Author: Jon

Restaurant review – The Uptowner

I’m always a little uncomfortable calling a place without any tables to speak of a “restaurant”, but that’s not the point, here. I got lunch from the Uptowner, the new sandwich place just north of Columbia Heights Metro. I got a club wrap and a bag of BBQ soy chips. It was kind of expensive – about $9 – but the food was good. They have some vegetarian options, which is rare, and the guy behind the counter was quite pleasant. The layout is a little funny – you order in one room, and go next door to pick it up. I didn’t immediately see next door, and was worried that the sandwiches were going to be pre-wrapped and shipped from somewhere, but they’re made fresh next door. Anyway, I’ll go back at some point. I apologize to Julia’s Empanadas, where I planned to go, but the construction makes it very difficult to actually get to Julia’s. Maybe next time.

Columbia Heights is nothing but hipsters?

This Washington Post article has been pissing off tons of locals. It basically says that everyone in Columbia Heights sucks, we spend all our time at Target, and we’re smug because we don’t live in Mount Pleasant. I’ve been wanting to post something about it, but no matter how many times I read the article, I just can’t seem to get that worked up over it. I mean, I do go to Target a lot. I like Target. It’s a great place to buy cheap clothes for the kid, kitty litter, veggie burgers, box wine . . . But I guess the article doesn’t quite hit that close to home. I have been accused of being smug about where I live, but that was in relation to Ballston. I’m glad I don’t live in Ballston – not that it’s a bad place to live, it’s just not what we were looking for. And Mount Pleasant? I like Mount Pleasant. When we outgrow our place, that’s probably the first place we’re going to look. And Wonderland references are lost on me – I’ve been maybe a half dozen times, it’s a cool bar, but it’s not my hangout. We’re much more likely to sit out on the porch at Commonwealth and drink Twisted Thistles and order a cheese plate. The article was a little annoying, I admit. It took a small group of Columbia Heights residents and made sweeping generalizations about everyone here. It didn’t really offer any insight, and I don’t think it got the generalizations right. But I just don’t care. If the article had been about the roads around Target, that would have been a different story – whoever thought the traffic patterns around DCUSA could hold up to the volume of cars and pedestrians there are now was totally insane.

So you wanna be my friend

Are you on Facebook? If not, none of this will make sense. Anyway, it really irks me when someone sends me a friend request and then never says anything to me. I mean, it’s not necessary to write 5000 words to tell me how you’re doing or ask about my life or whatever, but a little something to say I’m not just a notch on your friend count belt is appreciated. This is the sort of Facebook app we really need. No more stupid quizzes and games – I want a friend filter app. It only permits your updates to show on my wall if you and I have had a conversation using Facebook. It can be via status message comments, wall postings, private messages, whatever, but it has to occur before I see you in my news feed. Another option is a badge for your profile that shows what percentage of your friends you’ve had a conversation with in the last month. Then a filter by percentage – if you’re percentage is below, say, 50%, you get blocked from my news feed. So, if you’re a company out there looking to make a Facebook app to help build your brand, don’t try to make one that does whatever your website does, only Facebookier. It will suck. Make one that’s actually useful, and slap your logo on it.

What on Earth is going on?

I’ve been sitting here trying to think how this could be a scam, and I don’t think it can be. Verizon Wireless just called me, offering a plan review. I was skeptical, but figured I might as well listen. He told me that they could drop 150 minutes from each phone on our plan, and save us $10 a month. We don’t use all our minutes, so that was fine. It doesn’t renew our contract, it doesn’t give us fewer text messages, it doesn’t change anything. Just fewer minutes, cheaper plan. And the guy was obviously from Verizon, because he knew what my plan was, could see my usage, and didn’t ask me for any information. Has this happened to anyone else? I think I’m still in shock. Unless I’m missing something, this was just fantastic, proactive customer service from Verizon. And our contract is up – we can jump to another carrier whenever we want. I assume that’s why they called. Maybe the competition is finally strong enough that it makes sense to go after current customers instead of just trying for new ones. Anyway, this sure makes me more inclined to stick with them while I wait for them to jump on the Google Android bandwagon.

Get this stupid song out of my head

Since I can’t get it out of my head after inexplicably hearing it coming out of a car window on 16th Street this morning, I’d like to get The Freshman by The Verve Pipe into your head, too. That link up there? It’s the first hit for ‘annoying song freshmen’, although Google thinks I meant “freshman”. I guess I sort of did, but isn’t the word plural in the chorus? Sing it to yourself, you’ll remember. And now you feel my pain.

The boot doesn’t work

The ridiculous practice of “booting” cars with too many tickets has to stop. Either tow them or let them be. Today is street cleaning day on the main parking side of our block of Harvard. That means that there is no parking at all from 7am to 630pm. This is because Harvard is a pretty busy commuting cut-through, and it’s really helpful to have two lanes. But there aren’t two lanes today, because someone decided to boot a van on the open side of the street. I truly don’t understand the logic behind this. You are now making traffic worse. Other times people get courtesy tows, an absurd waste of time and money, but we can’t tow the van to the impound lot? I’ve said before that booting is an explicit admission that parking restrictions in DC are purely for the city’s financial gain, not an attempt to keep traffic flowing. This is absolutely infuriating. And, to make matters worse, another car, as I walked by this morning, had decided that if the van was parked there, it must be okay. And the really funny thing is that this car is likely to get towed. Ahh, DC. How I love you.

What is going on with public transportation in this city?

What in the world is wrong with the buses these days? Are people afraid of the Metro after the crash? It’s been one awful commute after another for the last week and a half. This morning, two buses passed without picking up passengers. The one we finally got on didn’t pick anyone up until U Street, passing crowded stop after crowded stop. And on the way home, I don’t even know what happened. I Street was a parking lot, so the bus actually turned right on 15th instead of 16th. I saw this, started walking, and actually beat the bus to 16th and L. It turned left on K, right on 16th, and I was at 16th and L when it arrived, and while I walk briskly, I never ran. It looked like something was blocking traffic on 17th – I imagine I could figure out what with a little Googling, but it’s not that important to me. On most weeks, I would just give up and work from home all week. But I actually have to be in the office at least tomorrow, and probably Wednesday, as well. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

The Mayor’s Conservation Corps and the DDOE are very responsive

Below is a copy of the email I sent to the Mayor’s Conservation Corps. You may have seen their flyers – they put them up on railings and doorknobs on our street today.

While I applaud the mayor and the DDOE for their efforts towards conservation and a more sustainable city, littering our streets with paper advertisements hardly seems like the way to start. I live on the 1400 block of Harvard St NW, and I just picked up two of your flyers off the sidewalk during a three block walk. Perhaps your first project could be to collect and recycle all of the trash you left on our streets.

If you have suggestions for projects or questions about the program, they’d like you to email them at mayorsconservationcorps@dc.gov or call 202-535-2325. And, before I could even finish this post, I received a reply from DDOE.

Good evening. Thanks for your note. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. We will make certain the responsible youth go back to that area tomorrow and clean-up door hangers from the street. My apologies for the inconvenience. Should the problem not be resolved or if you have any questions, please contact me at [Phone number removed]. Thank you. Melissa McKnight Program Director, Mayor’s Conservation Corps DC Department of the Environment

Who says city bureaucracy doesn’t work? My faith in government temporarily restored, I urge everyone to think about projects that could help the city. You can look at the Green DC Agenda website for more information.