On Public Transit

Today the train was one minute late. I actually felt like maybe I did something wrong because the train wasn't on time. Did I not check the schedule closely enough? Was my watch wrong? Then the train came at 7:20 instead of 7:19. I still got off at 7:46 like always. At some point between Pepsi Center and Belleview, the cosmos righted itself.

To compare, this is what I escaped. To quote, the Metro is:

just one big, damn, anonymous hurry

This article highlights much of what is wrong with the metro, but didn't even get into the DC subway system's frustrating inability to move people from one stop to another reliably. Just another reason I am happy we escaped.

Notes on Denver

Here are some initial impressions on my new home city:

1) When you are used to driving in Washington, DC, driving in Denver seems so orderly. There are precious few diagonal streets, no circles to speak of, and no squares. I don't miss Pierre L'Enfant's creation one bit!

2) Traffic here is relative. I was moving at 25-30mph the other day and heard the folks on the radio cite bad traffic where I was. Back in DC, bad traffic meant turn around and go back where you came from. This is not bad.

3) It was 17 degrees here on Saturday. In October. Also, it snowed twice last week. I am not sure it snowed twice last year in DC. All year.

4) There are many delicious Colorado beers. I could spend a great deal of time making my way through all the beers made by Avery, New Belgium, Odell's, Boulder Beer, Breckenridge, etc, and I plan to do so.

5) You have to water your plants approximately 4 times a week here. It's challenging to keep up with this.

6) People here are oddly friendly. We actually went to a Home Depot twice and left both times feeling like we were emerging from an alternate universe where the employees are friendly and helpful, the parking lot tranquil, and the store both organized and not overfull.

7) They close the highways here when it snows. I don't remember too many road closings back in DC when it actually snowed. That almost kept us from getting to the airport this weekend.

8) Sunflower Farmers Market is the greatest grocery store in the history of grocery stores. No matter what you buy, the final bill is no more than $40. So awesome.

9) I suppose that eventually I might take it for granted, but man is it incredible to look out the window while driving and see the Rockies.

10) The light rail here is pleasant to ride. They have a schedule, and the trains come on schedule. It's as different as can be from the Metro in DC - the main similarity is that they are both trains. Past that, you wouldn't really find too many parallels.

More to come.

Denver!

Well, here I am writing to you from Denver, Colorado. At the start of September, I was unemployed, living with my in-laws in Maryland, doing a lot of odds and ends, but generally spinning my wheels. Fast forward to October. After three days on the road, through rain, wind, and farms, we arrived here in the Rockies.

This is our new house. So far we love it. It's in a great neighborhood close to restaurants and shopping, a couple miles from the light rail, and near a bunch of grocery stores etc. It's kind of empty right now, as we endeavor to spend all of our money filling it with furniture, but so far it's awesome. There are some things that will take getting used to, like having a yard for the first time since high school, which is great, but which requires foreign activities like lawn mowing and hedge trimming. Also, in Denver you have to drink 700 glasses of water every day or else you dry up and turn into dust, which is a decent trade-off compared to humidity. It's also supposed to snow this weekend (IT'S OCTOBER!!!), but in DC it never snows, if you don't count 1.5 inches of ice every other year.

All in all, we are pretty damned excited to get our life here underway. We miss all of our friends and family back east, but we encourage them to visit early and often, but not too early, as we have no guest mattress yet =)