Two days here in Washington before I head west for team processing and to China at the end of the week. Instead of hanging out with all my former teammates at their respective workplaces this morning Jackie and I spent a little time with George at the White House.
After shaking Mr. Bush’s hand and discussing the fact that I’ve been living just up the road at Georgetown while he’s been in the White House and was surprised we didn’t bump into each other more often, he replied: “Well, I guess I don’t get out enough these days!,” with a smile and a laugh.We were invited into the Oval Office for a photo with Mr. Bush and some brief comments about his commitment to showing how important the Olympic movement is to him and Laura by hosting us at the White House before the Games (instead of the executive standard of hosting medallists after the Games), and by attending the Opening Ceremonies August 8th in Beijing. I was incredibly impressed by his candor and ability to relate to each of us during our brief conversations. He’s a good politician, no doubt about that.
On the way out of the White House we basically bumped into the President again in the East Wing. I walked with him for a few paces and joked with him briefly about how we had to get off the grounds so he could “get back to work,” before he stepped into a television interview in one of the siderooms.
Mr Bush’s speech and video footage of the comments are on the White House website. This is so cool: George’s Speech. Please be sure to click the video link. It was great!A couple of us ran into Barney the Bush’s pet scottish terrier coming in from the south lawn with his walker. He growls a lot, and tried to bite each of our shoes that tapped his volley ball out from under him. Barney’s got a better website than I do, as I found out trying to accurately spell his name: http://www.whitehouse.gov/barney/Dinner tonight will be quite the affair according to ABCNews that is publishing our menu. Jacqueline and I, along with Debbie Cappozi, Sarah Mergenthaler, and Amanda Clark will be attending dinner with the other athletes hosted by President and Mrs. Bush this evening, so there’s more to come.There are a couple more good pictures on GeorgetownSailing.org.
[…] Two days here in Washington before I head west for team processing and to China at the end of the week. Instead of hanging out with all my former teammates at their respective workplaces this morning Jackie and I spent a little time with George at the White House.???? After shaking Mr. Bush’s hand and discussing […] Direct Link […]
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