dc – Page 17 – Complaint Hub

Opening night at The Heights

Last night was the grand opening of The Heights, a new restaurant a few blocks from us. The wife and I went with a friend of hers visiting for the weekend.

First of all, it was packed. We waited probably half an hour. It wasn’t too bad – we found a spot at the bar to wait. The staff all seemed a little nervous, but very friendly and attentive. The food was very good. The buffalo shrimp appetizer was very good, and my tilapia with rice was also very good. The wife tried their frozen mojito, which she liked. We had a caramel banana cake thing for dessert, which was quite nice.

The staff was a little overwhelming. We had at least 5 people bring us things or take things from our table. But the service was good, and everyone who did come to the table was very pleasant. It was a little warm in the restaurant.

I really liked the bathroom – nice stone tiles and funky orange walls. The finish on the construction left a little to be desired. However, they plainly aren’t quite finished with the construction. The floor of the entire restaurant is still bare concrete. So maybe they’ll polish off the bathroom soon.

Anyway, I’m glad to have them here in the neighborhood. And it will be really cool when they open up the outdoor patio, which I think will just about double the capacity.

Afterwards, we went up to the Marx Cafe in Mount Pleasant. That just might be my new favorite low-key bar. The place looks like a barn or something. Lots of exposed wood, as if it’s still being built. The wife’s friend said it looked kind of like a wine cellar – they have bottles over the bar on some kind of strange shelves.

The beer selection is odd but good. They serve beers I’ve never heard of in glasses with the name of the beer on it. The service was great. The waitress even laughed at a marginally funny comment I made, which is always nice. There was a slightly obnoxious group next to us, but not too terrible. And the music was fantastic. Apparently the DJ for most of the night is only there once a month or so, but he played nothing I’d ever heard before, and nothing I didn’t like. Not that I would go out and buy everything he played or anything like that. But you know how the bar always plays some really horrific stuff at some point, like some Jane’s Addiction or some other intolerable crap? This bar played none of that. And they have a really interesting menu, although we didn’t try anything. Maybe next time.

Anyway, I heartily recommend both.

18% alcohol, 100% delicious

We were at RFD last night, and I couldn’t resist the Dogfish Head Raison D’Extra. I probably should have resisted, but I didn’t. Now I’m paying for it.

Anyway, the beer is 18% alcohol. It cost $19.95 for a 12 ounce bottle. And it’s pretty good. It’s not something I would drink very often. It’s very sweet, a little bit in the wine direction but not too far.

And I was thinking – with that much alcohol, drinking one of those is more or less like drinking a six pack of Miller Lite. Except you can be much more smug about it.

The waiter almost got his arm ripped off, though. He actually tried to take the glass when there was still a swallow left. Ordinarily, I probably would have let him go. But that was like $4 worth of beer left. So I punched him in the face.

Not really. But you get the idea.

Our new neighborhood bar/restaurant

Logan @ the Heights

The Heights is the quintessential neighborhood restaurant: perfect for a quick weekday bite, a night out with friends, or a lazy weekend Brunch.

The Heights is opening this Friday, according to signs in the window. I’m excited. I know it’s not the neighborhood bar/restaurant that they’d like you to think it is. I mean, this is their fourth one, which is approaching chain-status. But Merkado is pretty good, and I’ve heard good things about the others, and this one is ours. Now we can tell those snooty Mount Pleasant jerks that they can keep their crappy bars.

I’m just kidding, really. The only Mount Pleasant bar I’ve been to is The Raven, and it’s a cool place. And aside from the occasional “your neighborhood has more crime than our neighborhood” potshots, which are probably deserved, I like the people I know in Mount Pleasant. To be fair, that’s really only one couple, but still.

Anyway, the wife has a friend in town Friday, so maybe we’ll stop by the opening. Or maybe they have other plans. I don’t really know. But you can be sure I’ll try out The Heights eventually. And no, I don’t plan on calling it Logan @ The Heights unless they call the one down there The Heights @ Logan.

A lot of you are interested in Vector Security

Looking at my Google Analytics stats, many people have come here looking for information about Vector Security. I really have only one complaint about them, and that is that it took two months and repeated requests from my wife to get them to send us the referral bonus check we earned when our upstairs neighbors had their system installed.

But the check arrived yesterday, so it was just an annoyance, not a serious problem. The alarm system has been perfect so far.

If anyone is interested in Vector, and wants to have a system installed, send me an email: Jon at complainthub dot com. I’ll be happy to refer you and wait another month or two for a check.

OMG I have DC tags!

Finally. My car is registered in DC, complete with tags, until 2009. I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about that any more.

My experience at the Georgetown DMV was pretty good. I was there at 8:07, and they open at 8:15. The line was longer than 95 M St. All the employees I dealt with were exceptionally friendly and helpful. The woman giving out numbers actually joked with me. A woman waiting also loaned me a pen, which I had forgotten to bring. One bit of advice – the Georgetown DMV has a bunch of clipboards to write on, but about three pens, so bring your own. They also don’t validate parking, which was no problem for me, since I rode the bus. But it might be a problem for other people who relish the idea of driving into Georgetown at 8AM.

I got my number at 8:33AM, and walked out the door with my tags at precisely 9:00. Well done, Georgetown DMV.

