Presidential Honors

I was back in DC on the weekend, and the secret service got me again. This time a little more overt than before. My friend Matt, who is a fellow faulkner resident, picked me up from union square train station in DC and took me for a tour of capital hill. We were passing by the whitehouse and i had my video camera out, then matt turned into a closed off section of road, to do a U-turn. (everyone else was doing it, and since 9-11 pretty much all the roads have been closed down.) Anyway Matt didn't see the sign, and about half way through the U-turn and uniformed secret service agent chick went ballistic. "hey stop there, what are you filming, where are you going, give me your license.' I didn't have my passport, so i gave her my aussie drivers license, and heard her in the background,'we have an american and an austrlian passenger.' and she was spelling out my last name, 'C-charlie A-alpha ... A few police officers came over and actually confronted her, i heard one guy say, just give them back their licences and let them go. To which she then became more enraged to assert her authority, she made us park and wait for ten minutes while she ran checks, and harassed Matt for having his registration in the trunk not the glove compartment. 'Why is it in the trunk, what's in your glovebox that you're afraid for me to see.'

Then she made me delete my film footage, which it turns out i didn't because i wasn;t sure how to. See the others around were police officers, and she was uniformed secret service,(they don't have the cool job, they just guard entraces) so she was on a different mission. Mind you we had only pulled off two yards into closed off road to make a U-turn, and there was people walking passed with video cameras and digital cameras. And about a dozen other people were making u-turns while we sat waiting. So the chick grabbed a fine booklet from a police officer(because uniformed secret service don;t normally fine people,) and she wrote matt two tickets, one for 500bucks and one for 30bucks, at least he can get out of the 500 buck one, because he couldn't provide insurance details, but he was in fact insured. This chick was so rude too, she would yell. 'Wind down your window , now!'

Anyway, later on when it was dark, we were walking around the back of the white house, and no one else was around. And the undercover secret service drove by, and the dude was whispering into his lapel.


This is the white house, hidden a little, from the top of the old post office, if i panned left you would see the washington monument.






















This is the spirit of saint lois; the first plane to cross the atlantic. This is in the smithsonian museum. Remember Bart was playing in it, when the whole simpson family visited DC, when Lisa won the esaay competition.
'Bart! Get out of the spirit of saint louis.'

I had a brief meeting with the president on Saturday, it went for a couple of minutes. He basically just wanted to know a few of my travel plans, and i gave him a brief outline of my vision of the future.











This is the capital building from the top of the old post office. YOu can see the supreme court next to it, on the top left, and bottom right out of shot is the FBI building. If i panned 180 degress to the right i would see the washington monument and the white house.







Quote: i love this quote.
Skinner: My mind is made up! I'm not coming back! And that's final.
Edna: Oh, Seymour.
Skinner: And I'm not Seymour. My name is Armin. This is Armin's apartment, Armin's liquor, Armin's copy of "Swank", Armin's frozen peas.
Homer: Can I see your copy of "Swank", Armin?
Skinner: Yes, you can