Odometer: 4213

Wow, passed 4000 already too! When you don't update a blog in a couple weeks, you drive over a thousand miles obviously. Luckily I've discovered I can save on gas by going to Costco. It's only $3.25 a gallon there. I also discovered that at Costco I can get milk for less than $4 a gallon, which is what it costs everywhere else; one gallon at Costco costs $2.78. Much better. I haven't wrote much in the last little while mostly because not a lot of noteworthy things have happened.

Work has gotten more busy. Instead of learning how to do things and about stuff, I'm actually doing things. It's not incredibly exciting, but it's good experience to prepare for a future career in financial planning. I'm starting to feel more like this is a career I would enjoy, especially with Edward Jones. I keep learning about more and more great benefits about the company. For example, there was recently a hurricane close by and every Edward Jones employee got a call from headquarters to check if they were ok. If not, they sent help to their home. Financial advisors can earn trips all over the world my meeting certain criteria each year. Employees can be invited to be limited partners and share the profits of the company. EJ cares about its employees and helps them. I thought there might be a lot of competition between advisors, but all the advisors work together. They're encouraged to share ideas and ask for help from each other. Local leadership roles are voluntary and not compensated so people do things to actually help others and not just for their own benefit. It's really a great place to work.


The only really cool thing I've done was some more touring. My brother and I and two friends got a tour of the Capitol Building yesterday. Although the building is huge, we only got to tour a small part of it. I love the oldness of the building. Working there would be pretty cool just because there is so much history there. One thing I like about museums and historical places is knowing that people used those things and walked those halls many years ago. I can imagine Abraham Lincoln or some other historical figure walking down the same hall that I'm going down. Or at the postal museum, some railway worker from way back when using the machinery that I was looking at. Maybe that's weird but I enjoy that more than looking at paintings and strange modern art, neither of which I understand, unless it's a painting of a mountain, cause than I know it's a mountain and that's it. Sorry Alyssa.

Headphones for the tour and someone who doesn't believe in taking pictures

Rotunda of the Capitol

Another room with lots of statues, reminded me of Harry Potter and the chess room

 Brigham Young, representing Utah. Who know he was in the Capitol...

Library of Congress was really cool but it was hard to capture it in pictures

Also went to the building museum which had some cool stuff. Also it took me probably 20 minutes to find my car at the parking garage when I got back to my metro stop.

Other random notes.

I saw one random episode of Lost a few years ago and thought, wow this show is weird. I'm not sure why everyone likes it so much. I thought 24 was sooo much better. While I've been here, and enjoyed roommate privileges of Netflix use, I've started watching from the beginning. When you watch a series in order, it actually makes sense when you see an episode of the third season. Basically, I've become addicted to this show. It's so good. It keeps you hanging and wanting more. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON ON THAT ISLAND!!! But don't nobody go tellin me cause I wanna see it for myself! I only recommend watching this show if you have a lot of free time because you're going to need it.

Lots of the time, there are signs like "enforced by radar" or "photo enforced" near traffic signs. I've seen one here that I've never seen before and I want to know what is going on. On the drive home from work I pass this sign that says "Speed 55. Enforced by aircraft." ??? Every time I pass this sign, I imagine some car speeding passed me, followed by unmanned military drone which drops in and fires a missile at the car for speeding. Either that or a police helicopter which chases it down the road at low altitude telling them to pull over. Hopefully somebody speeds passed me before I leave so I can see what happens.

Odometer: 3009

Well I have passed the 3000 mile mark! I suppose that this is exciting. How did I do it? By driving 45 miles to and from work every day! Also from trying to get on the correct road and then getting off it cause I messed up and then trying to find the right road again. I've started work and it's been good so far. The first week has been a lot of orientation sort of stuff. Training on the computer systems and standard operating procedures. Today I had a lengthy interactive video training on sexual harassment and other forms of harassment. At least it was videos; many of the other ones I've had to read a bunch of information which is not incredibly entertaining. I've learned some stuff from my host advisor, Jeff. He is very successful. From what I've learned about the company so far too it seems like a great company to work for in the future. I'll definitely be keeping in touch with this firm.

They're really kinda ug

Tuesday night, after my second day, I got the chance to see the fun side of the financial world. All of the branches in our region that met the region standards went out to dinner to relax and celebrate together. We went out to "eastern shore" to enjoy an all you can eat crab dinner! I don't remember the city name or the restaurant, but it was over by Annapolis across the bay bridge, which is very long by the way. So anyway, crabs are interesting. They take a lot of effort to eat and it's very unsubstantial. Apparently it is a "social food." It was cool though to learn how to get the meat. The leg meet wasn't bad but getting the main body meat was gross. You basically open it's body and scrape off all the guts and goo and then eat whatever's left. Good experience but probably won't be occurring again soon. The hush puppies were quite delicious though.

