Wow what a day!  Thursday I spent the morning finishing up work so that I could head to Washington DC.  Work finished around 10 and then I headed over, Reston is only about 20 minutes from DC.  I drove over to the city taking 267 East to 66 East, I was not prepared for what I saw, I swear I almost got into 3 separate accidents staring at the monuments from the road.  I was surprised how easy it was to get from Reston to DC, although coming back home is another story completely.

The day started out trying to find parking; now if you have never been to DC then you should know that there is less parking then in the City.  It took me 25 minutes of driving around to find a parking garage fortunately it was only 2 blocks away.  I started off my trek in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum which was just incredible.  I spent about an hour and a half checking out the museum, I probably could have spent another 2 hours in there but I had other things to look at.  I headed from the Air and Space museum to the mint, I had to double time it because the tour was at 2:00 and it was 1:35.  DOH! Didn’t make it, just to give you some perspective going from the museum to the mint is about ¾ of a mile.  The mint tour would have been cool but I didn’t stress I had about 5 other places I wanted to hit.

After taking a small water break (the weather was perfect about 68 degrees and not a cloud in the sky) I hoofed it over to the capitol.

  You see how far it is from the Washington monument to the capitol?  Yeah I walked that and back!  The capitol was neat except for the stupid girl who I asked to take my picture in front of the capitol and this is the garbage I got

Good thing she was hot or I probably would have gotten arrested.  I didn’t go inside the capitol because again I missed the tour and since 9/11 they don’t allow you inside without a tour.

From there I headed to the Japanese American Interment Memorial located on the corner of Louisiana Street/ D Street/ and New Jersey Street. It’s not huge and it’s not very gaudy, but for me very powerful.  They have a stone for each camp and a metal sculpture of two cranes with barb wire in the mouth flying up.  On another wall they have engraved all the names of men who perished in WW2 fighting for the 100^th battalion and the 442^nd.  I sat there for 10 minutes or so just reading names and reflecting.  I had a hell of a time finding this thing so when I got there it made it that much more powerful.  I was totally lost trying to find this thing and ended up calling my mom back in California to find the number to anyone who knew where the thing was.  She ended up calling the DC JACL who gave me directions and told me exactly where it was.  It was really nice to be able to sit down and think about all the men who gave their lives for our country when their families were imprisoned by that same country.  

From there I figured out that the closest point of interest that I wanted to hit was the National Archives.  I walked the 7 blocks or so from the JA memorial to the Archives which were fantastic.  The museum as a whole is kinda eh, but just to be able to see the Declaration of Independence and Constitution was something I think everyone should experience.  I mean you can still read the documents written over 200 years ago.  Not only were the documents themselves impressive but the technology that the Archives is using to keep them around is quite impressive.

After walking out of the archives I was just gassed and decided to head back to Reston.  I called my co-worker and made plans for dinner and then to head back to DC to check out the monuments at night.   We had dinner at the same Japanese restaurant as the other night then headed back out to DC.  One the way to DC we stopped in Arlington, VA to check out the Iwo Jima memorial.  I never realized how big these memorial and monuments were, you don’t get the full understanding of it until you are standing below it and the thing just towers over you..  It was about 9:45 when we finally got into DC, fortunately since it’s the evening there was street parking to be had right near the National Mall.  We started at the Washington Monument which is just absolutely massive up close, then headed toward the Lincoln Memorial and the reflection pond.  In between the Washington and the reflection pond is a new WW2 memorial.  Very classy and pretty, it has a wreath for each state in the union and our territories, fountains in the middle and in the back a star for each fallen American life in the war.

From there it was onto the reflection pond and the Lincoln memorial.  I think this moved me more then anything in DC.  The reflection pond because of it’s history with the MLK speech and the protests and everything.  Very impressive, if that pond could talk the stories it could tell.  The Lincoln memorial was just as impressive, the statue of him is so massive in size and the magnitude of what he did just overwhelmed me.  No I didn’t cry but I was really moved.  I stayed there for a good five minutes just looking at the monument and reflecting.  Very powerful………..

After that my co-worker and I walked back to the car and headed home.  Like I was saying before getting home from DC to Reston was a bit more of a challenge.  First off you have to get onto 66 West BUT you don’t go straight onto 267, you have the take 495 to 267 which doesn’t make sense since you go straight from 267 to 66 going there, then it’s not marked well and so we ended up taking a 25 minute detour because it was so poorly marked.  Well we finally got home and I went back to my room to pack up all my crap for my flight home the next day.

Day 6  Tuesday (Reston, VA):  Worked on the Van all day, basically just cleaning and re-arranging the whole thing for the new Sprint launch.  Had a visit from one of the facilities guys who works for Sprint, he was very underwhellmed with our Mobile Dental Practice.  He was all a dick and not very nice at all, I'm not sure if it was becuase he has to use a stupid looking hat to hide his baldness or because he lives in a shitty state, who knows oh well.

