DC Days 3/4

Well, sorry this is over a week late.  If you follow me on Facebook, you’ll know that my MacBook harddrive fried, so I’ve spent the last week or so rebuilding.  At this point, I’ve lost everything – and will likely have to send my hard drive to one of those companies to try to extract my photos, music and business files.  Notice the order of importance… LOL

Anyway, Monday and Tuesday in DC were incredible.

Monday morning was an early one – Sabeena met me in the lobby to head to Arlington National Cemetery – we hoped to be there by 6:30 or so, but the valet at the hotel took over 40 minutes to bring her car up.  We jumped in with Jerry, another Board Member.

Fox News DC was there for four live runs – two of which I was the one staring at the camera.  It was kinda fun.  Our members were there – a total of 430 – from 27 states, 150 or so companies, and over 80 children.  It was an amazing day watching our industry do such a massive service project.  It was estimated that we did over $350,000 worth of work in about one day – incredible.

Here are the two interviews (live) with me on Fox News that morning:

It was a media frenzy – three or four television stations (including CNN), and two radio stations (including NPR) as well as some newspapers and our industry magazines.  It was fun for me, though, to attempt to talk to as many PLANET members as I could.

That afternoon, we had legislative issue briefings – everything from immigration to health care to water issues to small business concerns.   Fred Barnes was our keynote speaker.  I was able to meet Mr. Barnes before he spoke, and we talked a LOT about the Cubs… he is an avid baseball fan as well.  I respected his humility…

We had a banquet that night, and I had a long presentation to give in front of all of those in attendance.  I was also able to introduce my friend and consultant David Crow, to set up our legislative meetings the next morning.  David is the President of DCLRS, PLANET’s lobbying firm.

The next day (Tuesday) was spent on Capitol Hill – I was able to meet with several members of the House of Representative and the Senate – or their aides – to discuss issues affecting our industry and our businesses.  I was also able to spend approximately an hour with Representative Dennis Moore (D-KS) – it was great to spend time with someone I have a longstanding connection with.

I finished the trip catching up with my old friend Ashlee, who works on Capitol Hill and we were able to talk politics for a few hours before catching a late flight home (and my, was it late, we sat on the tarmac for hours waiting for thunderstorms to stop to take off… but I slept)…

All in all, in was an incredible time with our PLANET Membership, in our Nations Capitol doing things that, honestly, I never in my wildest dreams thought my life would include.