Product Has Not Been in Space

It was definitely an interesting week to be in DC! Saturday, I went to do the space half of the Air and Space Museum (we did the air half on Labor Day). The space half of the museum was very cool, initially taking one through the

Its no West Texas sunset, but it'll do

physics of air and space travel, then touching on the space race and the lunar landing, shuttle missions, and the future of space travel. Seeing all of the space memorabilia, from moon rovers to space suits, was very neat. However, every time we had finished looking for alien dust and discussing how cool it was that those things had actually been in space, we would notice a sign that said “the item shown is just a replica. Product has not been in space.” This was supremely disappointing, as the entire benefit of staring at a space suit for any extended period of time is to contemplate the places it has been. It's slightly less fun when the only places it has been is in a factory and on a plane from Florida. Nevertheless, it was very interesting. Sunday, I had to work on a PowerPoint presentation for my class. I planned to start working on the presentation at noon; so naturally, I started the presentation about 9 (but really, what else would you expect from me?). Thankfully, the presentation did, indeed, go well.

            This week I didn’t directly look into studies on poverty. Instead, I spent a large portion of my week pouring through wage data from every industry in every US city at least moderately sized (seriously, the excel sheet had 150,000 rows). That wasn’t terribly interesting, as I was largely transferring data and looking at percentiles of wages. However, after working on it for nearly a day, a true tragedy happened: my computer didn’t save my work. I guess I didn’t save it properly, as the original excel sheet was from a zip file. Needless to say, I was greatly disheartened! To finally finish this, it took a very long night on Wednesday. 
           Also this week, I met some people from Ted Cruz’s Senate staff (I didn’t get to meet Ted Cruz because, well, I think he’s in the middle of looking for a new job or something). I had to do this as part of my TWC public policy dialogue. It was very cool to meet them in his office. I could definitely tell they wanted people from Texas to feel right at home, as they gave me Dr. Pepper and advice on finding quality Mexican food in a place seemingly void of such happiness. Those on his staff were very interested in my job at Cato and gave me their business cards, which means an ever more expanded network.

No Story of the Week this week, just a quick update on DC in the news. We have been well informed of the threats on DC, and everyone here is taking them seriously. I have gotten multiple emails on safety precautions being taken by DC law enforcement and the precautions those in DC must take. I have noticed enhanced security across the city, as well as suspicious looks on the faces of many Washingtonians. Prayers are certainly appreciated and I will do my best to stay safe for the remainder of my time in DC.