They want to play basketball with President Barack Obama.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe kind of share the same philosophy that (Obama) has: with enough hope, regular people can achieve extraordinary things,\u201d said \u201cBuried Life\u2019s\u201d Ben Nemtin.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t know how we were going to do it, but thought if we put it on there and committed to it, we would find a way.\u201d<\/p>\n That path was through LaHood, at least in part. The guys traveled to Washington, D.C., last summer and launched a political campaign of sorts with politicians (including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner), media and anyone else who might offer leads or advice.<\/p>\n They also visited the local YMCA where they heard a couple of political heavyweights hang out.<\/p>\n Their plea reached someone from the U.S. Department of the Interior who arranged the meeting with LaHood, who they said came across as a nice guy, not a stuffy politician.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a complete gentleman and really down to Earth. We talked about family, our project and why we wanted to play basketball with the president,\u201d Nemtin said of the 25-minute meeting.<\/p>\n After hearing their story, LaHood made a call to Obama\u2019s communication director.<\/p>\n \u201cI will tell you right now they will cause no embarrassment to the president at all. I\u2019ll vouch for them,\u201d LaHood said while on the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a great visit with the fellows from \u2018The Buried Life,\u2019 Ben, Dave, Duncan and Jonnie, and was happy to make a call to the White House to try to get them a game with President Obama. I don\u2019t know how successful we were since the president\u2019s a busy man, but I wish them well in working through their list,\u201d LaHood said Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Buried Life\u201d follows four friends traveling around the country fulfilling a bucket list of things they want to do before they die. Then they help a stranger fulfill something they haven\u2019t done in their own life.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was about the challenge for us. We started this project four years ago because we wanted more out of life,\u201d said Jonnie Penn.<\/p>\n \u201cNo. 95 was the hardest thing we could think of. I can say as fun as all the tasks are, when we step back and look at these things as a whole, it\u2019s when we get to help other people. Those are the items that we get the most satisfaction out of this project.\u201d<\/p>\n As for whether or not the guys actually got court time with Obama, we\u2019ll have to wait until next week.<\/p>\n \u201cWith March Madness just around the corner, maybe they\u2019ll be content watching basketball for awhile instead of playing,\u201d LaHood said.<\/p>\n Karen McDonald can be reached at kmcdonald@pjstar.com.<\/em><\/p>\n Read the original article from Journal Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is helping dreams come true \u2014 or at least trying. Peoria\u2019s former congressman is featured Monday on MTV\u2019s \u201cThe Buried Life\u201d trying to help four twenty-somethings complete No. 95 on their list of 100 things to do before they die. They want to play basketball with President Barack Obama. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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