20 minutes of tourism is all I'm allowed

This week's flight at an ungodly hour on Monday brought me to this nation's capitol, where for most of the week I've seen the metro trains, the Department of Labor's offices, and the company's corporate apartment I'm sharing with a coworker.

This afternoon I got the code laying the way it was supposed to be laying, so I took a walk around the reflecting pool and called mom. Despite the gloom and doom and gnashing of teeth going on all around this city, there's still tourists wandering about this end of the mall, and the commutes are packed and stacked. I did ride on an orange line train with one of the economic pundits I recognized from Meet the Press.. the people watching is spectacular, as evidenced by a woman wearing blue tights on the morning commute. Smurfette! That being said, I still find there's something calming about the rhythm of masses of people going to and coming from work together on the train. The proximity and unspoken cooperation among a dense mass on foot is a dynamic that can't be matched in our car commutes in Texas.

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It will not go unnoticed that this week, my proposition that the Dutch are secretly ruling the world finds further support in the sporting world. The Dutch? Baseball? It's not enough that they have Shell, Phillips, ING, Ahold.. they have to start taking over BASEBALL? I'm glad I started learning to mangle their language early.