The District of Cool

I've moved. I no longer live in the nicely-skylined city to the left.

I live in Washington, D.C., now. It took me a while to get here, and the story behind that is coming in the next post.

One of the first things you notice about D.C. vs. Chicago is that D.C. is really small. You could walk from one end of D.C. to the other in about 30 minutes--25 if you have really long legs, with "one end of D.C. to the other" meaning "one end of the northwestest quadrant to other, since you're likely never going to venture into the other quadrants."

The big word here is bureaucracy. Everyone here is a bureaucrat--even the homeless man who hands out newspapers to commuters in the morning. These freebie newspapers are published by another newspaper that itself is owned by another newspaper, which is owned by a big international media conglomerate. If this homeless man, who is working for someone who works for someone who works for someone else, isn't a bureaucrat, I don't know who is.

Capitol Hill is a special place. If you really like to hear yourself talk, or if you really like to wear a sweatshirt bearing the name of your hometown/state, it's probably the best place in the world to go. I've only been up there once, but watching the mix of big egos and big Midwesterners milling around the storied halls was nothing short of inspiring. I can't wait to go back.

D.C. is about to experience the blossoming of about 1,000,000 cherry trees, or so I'm told. I think it must be the biggest deal in the world because it's the only thing people are talking about. These trees don't even bear fruit. What's the point of a cherry tree if there are no delicious cherries to eat off it?

That sounds like a question that could only be answered by a bureacrat on Capitol Hill.