I'm Gone

I'm out of the office on a working vacation near our Nation's Capitol.  With all to see and do, the first day was spent at the Calvert Marine Museum.  I learned that they definitely don't build canoes on the Chesapeake Bay the way they do in the Adirondacks or Maine.  I also  learned that crabcakes are better broiled than fried.  And it was really, really refreshing to visit outdoor exhibits - docks and a elevated walkway through shallowwater marsh - that didn't have guardrails.  Stupid/clumsy people should be permitted, if not encouraged, to go over the edge. 

And kudos to the waitress who told my kid to clean her plate.

Maryland State police cars have cool paint schemes and may give Vermont State Police some competition when it comes to marking the NRTI fleet I'll never get.

When I first read that there was a National Building Museum I though it had to be the most inane thing I'd ever come across - a building about buildings.  Now that I've done a little research, I'll need to go.  Incidentally, it's right next to the NLEOM.  We did the American Art Museum and National Portrait Collection, without looking at one portrait.  That was after the National Air and Space Museum.  Having been to the Air Force Museum at Wright Pat AFB dozens of times, I'm a little spoiled, but the NASM has what is in my opinion a better collection of spacecraft and astronomical exhibits.  Neither of them are Pima - grade, though.

Before leaving, of course I'll visit Arlington, and I want to hit the NSA's National Cryptologic Museum, to see if anyone there can help decipher student's handwriting.  And I was heartbroken when I learned that the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology was folded into another organization.  I think that the cool parts of their collections went to Fort Detrick, so maybe I'll swing by and see if I can't pick up a souvenir virus.

My ultimate goal is to con my way into the National Reconnaissance Office and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, so if I don't show up back at work it means I'm in Leavenworth Federal Pen, or the Colorado Supermax