I may just be the luckiest person alive. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the closure of the Seattle P-I and how sad it made me, how it had a special place in my heart, and how depressing the journalism industry is.
Well, I work there now.
It all happened so fast. Two weeks after I wrote that blog entry, the P-I’s executive producer (yeah, that’s the new name for editor-in-chief) asked me to come in for an interview. I had written her an e-mail a few weeks before, curious if there were any opportunities for full-time or freelance. I was exceptionally surprised to actually hear back from her with positive news.
She contacted me on a Tuesday. I went in for my interview Wednesday. And they offered me the job Thursday.
Huh? What had just happened? I had been sitting around home, freelancing and whatnot, for five months. Companies were taking weeks — months — to get back to me about possible jobs. And my luck turned around just like that? In three days?
Well, I accepted the job. It is very exciting to be a part of this experiment. I feel that journalists across the country are keeping an eye on the online-only P-I, to see if it works and is economically viable. We’re the Guinea pigs. But I like that — we’re traversing uncharted ground.
My job is half online producer, half reporter (or, as my official title says, “news gatherer”). I actually haven’t started the producing side — that starts today, Easter. For reporting, I’ll mostly be covering education — both higher ed and K-12 — and a bit of e-retail (or e-tail), such as Amazon.com. I work Sunday through Thursday.
I’ll keep you guys posted as I settle in to this exciting new job. I’ve been there four days, so far, and it is quite busy.
Crazy things can happen.
Lisa and I took a day trip south to Alexandria, Va., on Valentine’s Day. Old Town Alexandria is a beautiful place with a lot of character. Restaurants and specialty shops line the main street, just every once and a while giving way to a chain like Banana Republic or Ann Taylor. For the most part, the town has done a great job preserving its colonial roots — George Washington went to church there and ran part of the Revolutionary War out of a tavern there, for example — while still being modernized. Gotta be crowded as hell during the tourist season, though.
It was a great afternoon destination. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend it. (Will anyone get that movie reference?)
Friday was a bit of an end-of-the-week whirlwind tour. Thankfully, my annoying visit to the National Museum of Natural History — kids, kids, kids EVERYWHERE — was redeemed by a Barack Obama sighting.
OK, that was the hook. The teaser.
My first stop that morning was the National Postal Museum — after a satisfying breakfast (with coffee, of course) in the lobby of Union Station. Don’t worry, the postal museum was much more interesting than it sounds. For the most part. I was a little annoyed that their drinking fountains weren’t working, but I got my money’s worth (it was free).
Now working with a Metro card I loaded with money, instead of a seven-day pass, I chose to walk the mile south to the United States Botanical Garden. Sounds a little fancier than it is, but it was certainly a much-needed change from so many museums. (I got pretty tired of looking at dioramas and document facsimiles.)
Next was a long walk across the National Mall to the natural history museum, the big one with the elephant in the center and the dinosaur skeletons. Well, they were all casts of dinosaur bones. Not much authenticity, unfortunately. But I pushed through the crowds — I had to at least attempt to see the whole museum.
(Sorry, I hate using flash.)
I had a good time in the mammals section — for some reason, seeing stuffed leopards and koalas still fascinates me — but I mostly wanted to just get out of there. It was more a display of the stupidity of mass crowds and children on field trips than it was an enjoyable exhibition of flora and fauna. But that was OK. What could I expect? I was in Washington, D.C., on a Friday trying to go to a museum very popular with the kids.
Now I sound like a grumpy old man. I felt like one, too. So I thought I’d bring myself a bit more down-to-earth with a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Another long walk to the end of the Mall, but Lisa had told me it was a beautiful museum. Unfortunately, once I got there I found a long line along the sidewalk, with people waiting to just get tickets so they could come back at a different time. Oops, I’d forgotten about that. I felt a little bad for skipping out on depressing Jewish history, but I’ve been to Dachau. That counts for something, right?
Good thing I left, because I headed toward the White House — mainly just for the hell of it. After a brief stop through its visitor center, I strolled up to a group of people who were being held up by police. The cops weren’t letting anyone in front of the White House or on the Ellipse. Everyone thought sometime was going to happen soon. Maybe a motorcade?
Then in swooped Marine One, the president’s designated helicopter. I got photos of it arriving, figuring Obama was on board. When the cops still had things blocked off, after the chopper had landed, I changed my mind. I walked to the far end of the Ellipse to get a better view of the event, and yes! I saw people — I suppose one of them must have been Obama — get into the copter. When it took back off, it flew right over my head.
OK, enough typing. That night, Lisa and I had dinner with my aunt, uncle and cousin who live in the D.C. area. But that’s not as interesting a story as anything Obama-related, so I’ll stop there.
I’m a few days behind on my blogging about the trip. So far, in fact, that now I’m back in Seattle. But, partly to satisfy the popular demand, I’ll keep posting like I have been.
Thursday started differently than the prior days because Lisa and I rode the Metro into Washington together. She and her fellow SPLC interns were hitting the town to see the special Abraham Lincoln displays on his 200th birthday. I took up the invitation to tag along — at least of some of the tour.
Our first stop was the infamous Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was shot, to pick up some tickets for a pageant-thingy I didn’t attend. But I went with them to the theater, planning to break off within an hour to start on my own plans. But our plans were slightly delayed when we saw Al Roker walking through the theater lobby. (Actually, we had our doubts it was him until one of his producers came up to us outside and asked if we wanted to be on the Today show.)
We didn’t end up on TV — a few dozen grade-school kids trump a few well-dressed young professionals. But we watched him do his 30-second live broadcast. I took some video on Lisa’s Flip camera, but she and I were too lazy to post it.
