Snow!

Wow I didn't realize it has been almost a week since last I blogged. Apparently I am slacking severely.

Last week was pretty quiet, lots of data entry and catching up. I did attend a briefing on the Employee Free Choice Act. This act would allow unions to use signature cards instead of secret ballots in the vote to unionize a company. Companies could have 2 workers or 2000 workers. There are several other provisions in the bill which are concerning at the least. EFCA would increase penalties on employers who violated labor laws during the union drive (and the union drive can last indefinitely). Giving your workers a raise counts as a labor violation during a union drive because you could be trying to sway them against the union (how evil). For more on EFCA check out myprivateballot (the right wing good for business anti-labor site) or google it and you will get the pro-labor spiel.

The Omni-bus appropriations bill passed the house last week. The congressman voted against it. Even though there was funding that he had specifically requested for Oregon there was a lot of other - Pork - and the amount Oregon got compared to some states was really disproportionate. The Omni-bus appropriations bill was worth something like $400billion. At what point is china going to quit buying our debt?

I had a couple of interesting phone calls last week. One of them was from John Day, I had hunted deer on their place when I was younger. It was pretty entertaining to be able to guess someones last name after they tell you what they do and where they're from. The other was Lars Larson! -Yep I talked to Lars!- He is totally conservative talk radio, and I only talked to him long enough to transfer him to our chief of staff...but still.

I'm starting to get the hang of the Capitol Tour thing. A group was here from one of the Klamath Falls credit unions, turns out the gentleman was the past president of OHA and knew my dad and my old roommates dad. The tour went really well, it may have taken an hour longer than it was supposed to but we definitely covered everything security would allow.

The weekend was pretty subdued as well, Friday night my roommates and I went out and had wings and chili at The Hard Times Cafe in Arlington- AMAZING! Saturday was spent around the house for the most part, I'm finally realizing what I need to accomplish home-work-wise before I return to Oregon- YIKES! Saturday night we went to Busboys & Poets. It is the total condo version of the neighborhood coffee shop/bar, they have really good food and beer. Later in the evening we wound up at Fad'o, an Irish pub downtown with a fine selection of Belgian ales.

The highlight of Sunday was lunch with a friend from OSU who was here for a few days. Brian is a grad student in public policy and he is working on some really interesting things regarding the initiative process- how things are brought to the Oregon Ballot. After lunch we wandered through the white house visitor center (my first time there).

Now to the title of the blog- SNOW!- That's what we all woke up to this morning, about 5 inches of it. Talk about a cold hike to work this morning. The federal government was on a two hour delay- 11am - our office opened at 9, just like normal. A little snow doesn't slow down the Eastern Oregon office.