Susan is now 21!

Susan is in Washington, D.C. this summer and turned 21 today. My brother Paul and his wife Sue were near DC for a conference so they spent all day Friday and part of Saturday with her. I am so glad they were able to spend so much time with her.

I believe they went to the Art museum and the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian. They had lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian which serves native meals.

Today Susan went to dinner with some other interns and had a pomegranate martini. It took her an hour to drink it and since she didn't stir it, it was rather strong by the time she finished it.

The Dali Lama is going to speak in DC tomorrow morning. I guess some of the interns are planning on going. I don't think Susan will be going.

I thought I'd talk about the best mower overall I've owned.

I really like some things about it -

• it is lightweight and easy to push and turn
• it's electric so I don't have to go get gas for it, change the oil, or clean the air filter.
• it's electric but I didn't want to worry about charging a battery so it uses a cord.
• it's easy to adjust the cutting height.
• the cushy handle is comfy to use

Some things I don't like about it:

• the cord takes some getting used to. It does get in the way on occasion.
• it doesn't have the power of a gas mower but close enough. Really tall grass is hard to mow down
• I don't usually catch the grass but when I do, this mower isn't too good at it.

Susan's DC Internship part 3 ?

I tried to get Susan to blog about her time there in DC. She's been to busy and tired to do very much, but click here to go to it.

Susan's DC Internship part 2

Susan's first day at NMAI involved a lot of walking. So much walking that she ended up with some pretty nasty blisters on her little toes. There is a CVS pharmacy close by the dorms so she got some band-aids and anti-bacterial ointment. I think the toes are doing much better now.

She rides the Metro (subway) to/from work. I had thought she would ride buses. It took a day or two for her to find a place to get a Metro card that she could put money on so she wouldn't have to pay cash every time. It sounds like she will need about $22 a week to get to/from work.

One her biggest problems is the total lack of Dr. Pepper. She is finding it very hard to find her favorite soft drink. She did find some at a store but she didn't want to lug it all the way back to the dorm with all the food she was getting.

Susan's DC Internship

So Susan is an intern for 2 months at the National Museum of the American Indian. The museum is part of the Smithsonian and very close to the US Capitol building and the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. The internship provides her a dorm room at George Washington University and a small stipend.

There are about 11 other interns at NMAI. Some of them are also from Haskell Indian Nations University. Near the end of July, they will be flying to New York to see the ?branch? of NMAI that is in New York City.

The trip to DC started with a drive to the KC airport and Susan's first time getting on a plane by herself. It sounds like everything went pretty smoothly on the ride to Ronald Reagan National Airport. It took a while for her to figure out how to get to GWU and get her dorm room.

Susan spends about 2 hours a day in the public area of the museum learning how to teach people about the artifacts in the museum. The rest of her day is spent cataloging items and other stuff. I'm still not sure what cataloging items means.

She has commented many times on how hot it is in DC. The temps are in the 90's and the humidity is very high. She has been taking her work clothes to work and wiping off the sweat and then getting dressed.

Susan turns 21 in July and my brother and his wife are going to try and stop by and see her. It sounds like they will meet up on her birthday or the day after.

One of the first things Susan told us about after her first few days at NMAI was a book of questions/comments employees have been asked by the general public. A lot of them are rather strange or show a good amount of ignorance such as "please don't tell my kids that you are Native American, I told them they were all gone".

Video shot from my new dvr. not that impressive :(

Health Care Reform passes!

I'm really surprised that the Dems passed any kind of HCR. It is great news. I hope they are able to keep their momentum and not lose too many seats in the next elections.

I liked Joe Biden's comment to Obama - 'This is a big f-ing deal'. I found a t-shirt & coffee cup with the quote on it - http://www.zazzle.com/joe_biden_big_fucking_deal_t_shirt-235369309163939519

I really liked Ben Smith's tweet - "I kind of like Big F-ing Deal as successor to Square Deal, New Deal, New Frontier". This makes me want to create a shirt like this but with pictures -

New Deal	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Square Deal	Theodore Roosevelt
New Deal	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Big F-ing Deal	Barack Obama