                  The restaurant and the parking lot (docking dock?)                                Some CRABS

Wednesday was my first TERRIBLE TRAFFIC experience. Did it take 40 minute to drive 5.2 miles? YES! I went to pick up a new friend Heather to help me shop for some sweet shirts for work. Nordstrom's Rack is beautiful I learned. Also, Costco in the mall. Weirdest thing in my life. Heather is also new to DC area so I took her to the city to see some quick things since it was only 10 minutes away if you don't make wrong turns like I did.

  There were armed guards on the lawn and the roof. Don't mess.                       Tall as always

NOW IT'S THE WEEKEND FINALLY! I'M READY FOR SOME REST AND RELAXATION! MORE MILES TO COME.

Odometer: 2448

So far my DC adventure has been quite fulfilling. I've been able to spend lots of time with my little brother Ben and see a lot of cool things.

WEDNESDAY
I arrived on Tuesday night and then began being a tourist the next day, along with a million school children with bright coordinating t-shirts. I've now learned that the district is always filled with such groups. While Ben was at work I walked around the national mall and saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Monument, the WWII Monument, and a few others. Oh yes, this was also my first time using the metro to get around. I only messed up when I was going through the ticket gate thing for the first time. Good thing it wasn't busy at the time. I met up with my brother once he was out of work and saw the Capital Building and the White House. I guess you could say the first day was for seeing things that you don't really go inside, except for one museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, which has some cool modern art and an exhibit using light. We met up with my friend Linda for part of the evening as well and walked around the city.

The Washington Monument

Lincoln Monument

World War II Monument

This is what my grandpa did on the USS Indiana

The White House

US Capitol Building

 One thing which was kind of odd to me was the George Washington campus. I'm used to the spread-out campus at BYU so seeing high-rise apartments for dorms and similar city buildings as campus buildings kind of blew my mind a little bit.

THURSDAY

Thursday I moved into my new apartment in Alexandria. I'm renting a private room in a house for $525 a month! In Provo that is more than any university housing but here in the DC area it is a pretty inexpensive place to live. I was happily surprised by how cozy the neighborhood and house were. I got all my stuff into my room and situated and felt happy that I found a nice place to live. This would be a great family house. Perhaps if I ever move to the area I'll check if it is for sale. I met a few of my housemates that night and with time met the rest of them (it took till Sunday afternoon to meet all of them). We are seven bachelors in this house.

I never made it to the city but that night I went to a great place with my friend Linda. The Salsa Room! I have been going dancing for a couple years now but this was my first time going outside of Utah, unless you count the very first time I went in Spokane when I had no idea what the heck I was doing. I had a great time. First I got carded, which has only happened a few times in my life, and then I danced the night away. There are a lot of good dancers out here.

On the way home afterward, I had the pleasure of meeting my first Fairfax County police officer. Yes, I got pulled over. One of my headlights had burned out... So he went through the drill of where I was coming from and where I was going. He asked "how much have you had to drink tonight?" I answered, "none, actually I've never drank in my entire life." "Ok," he said. Then after a second he realized what I said. "You haven't drank in your entire life?!?" I guess they're not used to hearing that outside of Utah. He gave me a warning and let me on my merry way. Yes Dad, I got it fixed.

FRIDAY
Friday morning I thought I'd do a test run of my hour-long commute to make sure traffic wasn't going to be a problem. Traffic wasn't a problem at all! The problem was that I missed a turn or two, my GPS told me to turn where I couldn't, and I turned the wrong way down a one-way street! After I got off the beltway the drive was cake. I got down to my office and met the staff. Most offices have one financial advisor (FA) and one branch office administrator (BOA). This one, however, has two FA's and four BOA's. Jeff is my host FA and has three BOA's to keep up with all of his clients. The other FA will be using that office exclusively in a month and Jeff and his staff will be moving to a new office. I'm excited to start on Monday. Jeff has been in the top 300 FA's out of nearly 12,000 for the past 11 years. Their team made the top 50 recently as well.

On the drive back I made a few stops to get some more clothes to work and to take a peak and Chesapeake Bay. It is large.

SATURDAY
Saturday was museum walk weekend for some of the "off the mall" museums. Ben and I went to some of those and then back to the mall for some Smithsonian museums. Some of the highlights were the National Geographic Museum, the American Art Museum, and the Natural History Museum. The section of the Natural History Museum about man's predecessors was particularly fascinating. Also, walruses are much larger than I thought.

American Art

Video Game Exhibit

Light things

Later Saturday I helped Ben move into his new apartment in Bethesda and after that we went to see the Washington LDS temple which was close by. Like the other LDS temples, it was very pretty at night. 

 Not sure what happened here...

SUNDAY
Sunday I got to go to church for the first time in my new ward. The singles wards meet in an office building in Arlington which was converted into a church. I was surprised how well they did; it actually felt more like a church than my last building in Provo, which was a church. There were a lot of people there and the average age was a little higher than my previous congregation. It was still fun though and I met some cool people there and at a munch and mingle type of thing later that night.

TOMORROW
Tomorrow is my first day of work and I'm excited to be getting started! I hope everything goes well with the drive and whatever I'm asked to do!