Thoughts & Experiences from the Mile High City
I watched the ceremony as the former President arrived in Washington DC. It was beautiful and a perfect way to begin the tribute to the former President.
President Trump and other Washington notables past and present pay tribute to the former president.
— Read on www.politico.com/story/2018/12/03/george-hw-bush-washington-funeral-1041043
Last week I was in Washington, D.C., and ran into a conundrum. The Metro was closed for safety inspections and I had planned on using it to get back and forth between my hotel and office where I was working.
For those of you who don’t know, the Metro is the subway in the D.C area. Unfortunately it is aging and they haven’t done a good job of keeping up with all of the maintenance.
i was able to get a ride to the office, but how to get home?
it was a beautiful day so I decided to walk. It was only 4.5 miles and took me by the Washington Mounument, World War II Memorial, Tidal Basin, Martin Luther King Memorial, FDR Memorial and Jefferson Memorial.
Here are some photos of my adventure.
All-in-all it was a good walk and a good way to spend an early evening in the Washington, D.C., area.
Somif you are in Washington, D.C., to see the cherry blossoms this week or next, coming in to see other sites, or just there on business. It is a great walking city. Take some time to enjoy it.
The problem with being on the east coast is adjusting to the time difference. From Denver, it’s only 2 hours. But it’s a long 2 hours.
It’s almost midnight right now and the pub is closing in the hotel but there are still west coast games going on. Plus, I’m not even tired.
The good thing is that I don’t have any thing in the morning. This is different from my other trips here where I have to get up early to get into our office.
I can take it easy and possibly go for a nice walk around DC before the conference gets going at 1.
If you didn’t know, I’m in DC for the 2010 PRSA International Conference. It’s looking to be a great conference with over 3,000 participants. I’m a little disappointed in the keynote speakers, but thworkshops look really good.
More soon!
Snowball fight takes dangerous turn when police officer draws gun – washingtonpost.com.
This is just a pretty stupid move by the Washington, D.C., detective. You don’t pull your gun if you get snowballs thrown at you during a neighborhood snowball fight.
Watch the video:
A police officer should only pull their gun on someone when they fell their life is threatened. I don’t think getting snowballs thrown at you equals a life threatening moment.
It is just a bunch of neighbors out there enjoying the snow.
Today is a wonderful day for our country, we had a transfer of power from one administration to another that was peaceful and without incident.
It demonstrates that we are the greatest country in the world. There are many parts of the world where this transfer is contentious or occurs under the threat of a gun. Not here.
It was a wonderful day, a wonderful ceremony and a wonderful parade (even though it went quite long).
The one thing that upset me is the members of the audience booing former President George W. Bush when he was introduced at the inaugeration ceremony. Despite your political views or thoughts of the President Bush, he is still the President and deserves the respect of the office.
I have been distracted from writing about my experiences at restaurants I visit and I have missed writing about them. It is time to get back to that and I want to start with my visit this evening to Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe.
Kramerbooks is becoming a place I need to visit whenever I am in D.C. Their selection of books is something that you don’t usually find in the chain stores. I always find something different to take with me and read.
I had eaten at Afterwords Cafe before and enjoyed it, so I thought I might as well combine the two and find something and then grab dinner.
Well I checked out the books and nothing jumped out at me. They seemed to have a lot of books about the election and I am quite tired of that. So I grabbed the new “The Atlantic” magazine. Sometimes that is almost like a book.
With reading material secured, I walked through the store and to the cafe. I got settled in my seat and was soon enjoying a Peak Organic Ale from Maine. Quite tasty. (If you go to their website, they have several ales, just don’t know which one I had.)
For dinner I started with a mescaline salad that included apples, mushrooms, walnuts and a wonderful vinaigrette. I had to have every last bit. For the main dish I had the crab cake platter. It was delicious.
The crab cake is served on top of fresh pasta topped with roasted corn, tomato, sweet peppers & scallions. It has the right about of spice. It all flows together for a wonderful taste.
The service was good and being a Sunday night they were training new waitstaff, but that was not a problem. Both were quite attentive.
If are in DC and find yourself in the Dupont Circle area, find Kramerbooks & the Afterwords Cafe for a wonderful read and nice meal.
Marble for Unknowns tomb just sits – The Denver Post
This is where the government procurement policies and procedures have gone wrong.
The marble of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier is failing and needs to be replaced. A retired car dealer, John Haines, has donated a piece of marble from the same quarry and has even lined up donated transportation to get it to Arlington National Cemetery for free.
But Arlington National Cemetery and the U.S. Army are balking at the free donation. Instead they have estimated it to cost $2.2 million, including $80,000 to just accept bids on the project.
In the article, this is what Thurman Higginbotham, Deputy Superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery had say about the donated marble.
“It’s not doable. A citizen can’t just give us any piece of marble and say, ‘This is what we’ll use to replace the tomb,’ ”
As a taxpayer and a citizen I think the Army and Arlington National Cemetery need to investigate whether the marble will work for the tomb or not. Not just dismiss it outright.
If it works, great. You have a free piece of marble that will save you the $90,000 you think it will cost to purchase and transport. If it doesn’t, that is fine, but at least look at it.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a special place and means a lot to people. They were doing this out of respect and have found a special piece of marble to serve as the replacement. Arlington National Cemetery should recognize that.
Severe Storms Rush Through Region, Killing One Person – washingtonpost.com
I am in Washington, D.C., for work and the storms have been crazy. When this story came through it got really dark and it started pouring rain. The lightning was right over downtown and the thunder was almost right after it.
Tonight, another line of storms came through and hit just as I was headed to my hotel at 9 PM. I am glad that I had brought my umbrella. It was coming down pretty good and there was lightning all over the place. I was pretty nervous.
I am glad that I didn’t know about the tornado watch. I would have been more concerned than I was.
The flight home to Denver is quite a long one, about four hours long.Flying east, the trip is almost an hour shorter than the return flight.
The anticipation of getting home might play into the length of the
flight even longer.
As you can tell, I am ready to get home. I should be home in time to
surprise the kids and pick them up at school.
It should be a fun weekend, even though I was gone only a couple of
days.
I am at the Washington Nationals game and it is a nice stadium. Look for a review later.
Mile High Soapbox 
