A Day on The Hill

Our group met in the cafeteria of the Rayburn representative office building. Let’s just say it’s a far cry from the Goddard cafeteria. We went over our strategy again before our first visit, and worried about the couple of people who did show up (one turned up in front of the office of our first visit, the other turned up later in the day).

The day was mostly low-key with mere moments of action puctuated with hours of waiting. I made 5 visits &#150 4 representative’s offices and 1 senator. Members of our group make a total of 8 visits, but when the schedule between visits was tight (30 minutes), we split the group to make both.

Each meeting went very well. The basic structure of each meeting was: introductions, a few talking points, a few anecdotes relating the NSF to our home institutions or institutions in the congress-person’s district, thank yous and a quick exit. Since the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget has already been through the full House and the Senate appropriations committee, we were basically sending a message of thanks to the congressional offices we visited. In fact, the NSF budget has seen a 7.5% increase in the House, and nearly that in the Senate. The one thing we were requesting was that congress keep the increase through the conference or omnibus bill.

Each meeting went very well. Since most of the VA legislators were in favor of increasing the NSF funding, we were mostly preaching to the choir. In fact, one of our visits was to the chair of the House’s science appropriations committe, in which case we were preaching to the preacher.

I ended up leading our first meeting of the day. It went very well, though I didn’t bring up a few of the points I would have liked to – so much for 20/20 hindsight. As the day wore on, though, our group started to get a good rhythm going, and were able to pick up slack in the conversation when things lagged.

Having said that, there was one member of our group who really brought things down. He was from my district, and was originally supposed to lead the meeting for my representative. Thank FSM he got caught in traffic. He didn’t show up to the orientation last night, so he didn’t know how these meetings were supposed to go. One thing about the meetings is to make a quick exit. So, when things were winding down and we had the staffer on our side, someone would ask what we as scientists could do to help in the future – this was our cue that we were going to cut and run after the answer. This guy, though, just didn’t get that. In at least two meetings that I was in with him, after we had asked the “what can we do for you” question, he would bring up something completely unrelated to what we were talking about and certainly not in the spirit of getting out of there quickly. Ah well. We survived despite this guy.

One thing several people have asked me is whether or not this sort of thing really helps. I have to say that I wondered the same thing going into this project. The answer came when we asked the staffers what we could do for them in the future. Every single one of them said to keep up what we’re doing – contact our congress people, visit our congress people, and have these kinds of lobby days. In fact, the staffer in the House science appropriations committee chair made the point that up until just a few years ago, the math and science lobby seemed to disappear. It took the US’s competitiveness crisis (i.e. that we are not turning out the numbers of scientists and technical graduates that we’re going to need to compete in the global market) for the math and science lobby to return. So, we really need to lobby through letters and visits and make ourselves available as experts on these topics, and we really need to look at this as a long-haul thing, not just something to do until the crisis has passed.

And just one more note: I mentioned that much of the day was waiting. Well, while one of the team members and I were waiting for our final visit, getting a cup of coffee (him) and chai (me) in the Senate coffee shop we saw Jenna Elfman. Who’d ‘a’ thunk?

Tags: politics

Orientation and Reception for our Lobby Day

This afternoon we had the orientation for the lobby day tomorrow. I was struck at how easy it was to get into the House office buildings. Somehow, with all that’s been going on in the world, I expected that there would be security up the gazoo with only people with an appointment allowed in. Nope. I just had to have my bags X-rayed and walk through a metal detector, and there I was.

Our meeting was in the Science Committee’s main hearing room. The walls were adorned with portraits of all of the former committee chairs, and looked much as the hearing rooms do on TV. We spent about an hour and a half listening to people talk at us, going over our talking points and discussing how our congressional visits would go the next day.

Then we broke up into our teams. My team had five members, plus our leader who was to shuffle us around the next day. We went over our schedule for the next day, talked a bit about our respective backgrounds, and went over the general outline of each meeting yet one more time. The other person from my district didn’t show, so suddenly I was assigned to be the lead for the first meeting tomorrow. Yikes!

Afterward there was a reception for us with food and drinks. This one was held in another of the science committee’s hearing rooms &#150 this time the one where most of the NASA and space appropriations committee meetings are. The walls were covered with Hubble Telescope pictures. I didn’t end up staying too long, but did chat for a while with one of my team members and a neurologist from Arkansas.

Oh, and to the three people who sat near me in the orientation meeting #150; if you don’t feel like you need to be in the meeting, then don’t show up. I don’t want to hear you clacking away on your blackberry the whole time or to listen to your under-your-breath comments (which, by the way, weren’t really under your breath).

Tags: politics

Outfit chosen…

…and ironed and ready to go.

Thanks to everyone who voiced an opinion on my outfit for the orientation and reception tomorrow evening. I’ve closed comments on the previous post and tallied the votes. There were 3 votes for Option #1, 8 votes for Option #2, and none for Option #3.

While I actually prefer skirts to slacks, and I like Suzanne’s observation that the monochromatic scheme under the jacket of #1 would make me look taller, I’m going to go with the majority. I worried that Option #1 would be a bit too bright, and the darker colors of Option #2 will look nicer and more professional.

