Orientation Day 4

As always you can see more on the group's flickr page.
Sorry for the long delay between posts.

Our fourth and final day of orientation started bright and early with a 8:30 tour at the Pentagon. Getting off the Metro, you could tell that this wasn't a normal Metro Station. We were greeted at the top of the escalators by a Police Officer with a some sort of scary looking automatic rifle. After going through security, we met up with CMC and program alum TJ Devine (on the left in the picture below). In addition to setting us up with the tour, he helped Ben F. get set up with his internship at the Defense Department. We were split into two groups for the tour, which was given by members of various military branches. My tour was given by someone from the Air Force and one person from the Navy. We did quite a lot of walking. Although most of the time we spent was in the hallways (people do indeed work there), we learned a lot of fun facts about both the military and the Pentagon itself. For instance, the Soviets used to think that the building inside of the Pentagon rings, was some sort of nuclear bunker, when in truth it was a hot dog stand.

After the tour, we went to a local shopping mall and Costco to pick up some things for the various apartments before our lunch with CMC and program alum Andy Barr from the Politico. We needed to drop off the items before lunch, so we stopped by Ben's apartment and got a nice look around. We went to Cosi for lunch, which CMC was nice enough to pay for. We met up with Andy there and headed over to the offices of the Politico.It turns out Politico shares facilities with the local Washington ABC station. At the Politico, we got to meet in the executive meeting room. Andy talked to us about the always evolving news business and how Politico is adapting to it. He brought in a couple other writers. One was in charge of the new "Politico 44" which focuses on the Obama administration. He discussed how the project started, and how the focus of it has evolved since the beginning. He mentioned that they try to get Obama news up on the website within 2 to 3 minutes of it happening. We also talked with Anne Mullins who is the gossip columnist for the Politico. She told us how she got to her position and what it entails. She likes to know who is at what. Whether it is a congressman at a fundraiser or an important staffer at a cocktail party.

After our time at the Politico, our orientation was officially over. However, the CMC Alumni Association in Washington was nice enough to buy us tickets to the Wizards/Clippers basketball game on Sunday, the 24th. It was nice to talk with alumni working in Washington before we started our first days at work.