Benjamin Franklin, the fraud?

You know those time when things happen to you, and you think "wow, of course, this only happens to me..."? Yea, I know some of you know what I mean. Anyway, so this was basically how my day started. I went over to one of the museums with Steve, the new guy in the department (training for some admin job, I think). Anyway, on the way over, he explains to me that he worked for the Hands On Science Center for five years before this job, and he worked on this project where he was reconstructing the experiement Benjamin Franklin did, using only his original papers. Basically, he and this other guy, Richard (BIG BIG NERD) were trying to figure out if Benjamin Franklin did indeed do all the stuff that people say he did. Specifically, they think good ol' Ben might have embelished some of his experiments. Interesting, eh? I thought so too. Anyway, so he shows me all these experiements, ya know, the kite with the key, the lightening bells, the lyden jars (yup, I am going to pretend i knew what those were before I went in there this morning). Then this woman comes in to interview the guys about their whole project. An hour later, I am now included in this article, and this woman tells me that her best friend lives in Davis and is actually the assistant Dean of Graduate Studies at Davis. Typical. So, yea, look for my name in print, in the Torch, the official newspaper of the Smithsonian (or something like that).

So, after celebrity interview, we went back to the office, and then quickly made our way to the Washington hotel, which proved to relatively fancy. I think we rode the metro a total of 11 blocks...they say people in DC walk, but really, they just walk to the metro, walk to the buses, walk as little as possible. Anyway, so we had a lunch meeting with this very fancy guy from the hotel who basically could answer none of the questions my boss had for him, but whatever, free fancy lunch, so we were happy.

So, yea, life is good, work is good, it is getting warmer, although tomorrow they are saying Alberto might make his appearance south of here, and bring with him some thunderstorms to DC, so I am excited for my first DC thunder and lightening show. I am hoping to meet up with my old boss in the coming days, I'll let you know how that goes.