Into the Frying Pan

Crazy week thus far in a number of ways. I could use this space to tut-tut Idaho Senator Larry Craig for pleading guilty to soliciting sex in an airport bathroom from an undercover male cop. Or perhaps try and sift through the rhetoric to determine if now former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is victim of partisan politics or purporter of it... or both. But instead, I think I'll discuss my first experiences working in the Washington D.C. office of Congressman Chris Shays.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm the first of the new fall interns to begin and will be so all week until after Labor Day. So I get a lot of attention and ample amount of work to get comfortable before the session starts... but I also get a lot of attention and an ample amount of work. Part of me feels very grown-up waking up at 7:30 and working 9-6 days. But then again I'm also dead tired when I get back and on Monday and Thursdays I have night classes. So I guess the jury is still out but I definitely feel that the pieces are starting to fall together here in the District. I'm finally in my apartment, I'm hitting my stride with work, and I'm enjoying the city. All positives, and I like positives.
In terms of work, I've been sorting daily mail, clearing their backlog of constituent letters, answering phone calls, and giving tours of the Capitol among other activities. And its been very exciting, actually. But I've been told, once the session starts, its exponentially more busy. With 5 other interns, it should be manageable, but I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch.

Finally

FINALLY moved in. I know I promised updates as soon as I was settled, but I'm still unpacking. Perhaps commenting on my whole situation will have to wait until tomorrow.

Dispatch from the District

Greetings! It's been a while since I posted... well, it's been a while since I've had internet access. My arrival to the District was rough and at point absurd. Long story (which is soon to come in full) short, I got temporarily bumped from my apartment to the luxurious Holiday Inn. My stuff is pretty much still in the apartment building, but I've been bumming computer access in the meantime and I'm not sure if the soft deadline for having my room ready by Tuesday will be met. So until I get up and running in the confines of my own apartment, the posting may be spotty. Don't worry, though, I'm still alive and am currently enjoying the nice, therapeutic rumbling of thunder accompanied by lightning which conveniently knocked out the cable to our room's TV. Suffice to say, the only thing I have going for me at this point is a $100 credit for room service. That may be the only thing keeping me going right now. I'll update more when I can.

A New Chapter

A quick note: It looks like I'll be doing a college themed blog for the Connecticut Post soon. I'll keep up Tavern Banter as a place to let my hair down more, but the Post blog will be a good opportunity to give my writing some exposure. I'll keep you all updated.
This is my last night in the FC as tomorrow I will depart for Washington DC to begin my internship for Congressman Shays. It was a fantastic summer, and as the months have progressed, I feel like I was just hitting my groove. Too bad it has to end now. In any event, its time to begin to move on and look for new opportunities in the nation's capitol. Thanks to everyone who made this summer memorable and stay happy, healthy, and sound as school begins again.

Go See Superbad...

I know this is going to come around and kill me some day, but go see the movie Superbad. I've seen it, uh, three times already now... which I admit is a bit intense... but I still laugh. Of course, the audience is geared to to my generation, and it's not exactly espousing family values, but we all know kids like those in the movie.

And oh my God, you have to love "McLovin." The kid steals the show. Bow chika wow.

Packing It In

Man, I have too much stuff. Seriously, putting all the "necessities" away in boxes for the move to DC makes me wonder just how much I actually need. They're comforts I love to have but I know I could do without. And unfortunately, plenty in this world never get the opportunity to benefit from all this "stuff." I like to think I do my part in this world to make it better, but I know even what I do pales in comparison to everything else that needs to be done or that is done by others. Take for example my friend Emma. She spent her summer in Ghana teaching children. Not to pad her resume for college (she's already lucky enough to be attending Yale), but rather for the philanthropic purposes of just doing what one can to help the world. Thats a real leader right there, and I wish I could express my admiration better for people like her who are angels to those in need.
Also, in terms of preparations for DC, I finally resigned to cutting my hair for a more "corporate" look. I really hate how short it is now, but I know it'll grow out... and quick. It was never shoulder level or anything, but it was full and, well, awesome. I know the lengths of my locks before were something you wouldn't sport on Capitol Hill, at least on a first impression, but hopefully no one will care when it comes back with full force. I'm not going to bother putting up an "after" shot, but enjoy this "before" one... you won't see this for a while.

