It has been another run of the mill week here in DC. The big news last week was the hurricanes that were supposed to make their way up here. The remnants of Bonnie were very disorganized and only brought us a short rain. Then came Charley… they put out tropical storm warnings and said we were going to get four inches of rain and high winds. I decided to grab some groceries early and just stay in and take care of laundry and other stuff in my apartment. Sure enough, the rain came and the heavy stuff was moving up from the south. But as the evening pressed on, the storm moved to the east of us and the sun was shining through the clouds around sunset. All that hype for nothing.

My grandmother’s funeral has been scheduled for Saturday, August 28 at 10am. I have been authorized a pass for the weekend and will be able to make it home for the services. My aunt from LA and all my sisters will also be there, so all of our close family will be there. Looks like that Saturday will be a family packed day.

Last Friday I ventured out a saw the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights at the National Archives. The wait was about 30 minutes just to see anything and the whole exhibit took about another 30 minutes. It was very cool to see our founding papers, but I was astonished at how faded some of the documents were. The Declaration of Independence was extremely faded. It made me sad to see this faded piece of paper that established our independence. I mean, really… it was so faded you could barely read the writing. The other two have fared a little better over the years.

After that, I walked over to the National Building Museum. It was on a list of top five things to see in the downtown DC area in my Lonely Planet book, otherwise, I never would have visited it. The building itself was very impressive. From the outside, it looks like a huge office building, but when you walk in, the interior of the building is a huge hall. And the architecture is spectacular. According to their website the building is “constructed of more than 15 million bricks, the Museum houses some of the largest Corinthian columns in the world and has been the site of fifteen Presidential Inaugural balls, from Grover Cleveland's in 1885 to George W. Bush's in 2001.” They currently have three exhibits. The first one I saw is called “Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete.” It was an interesting view into how concrete is used in architecture. The other one is called “Symphony in Steel: Ironworkers and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.” It is an exhibit of striking black and white pictures capturing the beautiful lines of the new building and the spirit and courage of the men and women that built the hall. Check out the website of the museum for some pictures of the museum and info on the exhibits. I am seriously considering bringing Holly here next time she comes to visit. Maybe we’ll take a tour of the building.

Holly shipped my mountain bike to me last week and it arrived in one piece. It is being assembled at a bike shop down the street and it supposed to be ready tomorrow! I am pretty excited about getting my bike. I am so looking forward to checking out some of the trails around here after work. Of course, the after work thing will be next week, after my schedule changes. I still don’t know how that’s going to work out with my internal clock. I hate getting up early.