The Green[e]house Effect: a Weblog

A Few Thoughts

So you're probably getting the sense by now that I've finished up that roadtrip and gotten back to my desk. It was a good time, and yes, the rumors are true — I am indeed licensed to practice law in the courts of the District of Columbia. To spare the the city from being any further overrun by young lawyers, though — to say nothing of young blogging lawyers — I've done everyone the favor of hopping on a plane and coming back to Atlanta.

What with my seemingly knowing half the town, a trip to Washington wouldn't be complete without a few moments of randomness. I'm glad to say that yesterday didn't disappoint:

• I bumped into the father of an old kindergarten classmate — from back when I lived in Birmingham, mind you — while I was on the Red Line platform at Metro Center. That ranks pretty high on the randomness scale, if you ask me.
• I thought I would have to skip out on a conference call about the latest developments with the state-level DMCA that the MPAA is pushing for — but as things worked out, the swearing-in ceremony was right across the street from the headquarters of the trade association I lobby for. Once I finished up the paperwork with the court, I crossed the way and took an elevator up to the offices. How lucky was that?
• What Einstein closed E Street behind the White House? The Brits get by with leaving Whitehall and the Mall open to traffic just fine; how is it that America has to shut down two major crosstown streets? Any more encroachments on the downtown street grid in will send the capital into more or less total gridlock — heck, that's almost what it has already.
• I'm way out of shape -- what with my not having lived in a walking-friendly town for more than three years now, I'm pretty darned sure that I need to get a lot of exercise.
• That said, carting a suitcase through downtown Washington on a muggy summer afternoon was not the form of exercise I had in mind.
• I left a woman positively torqued on the Yellow Line yesterday when I offered her my seat after the train got crowded. She said no, I said okay and kept standing, then she said — even more emphatically — "no, you don't understand, I am not taking that seat."

  Fine by me — whatever. I said "okay" and kept standing, figuring that someone else might take the seat. A half-station later, between Archives and L'Enfant Plaza, she stage whispers to the woman next to her that she "wish[ed] that gentleman would get the message that I don't want that seat."

  Well, I'd already gotten that message, thanks — but what was the big deal? I stood up; that was my choice. She said "no, thanks"; that was her choice. Someone who got on at L'Enfant Plaza saw the seat and swooped right into it — that was her choice. I fail to see the problem.

• What's with the invasion of the Chicago restaurants? Every time I turned around, I saw another one: Potbelly, Flattop Grill, Big Bowl and Corner Bakery, just to name a few. By the time I make my next trip I expect Constitution Avenue to have a Berghoff.
• The planner who built the Key Bridge to stop four blocks west of Wisconsin Avenue ought to be flogged with a cat-o’-nine-tails.

All in all, not a bad time — and with the bar requiring me to take an ethics course sometime in the next year, I have a ready-made excuse for a repeat visit. Who's up for a blogger bash at, say, the Capitol City Brewing Company next time?

Posted by Greg Greene at August 12, 2003 6:16 PM