MUGA Day #32: My Day in our Nation's Capital

The weather today was fabulous.  Sunny, with the temperature up to almost 70F.  Tulips are in bloom.

Washington, DC is my third home.  #1 of course is Hawaii, while #2 is the Bay Area, for I went to school at Stanford, worked at the NASA Ames Research Center and spent two assignments at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  At the end of MUGA (My Ultimate Global Adventure), I have a ten day period planned for a mini-class reunion in Napa, following a week of golf in that general region.

Pearl and I spent three years in D.C. working for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga in the 1979-82 period.  I arrived during the heat of the second energy crisis, and left when President Ronald Reagan decimated the national solar program.  Both oil and gold prices rose to the highest level (in 2013 dollars) in history in 1982.

We lived in Falls Church, where across the street one way was Alexandria, and the other, Arlington.  The commute to the Senate was too painful, so we entered a lottery for an apartment to be built on the only hill south of Alexandria where the Yellow Line was to terminate.  We won and our apartment would have had a view of the Washington Monument and the Potomac River.

It all came together (apartment and Metro) in 1982 when the University of Hawaii told me come home or lose your tenure.  So we returned to Honolulu.

I took a quick walk this morning to the White House:

There was only one protester:

She was pleading for Peace.  Sometimes I feel like she does.  No one seems to be listening.

 I then had lunch with Claudia and Suresh Patil at Prime Rib (did you know tomorrow is Prime Rib Day?), Zagat's #1 rated steakhouse in D.C.  This was our first time here (they also have restaurants in Baltimore and Philadelphia).  We were impressed.  The Patils had a $28 lunch special of a salad, entre and dessert.  They chose the house salad, flounder and creme brulee and key lime pie desserts:

I had a Lehman Shiraz, Caesar salad, prime rib (it was a very, very large piece) and creme brûlée, with a cappuccino.

The whole bill for the three of us with this posh decor and prime location was less than many of my lunches on this trip.  This was among my three most enjoyable meals, enhanced by the discussion I had with the Patil's, who moved here from Honolulu eleven years ago.  Their two children work very close to their home in Reston, with their daughter high up in the Lockheed Martin administration.  She was the first person through her parents to send me LM's agreement with China on OTEC.  LM cancelled their 10 MW OTEC project in Hawaii.  Click on that link to read the details.

I had dinner with Michael Champ at Jaleo, mentioned by the Washington Post to be the best tapas restaurant in the country.  This rather large establishment was packed with people, where it was difficult to even walk around.  After a long wait we finally got our table, and when  we had completed our discussion to Save Planet Earth and Humanity, it was midnight.

 Consider that yesterday I started six time zones away and 12 hours only three days ago, it was a miracle I was still coherent.  Mike has had a remarkable career, with a PhD dissertation building ponds, and now at the twilight of his career, building ponds and solving the world's water problems.  His Lexus license plate reads DoctorPond.  In between, though, he did everything else from teaching to working for NOAA, the DOD, NSF, etc. to flying around the world. 

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