Week 2 begins...

Even though works starts on Monday I rang in the new week in style on Sunday, mainly by staying in my sweats most of the day. It wasn't that the weekend was completely action packed, it was just that the week before was exhausting. The day's highlight was a trip to the local Safeway to stock up on groceries for the coming week.

One interesting note for those who have not experienced Washington DC, the stores cannot sell any kind of alcohol on Sundays, including beer. Imagine my shock upon realizing that I couldn't purchase a bottle of wine or a six pack for the next week.

Monday-

The boss was back in the district and there were no votes today so the climate around the office was slightly more relaxed. It also helped that, because there were no votes we didn't have to be at the office until 9.

The big news of the day came across politico.com, which is a good news site for anyone wanting to keep up on, as the name implies, politics. The Congressman was tapped as No. 2 for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Besides a mass of data entry, into a massive database program, which is interesting in and of its own complexity, was the minority WHIP meeting. The minority (republican) WHIP's office holds a weekly meeting to preview the coming issues and keep the republican members up to speed on the party lines. One of the topics discussed was the financial bailout and the remaining $350billion that the president is rumored to be requesting in the next few days. It was CRAZY to sit there and think that not only did the guy at the podium just say $350BILLION!!!! but that I was sitting in a room where instead of reading about it on the news I was watching the bailout happen...WOW... Matt Drudge eat your heart out! The other issue was the SCHIP legislation (State Child Health Insurance Program) that the democrats will be introducing. The gist of the conversation was that the Dems are trying to sidestep the republicans in order to push through a much "fatter" bill that will outstrip it's funding source (tobacco tax). The other piece is that the Dems are pushing the bill as though if you vote against it, your voting against children, when in reality voting against it (as long as you vote for the old version) is voting for less spending and a continuation on funding those children who really need it. As soon as there is a news article that makes more sense I will link to it.