Getting Back In The Groove

July 31st, 2007

A few takeaways from our Washington DC trip:

• The weather was bizarre — 90 degrees, humid, and a few thunderstorms thrown in. California has us spoiled.
• The Metro is really slick, better than the BART. It’s cheaper and the trains are more frequent and on time. San Francisco’s MUNI needs some serious freaking help.
• Lots of pretty neat neighborhoods (my brother took us around). Seems like a fun place to live. The museums are awesome and free.
• I tried some Chesapeake crab chips with something called Bay Spice which was nasty. This I think falls into stereotypical East vs. West coast ridiculousness. I see no reason to overwhelm a crab with a spice mix that tastes like rock salt and paprika. But perhaps this is necessary because the crabs are wimpy compared to San Francisco’s dungeness.
• That said, I did prefer DC’s thin crust, wood burning stove pizza. The average California pizza is too doughy. Also had some good east coast microbrewed beer.
• Got some choice bottle caps.
• Now for some technology observations: Way, way, way too many unread articles in my feed reader. After just a few days, I can’t even comprehend them all. I just marked all as read.
• Traffic definitely fell off on the blog but as usual, not as much as I always fear. Maybe someday I’ll hit a point where I don’t have to actively post so much and there are enough past posts to continue generating traffic while I go to the beach.
• I got a better sense of the tech bubble stepping away from California for a while. Cell phones are pretty ubiquitous but I saw people shying away from computer check ins at the hotels and the airports. Huge lines to talk to people but nobody using the automated kiosks. People I chatted to at the wedding know about big companies like Amazon or Google, but Twitter is a big “huh?”. Never mind having a blog…
• Still, it’s super convenient to have a laptop and be able to check email and manage stuff from wherever you are. I could get into the mobile lifestyle.