Mike's Blog

With 2008 Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney

I like Washington, DC.  You don’t hear that very much nowadays.  Presidential candidates, Senators and Congressmen constantly rip DC, and then try to get there or stay there.  People who call it DC tend to like it, because the locals call it DC, whereas people from who knows where call it Washington.  I saw a Bruce Springsteen concert once and he called Washington a “wicked place.”  And he was playing in Washington.  One thing I do agree about is that the number of lobbyists and lawyers upsets the balance of the city.  However, there are a lot of great things about DC.

DC has more museums than any other city, and most of them are free.  It’s nice to go to the zoo for free – that’s a big savings for a family.  It’s a great sports town with the Redskins, Wizards, Capitals, Nationals, and DC United.  The Nationals have a new stadium and the arena where the Wizards and the Caps play is home to a lot of things to do.  There are several great universities – Georgetown, George Washington, American, and Howard, plus the University of Maryland just outside the city.    

There are a bunch of areas in the city that have great character and nightlife such as Georgetown, Adams Morgan, and Penn Quarter.  Next door there’s old town historic Alexandria, Virginia as well as upscale Bethesda, Maryland, with more restaurants per square mile than any city in the country.  If you’re into the performing arts, DC has the Kennedy Center and other world class venues.  DC also has an excellent subway system that is safe and efficient.  You don’t need a car to live here.   

You’d be hard pressed to find a large city with more trails than DC.  In the DC area, there are more than 800 miles of jogging and biking trails and 230,000 acres of parkland.  Because of Rock Creek Park, DC has more trees per square mile than just about any other city in the U.S.  DC is an hour and a half from beaches to the east and an hour and a half from mountains to the west.     

With DC Mayor Adrian Fenty

There’s more to DC than national politics.  There are 600,000 residents, most of whom have nothing to do with the national scene.  DC has a large international and multiracial population.  And they are taxed without representation in Congress.  So to show the two sides of DC, I put two pictures up here – one of me with a politician who bashes DC yet tried to get a job there – former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney – (a nice guy, though), and another of me with the current mayor of DC, Adrian Fenty.  Fenty is an avid triathlete who often bikes the trails of the city.