Thanks again. I’ll be sure to post a follow-up Thursday or Friday to let y’all know how the lobbying went.

Help! quick!

Did I mention Congress?

I’m going to Congress on Wednesday this week as part of an army of scientists being brought in to lobby on behalf of science funding. I’ve already figured out what I’m wearing to Congress on Wednesday (I bought a new outfit &#150 see it here).

However, there is an orientation and reception Tuesday night for the members of the lobbying team. Presumably, I could dress for this as though I were coming straight from work, but the problem is that I wear shorts or jeans to work. So, I need your opinion on what to wear. Here are three options from my wardrobe (click on the images for a full-sized view and keep in mind that the outfit may not be completely ironed and I’m not wearing the body-constricting undergarments that I’ll be wearing Tuesday).

Let me know in the comments ASAP which outfit you think I should wear.

Option 1	Option 2	Option3

Baking without gluten

My Mom recently discovered that she has trouble digesting gluten, so has switched to a gluten-free diet. For those of you unfamiliar with gluten, it’s in everything, or at least seems to be. The main thing is flour, but also cereals, grains, pasta, breads and many processed foods. It’s everywhere! Check out the table on this page (it starts about halfway down the page) for a good summary.

Mom has tried a few gluten-free products, and found a few she likes and a few that she doesn’t. But, I think she’s gotten tired of trying new, potentially weird-tasting things. So, I’ve taken it upon myself to try a few things for her. A couple weeks ago I tried a gluten-free brownie mix that was really quite good. Andrew picked up a couple packages that we’ll send off to her soon.

The last time we were at the grocery store, we found an “all-purpose” gluten-free flour, which says it’s good in baked products. Tonight I tried to make chocolate chip cookies using that gf flour, and the results are, um, mixed. The dough had a weird, metallic aftertaste (and, as anyone knows, eating the batter is one of the ultimate pleasures of making home-baked cookies). The cookies spread out a lot – they got very thin and, as a result, crunchy. Oh, and these crunchy cookies stuck to the cookie sheets – Andrew had to listen to me cursing and grunting as I tried to get one pan of cookies free. On the other hand, the cookies actually taste pretty good. There’s a small aftertaste, but not overwhelming and fairly subtle. If I were to try this again, I’d try adding a third egg to the dough (eggs are a binding agent, and may help the cookies from spreading out – Mom tried adding extra flour to a pancake recipe for the same reason without good results, so I don’t think I’d try that first), and definitely grease the cookie sheets.

Anyone else out there have good gluten-free baking tips?

Tags: baking

Fall is near

Someone seems to have flipped the weather switch. We went from hot, humid, and hazy to cool and rainy overnight sometime a couple weeks ago. I kept hoping that it was just temporary, that summer would come back, but I’ve been sorely disappointed. That, and my week of migraines that accompanies the beginning fall happened Labor Day week. I can’t bear to think that this will happen twice this year.

I’ve also started feeling inexplicably sad. I really don’t want to call my doctor yet for Prozac – maybe it’s just the change in weather, and I’ll feel better soon. Right? Right? I didn’t start until October last year.

I already miss summer, and technically it doesn’t end for another two weeks.

It’s not all bad, though, right? The windows are open more often, letting in the crips smell of the outdoors. Ares has started snuggling at the computer again. He’s also been on the bed a couple of nights (Artemis and Duncan stay on the bed almost year round, at least for part of the night). I stopped at Target a couple weeks ago and bought a bunch of school supplies – I love office supplies, and the selection is soooo much better in the fall. The new TV seasons are starting. Biking is less a sweaty sport these mornings. Oh, and Halloween is on its way, and I’m making new costumes for me and Andrew.

Tags: comfort, suckitude

Ahhh….

…back to full speed. Yay!

Bugger

Our DSL modem is toasted – possibly from all the power flickers Friday night (darn you, Ernesto). That means we’re on dial-up until they get a new modem out to us. Granted, they’ll overnight it, but this is a holiday weekend…holiday weekend, for the love of FSM…so we won’t be back up to speed until Wednesday. Grrrr. In the meantime, I won’t be updating here much, and probably won’t be reading your blog, either.

Hope you’re all enjoying your long weekends!

Tags: suckitude

What more could a person want?

Tags: tv

Dad’s home

After being lost for a little while Sunday, Dad’s okay and he’s home now. (He was lost when he checked out of the hospital Sunday and checked into a hotel without telling anyone where he was going. And, of course, his cell phone had discharged while he was in the hospital, so we couldn’t catch him that way.) Anyway, he flew home yesterday morning (first class, no less!), and is now home with Mom.

In some good news, he does not have an aortic aneurysm, so it was “just” a heart attack. (Yes, we know a heart attack is serious, and I don’t mean to belittle it, but at least he doesn’t have an aneurysm on top of that.)

Now I’m just going to enjoy my time in Boston…the first day of the meeting went well, and I’ll eventually write up the meeting over at Galaxy Girl. Oh, and obviously I do have internet — I’m even on the Harvard wireless.. hee hee hee. So things may not be completely quiet here over the week.

Tags: family, suckitude