DC was great. We woke to a total snow emergency in DC. There were like three inches on the ground, it was still snowing, and all the TV stations were in full The-World-Is-Ending mode. They kept going back live to this poor guy in a Mustang who'd shut down an entire main road. It's funny that in Syracuse this wouldn't have even been a news story.

Julie and I spent the day seeing DC in the snow. I'd never been there in the winter before, so it was cool seeing the sites with five fresh inches of snow on them. Unfortunately, my packing mistakes led to me having only a pair of sandals to wear around. I wore two pairs of socks with plastic grocery bags in between. Shockingly, it worked very well. My feet were toasty all day, despite occasionally getting soaked in slush. There were some embarrassing diaper-like crinkly plastic sounds coming from my feet, though.

"Well-done but depressing."
We went to the September 11 exhibit at the Smithsonian American History museum. Julie had done some work on one of the exhibits that used material from ABC News. Her name was even on the big plaque out front. Apart from that it was, as you'd expect, well-done but depressing. A lot of it was artifacts from ground zero and the days after, including that bull horn Bush used when he went to New York. I also saw a photo I'd never seen before... a shot of the smoke cloud coming from the field in Pennsylvania where the fourth plane crashed.

Julie With the Washington Monument on Her Head

We met Andrew at his office in one of the Capitol Hill office buildings. He works for a congressman from New Jersey. Julie and I got to hang out in the guy's personal office while Andrew finished up. We took turns sitting behind the desk pretending to be important. We went out to a few bars and said bye to Andrew.

"...a little intoxicated piecing together furniture."
Upon our arrival back at Julie's apartment around 3:30 we discovered Julie had received a very large package during the day. It was her very nice new CD cabinet. At the time it made perfect sense to take the huge box immediately to her room and begin assembly. So there we were a little intoxicated piecing together furniture. I say we... Julie did almost all the work. I just helped move things and solve minor problems. The next morning we were a little surprised we'd completely finished the cabinet before turning in.

I hit the road for Pennsylvania early in the afternoon. I had dinner in Altoona with Tony, the executive producer at the station I work at six years ago or so. We visited the station and saw some of the city before I headed on toward Pittsburgh to spend the weekend with David, a friend from Syracuse.