Thank God for AAA

Seriously, I don't know if you've ever had to use it, but I now realize how much of a lifeline AAA is for any driver. I was with my buddies when our front right tire got punctured, and while we knew how to change a tire, the "Anti-Theft bolt" on my friend's Passat required a special piece that was stripped, making it impossible to remove. AAA came and brought us out of the wooded wilderness we were stuck in and saved the day. Now I know why my mom was so adament about keeping up my membership. It wasn't my car, but it helped me nonetheless.

Last Day of "Work"

Just got out of work for the last time this summer, before I head to the real grind in DC. I think I'm going to celebrate by heading to the movies tonight. Superbad: apparently its pretty good. I'll be sure to keep y'all informed.

Summer Reading

No, I'm not talking about the kind you dreaded in high school but never really cared about enough to pursue it any further than SparkNotes. I'm talking about a manual. A manual for an internship I have this coming fall in Washington DC. My congressman's office, Chris Shays (R-4), is taking me on in their office and I of course hope to do nothing but great things. Still, the reading they're having me do before hand is a tad intimidating. Here I am, wide-eyed and starstruck about brushing shoulders with the men and women who run our country. A la Mr. Smith.
I know I have a lot to learn, but 53 pages of how to get by is going to be a lot to take in before I head down there. They cover everything from the moment you walk through the door to the moment you leave. And I mean everything. Ever wonder how you get a flag flown in the Capitol? The interns handle it. All correspondences from constituents usual meet our eyes. And we're the front line on telephone connections. Which is to say, we're representing the office in a way that can potentially look really bad for our congressman, hence why we better do well. Boy, I hope I don't let them down. Lucky I have some office experience, otherwise I'm not sure how an outsider like myself could function with career pols. Still, I'm looking forward to it tremendously and I am anxious to see where it takes me down the road.


In other news, the Red Sox seem to be doing their best to give me a heart-attack in my 20's. Once holding a steady 14.5 game lead over the Yankees, it dwindled to as low as 4 this week before resting at 5 for now. The bad news is the momentum is certainly not going in favor of the Sox. The lineup hasn't produced enough runs to back a pitching staff that has been great, led by a bullpen at the head of the league. Well, it WAS at the top until Eric Gagne came aboard. Thats right, the same pitcher who I was hailing earlier. In his most recent outing he struck out the side, but before that he was atrocious giving up leads left and right.
It gets better, though. The schedule for the Sox is significantly easier the rest of the way and it looks like they should be in position to take a few of the games back. Looks like they really needed all those wins in that ginormous lead before to keep off the Yankees. Let's hope they can put together some more quality stretches and head into the fall with something positive on their side.

August 14th, 2007: Politics, Politics and More to Follow

Karl Rove is out as the "Bush Brain," former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney wins the Iowa Straw Poll.

First we go to Crawford, Texas where "The Architect" Karl Rove, President Bush's politics guru, announced he was packing up and leaving by the end of the month.

Karl Rove to Resign
At the End of August

Karl Rove, President Bush's longtime political adviser, is resigning as White House deputy chief of staff effective Aug. 31, and returning to Texas, marking a turning point for the Bush presidency.

Mr. Rove's departure removes one of the White House's most polarizing figures, and perhaps signals the effective end of the lame duck administration's role in shaping major domestic policy decisions, where the former Texas political consultant was a driving force. Mr. Rove revealed his plans in an interview with Paul Gigot, editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

Goodbye, Karl.

Where to begin with this one. For Republicans like myself, its hard not to have mixed emotions about this news. On one hand, its hard to see Rove from behind the mud-smeared lenses in which liberal sycophants and the media alike have smeared him. After all, its not like he really reached out to them... at all... but then again why should he have? As the Wall Street Journal's editorial pointed out, Rove was a policy man for Bush, and as such did whatever he could to bring about the change needed to advance the principles America required (or would you have wanted Al Gore/John Kerry?). Ruthless, perhaps. But no different than James Carville was for Clinton. Democrats are only upset he cleaned there clocks for so long, 2006 notwithstanding. And even then, was it Rove's policy pumping that was at fault, or was it corruption in Congress that turned the tide for a Democratic majority? Methinks the latter.
Still, politicians will be falling over themselves to add their statements of good riddance. And those he helped most will likely remain silent to avoid any linkage between them and an unpopular figure. Such is politics, I suppose. But while my views on Rove fall far short of admiration, I can only hope that his formulas for building a GOP majority sans the corruption will resurface in future leaders.

