burning girl: if you will live a moment, live it to the very end, or just skip it. if you will make a change, go ahead and make it to its fullest impact, do not hesitate. I am back. It is 11.38 pm, late night. We have our snow and inauguration. I hated both at first, DC was nightmare on inaugution eve, we had 500 000 visitors to protest or support W Bush. I seriously contemplated of going to the inauguration- a coworker had good tickets from a senator- but then I decided not to---reason? well, too long to explain. On the day before the Inauguration, we had the triple condition- terror alert, snow storm, and pre-inauguration activity. This equation could result in only one thing: TRAFFIC. The whole week we were stuck in traffic and had to look for alternative routes to get home and go to work. did I mention that DC is really very small, only 15 miles square, and that the "DC area" in fact covers parts of Virginia and Maryland. So, well, we tried Virginia highways, to no avail. A coworker of mine went to inauguaration and listened to Bush as he delivered his historic speech (and had to applaud, a lot!). He had interesting details and shared his experience. My manager, who I find one of the most unique people I met in my life (this is a bold statement but I can back it with evidence:)) - actually worked as a staffer for 4,5 years for Senatator McCain (AZ-Rep); Senator McCain happens to be a respected and dominant figure in US politics, and ran for the Republican nomination. Scott (my manager) is full of anecdotes about his experience as a Congress staffer. Some of them are hard to believe but true; here is one: in DC parking is a privilege, usually you keep looking for an available spot, but I wouldn't imagine the high-level politicians at the White House and the Senate would have the same problem, well, apparently, they do. Scott told us that these people, who write legislation for instance, have to park their cars 6 blocks away and walk to the Senate :). So, when his Senator was running for the Republican nomination, Scott would hope that he would win and even become President, then, no more parking problems! Well, research is mind-buggling sometimes, and one needs to cheer up, what better to do in DC than gossip about politics:)...yawn