Washington, DC 2008 - 03/13/2008

DC 79th Day of the Year Party (Which Took Place on March 13, 2008)
The Washington, D.C. 79th Day of the Year party, held once again at the Gordon Biersch brewery in D.C., was attended by some, but not all, of the usual suspects as well as some new faces. In attendance, moving from left to right on the photo, were Proctor Reid (with the National Academy of Engineering), T. Weymouth (organizer/raconteur /partner with Hogan & Hartson), Burr Gray (lawyer with the National Guard Bureau’s Office of Chief Counsel), Marshal Fazzone (in town briefly for stuff related to his family’s cigar import business; Marshall is quite hopeful that the ban on Cuban cigars will be lifted shortly and that he will be able to once again import into the US products from his family’s farm outside of Havana), Rob Worley (Canadian bank executive who has just moved with his family from Philly to the D.C. area), Barb Murphy (just recently moved after 25 years with old law firm to new law firm of Miller & Chevalier), Da’aga Hill Bowman (Director, Foundation Outreach and Public Information for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs), and Roger Sullivan (with Microstrategy, a business intelligence, software vendor with operations in 23 countries). Chris O’Brien was there for an early libation but had to leave prior to photo opportunity.
T had done a little research into what other significant events had occurred over the years on the 79th day of the year. He uncovered the following facts which were conveyed, along with other tidbits, to the group and greeted with amazement and almost unlimited appreciation: first of all, the 79th day is March 20th (except during Leap Years) which is the vernal equinox (first day of spring) in the Northern Hemisphere; so on March 20, 1616, Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment (but he was so much in favor with the Queen in the movie “Elizabeth”; wonder what the hell happened); on March 20, 1916, Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity; on March 20, 1948, Bobby Orr is born (how many of us had that famous poster on our walls growing up of Orr scoring the goal in the Stanley Cup); and finally on March 20, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono marry in Gibralter, (Others may debate the selection of the above topics since there were many possibilities to choose from, but there you are.)
The evening ended on a mysterious note because when it was time to ask for the bill, the waitress said that it had already been taken care of and indicated that she was not at liberty to divulge the mystery benefactor. This produced a round of accusations, but all suspects denied any guilt. However, as Detective Weymouth pointed out, this event had gone on for a number of years without such generosity being exhibited so it had to be one of the new guys.
Burr