After our obligatory Starbucks stop, I left the ladies to their own devices and strolled up to NPR headquarters for a tour. (They only do them once a week, at 11 a.m. on Thursdays.) The tour was interesting enough — we saw their studios, their newsrooms, their library and their archives. Saw no one famous. Saw no broadcasts.
After meeting up with Lisa and Co. for lunch, I headed off to the National Museum of American History — the one you probably think of when you think of the Smithsonian. Not all the exhibits were open, because the museum recently (nearly a year ago, actually) reopened after renovations. But the Lincoln exhibit (for which I met up with the SPLC ladies again), the Star Spangled Banner and the Hanford exhibit were pretty cool. (Stephen Colbert had also loaned his portrait-within-a-portrait-within-a-portrait to the museum.)
The crowds and kids started to get to me, so I left to meet up with Lisa and folks at a coffee shop east of the Capitol, then we topped it off with happy hour. A nice, low-key ending to a busy day.
ARLINGTON, Va. — My feet really started to hurt Wednesday. It’s amazing how all this walking and standing around — regardless of the shoes you’re wearing — screws up your feet. But I toughed it out.
My agenda for Wednesday was as follows:
- National Archives
- Newseum
- National Portrait Gallery (with Lisa)
I got to the Archives a day early — on Thursday they put the Emancipation Proclamation on display in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday. But all the regular good stuff was there: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Newseum was the only museum for which I paid an admittance fee. And not a small one — $20. But it really was a great museum. There were tons of interesting things for a journalism nerd for me, and plenty of stuff for the average person. Walking through there, it seemed to me that part of Newseum’s mission is to instill back into people the value of the First Amendment and the press, something people are starting to forget.
Also what impressed me was that many of their exhibits were extremely up-to-date — the convergence exhibit, for example, talked about the coverage of Flight 1549 (the one that crashed into the Hudson a few weeks ago). Any museum, I suppose, has to keep rotating its collection to make it fresh, but Newseum really needs to keep on top of things, and it seems to do that very well.
Newseum also had some cool artifacts, like a big chunk of the Berlin Wall and part of the antenna from the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
The main reason Lisa and I went to the National Portrait Gallery was to see the original Obama Hope collage, which was recently installed. It was way cooler than you’d even think! I can’t even describe it.
Anyway, my pictures.
The Memorials by Night
ARLINGTON, Va. — Lisa and I set out for the Mall on Tuesday night to see the memorials. It was a wonderful, warm night. We went to the biggies: the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the WWII Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial.
It was night, so not many of our photos turned out, of course. But here are a few that are somewhat presentable.
ARLINGTON, Va. — I began Tuesday with a tour of the Capitol. The tour was about what you’d expect — explanations of the paintings, the sculptures, random building facts. All that was fine. But the cool part, hands down, was watching the Senate.
I had gotten next-day Senate and House gallery passes Monday from Sen. Patty Murray’s office, and not a day too soon. As you probably know, the Senate was scheduled to vote Tuesday on its economic stimulus plan. It just happened to coincide beautifully with my visit to the Capitol.
So at noon I watched the senators vote on their two stimulus bills. I’d seen it all before on C-SPAN, but it was fascinating to be there, watching our government actually at work. I saw Murray, Maria Cantwell, Ted Kennedy, John McCain, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Roland Burris and a bunch more. The gallery was pretty packed — and up with us were the Gallery Nazis, making sure no one put their hands on the railing, talked, slept, read pamplets, wrote, anything.
I couldn’t take pictures in there, let alone any electronics (not even car-key beepers). But I have a few from the rest of the day. My Tuesday itinerary was as follows:
- Capitol tour, including Senate and House galleries
- National Gallery of Art
That’s it.
ARLINGTON, Va. — OK, I know I’ve already broken my promise of blogging daily about my trip. Well, I guess I never promised, but I was kinda planning on it. Now it’s Thursday — I’ve just been tired from seeing so much stuff here!
My itinerary on Monday was as follows:
- Sen. Patty Murray’s office, to reserve a Capitol tour and obtain Senate and House gallery passes.
- Supreme Court
- Library of Congress
- National Air and Space Museum
- Stroll down the National Mall
ARLINGTON, Va. — Lisa and I ventured the two Metro stops up to Arlington National Cemetery today and spent, well, a good three hours there. It was an unseasonably beautiful day — sunny and at least 65 degrees, though a bit windy. We were walking around in our T-shirts. In February!
Anyway, we saw most of the popular things: JFK’s eternal flame, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Robert E. Lee’s former mansion. But I had the best time just wandering through the fields, reading names and looking at dates.
I didn’t find it an especially sobering experience. For some reason, I rarely think of cemeteries as what they are: collections of dead people. Maybe it was because we mainly walked through the graves of people who lived full lives — rather than the young soldiers — but, in general, I find cemeteries more alive than dead.
Maybe it was the warm weather and the promise of spring. Or the cardinals pecking at the ground. Or the company. Regardless, it was a nice time.
D.C. and some museums tomorrow. Stay tuned.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Um, for those of you who don’t know, I’m in Washington, D.C., visiting Lisa. And the picture above is my evidence.
We went on a long excursion this afternoon, walking from her place in Pentagon City (in Arlington, Va.) through the National Mall up to Trader Joe’s. “Wait, Trader Joe’s?” you may ask. Yep, the grocery store. Mmmm.
Anyway, I’ll be posting more from here as time goes on. I flew in yesterday and I’m here for 10 days. During the week, I’ll be exploring on my own while Lisa’s at work.
