the nation's capital

I have been in Washington, DC since Saturday for the NASPA conference. I did two presentations, a regional board meeting, a advisory board meeting, and of course attended sessions. Our Fo Shizzle presentation had about 200 people in it and I think we might have gotten a few more consulting gigs. I got to see many of the usual suspects: Frank, Judy, Ronni, Will, Carrie, Rey, Gin, Karla. But most fun was getting to see some old friends from the Knoxville days: Dennis Gregory, Carl Johnson (as always...ridiculous!), Dave the Rave, Heather Larabee, and Donut. I went to 5 receptions on Monday and 3 on Tuesday. Yikes.

Today I played DC girl and toured around town. Highlights included seeing the panda baby and mom and cheetas at the zoo; meeting Cliff Stearns; getting into the Capitol to meet Mark Stuart without any sort of pass (hooray for me); meeting Gainesville's lobbyist; running into Frank in Urban Outfitters in Georgetown and then hanging out with him for a few hours; and tonight I am having dinner with a former student in Chinatown. I ran into a UF student and her mom at Senator Nelson's office and chatted with them for a while.

The best dinner so far was at B. Smith's in Union Station, where I had the fried chicken and crabcake. Yum. Hopefully tonight will be as good, if not better. I have eaten a lot of OK meals but nothing GREAT. Yet.