Award winner recounts Obama meeting

"I felt like a character out of the Mrs. Pollifax books."

How's that for a description of someone's meeting with President Obama?

Nancy Fichtner, who braved a blizzard to travel to Washington and meet with the president, blogs about her experience on the White House Web site (after the Office of Management and Budget declined polite requests from yours truly and others to shadow her visit).

"I still think it was a lot for a little idea, but it really will save a lot of money and I am so glad to be a part of it," Fichtner said of meeting Obama and her award-winning cost-saving idea.

She suggested that VA hospitals allow patients to take leftover medication home with them when they leave. Fichtner's idea, which will be included in Obama's fiscal 2011 budget requests, beat more than 38,000 other submissions in a government-wide competition that sought cost-savings ideas from rank-and-file federal employees.