Let that sink in for a moment... Damn, doesn't that sound cool? You'd think I was really tuned in to our # 1 economist and one of the top 5 most powerful men in our National Government. Well, it sounds cool AND it actually is true, but it's not as it sounds. The key is exploring the "with" in my first statement!
I recently took Susie to Puerto Rico for her birthday (a flight/hotel deal online was too good to pass up!) and chose a nice restaurant to celebrate on a Sunday night. We were told that we could not have reservations until well after 8pm, so we chose to pack up and go for the old-timer's early bird special (translation--we took a 6:30pm reservation). We were perplexed to find that the restaurant was virtually empty (I think there were 1 or 2 couples there). They had 2 large tables set up for what turned out to be a wedding party, but there were a ton of servers so they seemed to have coverage for the party AND the rest of the restaurant (remember, I used to work at Houston's and we were definitely a busy restaurant!). In any event we were enjoying our appetizers when the wedding party arrived, all aglow and happy and everyone took their places and the servers took orders, etc. As I was facing them, I couldn't help but glance over there from time to time, despite how fabulous Susie looked (see?).
I finally noticed that one person in particular looked familiar. I told Susie that I thought it was Ben Bernanke. She couldn't really turn around as they would notice (you can see the table over her shoulder) but I was really convinced it was him! (as a sidebar, this tells you what a geek I am, as some famous football/baseball/basketball, etc. player could have been sitting right next to me and I wouldn't have known, but Big Ben is on my radar!). I asked our server; he said he didn't know but there were "men in the bar" with him, so then we knew! (He later confirmed that it was him). We later figured out that the restaurant was probably told not to allow anyone else to be seated around the time their dinner party arrived, because they all came in around the time that we wanted reservations. When we left, we saw that there were several casually dressed Secret Service (our guess) agents in the bar--imagine how many were around that we didn't see? I will say that is something our government DOES do well; kudos to the big guys with their radio earpieces! 
I risked my life to bring you this (horrid) cell phone photo (good luck making him out as the light was poor!). In all honesty I really wanted to say hi, get an autograph, etc. but I couldn't bring myself to do it (irrespective of the armed men in the bar) as it was someones wedding party and it was "their" night--not my time to interrupt the festivities to shake Big Ben's hand... Maybe I'll get a chance someday!
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