And now to the future of the government, as the '08 election cycle, if you haven't heard, has been heating up. In fact, it has been since about April, but I don't blame you if you haven't been in-tune to the political minutiae thats been swirling lately. Thats because with the primaries starting sooner than ever, the race has been pushed forward at a dizzying pace with an incredible amount of debates, forums, and photo-ops already in the books. So who's in the lead, you ask? Well it depends who you ask, and where, but luckily even that is made clear with the wonderful interweb.

RealClearPolitics is an online resource that allows you to track -literally- everything. Polling puts Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton ahead of Sens. Barack Obama and John Edwards on one side and Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ahead of undeclared of Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney. But in America, we have a beautiful thing called federalism that allows states to have considerably more input on government working than the federal government. That means that state primaries combined with media tendencies to declare a candidate a "front-runner" and a "winner" as soon as possible tend to mutate the primary process. States at the beginning like Iowa and New Hampshire have the power to steer the nominating process. So when one looks at national polls and sees Hillary and Rudy in the lead, that really means nothing. Its polling in states like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida that are worth following. So a not-as-well-known candidate like Mitt Romney has been focusing on Iowa and New Hampshire where he can use wins there to boast him nationally. Meanwhile, Rudy is banking on his national image and Thompson is relying on Southern support in South Carolina.
The only problem with polling is that there are no real concrete results, even in a place like Iowa that gets polled every day. Thats why an event like the Ames Straw Poll means so much. Ames, a small town in Iowa holds the crucial GOP only straw poll to gauge presidential contenders as well as use it as a fund raiser for the state GOP. The event was held this past weekend, and as expected, Romney, who has built an incredible organization in the early states, came out on top.

AMES: The Romney Victory

Mitt Romney won the Ames straw poll tonight because of a combination of plod and money.

Romney was exultant in a brief speech to supporters, and campaign aides, attempting to keep expectations in check with the results, said the margin of victory represented a major validation of Romney’s extensive and expensive efforts in the first caucus state.

Since three major rivals skipped the event, since Romney had visited the state 17 times, since he spent so heavily to transport supporters to Ames today and because he ran Ames-related several statewide television advertisements, his victory was all but certain.

The temperature was on Romney’s mind as he addressed reporters. “It feels great to win. It’s a warm one. But if you thought it was hot, it felt cool to me to win.” Romney said the victory shows he can win “purple states” like Iowa. He acknowledged that turnout was low and said his campaign had anticipated a slightly larger number of votes.

Asked about McCain and Giuliani’s performances, Romney couldn’t resist a taunt. “It’s too bad the other guys weren’t competing here… but they ‘d have played if they thought they could have won,” he said.

Romney Wins Early Contest

Let me be clear, I am holding off on an endorsement until a little later, but Romney is the one with the momentum at this point. Even in national polls, Rudy is losing ground and the chosen-one star that Thompson was riding as he danced around when he was going to enter seems to be wearing off. Meanwhile, a win is a win for Romney and his numbers everywhere have been nothing but climbing. Still, it is very early, and everyone in the campaign knows not to breakout the champagne just yet.

There will be more to come soon, I promise. On deck, the Red Sox giving me daily heart attacks and Hal going to Washington ala Mr. Smith.

Until next time...

Happy Birthday

Spent the last day of teenage-dom in the city for a Mets game... phenomenal seats right in the front row between the visitor dugout and batter's box. My brother, a huge Braves fan, was breaths away from his idols Chipper and Andruw Jones. It was just great all around, though I did get a little burnt.
Now off to bed and see what festivities are in store for the anniversary of my brother and my birth.

August 7th, 2007: Of Many Topics...

