George Washington & Mt. Vernon

I would like to share with you a personal moment of pride. Last week my husband and I were invited to one of several opening gala's of Mt. Vernon. This Friday I will attend the Grand Opening ceremony mid-day. Mt. Vernon is the location of George Washington's estate. To read about this place and the new buildings click on this link. I highly recommend clicking on the link for "Panorama Look Inside" - and believe me when I say this isn't the best part of this place. Also try the Graphic Map. It shows what was inside the Washington Post on one side of the page. The link online is not as wonderful as the actual Washington Post from today which shows a half page photo on the front page and two full pages in the center, plus an article on two pages in the Style Edition and a page in the Kids section. I don't recall when an event took this many pages in the Washington Post.

When my husband picked me up to go to the event he asked how long we'll be there and I said "Oh, I don't know anyone there. It'll probably be just an hour." Three and a half hours later...

This place is absolutely STUNNING!!! I was at complete awe at what they had done to the place. I have not been to a more beautiful complex of museums in the entire world (and I've been to hundreds of museums!).

This place is definitely worth a visit if anyone happens to be in DC. I am already planning on taking any of my future guests to this place.

So why was I invited to the Grand Opening? Because I was heavily involved in helping Mt. Vernon with the guests lists for all opening galas. As a database developer I was requested to create a database that will track all the invitees and guests to each of the opening events. Originally I was told it would be about 3000 people invited to 9 events. Not surprisingly for this occasion the database now contains almost 7000 invitees and 12 events.

My husband and I were given a personal tour by the Director of IT for Mt. Vernon (my client) who explained to us everything and showed us all the important highlights of the place. I don't think I could express in words how appreciative I was for this personal escort throughout this beautiful place. Not only that but my client introduced me to almost every employee that we came across, including the executive director, introducing me as the database developer. It felt so awesome to get all the compliments from everyone for all the reports and information they got out of this database. Now they want to use this database for other events they will hold at Mt. Vernon. I just can't believe it!

An event like this really tears me up about my future. I love developing databases. But I also love Project Management. I feel split between two loves. I don't know which way to turn.

I can't wait for Friday! Oh yeah, I figure I might as well throw out some names of guests who will attend the Grand Opening, but I cannot do so before the event. Let's just say there are quite a few "The Honorables" in my database. Keep watching the news and reading the newspapers, you'll see it.