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Joe goes to Washington DC!
 So I skipped school Monday through Wednesday to go on a American Nuclear Society (ANS) trip to Washington DC from Sunday to Wednesday for the ANS National Winter Conference. A bunch of people from UF nuke went. It was so much fun. I went in thinking that we would spent a lot of time attending seminars, listening to old men speak about nuclear energy advancement and particle/energy transport theory. I could not of been more wrong. We spent most to the day sightseeing and most of the night going to parties. Before this trip, I had never had a hard drink that had a name, other than traditional UF stuff like Hunch-Punch. In Washington, I can say I have had a long island iced tea, white russian, gin and tonic, chivas regal (scotch on the rocks), and several others I forget the names of. Just an FYI, I did not get drunk in Washington, nor have I ever been drunk.
One night, I went to like 4 parties. Started off with the UF ANS social. We had a crappy open bar (get 1 ticket for 1 drink, no more) and little good food other than some chicken on sticks and veggies. After that, some company had a social (it actually competed with ours for a while), which was MUCH better. They had a full open bar, perogies, pasta, and the usual veggies. I had several drinks at the ANS and "some company" socials. After that I went to my room and fell asleep on my bed while watching "Master and Commander" with Brian. After I woke up, I went to a party in another room hosted by University of Winsconsin people. I got there very late since I watched much of "Master and Commander", which was good bc it was funny to see everyone drunk. Like this one girl in UF nuke whose name I will not mention introduced herself to the Winsconsin guy I was talking to. She spilled his drink on himself, then seemed to forget his name, then reintroduced herself. The Wisconsin guy was in a little awkward position, the guy that interviewed him from Lockheed Martin's Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) was drunk at the party. Not only was it odd to see a middle aged man at our party, but he was making out with some girl around his age. The guy from Wisconsin was like, I had a good interview with him, but should I say "hi" to him now? At the party I was invited to go with a bunch of nuke people to a club. So after that party ended, we headed out. We took the Metro (DC Subway) to Dupont Circle. Many people there wanted to go to the club that the grad students were already at, so they called for directions and we went there. It was a gay club.  Seeing guys without shirts serving test-tube drinks was odd, but I got over it. Luckily there were three girls from nuke with us, which made things easier, but two of them were wasted. All this was on Tuesday night, so by then I had already tried a bunch of drinks and wanted ones I had not tried. I did this twice, oddly, both drinks turned out pink. They were still good tho. Dancing was ok. I had not danced in a long time, and I think running stadiums in Conditioning class helped a lot :P I stayed completely with the nuke people I went with, dancing either in a group with them or with one of the nuke girls. Some of them danced with others. Many of the guys were happy to dance with this one girl from nuke, but oddly some actually did not want to. Some guy in nuke who was straight also danced with gay guys. Towards the end, I noticed one of the nuke grad students making out with a guy. I was like.... wha? Well, it turned out he was gay (go figure), but who he was making out with is a funny story. At the UF ANS social earlier that night, two UF nuke guys were talking to a guy from MIT who was working on nuclear space propulsion, it turned out he was obviously gay. One of the nuke guys told the other to ask the grad student mentioned above to meet him. The one that asked he other to get him knew the grad guy was gay, but the guy who got him did not. The guy who got him knew the grad guy got annoyed with people easily, and thought it would be funny to see how he reacted, but they hit it off well. (sorry about all the pronouns, I try to keep names out of my posts) At the gay bar, both seemed drunk and went home together after they made out. One nuke girl thought we should try to stop him, since he was drunk, but we didn't. Combination of who cares plus the fact that hey, he is a grad student in nuclear engineering, he is old and should be able to take care of himself. Anyways, by the time the night ended, many nuke guys were buzzed but not drunk. Two of the three nuke girls though were very drunk, and we had to stop them from walking into things on the walk home. We could not take the Metro due to it being closed bc of the time of night.
Sunday night, the first night we got there, ANS (National) organized all the schools to get together at an Irish pub / restaurant. That place was awesome. It reminded me of Jack Ryan in Patriot Games: being at an Irish pub with a live Irish band in the middle of Washington DC while hunting down terrorists. That was exactly like it was where we were, except for the terrorists. The Irish band was very good. They were one of the best Irish bands I have heard. The service was poor tho, but I didn't care about the service, just eating food, drinking Guiness, listening to the band, and talking with friends.
 As for sightseeing, we saw many things in Washington, most of which seemed under construction. Here is a list of what we saw with commentary:
White House with men in black on the roof with large guns.
Washington Monument, which was under construction so no one could go near it. Oddly, in the name of national security and the possible prevention of a terrorist attack, they are building a moat around it. I guess it will keep the black night at bay, but terrorists? Argh, what a waste of money. I hope it looks good,
World War II Memorial. First time I saw it, very nicely done. Looks great.
Lincoln Monument: had scaffolds.
Capital: had scaffolds for building the platform for Bush's second inauguration, plus it is under more construction for the visitor's center.
Smithstonian Natural History Museum: Very nice, very large, I wish I could of been there for more than two hours.
Holocaust Museum: By far the most emotionally draining experience I have experienced this year. It was very nicely done, it had so much information there. Some of the stuff was just so horrific..... The stories at the end of the museum's path were very emotional. America is such an awesome country. It makes me feel very proud to think that we liberated them.
FBI building, closed until Feb 2006.
On the way to the FBI building I saw a motorcade. It started off with 4 cops on motorcycles, then 2 police cruisers, then two black SUV's, then a black minivan, then two more police cruisers, then 4 more motorcycles. I found out another nuke guy, who was at the White House at the time we saw them, that they went into the White House, but before then they removed everyone from standing around the White House's fence. I also found out from someone today that the same day we saw the motorcade was he same day Pope John Paul II was in Washington. So there is a very good chance that I was very close to the pope!
Supreme Court, scaffolds.
 The DC Metro was awesome. They have a very good transportation system, no waiting at lights like busses. It was a very huge system too, the Merto Center (where several rails cross) was several stories high, all underground of course.
The seminar I had to be the AV guy for was on general transport theory, aka; very boring. Most of the presenters used PowerPoint and solved their problems using computer codes (Monte Carlo), but one guy did them analytically, which means it takes forever to solve and you can only do very simple problems. He also used transparencies instead of PowerPoint. He was incredibly boring and I had a hard time staying awake. He also ran overtime, but when he was done, he gave a second presentation. ugh.... Luckily the last guy / the guy after him was a grad student from our nuke department and gave a quick, clear, and interesting presentation, a great way to wrap things up.
Travel was good. Took a plane up and back. On the way back, our place was so small it could not reach the terminal. Instead, we had to take a bus out on the tarmac and load from there. Since we walked onto the place on stairs, I had a huge urge to do the Nixon "Victory' pose as I got on, lol.
Anyways, back at school now and loaded with huge amounts of HW. I have multiple assignments due in every class next week, as well as an exam on Monday. Sigh.... Coming back to UF would be so much more pleasant if it wasn't for all this work. I want to go back to Washington DC, or even better, back to Baton Rouge.
Belched up with tidings of comfort and joy by Joe
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