Nearing an end

I can't believe it's already April 9 and I'll be returning to Michigan in just a few weeks. When I arrived here in January, April seemed so far away.
I'm creating a mental list of all the things I wanted to do that I haven't yet, and it's pretty long.

By the way, I have a new story on the SHFWire Web site about the lingering environmental impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Lights out

Saturday night join millions of people around the world and "vote" for action on climate change by turning off your lights and other unnecessary electronics from 8:30 to 9:30, or longer if you're really ambitious. 2,800 cities in 83 countries plan to participate in the World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour 2009.
To learn more about it read my story.

I went to another hearing on Capitol Hill today, this time about Michigan's "Sixth Amendment crisis." I wish some good news would come out of the state.

Exciting things to come...

Tomorrow afternoon we're all taking part in a TV production class at the Newseum. It's a new educational program for adults, and we're part of a test group. Then Thursday we're going back to the Newseum but as tourists, because Jody got us free tickets!

Friday my professor Joe Grimm is visiting us from Michigan to have lunch with the group and give us some pointers on our resumes and such.

Next week is also pretty full. Jody scheduled tours of the Supreme Court and of the Student Press Law Center. We've also been invited to a reception Wednesday night honoring the Knight International Journalism Fellows.

And we'll be fitting in some reporting at some point, of course.

National Museum of Natural History

I spent a few hours at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History yesterday and because the museum is so large and I wanted to take my time looking at the exhibits, I only saw about a fifth of it.

The gemstones and minerals exhibit featured the Hope Diamond, and I saw a large sheet of copper that could coat more than 2 1/2 million pennies. It was recovered in 1985 and is one of few that have ever been found, all of which were found in northern Michigan.

The great thing about D.C. is that all federal museums, and there are many of them, have free admission, seven days a week. My goal is to see all of them at least once while I'm here.

Inauguration tickets

I went to Sen. Carl Levin's office earlier today to find people from Michigan who will be attending the inauguration tomorrow. The senator's office was open all day for people who needed to pick up their tickets. I interviewed a lot of very excited people, among them, Michigan state Senator Martha Scott and Michigan surgeon general Kimberlydawn Wisdom. I blogged about it for The Detroit News, too.

Now I'm back at the office. I just finished a story on a band from South Carolina that is marching in the parade tomorrow. The story will likely run in the Anderson Independent, a Scripps newspaper.

Because Metro will be slammed tomorrow, we are all sleeping at the office tonight. We'll be leaving early tomorrow morning to report on the day's events.