A Day of Budgets

On Thursday I attended the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis (AABPA) 2009 Spring Symposium- "Transforming Crisis Into Opportunity."

I actually went to the conference because I had been selected as a finalist for the first annual research competition for the Marykathryn Kubat Award put on by the AABPA. I had submitted a research paper I'd done for an economics class entitled, "Cost-Benefit Analysis of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program." I made a poster to present the findings and had given a short presentation to the judges at a reception the night before.

I had my poster set up all day at the conference and answered people's questions. There were actually people from NSF at the event, and it was really interesting to talk to them, since they knew the details of the program I was analyzing.

The speakers were also really interesting - it's a pretty good time in history to be learning about economics and the budget. The last speaker was Stan Collender. He wrote "Guide to the Federal Budget," which is one of the most assigned texts on the subject. (In fact, I had it assigned for one of my classes!) He also writes a blog - Capital Gains and Games - which I recommend if you're interested in the subject of the budget and the economic crisis. He also happened to be hilarious, not quite what you expect for an expert on the federal budget.

At the very end of the conference, they announced the winners of the student competition, and I was very excited to find out I had won! (They chose three winners, and each of us will be featured on the website and receive a cash prize.) Awesome day!

The Masters

This weekend Jeff and I, as well as my Mom, Dad, and brother, are in Augusta, GA, to see the Masters. I'm not really a golf fanatic, but I do know about the Masters and some of the main players, so I've been pretty excited about going. We have two tickets, and my Mom, Dad, and brother, who are bigger fans than I am, are using them most of the time, but Jeff and I had our turn this morning. No cameras (or cell phones... or much of anything) is allowed inside, so the only pictures I have are from outside the gate.

We were inside for about six hours, but it flew by. We started out by setting our chairs down at the end of the 16th hole. At the masters, you can set up your chairs and leave them, and nobody will bother them at all - not even move them a little.

We headed to the green of the second hole as the first golfers started coming through. We had a great, unobstructed view of the golfers coming over the hill and then putting.

After about 9 golfers had gone through, we headed to "Amen Corner" - hole 11, 12, and 13 are all in the same area, and you can stand there and watch people finish 11, go through 12, and tee off on 13. It was pretty cool, and again we had a great view - just behind the people sitting in chairs, so no one was in blocking our view

We grabbed some food, too, which is incredibly affordable - soda is $1.50, chips are $1.00, and sandwiches are about $1.50. Not bad. The soda comes in a collectible Master's 2009 cup, too.

After watching the first few golfers go through 11 and 12, we went to hole 16, where we'd left our chairs. We spend a little time there - the tee is straight across a little pond, so they hit right towards you, and then when they putted, they were about 30 feet from our chairs - you can see their expressions, even.

Our time was ending by then - the six hours really went by quickly - so we hurried to hole 6 to see Tiger Woods go through. When he teed off, his ball hit the flag pin - so cool to see! We followed him to hole seven and watched him tee off there - he was about 15 feet from us when he walked from the tee to the green.

Then it was time to give over the tickets to my Mom and Dad for the rest of the afternoon. Very cool though - I was excited to go back and watch the rest on TV! Seeing the Master's live was a pretty awesome experience. The golfers are incredible, as you'd expect, but even just the course itself is beautiful to see. High-seventies and sunny, blue skies, green grass, and pink azaleas.

Passover

On Thursday, Jeff, his parents, and I headed to New York passover dinner. We first met up with his grandparents and brother in Manhattan for lunch before heading to Westchester County to his Aunt and Uncle's place. As always, dinner was very nice, and Jeff's Uncle led everyone through the traditions of the holiday.

Working

This is the one nice thing about having to get up early for work meetings at Virginia Beach.

Four Seasons

Scott Circle is right near our house and has some nice trees and a statue. Since I walk by it almost every day, I decided to use it to capture the changing seasons. I took the Summer photo last August and the Spring photo today.

Cherry Blossom Festival!

Jeff and I biked (on the cool "Smart Bike DC" bikes) over to see the Cherry Blossom Festival today. It was extremely crowded, but still very pretty and fun to see.

Yuri's Night

Last night Jeff and I went to Yuri's Night - a world-wide space party. It goes on around April 12th each year to celebrate the first human flight in the world (Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin).

The party was at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center near D.C. You can check out the website to see if there's a party in your area!