepe-like spelt bread they make) with extra injera on the side. Then we went to this amazing jazz harmonica concert at the famous jazz/blues bar called Blue Alley in Georgetown (over in west DC). On Friday we had breakfast at a place that I had heard was good called the Tabbard Inn, but were not impressed. Although it was outside in a nice little courtyard. Then we walked down to the mall and went to the Museum of American History. My favorite part was seeing Julia Child's kitchen. They also had a really cool interview with her about her knives. They also had cool exhibits about the history of scientific discovery. There were of course many other parts of the museum, but by this time it was starting to get VERY busy, so we left and went to the Folklife Festival. We went back to the Welsh exhibit and watched one of the Welsh chefs prepare a rabbit dish. Kurt thought it was really cool and made him want to cook exotic food. Native American museum. I love the building, it is supposed to represent wind blowing across the plains, we went to the Universe part of the museum that had all their fundamental teachings and origin stories. They each had colors organized in a different way to talk about the four cardinal directions and what they represent. Then we went to the Eastern Market and bought ingredients for the watermelon salad I was going to make for a fancy party we were going to later that afternoon. The Eastern Market is a farmers market that burned down and was recently reopened, but it all inside and much smaller and less impressive than Pike's Place in Seattle or the St. Paul Farmer's Market. Then we went back to my dorm and made the salad. And Kurt agreed that my dorm is not a fun place to live, but atleast it makes you want to get out and explore more. Then we went a picked up a zipcar that I had rented. I rented a yellow mini convertible zipcar, which was really fun. The party was at this woman Emily's house who used to be affiliated with WISE. They lived in a really big, nice house in the Maryland suburbs. Emily's husband is a really big American art collector and gave us a tour of all his pictures, which covered every wall in the house. There was also a few of Emily and her husband's friends there and they were all very interesting people, one used to work PNNL and now lives in Malaysia running a new renewable energy program. She gave some advice about living in Richland. Then we went and pool and watched the Twins game. Saturday morning we got up and went to the zoo, which was really fun. It wasn't as busy and was fun to see all the animals. Seeing the pandas was cool of course, but our other favorite part was seeing the otters play in the river. If I was an animal I would be an otter, they always look they are having fun. Then we hiked through Rock Creek Park, a big park in the middle of the city, to the very northern part, which was really nice to get out of the city, or feel like it anyways. We went in search of a restaurant that was all organic and local that I had heard good things about, but it ended up being closed. So we had lunch across the street instead. Then we walked to Georgetown to go kayaking. I had rented kayaks for us to paddle around and watch the fireworks from. We had time to kayak all the way down past the mall and the memorial bridge before finding a good spot. There was an amazing number of boats in the water, but watching the fireworks in kayaks from the water with a glass of wine was by far my favorite part of the whole weekend. It was so fun. Sunday we got up and went to the Art museum. They had an amazing diversity of genres, from Monet, to Renaissance, to Roman sculpture. Kurt says of all the museums we went to, this one was the most engaging. We went in expecting to spend an hour or so and ended up spending more than two. Then we went to lunch at a really delicious Spanish tapas restaurant and had sangria. Then we went to a concert in the Park in Georgetown. It was a stereotypical community party with lots of families and a Reggae band. Then went to a fancy last dinner at this seafood and Italian place. Kurt had lobster and I had a mixed seafood pasta made with squid ink, that was really interesting. We walked along the mall on the way back, which is always really beautiful at night. On Monday morning we played cards, and Kurt is the champion on July, unfortunately. I demand a rematch. The rest of today I got back into the swing of things and got some work done and went to the grocery store. And that's all for that chapter.

Never a dull moment

Monday we had a meeting at NASA, which was kind of like a publicity event, so not that exciting and especially disappointing for the guy who is focusing on space exploration issues. The only benefit was that is was done quickly, so I got to work by noon and worked straight until 7pm, so I got to work alot, and made slow progress. Then at 7:30pm my brain was fried and I went home. Fortunately, the other interns had ideas for fun things to do so I didn't have to think about working any more tonight. We walked to Georgetown and got ice cream, then walked down to the Lincoln Memorial, which was beautiful at night. All the buildings on the mall are lit up at night and the whole place is very inspiring and elegant.

Then Tuesday we had a meeting at NRC and got to talk with Commissioner Klein for over an hour. I didn't get all of my questions answered because he had to go, but it was interesting to see how he talked about reprocessing and made me very conscious of how to present some arguments in ways that people could relate to them. He was a very engaging guy and everybody else really liked it too. Then we got to see their operations center, which is like a control room for when there is an incident. The funny thing, I thought, was that they have only used it once in the past 10 years except for training exercises. But it's good to know they are prepared and it's really a good thing that there haven't been any incidents, it shows how safe the nuclear industry really is. Then I went to work and got another section done and went to the gym. I cooked dinner tonight too, for the 2nd time since I've gotten here, which was fun, so overall it was a really good day. And I get to work all morning tomorrow until I have a meeting with Matt Milazzo, the ANS congressional fellow, which should be a good meeting too. Never a dull moment, but now I'm going to read and go to sleep. Goodnight!