Day 287/365 - Rockin' the Red Loft

Our office, including our summer interns, headed out to Nationals Park tonight to catch the game against the Mets. We got there about 90 minutes before first pitch and hung out in the Red Loft bar drinking and gabbing. It was a fun night out and it got even better when the Nats beat the Mets 3-1!

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 281/365 - In Vino... Wisdom!

Our half of the Office of General Counsel (the old fogies are up on the 7th floor and the rest of us are down on 5) went out for happy hour tonight at a cool bar called Wisdom near the Potomac Avenue Metro station. Wisdom is an excellent place to go for drinks. It's a cozy, laid back, funky lounge with its own specialist cocktails. We snagged a little curtained, candlelit nook just off the main room and proceeded to try as many different alcoholic concoctions as we could. Clockwise from the top above are a Pears of Wisdom, an Apple Strudle, a Sophomoric Sazerac, a Ghetto Symphony, and an absinthe.

If you're looking for an interesting new happy hour locale in DC, go to Wisdom. The only problem is that it doesn't open until 6 p.m. so we had to first go to Trusty's, a non-air conditioned redneck-ish bar next door until Wisdom opened. Oh well, at least that gave us an opportunity to drink beer out of Mason jars and get glared at by people who weren't in suits.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 245/365 - Intern Happy Hour

Tonight a bunch of us from work went to Bullfeathers on Capitol Hill for a happy hour with this year's crop of summer legal interns. They seem like a good bunch. The two interns for my division are from my alma mater, so they better be good. We've had some, shall we say 'entertaining,' interns in the past. There was one who liked to call Westlaw and have them do case law searches for her and email her the results. There was one who quit after a week because he didn't realize that he couldn't afford to have a summer job that didn't pay anything. There was the one who wore basically the same clothes every day and slept at his desk. And then there was the one who wound up dating the Deputy General Counsel after the summer ended. None of us saw that coming. She was young and hot and he was a bald, nerdy guy who looked like the eggheaded little bird in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Who knew that was what it took to be irresistable?

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 70/365 - Lawyers on the Loose

Today was my office's holiday party. We had lunch at Tuscana West and then 'neglected' to go back to the office. Whoops! My six person section decided to go to the restaurant a bit early for a 'meeting' and a few aperitifs. That's how we roll.

It turned out to be a pretty good party. Because we work for the public rather than the private sector, we have to pay for our holiday parties ourselves. This one only cost us $27 each and the food was quite good. You have to get to these parties fairly early so that you can avoid being stuck sitting next to people you don't really want to spend two hours with. Made that mistake once.

Organizing these things is always a bit of a struggle. The tightwad old fuddy-duddy segment of our office never wants to pay much and won't go anywhere remotely non-mainstream. They were appalled the year we went to a Moroccan place and had to eat with our hands. Thankfully my boss finally stopped volunteering me for the party planning committee. Even when these parties are kind of lame they're still worth attending, though. I always just look at it as though I'm buying myself a half-day off. That makes it a bargain at just about any price.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)