Much to discuss. Bonds just broke the home run record under an hour ago, I'm finally recovered from a weekend of Dave, and my final days of teenage-dom are wanning until the stroke of 3:17 on Friday and adulthood undeniably starts.
Let's start with Mr. Barry Bonds. I seem to be bucking the trend, but I was happy that Barry broke the record (finally) tonight. Don't get me wrong, life would've been just dandy had a sports institution like Henry Aaron continued to hold the title. But whether it is with an asterisk or not, and I am a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty, America must wake up with the rationalization that Bonds is now the home run champion of all time. Whatever that means.
If for the only reason I don't have to put up with the "Chasing Aaron" segments of ESPN or the racially charged filler of why whites don't want Bonds to break the record, I'm glad he did it. The guy may be no humanitarian, but he and his family have endured scrutiny unrivaled in the modern sports universe. There was nothing heartwarming or "I'll always remember this moment" about watching him hit the home run live (aside from perhaps the fact that the guy who caught the ball and is assuredly going to be a few million dollars richer survived the scrum with his New York Mets jersey still intact), but give credit where credit is due.
If it comes out that Bonds has done steroids (which may never happen no matter what we the audience can presume from our couches), then decide what to do later. But right now, Barry Bonds is the greatest home run hitter of all time, and I'm fine with that.

Now on to our next piece: a weekend starring the Dave Matthews Band. As I posted earlier, seeing Dave isn't about the thrill of standing 400 yards away from him. It is a rite of passage for teens in Connecticut for the experience itself. The whole experience.
This year my buddies Rob and Pete and I drove up early to get choice parking for the tailgate before the show, which began at 7 or 830, depending on your desire to see the opening act. We arrived just before 1 and it wasn't long before we noticed a small beached of fellow Dave enthusiasts at a Midas station a block away from the venue. Joining them, we set up our command center and as the afternoon progressed, the party just evolved around us, sprawling to other vacant and not-so-vacant lots. While there, we met many new acquaintances as well as one's we planned on joining as the day drew onwards until the show started.
Eventually after much wandering of tailgates and camaraderie shared over grills, we made our way into the Meadows as Dave was just starting. The show was fantastic as always, especially tunes Ants Marching and All Along the Watchtower.
In the end, the experience made me realize how privileged I am that I have such amazing experiences under my belt and how easy it is to take these moments for granted. I feel guilty at times for getting worked up about small inconveniences when I know that deep down, I'm still alright. I have amazing friends. I get to tramp all across the state in the name of a good time. I'm lucky enough to have amazing gifts and opportunities to use them. Life couldn't be any better.

As cheesy as that was, its a convenient transition into my final lament about my final days of teenage life. I'm not sure if it's normal to mourn the last moments of being 19, but I mean from here on out theres no excuse of the childish and playful "oops" moments I can laugh off as being inconsequential. This is it... the 20's. Wow, I feel... old? I always liked the idea of looking forward to the "best time of your life." I could always look forward to something better on the horizon. I guess I'm just a sucker for optimism. But now I'm living those moments and passing them by. Before you know it, after another decade, I'll be wondering where it all went. Or at least thats what they tell me.

Until next time...

The Calm Before the Storm

Tomorrow, August 5th, is a big day. It's Dave Matthews Day in Connecticut and my friends and I will be departing early at around 10:30-11 to head up to Hartford for the show. You see, I'm no die-hard Dave fan, though I still enjoy his music very much on the right occasion. But going to a DMB concert is like a rite of passage for any Connecticut teen. You don't go to listen to the music, you go for the experience with Dave's singing providing an interesting and warm foundation on which to base your evening. Last year's show was epic on so many levels, this year should be no exception.
The Meadows is a perfect venue for it too. Half-covered seating, half open-aired outfield, its a mess and a paradise at the same time. You couldn't pay me to leave the outfield, either. Lots of stuff that can't be mentioned on this blog but would be hilarious if someone could find a YouTube or something of just the mass of humanity prancing around out there.

In any event, I'll be sure to give y'all a detailed narrative of the event.

A new blog and already going MIA...

I apologize profusely, but time has just been at a premium recently. Lots of events, good times ahead this weekend (uh, Dave Matthews concert, anyone?), and the like will get in the way of lengthy discussions, but I'll try and sneak in posts when Inspiration hits. For now, just stay cool...