DC...again and again

I drove into DC last night. I was looking at an apartment in Mt. Pleasant. 500 bucks for a basement place to be shared with a guy who works at Brookings. The place is small, there's no getting around that, and it's got the worn feel of a place that's been well used and not as well cared for. And yet...it's a wonderful location (18th and Park) and very reasonable rent (and I don't have to pledge to live there forever). So with a few assurances here and there I think I may have a new address. Currently I'm writing from the very very posh residence of Mssrs JKramer-Duffield and W Singer. It's across the street (I see it now) from the Metro. The apartment has gorgeous floors, high ceilings and the overall appearance (decoration and layout) of a place where up and coming publishing folks live. Like so many nice places for 20 somethings it feels like the owners are stockholders in Ikea. It's a wonderful place. Maybe if I'm really nice I can spend some evenings engaged in argument here or at least share some port or PBR (seems like a place that could accomodate both) ...it's a huge and comfortable place--kind of like an interior/urban park.

I am heading off to Columbus this morning. I'm going to navigate "The Spur" a section of highway (270) whose name always seems funny to me. The Spur.

In other news I was accosted outside my potential new apartment by a haggard middle aged man in a wife beater. I was sitting in the car with my laptop open. He walked over and banged on my windows. I rolled mine down and he shouted, "If you don't turn that damn thing off, I'm calling the cops. I know what you're doing, you're breaking into networks." I was, of course, taken aback and stammered out something that resembled, "No I'm not. Not at all." He then demonstrated (or hoped to) his sincerity by committing to memory my license plate number. He mumbled this to himself three or four times before launching into more black helicopter visions. He demanded that I take down the GPS locator that I mounted to my window (it plugs into my computer). I explain it was a GPS locator, to help me navigate and he rolled his eyes and said, "Oh sure." This is why a little bit of knowledge is a bad thing. He knows what a computer is. He knows what a network is, in so much as he believes it to be something that I would "hack" in the middle of the afternoon, while sitting listening to NPR. For the rest of the afternoon (I was waiting to meet the potential roomate) he sat and stared at me while, I can only imagine, explaining to his daughter the evils of P2P software and compromised firewalls.