Potty Hotty

Friday I was able to join 1,500 of my closest friends in the National Capital Region, 130 or so fellow future promotees, their families, guests, coworkers, congressional staffers, Pentagon City Mall shoppers, and anyone who got lost inside the Ritz-Carlton, to enjoy drinks and finger food for a ridiculous amount of money in a room that got so hot that even Ainsley took off one of her coats.

I had initially balked at attending, not appreciating the high admission fee and feeling that I'd already paid my "hoorah for me" beer fee out in Votkinsk, but then realized:

1. I would see some friends I hadn't run into in over ten years, and
2. I would get to wear comically large phony silver oak-leaf clusters

Sure enough, I ran into a ton of people I've intermatrixed with over my 14-year career, one from basic space training in 1992, several from my 93-96 Colorado assignment, a few people from Turkey (including a two-star general who was a colonel at the time), some from my Pentagon job, and, it seemed, nearly half of my AFIT class from Dayton. And although the large phony silver oak-leaf clusters weren't as comically large as I'd hoped, Ryan got a kick out of them. And I was pleased my father could attend, even if half the time he was relegated to watching a diaper bag while I was off renetworkschmoozing.