The previous article on Apollo 11 coin designer Gary Cooper makes a nice segue for my diary this week. I had a great conversation Monday night about that very coin. I had beeninvited to dinner by my friend Tom Uram. I met him at the Monacle restaurant on Capitol Hill, across the plaza from Washington, D.C.'s Union Station.

Tom was in town for his duties as a member of the Citizen's Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC). With us at dinner were Tom's fellow CCAC members Mary Lannin, JeanneStevens-Sollman, Heidi Wastweet, Mike Moran, Erik Jansen as well as Tom's brother Jim and writer Lou Golino.

I had met everyone previously and it was a pleasure to join them again. I sat next to Jeanne and specifically asked about that coin. I had just come across images of the"big footprint" design in the numismatic press and wondered how it would look executed on a coin. Looks can be decieving. A design that looks great on paper can be a dudwhen translated to the 3-D surface of a coin, and similarly, what might look like a horrible design on paper can turn out stunning in person.

I was afraid the coin will be a dud. That big footprint looked ugly. I totally got the symbolism, but feared it would make an awful coin. But this is why we have Honest-to-Godsculptors like Heidi and Jeanne on the committee. Jeanne counted off the reasons for me why she thought the design could come through as a stunning coin. Now I can't wait tosee one in person.

Jeanne happend to have with her a number of her own medals and I really enjoyed looking them over. Here are some of them arrayed on our table.

Jeanne kindly followed up with better images so I could share them with E-Sylum readers.

I thanked Jeanne, Mike and other CCAC members in earshot for their recent unanimous decision to not consider an entire set of designs for the American Innovations series. Iagreed that the submissions were universally bad. The committee should never be shy about doing their job. It's an important one, and I'm glad we have such a smart,high-powered group reviewing our coin designs.

I also thanked Heidi for her recent audio interview with CoinWeek. I thought she did a super job explaining the workings of CCAC and the complex decisions involved.

Afterwards Lou Golino and I discussed the difficulty of coming up with ideas for the Innovations series. These can be tough to visualize, so it's not surprising the firstround went badly.

Dinner conversation wasn't all about coins and art - topics at my end of the table were all over the map, from weather to travel to children and injuries old and new. I hada great steak for dinner. I even took a picture of it, but I'll spare you the image. When the dessert menu came out Mary asked me, "What are you getting?""FAT!", I said, as I tried to order chocolate cake only to learn they were sold out. But they gave Jeanne and I a free slice of cheesecake to share as a consolationprize.

After dinner I gave Lou a ride in my car over to the Metro stop at Union Station. He was heading home to suburban Maryland, and I was going to suburban Virginia. It was anothergreat evening of numismatic fellowship, something that makes this hobby of ours so great.

See the Loose Change article later in this issue for links to articles by Lou Golino or relating to the CCAC.