Kansas City

All day Tuesday and most of Wednesday, I went to meetings with the Social Security Advisory Board and regional officials from the Kansas City Regional Office of the Social Security Administration. In addition to meetings, we were fortunate enough to tour a massive cave turned storage facility. This cave, carved from limestone, houses documents for dozens of organizations and is home to 1.4 million boxes of disability files under SSA.

Tuesday night we ate at Lidia's, a nice Italian restuarant in downtown Kansas City, MO. The decor was better than the food, in my humble opinion. Click on the link to see an impressive shot of the chandelier and dining area. To be fair, I got a Pasta Tria di giorno dish, which offered three all-you-can-eat portions of the "pastas of the day". With mass production comes a decrease in quality. My coworkers all enjoyed their meals.

The hotel we stayed at was much nicer than my apartment. It had two tv's - both were much younger than my 1972 nineteen inch model with no audio/video hookups back in the apartment. It's best feature, for me anyways, was the queen size bed. Also, it offered a fully furnished kitchen, bathroom, and an open bar (dude) from 5-7 everynight. And by open bar I mean OPEN BAR. They had a full bar, including Boulevard taps, to wash down the complementary chicken wings they were serving. It was all I could do not to slam 8 mix drinks and eat 3 plates of chicken wings. But, I am nothing if not a professional. So, I had my one whiskey-sour tall, grinned, and beared it. I left a good impression on the board as a responsible young man. Growing up is hard sometimes. What a waste. (Click on the "board" link, add Orileus to the second board member's first name, and then tell me I was a good boy for not making any comments during the trip, despite my upbringing. I'll have to delete this section of the post soon, lest the wrong people lay eyes on it.)

Wednesday night we had more meetings and then flew back to D.C. We got in around six. Then, a coworker of mine (Joel) and I went to a DC United v. Chicago Fire game at RFK Stadium. It was pretty intense. United won 1-0. I have picutres of that, too if I ever get around to posting those.