Today was also errand day, we needed to buy a bunch of stuff for the van so armed with the coporate card I went to Staples, Lowes, Staples, Target, Verizon, and then finally back to the van.  Stupid rain making the trip that much more blah.

I also found out that I can go home on Friday, and Thursday I'll be heading to Washington DC for a personal day.  BOOM!  Nice little trip to our nations capitol on the company.  YAY!

I was pissed when I woke up and realized that I couldn't vote, I really like to vote and feel like I am trying to make some kind of difference.  It didn't help that everywhere I went there were people sporting their "I Voted" stickers just mocking me.  Damn them and their not being on a business trip.  Oh well I think Arnold won and Chavez lost both in fairly convincing fashion so my vote wouldn't have mattered.  Also I was just curious, did anyone see a Phil Angelidies (don't know or care how to spell his name) commercial?  I think it was the cheapest run campagnes ever, maybe he just realized he had zero chance and it packed it in early to enjoy his loss.  Either way, way to be philly!

Ok ok, I know it's Tuesday holy crap! just chillax biatches!  The weekend was crazy busy!  I actually did write while I was working so I show post forth with:

Day 3 Fort Indiantown Gap, PA) : Woke up WAY too early today because I had to be up at 5:45 to be out to the base by 7:00 to train the staff.  I wanted to make sure that I was up in enough time to have breakfast.  Last night my co-worker and I had dinner at the hotel.  It was a seafood/prime rib buffet, I love eating on the company!  This morning I had the breakfast buffet, standard fair, you know runny scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, french toast, OJ, and yogurt.  I love breakfast, it's the best meal of the day.

I am learning how to use all this dental crap.  I am now an expert at taking a panoramic xray as well as a bite wing xray, I am a god damn xray tech!  I am really suprised at how easy it is I am suprised that you have to go to school to get certified in that.  Now before you get all crazy and say, WAIT A SECOND! I'M AN RDA AND I WORKED HARD TO GET THAT! I didn't say RHA, I said Xray tech, serious I learned it in 20 minutes.  I have mad props for RDA/RHA they assist the dentist and clean teeth both things I have NO idea how to do.

Along those lines, my mastery of all things IT keeps progressing, everytime I think I don't know something I suprise myself.  Now I'm not trying to toot my own horn but I do think that I didn't know as much as I played up in my interview but now I am a supreme master of all things Dental IT!  *Thanks to LeBrandon, he helped me out in a few tight jams....

Lunch time! - 11:57am Eastern Time

SYKE! No lunch for the corporate slaves.  I am salary so you know that means I have to work through lunch, blah blah blah.....but of course the hourly people have to by law get their hour break.  Who the fuck are they?  They are my god damn subordiantes, you eat when and what I tell you.  Fuck this oh I want to run to Wendy's crap....just be thankful you aren't eating an MRE!

The afternoon few by since we had about 20 more soliders come through, to give you a rough estimate it usually takes about 4 minutes for a pano, 4 minutes for a bitewing and then 4 minutes for the exam with the dentista kinda like a barista but smart and not as perky.  So you figure 12 minutes per soliders X 20 soliders = 4 hours of work give or take.  I am fucking tired, but at least I get to roll deep in my H3 baby!  This bad boy is growing on me.

Day 4 (Fort Indiantown Gap, PA):  More of the same today, saw as many soliders as we saw the day before.  That wasn't the interesting part.  We have this one Dr. that we work with from time to time, we'll call him Dr. Talksalot.  Well Dr. T (for short) has the most interesting stories, I mean let me tell you!  He was born in NJ then lived all around the East growing up, well that's not intirely true, he didn't spend much time up in the New England area, but for the most part most of the East, well that is if you include Ohio as part of the East, but I'm getting off topic.....He spent a year of HS on Long Island and that's when his dad decided to HMMMMM SHOOT HIMSELF?!?!?!?!  OMG!  And let me start off by saying, I know I talk alot, this is a fault I fully admit this and I'm working on it, but this guy can start a story which will remind him of another story, which will remind him of a story about his wife, which will remind him of a story about his kids!  I mean come on man, do you breath?  The best way I can descirbe him is, he is the Lank's brother but only if you slowed him down to normal speed.  That much dialog in the longer period of time.  Rant over.....He did have one very interesting tidbit of knowledge that he did lay on me.  Fort Indiantown Gap is only about 20 miles away from Three Mile Island.  You know the worst nucular meltdown in US history, basically Chernobyl, Pennsylvania.  How awesome is that?  It was kinda creepy driving out of town and seeing those things rise above the hills.  No thanks friends....
 

