Today was a very special one for me; I was privileged to get a meeting with one of my heroes, Texas Congressman Ron Paul.  I had emailed his office about two weeks ago in a long-shot effort to try and see if I could meet the man, and lo and behold I get an email last week saying that he’d like to meet with me.  I was a bit surprised because it’s pretty rare for a congressman to actually meet with anyone outside of their district so I’m extremely glad that he was able to.

I went over today at 2pm, after listening to a fantastic talk given by talk-show host, Michael Medved, on the “5 Biggest Lies About Business”.  I tell you, I don’t think I’ll ever have a day anytime soon where I go from hearing Michael Medved speak, to having a meeting with Ron Paul, crazy.

I went with a few other of the interns and we were warmly greeted by Ron and sat down in his office to talk.  The guy speaks like a politician, but doesn’t talk like one.  To explain: we were there for half an hour, but only got about 5-6 questions in.  Ron would start out talking about the War, then transition into the economy and then go into the Constitution – so he knew how to talk, but all the material was the opposite of what most politicians would say.  It was just fantastic to be able to sit next to him after seeing him on tv and reading his books.  I was sad when our 30 minutes were up but I was able to have him sign my books by him and get a picture.

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Definitely one of the best moments of the internship and really is a good way to start wrapping things up here.  Only 9 more days till I’m home and I’m getting excited about all the snow.  Hope everyone is doing well and I’ll cya all soon.  I’ll do one more post wrapping up the internship next week to close out this blog.  Thanks for reading!

Hello all.  Just wanted to give an update on whats been going on the past couple weeks.

In terms of work nothing  major has occured -  its been pretty standard weeks.  Last weekend I finally got  to play some golf with a coworker.  We went out to Haines Park which is just south of the National Mall.  It was quite cool seeing the Washington Monument while hiting up the fairway, but overall the course was pretty ragged (your typical government run course).  This last wednesday we had the day off to honor Veterns day and I used the opportunity to catch up on some Zs and read.  This weekend was a bit more eventful since I signed up to run in the Veterns Day 10k.  This would be my first race since middle school and I was excited to put my workouts to the test.

The day before I “carbo-loaded” by eating half of a XL Papa John’s Pizza and some tapas at a restaurant.  Funny incident happened on the way back from the restaurant in the Metro station.  The train we were trying to get on had a ton of people trying to exit and the doors began closing before we even had an opportunity to get on.  The funny part came when this older Asian man was exiting and the doors closed right on his head.  Instead of trying to pry the doors open to release himself, the man just clenched his teeth like he just accepted the fact he was stuck in the door.  Needless to say I immediately helped pry the doors open with some help of other passengers and the man was able to get out.  However, the doors closed on us before we all had a chance to get on (another government run “success”).  We just decided to walk home since the next train was 15 minutes away.

Well Sunday was the day of the race so I got up early and made breakfast for me and my buddy Phil who was also running in the 10k.  Since the race was a few miles away in Potomac Park we decided to take the metro to a close stop and then jog to the start.  Well we caught the trains at a bad time and spend 20 minutes just waiting for our transfers so our light jog turned into a run to try and make the start time.  We got there just in time to get our number badge and check in our stuff and then it was straight into the race.  Being late I had to start basically in the very back of the pack, so the entire race I was passing people (on one hand felt good to continually be passing people, but on the other hand I had to zig-zag around the road which ate up some of my time).  Overall I felt great throughout the race and was able to get a nice kick for the last two miles and sprint into the finish line.  Officially my time was clocked at 48:17, with a 7:48 mile pace.  I was aiming for around 45 minutes, so I’m pretty pleased with the result being this my first race.

There were over a 2,000 runners for Sunday's 10k

Also this weekend, Hannah and I booked travel arrangements for a South Island trip we’re taking when I arrive in New Zealand.  The two week trip includes stops in Wellington, Christchurch, and Queensland *Correction, QueensTOWN, Queensland is in Australia*.  It should be an amazing vacation and we’ll see tons of the New Zealand scenery and sights.  We’re also looking into taking a day long wine trip while in Queensland which I’m especially looking forward to, since the wines from New Zealand (as Dad can attest to) are supurb.

In other news, I’m happy to say that 3 of my close friends are recently engaged (2 of those friends to each other).  Along with my brother Joe recently poping the question, my old friend Jim Hughes asked his girfriend last month to marry him, and just yesturday my friend Vince O’Neil asked my other friend, Chrissy Gibson, to marry him.  I must say its a bit overwelming to have several friends be engaged so young (at least by today’s standards) but at the same time it’s very exciting.  Let’s just say I hope the bachelor parties happen after a certain date (perhaps around the end of August).

Well thats it for now.  I fly home the morning of Thanksgiving and leave that Sunday, so I hope to see everyone between those times.  Love you all.

Our internship group was given a tour of the Capitol two Thursdays ago and it was the first time I had been inside since 8th grade.  We were given a tour of the dome (which is massive) and shown the various statues around the building. 

Inside the Capitol Dome

Continued…

Hey All

Your’s Truly has officially been published on the Heritage Blog, the Foundry!  You can read my article here, talking about the “demise of the dollar”.   It’s slightly edited, but 98% of the article is all my work.

While its not an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, The Foundry has over 100,000 viewers, so thats some pretty intense exposure for little ole’ me.  I hope to contribute some more in the future if they let me.  They said my work was really good, so thats encouraging.  Please check out Heritage.org and the blog to learn more about the Heritage Foundation’s policy work and just more about the place I work at.

That’s all for now.  Make sure to sign up for email alerts on the right if you haven’t already, so that you’re emailed the latest post by me.

Hello all.

I just wanted to make people aware of a new feature on the blog where you can subscribe for email updates for my blog.  You can see the link on the right which will direct you to a form where you will just need to enter your email address and the blog will automatically update you when I have a new post.  I figure this is an easy way for people to know when I have a new blog post up instead of checking the page randomly. 

You can also sign up for an RSS feed on the right, but that requires a little more legwork in terms of having to get a “feed reader”, so if anyone in interested in that please let me know and I can guide you through the nesessary steps. 

One more thing I’d like to mention is the “Comments” part of the blog.  Anyone can leave a comment on the posts by clicking on link that contains the word “Comments” at the bottem of each post with either a number or the word “No” preceding it.  This is an easy way for people to leave feedback on the blog and lets me know people are reading it.  I know the whole “blog” thing may be new to some of you so I’m just trying to help you all along.  Thanks again for reading and I’ll have a “real” post up soon!