I’m back from my trip to the corporate bullshit class, which wasn’t as boring as I’d expected. I must be indoctrinated, but I still qualify as one of the more cynical participants.

I fell pretty much in the middle of the three levels of seniority, but I had been with the company for by far the longest time. Most of the people were hired within the last month; only one other one was a transfer like I was, and I had two years on her.

It was a good group of people though. This company seems to really skim off the top of the college grads, and they had pulled a lot of ex-military and other corporate transfers from the older bunch. I fall somewhere in between; clearly I’m not a cream of the crop shiny bright college grad, but I don’t have the corporate skills that the older people do either. They split off the level threes after the second day of classes and left me as one of the oldest in the younger group. I started my career late in life.

But I think that this seems to be a pretty darn good company to work for, as giant companies go. The older transfers were all very impressed. I’m sure they were supposed to be impressed at a class like this, but this place does seem to put a lot of effort into retaining employees. If I could transfer or lived near an office, I’m sure I could go far. As it is, well maybe I can work from home. Other people do that.

•••••

 

Washington was incredibly hot the week we were there. I’ve always heard people say about California and Arizona and the like, “Oh, but it’s a dry heat.” Damned if that doesn’t make a difference! Today was 104˚ and it didn’t bother me at all, but last week was in the 90s and so humid the A/C in the plane was leaving vapor trails and it was completely miserable. I now apologize for all the temperature cracks I ever made for people whining when it’s less than 100˚. It’s not the same at all.

We got out fairly early on Tuesday and I didn’t see the point of hanging around the hotel when I was on the other side of the country, so I dragged a couple of guys out sightseeing with me. Of course, it was on the hottest day of the week, but what the hell. I wanted to see some history, damnit!

A car at the hotel happened to be headed down to DC and took us for fairly cheaply. First stop was the Museum of Natural History, because it closed first. Man, I could have stayed in there for a week and been happy. We split up so we didn’t have to keep track of what everyone else wanted to see and stayed until the security guards chased us out. After buying T-shirts for the kids, I headed straight to mammals, because I do love my taxidermy.

 

 

After that I headed to the prehistoric stuff: mammals and dinosaurs.

 

 

A cool mammoth skeleton.

 

 

T. Rex—how cool is that? I took pictures of one of my tourist buddies with this guy for his five-year-old dinosaur fanatic son.

I’d just about made my way though geology, seeing the Hope Diamond and what seemed like miles of crystals arranged in various orders showing things like what elements make what colors and what formations are possible. I found the geology much more fascinating than the cut jewels. I was working through metals when the guard rounded me up and hazed me out for closing time. I missed the moon rocks! Next time, I’ll have to plan a longer trip.

The next stop, because it was open later, was the National Archives. I didn’t get any good pictures here because of the flash restrictions, but I did stand in line to see the original Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Very cool. After 8 P.M. was definitely the time to go there as the crowds were minimal.

Then, since all of the museums were closed, we walked the Mall and admired National Monuments. I was just stunned at the amount of history surrounding me; all sorts of flowery thoughts were racing through my head, but of course I didn’t take notes, so none of them will be reproduced here. It was amazing that most of what I was seeing was older than my whole state and yet so young as countries go.

 

 

The Capitol Building—wow, that’s the seat of our whole government, and I was standing barely a quarter mile from it.

 

 

The Washington Monument was awe-inspiring. We got there just after full dark, but it and the flags circling it were lit up like daylight. I had no idea that it was so large, or that the individual blocks were so massive. It’s just finished a big restoration project.

After that, we walked through the new World War II Monument. I was so stunned that I forgot to take pictures. My family and I have always been a little bitter about that war because we lost our homestead of three generations to build an Air Force Base for it. But I walked through that memorial and realized that we might have given our home, but look at how many gave their lives. I didn’t do much talking there, just thinking.

Also, that’s when the humidity really hit us, with all of those fountains saturating the air. I swear from then on, it was ten degrees hotter than it had been during the day.

 

 

I couldn’t get a good picture of the inside of the Lincoln Memorial due to the low light. It was easily the hottest place and I stood there in the sweltering heat dripping sweat off me and read every word of the engravings on the wall. Right near that was the Vietnam Memorial, which I’d always wanted to see, but it’s not lit up so well at night and my compadres were ready to go by then. We walked through it and I scanned for familial names, even though no one directly related to us died in that war. I saw a few too.

Then it was a hike back uphill to the Metro Station, and somehow having never been on one, I figured it out right away. We didn’t get back to the hotel until 11 that night, and I just skipped dinner and zonked. It was an amazing day, and worth the whole trip (which of course, I didn’t pay for, but you know what I mean.)

Someday, I’d like to go back with time. And perhaps not in July.