I have to say, my experience with the DC DMV has been entirely pleasant. Dealing with Capital One to get my title was a hassle, and there is still the matter of the $100 failure to register ticket that I have to contest, but the DMV has been very good.

And, just to top off a fabulous day of working from home, a little later I’m going to fish a stool sample out of the litter box and take it to the vet so we can try and determine if the cat’s recent behavior issues are medical or (As we suspect) psychological.

It happened again

The disaster magnet once again worked its magic. I went out back yesterday to retreive the trash can before someone stole it, and I saw a note on the disaster magnet. I suppose I was being nosy in going to look, but I couldn’t help it.

Someone had hit the car. Parked in the driveway. Who gets their car rear-ended while it’s parked in the driveway? The person left a note, but seriously.

Even funnier, perhaps, is that I went out to retrieve the trash can after the salesman who was supposed to meet me to talk about installing garage doors at the back of the driveway stood me up. We want to put in doors because our driveway is currently the only one without them, which means that everyone turns around in our driveway. And sometimes hit the cars parked there.

Anyway, there wasn’t a lot of damage (And the car still hadn’t been repaired from last time, so he can get it all taken care of at once, that lucky guy). But it’s enough to send you to Zipcar.

Whoa, there

What’s going on at Mount Vernon Square Metro? I’ve been riding the Green line to there and picking up the Yellow line to get to Pentagon City since March. Yesterday, the Green line train overshot its normal stopping point by about half a six-car train-length. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except that I usually sit in one of the back two cars – they tend to be less crowded as everyone stuffs themselves into the middle few cars.

I refuse to run for a Metro (Which is probably a little silly, but I don’t care.), but I will walk briskly. Which I did, and I made it before they closed the doors.

Then, this morning, the Green line train stopped at about that same spot, half a train-length past the normal spot. The Yellow line picked up at the normal spot.

What is Metro trying to do? I don’t appreciate it. I’m a creature of habit, which includes standing in the same spot on the platform every day. And I expect the train to cooperate.

Weekend bus trauma

Well, trauma is perhaps too strong a word. But I did have a few “incidents” on the bus over the weekend.

First, on Friday, I was taking the bus down to the DC Improv to meet the wife and some friends. The bus driver decided that the light at Connecticut and Florida just north of Dupont didn’t really apply to him. A few cars thought that maybe it did, and registered their disagreement with their horns. No one was injured.

Then, on the way home from the 10K, we were on the same bus line, the 42, going north on Connecticut. We were at the Q St. stop, and a gentleman in a large Range Rover decided that he wanted to pass the bus before he missed the light. Unfortunately, his Range Rover was wider than the space between the bus and the Jersey wall. Oops. So he hit us. I actually didn’t notice the impact, but the bus driver had to stop and call it in and wait for her supervisor or something. So we walked the rest of the way home.

I was a little disappointed in the reaction of the passengers on the bus, some of whom expressed a lot of anger at the bus driver. It wasn’t her fault that she had been rear-ended, or that she had to wait for permission to move the bus. But try telling that to the angry people on the bus.

Anyway, I think the bus driver handled the whole thing well. She called it in right away, then told the bus passengers what was going on. She apologized for the inconvenience. Not much more she could have done.

And riding the bus still beats driving in the city.

Lawyers Have Heart 10K

I ran the Lawyers Have Heart 10K yesterday. It was much more miserably hot and humid than the weather forecast had suggested. But my time was 56:04, only a minute slower than my previous 10K, which I ran in much cooler weather.

This race was much more crowded than my other one. The first mile was tough – not only were we baking in the sun, but it was like driving in rush hour traffic. There was always a slower person in your way, or a faster person cutting you off. But it cleared up later on.

I wore my flag football jersey in honor of our end-of-the-season cookout later that day. You probably can’t read the back of the jersey, but the name is FISTROCK, which is a reference to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that lampooned the movie Space Mutiny. The jersey was cooler before BLASTBODY moved to San Fransisco. But it’s still cool. To me, at least.

Anyway, I had one moment during the race when I wasn’t sure I was going to finish. Have you ever had one of those where it’s quite clear that your internal temperature gauge is just about into the red? When your body sends a little message to your brain saying, “Hey, stupid, if you don’t cool us off pretty soon, we’re going to shut down.” I had less than a mile left, and I was again baking in the sun. But the feeling passed, and I finished the race. It helped that the last quarter mile was in the shade, downhill, with a breeze.

Shootings on Girard Street

Columbia Heights Shootings Cause Alarm – washingtonpost.com

“I’ve been living around here since I was in diapers,” said Chinata Nesbit, 21, who lived in an apartment across the hall from Terry. “It’s never been this bad.”

Well, I suppose it’s of some small comfort that this is the worst it’s been in 20 years – that suggests that we’re just going through a rough patch and it should get better. Or, maybe not. I don’t really know what I’d like to see done about it. I don’t know the best way to reduce violence. I don’t think that banning guns is the answer. There must be studies done on levels of violence before and after gun bans go into effect, and I’ll bet the change is not as drastic as people would like to think it is.

I’d like to see more police around. I think foot patrols would be great. I was talking to friends in Mount Pleasant, just a few blocks away, and they have police officers who are always around. I think having a few cops who actually know residents on the street because they’re around all the time would have a much higher impact on the amount of violence. It’s less flashy and more costly than banning guns, though.