Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Power


When we visited the Governors’ Mansion last week, our guide was very proper in her portrayal of the life in the Mansion.  She always referred to the Governor’s wife as ‘First Lady’ and she told us of the formal gathering that had taken place in the Blaine House that morning, before we arrived.  It had consisted of some top military officials and a fancy reception was mounted for them in the Blaine House with the Governor and First Lady doing the honors.
I got to thinking about that and the power that was held by such people, and the thought of all that power in one place was quite intimidating.  I have a friend whose son works at the White House.  He is a body guard in the secret service and he is charged with protecting the President and First Lady.  I can only guess at the power that is present in the White House and I am glad that I have nothing to do with it because it was overwhelming enough to be at the Blaine House.
Today at the Archives they were visited by the Ambassador to Monte Negro and his wife, two bodyguards and some Military top brass from Washington, Joint Chiefs of Staff.  They were shown the first drafts of the Constitution of the United States, and some other artifacts that are held at the Archives.  They even viewed a book from the 1600’s – the oldest book in America dealing with America.  We did not get to see the visitors, but of the two staff that accompanied these important visitors to the first floor to view the artifacts, one was totally overwhelmed and was all flustered and the other just took it in his stride.
As we sat at lunch and talked with one of the staff, he was telling us that this ambassador is very intelligent and that he is a famous chess champion.  His wife was with him and she seemed to really impress our staff member as well.  We asked if the bodyguard/secret service man with them was carrying a gun.  No one seemed to know that answer.  Ann and I talked about the political power that was present in this group of visitors and we decided that since they were also human, that they probably put their pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else.  The staff member who had been with the group was not too happy with our summation.  The First Lady, Mrs. Le Page was slated to visit the archive building at 5pm for a private tour.  Art the Archiver was all a twitter over the proposed visit of the First Lady.
We have had a running conversation with the engineers at SLC over the camera and it giving us black screens.  The final task we had to do was to dump the dCamX program and reinstall it as a final attempt to see if we could eliminate the black screens.  We did as we were asked and we still got some black screens.  Well, after about 2 – 3 weeks of emails back and forth, we received an email today asking us to disconnect the present camera and sent it to SLC and that they were sending us a camera that is slated to arrive tomorrow (Thursday 23 February).  We will be in a Missionary Zone Meeting all day and will not be able to take delivery of it or install it till Friday.  Would have saved us a lot of time and effort if they had sent us one in the first place…..but they were following policy and policy is king in the workplace.
We woke up to Snow this morning.  Not a lot of it but enough to let us know that winter is still trying to make an entrance.  The sap is running in the maple trees, and in the paper this morning they were remarking that this is one month early for sap to be running and if they do not collect sap now, it will be too late when the trees go to bud.  The maple producers say that once the tree goes to bud, that the flavor of the sap and resulting maple syrup is “off”.  Well, I cannot tell the difference – maple syrup is maple syrup and the syrup from the trees tastes a lot better than Mrs. Butterworths or Log Cabin.  As we were driving home, I noticed that some of the ornamental trees in the Capitol Park are starting to bud.  I find myself wondering if they are dogwood trees.  I guess I will find out soon enough.
We did not have Western Line Dance tonight because it is school holidays and our class is held at Cony High School, Adult evening class.  To take advantage of the vacation time and to keep the children busy, the Museum has advertised special classes for children and yesterday, today  and tomorrow are when these classes take place.  I noticed today that the place was crawling with kids of all shapes and sizes.  I guess the parents just dropped them off for the 90 minutes of program.
On Friday there is a party for Nina because she is retiring.  I do not know how long she has been working at the archives, but they are having a pizza party for her and a big cake – all at lunch time.  When office staffs hold retirement parties, are they saying they are glad the person is leaving or glad that the person no longer has to work for a living but will live a life of ease and luxury?  When Bill retired from Safeway they had a big party as a send off……….and I am waiting for the life of ease and luxury………….

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