DC (Area) Reflections - Finally!

I spent September 9 - 12 in Alexandria, VA attending a conference on Disproportional Minority Contact (DMC) in the Juvenile Justice System, as the Chair of the DMC ad hoc Committee for Rock County.

I'll forgo the big discussion of DMC issues for now, but it'll be coming soon, as it is a VERY interesting subject matter - one Rock County is on the forefront of addressing.

Instead I'll entertain you with all of the fun happenings of the week (it's much more fun to talk about non important social things anyway, right?!?).

After arriving in VA on Tuesday afternoon, I hopped the Metro up to DC and had dinner at a delightful Tapas place called Oyamel in DC with an old friend from college. It was so great to catch up with Becky about her amazing policy job with Planned Parenthood and about the fun things she is getting to do around the city and some reminiscing about the old times.

It sometimes seems funny to me how easily I can navigate DC - I will say that it is a VERY easy one to navigate but I haven't been there in a few years and can still manage to walk in the right direction - and get on the right Metro, even when trying to find something I don't really know the location of. I'd like to thank my father for my amazingly good sense of direction.

After dinner I met up with some of the guys I traveled with from Rock County and a friend of one who lives in VA. I was amazed at how hard it was to find a bar that was open past midnight there - now granted it was a Tuesday night, but HELLO, we're from Wisconsin where the bars are open until 2 am 7 days a week!!

We managed ok and I sang bad karaoke and drank way too many gin and tonics followed by an end of the night tequila shot which was just a really bad choice. I certainly do not have the tolerance for alcohol that I used to have and ending the night with tequila was not a good decision on my part. However, it was a GREAT time - you know, until the next morning.

I really love to eat when I'm on vacation - and in places that we don't have access to in Wisconsin and I had some good food on this trip. Our "data guy" and I had amazing Indian food one night, and the Mexican food that Becky and I ate was awesome. One of the nights we had dinner on the conference and had some awesome crab cakes (they were really in balls though) and amazing bruschetta, and the best chicken wings ever, great fruit every day and lunch one day was amazing salmon and turkey and fresh veggies. It was a great food week.

It was fun to get to know a couple of the guys that are working on DMC in Rock County a little better and they're all great and have really good ideas about the issue and for our county.

I also met some very interesting people - some from the DMC network, a couple of locals, and a really cool SoCal man (and just an FYI, when you're totally adorable, from SoCal, and amazingly fun and funny, I swoon...there will be more on him later too...I hope...)

Anyway, it was a great trip with lots of fun intertwined with a really good conference. I learned a lot and I'm really excited to move forward with this project in Rock County.