I'll take a break from the boring economic posts I keep doing and focus here on what I have been up to. (Which you may find equally as boring).

I have found a church I enjoy! It is called Grace DC and I heard about it through a friend of a friend back in CA. The sermons are engaging, applicable and well thought out. One of the newer aspects to me is the weekly communion. It's also a different communion from ones I have been to in that they have a choice of drinks: grape juice in an individual cup, wine in an individual cup or wine from a communal cup. The service is also at 5PM which does the sleep department well.

We began a new course on Monday, focusing our attention on International Affairs. Our main project will be examining trade relationship with the US from the perspective of a respective country we chose to research. I chose Iran. Rock and roll.

At my Tuesday internship class, there was a beautiful presentation on taxes. It was amazing. They also got cheesecake for my birthday. I felt especially loved.

These days at ALEC, I have been calling our legislative members to see if they plan to attend our Tax Academy in December. It hasn't been too bad, I sometimes get to talk with the legislators. Other than that, I do spreadsheets, research things and write a little.

Okay, I just can't resist.

You can make a lot of money off of cigarette tax differences between states. Of course, it's illegal, but check this out:
Cigarette tax in Maryland is $2 while the tax per pack is $.30 in Virginia. If you load up your trunk with 300 cartons of cigarettes from VA and take them to MD to sell, you can make $5100 just from the tax difference. State to state cigarette smuggling, never would have thought of it.