Cinco de Mayo
Last week, I went to Washington DC for the first time. The best part was that the firm picked up the tab because I went to a DRI Life, Health and Disability conference with Rick Lee. I had a fabulous time, just look at the photos!
Tuesday
Rick and I caught a plane Tuesday afternoon. It was a long flight to Chicago because the movie was bad! While changing planes at Chicago, Rick showed me the lights in the tunnel between the concourses. The lights were beautiful. Then, while waiting to board the plane, we saw a group of approximately 10 men in suits approach. There were three small-ish men in the middle of the group, wearing orange robes. The man in the middle was the Dalai Lama!! Rick turned to me and said “F___’n A! I think that was the Dalai Lama.” It was awesome!
We got to the hotel after midnight. We were literally two minutes away from getting the Presidential Suite because the hotel was overbooked. The hotel had to send us somewhere else. The next hotel wasn’t as nice, but it was OK. I was shocked that we paid almost $400/night for each room.
After getting checked into the second hotel, we learned the restaurant was closed. We were in the business district and the lady at the front desk said only McDonalds was still open. Yuck!!! We found a restaurant that had just closed, but the bartender told us that Clydes might still serve us food. We were starving because we hadn’t had dinner yet. Walking to Clydes made me a little nervous because the neighborhood starting to get sketchy. There were several police officers around, which made me feel better. Clydes was fabulous!!! They served good burgers and even better beer. It was a sports bar with beautiful paintings of sporting events. I loved the diversity of the bar – well, it wasn’t really that diverse. The clientelle was probably 90% black and 10% white. I loved the diversity of the city. We are truly missing out by living in a prodominently white-populated city.
Rick and I closed down Clyde’s that night – yup, made it until 2:00am (of course, it was only 11:00pm to us). Walking back was a little sketchy too, but we had had a couple of drinks so it wasn’t too bad. Imagine two out-of-towners walking the streets of DC after 2:00am in the rain. It was a riot.
Wednesday
I woke up early and went to find some coffee. What an adventure that turned out to be. Unlike Portland, there are not good coffee shops around every corner. After walking many blocks, I finally found a coffee shop, but it only took cash. I had forgotten to bring any cash with me, so on I went. Finally, I found a cash machine and then another coffee shop. The business district of DC is great – it’s fairly easy to figure out the layout of the streets. I enjoyed walking them alone.
When I returned to the hotel, Rick and I met up and went to The Mall. We saw the White House. That was OK. Probably would have been better if someone more respectable was actually living in it. Then, we saw the Washington Monument (impressive) and then the World War II Monument. I loved the latter. It was beautiful! Then, we walked along the Reflection Pond and ended at the Lincoln Memorial. That was amazing! Lincoln looks like he’ll reach out and touch you – it’s very life-like. And the emotions in the building are unbelievable.
We saw some baby ducks in the Reflection Pond. I thought they were cute and took a photo. We then went to the Vietnam Memorial. That was another touching memorial. Beautiful! There were a lot of people there at the time, so I felt a little distracted.
We had to hurry back to the hotel to get ready for the conference. The conference that day was good. I’m excited to get into the world of ERISA (dorky, I know). When the conference ended at 4:00pm, we went to the Standard Ins. Panel Counsel Meeting for an hour. That was OK. Then, we had a reception for the DRI conference. Finally, we went to dinner. We went to a steak restaurant (Ruth Chris’s). It was fabulous! We went back to the hotel and had a drink in the hotel bar. There, we met a couple of Canadians that were a real hoot.
Thursday
Rick and I met at 7am EST (4am here!) and went back to the Mall. We saw the Captial Building (beautiful) and the Supreme Court. I was really excited to see the Supreme Court. It was too bad it didn’t open until 10:00 am and we couldn’t watch any proceedings. The neat part was that we were the only people there, except for a couple of guards. The guards got a kick out of seeing us ogle the place. We took a lot of photos. Even Sammy got into the photo action. Then, we had to rush back to the conference, which started at 9am.
The morning session of the conference was really good. We had a networking lunch, where I met a really nice lady from Rhode Island. The afternoon session was mostly painful, except for the session about disasters. The speakers talked about 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Very interesting.
We went back to the hotel to rest for an hour. Then, we went to the networking reception. I met Mike, from somewhere back east. He was nice. Rick and I went to dinner at an Italian restaurant. Nothing special happened except that I left my name badge and ID at the restaurant and had to go back to get it. I ditched Rick at the hotel and went to a Young Lawyers reception at some fancy bar. The bar was only OK. Catherine from Rhode Island had put it together. I met Brian, from Bullivant in Seattle. He was really nice and we decided to go somewhere else and get a good beer (DC is full of bad beer. You have to search for the good stuff). We invited some others and soon the whole crowd decided to go. Back to Clydes we went. By that time, I had met a couple of nice ladies from California (Kat and ?). Also, the Standard Ins. people (Sim, Jim and Jim) had showed up. Standard is one of our clients, so it was fun to chat with them. In fact, I talked to Sim later that evening after I was well on my way to drunkenness. Sim used to work at Bodyfelt so we talked about Dick Bodyfelt. It was a great conversation.
I also met Kevin sometime that night. Kevin was definitely not a Young Lawyer but half of the crowd wasn’t. Kevin was from Colorado and he was funny. There was a great story about Brian (Bullivant) screwing Kevin out of a $1,000 in a prior case. They met while paying the tab at the bar and realized the connection. Luckily, they were both friendly and didn’t care. It made for a great story that night, though. We closed down Clydes (again – yes, that means I did it 2 out of the 3 nights).
The conference was fine the next morning, though I was quite hungover. It ended at 1pm and we had until 3:30pm before we had to leave for the airport. Rick had a conference call, so I walked back down to the Mall. It was nice being that close. I looked at the Lincoln Memorial again and spent a lot of time just walking around. I bought a hot dog from a street vendor and ate it in front of the White House front lawn. I took a picture of myself doing it because I thought it was funny. I am really glad that I made my way to the Korean Memorial because I really enjoyed it. What a beautiful and touching memorial. “Freedom is not free.” Rick called me and we met there. Then, we hoofed it back to the hotel, gathered our bags and went to the airport.
Alas, we were not free from being surrounded by lawyers. The Standard Ins. group was there, as well as some other Portland attorneys that we had met. When we got onto the plane, we were learned that an Oregon federal court judge sat next to me. He wasn’t very talkative. It was a long ride back, though I finished my book.
During the trip, Rick told me that I was on partner track. We discussed what I should do to ensure that I’m invited to be a partner. I had a fabulous trip and enjoyed Rick’s company and enjoyed the sites even better! Now, I’m really excited to go to the DRI Young Lawyers conference in Florida in June with Jennifer. Hopefully, some of the people I met will be there too.
