There is Treasure Everywhere: September 10 or the Washington D.C. Temple

This morning I worked on a TCS campaign contribution database. I found out which individuals contributed to Senator Cochran’s (R-MS) campaign and how much it was. It’s actually pretty sweet. If you go to “opensecrets.org” you can look up individual campaign contributions of anyone in the country. I looked up all my professors at BYU (by searching employer) and all of the people in my home ward (by searching zipcode). It’s very interesting to see who donated to whom and how much they spent. I was surprised by what I learned!

Then, I had to look up which PACs donated to Cochran’s PAC. And then I had to look up which individuals donated to Cochran’s PAC. There are campaign finance laws, but there are many ways to get around them. For example, you could directly donate, you could donate to a PAC, and you could donate to a PAC through your employer’s PAC. Some people did all of these things, Senator Cochran received approx $100,000 from individuals/companies to which he later awarded earmarks. Only in this election cycle.

Then, after lunch my supervisor had me go to a markup in the Senate buildings. Thrilled, I quickly walked down to the Capitol.

For those of you who have never seen the House and Senate office buildings, they are

P-A-L-A-C-E-S

Beautiful stone floors, beautiful hallways, beautiful committee rooms, beautiful EVERYTHING.

I got to the building, and waited in line for the meeting. (An observation, when I waited in line for the House hearing, most of the staffers in front of me were women. In the Senate, most of the staffers were men.) Once I got in and sat down, I noticed that the three middle-aged people sitting in front of me were all wearing pink. And they were pulling out sharpies to make signs. * Sigh * I didn’t want to be sitting behind these people, I wouldn’t be able to see anything! So I moved across the aisle.

Remember how I spent the whole morning on Cochran’s campaign? Guess who was the Ranking Member of the defense appropriations committee? I got to see Cochran!

The committee meeting was uneventful, I saw one of my friends with Senator Bennett from afar (he’s TALL). The pink people were actually the most exciting thing happening there. As soon as the meeting adjourned, they all stood up and started shouting “shame! Shame on you!” and “healthcare not warfare” and other infantile remarks. I know that if I want to get someone to pay attention to me, the first thing I do is drape myself in pink and try to guilt them into listening to me. It was very entertaining. They got really worked up.

I went straight from work to meet my ward for a temple trip. Ward temple trips are quite rare (to the baptistery) and I was very, very excited to go. I looked forward to it all day. I was hungry and tired, but it didn’t matter. It was wonderful. We had about 40 people, 10 of which were helping run the baptistery by witnessing and recording etc. The D.C. temple is very beautiful and the baptistery is no exception. I had a wonderful time and even though it took a few hours to travel to and from the temple, and I have a ton to do tonight, I don’ regret going at all.