Day 5 (Virgina by way of Maryland):  Woke up late today since today is a travel day.  He needed to hit the road by 1 to make it to Reston, VA before our truck did.  For those of you who are map-declined ( I figure since you can be inclined at something it stands to reason that you can be declined, am I right or am I right or am I right)  I'm right huh ;)  Anyway back to the road...
Had to drop off the H3 today, bummer......it was needed though because I couldn't take the H3 from Harrisburg and then drop it off in DC.  I am now driving a fancy new Sonata.  I was in kind of a hurry to get the cars and get out of Harrisburg so I completely forgot to take a picture with my pimp ride.  Oh well here is what it was:
 I mean like serious, how baller is this?  The only way it would be more baller was if I had gotten 20's for it na mean?

So back to the lecture at hand, when we started driving down the road from Harrisburg to Reston we started to notice signs that said 25 miles to Gettysburg.  There was absolutely no way I was gonna drive through Gettysburg and not stop.  So we stopped work be damned!  and drove over to the memorial.  We actually did need to get to Reston so we only spent about 30 minutes driving around the town and the "self guided auto tour"  I really do want to go back though, it looked really amaing.

2 hours and 20 minutes later we arrived in Reston, VA.  Very swanky area, the houses out here are not alligned like a normal row, they are all askew and face different directions, I guess it's cool if you are into that.  Our hotel is really nice and only 5 minutes from the work site and 5 minutes for the Dulles airport.  I'll take pictures tomorrow of our van so you all can see what I'm working on.  It's also swanky and set askew (not really just wanted to get askew into my blog once more before the word gets reitred up into the rafters)

No Walmart as of yet although work has kept me busy and the drive yesterday was long, so maybe tomorrow night.  Well it's either Walmart or a strip club.

Day 6: Stay tuned I'll post tomorrow about my boring day today.  Although please keep this in mind, toll roads are fun!

Day 2 in Harrisburg:

I'm not actually in Harrisburg today, today I am in what is know as Pennsylvania Dutch Country!  It's actually very beautiful and the people are very nice.  Its cold cold cold! out here, it is 34° F but it feels like 27° because of wind chill, god bless the crisp dry wind out here.

I had to rent a car last night and since I didn't get into town until midnight Budget only had one car left, a Hummer H3 baby!  So I'm rolling through Dutch Country in an H3, that is the most baller shit you can do in Dutch Country.  It's red and has black interior, I enjoy driving it around but oh my god I can literally watch the gas guage move down as I drive.  I think the mpg is about 2, seriously.  I had this car on my list of possible cars to purchase but not anymore, it is just way too impractical.  Also although it's nice inside it has a rough ride because it's on a truck base, it also is loud inside (lots of road noise)  Note: Pictures to come

This is a very odd thing to think and feel but I enjoy going to the Walmart Super Center it makes me feel comfortable.  It is my grounding place, if I drive into a new city I find the closest Super Walmart and I'll just walk around.  Part of it I think is that they are all the same so it feels familiar even though I'm in a strange city.  Also I usually go late at night so there aren't many people there and I can walk around look at random things and just kinda detox and think.  Is that odd that I feel like that?  I read about sports players who used to travel alot saying they liked to find the malls in the different cities because they were usually all the same and familiar.  Odd but it's my slice of heaven.  I think I like to check out the prices to at the different Walmarts because it is just ridicilous how much cheaper the stuff is here then in CA.  Amazing, like tonight I bought a fleeze pull over for 6.50 and a long sleeve mock turtle neck for 4.00.  Yes yes yes I did not back well enough for the cold weather and I had to buy more warm clothes. :)

SloKat OUT!

Have you ever been told that you had to fly someplace for work about 10 hours before you were scheduled to go?  Well that has now happened to me twice!  The company I work for is very small and they tend to do this more often then not.  It is very frustrating and I am working on changing it.

Rant over…..Now onto the most recent trip.  Harrisburg, PA:

The day started off ok, my dad took me to the airport so I got to spend the morning with him talking about his trip with my mom to Thailand.  I get to the airport and board the plane no problems.  Well turns out, there was a huge delay in Chicago so we sat on the tarmac for about an hour.  It really sucked because there was no where for us to go, we just had to sit there in the plane.  On the upside (Hubie Brown reference) I sat next to and chatted with a very nice lady who’s husband passed away in a mountain biking accident in the Santa Cruz hills.  VERY nice lady, we chatted about her family and how she is a triathlon-er.  Also we had the 12 year old Jr. Sharks on our plane which was neat because there were about 5 MILFs in the group, yummy!

I am currently on the plane from Chicago to Harrisburg, there are a total of about twenty people on the plane so I have my own row.  Although the plane is one of those small Untied Express planes so by row I mean two seats.  Whatever still nice, feels like I’m on my own charter.  Well I am going to sign off before my battery dies but one last thing, O’Hare’s McDonalds had both the McRib AND a Snickers McFlurry, good times!

Follow along as Steve continues to eat his way across the country on the company dime!