raves Archives - Page 7 of 36

Happy Birthday, Capital Bikeshare!

Launched six years ago today, Capital Bikeshare changed the way DC gets around. These ubiquitous red bike bikes revolutionized biking in this city, bringing cycling to the masses. Biking is no longer just the provence of fearless young males. With thousands of Capital Bikeshare bikes on the streets, it’s now something that everyone does – from office workers commuting downtown to tourists visiting from overseas.

More bikes means safer biking for all. Capital Bikeshare made drivers accustomed to seeing bikes on the streets. This not only made the streets safer for cyclists, it made things safer for pedestrians, by forcing drivers to slow down and be slightly more aware. God knows that the city doesn’t enforce traffic laws. But the presence of people on big red bikes has a “traffic calming” effect that has probably saved lives.

I was an intermittent CaBi user until this year. Joining in February, I’ve already racked up 286 miles on bikeshare. Most of the these miles were back and forth trips to the Metro, in which I used bikeshare for the “last mile” between public transportation and my home. While I have a bike, I also use CaBi for trips where I don’t want to take my real bike. Some examples:

Don’t want to leave my bike at Union Station where it could get stolen – take bikeshare.
Metro breaks down – take bikeshare.
Going out for drinks – take bikeshare to bar, Uber home
It’s raining/snowing and don’t want to get my bike dirty – take bikeshare.

It’s very handy to have this network of bikes available to you any time of the day or night. Capital Bikeshare is ideal for a compact city like DC, where parking is limited.

Spotcycle is key to the regular CaBi user, providing a real-time map of bikeshare stations and available bikes. I use it every day.

One more thing: those bikes are damn attractive. The beauty of bikeshare is part of their appeal. They’ve made DC a better-looking place and are an irresistable photo subject. Here’s a selection of bikeshare photos over the years. Happy birthday, Capital Bikeshare!

bikeshare girl

The Maritime Republic of Eastport

Island life makes people a little crazy. Key West has the Conch Republic and a little neighborhood in Annapolis has the Maritime Republic of Eastport?

While technically not an island, Eastport feels that way, located across a drawbridge from highfalutin historic Annapolis, MD. But you won’t find cobblestone streets and signers of the Declaration of Independence here. With its narrow lanes, wooden shacks and air redolent of the Chesapeake Bay, it really did remind me a bit of Key West.

My trip to Eastport was courtesy of Enterprise CarShare. I’m a social media ambassador for them, like a real millennial. It was a day trip for me. Easy – you reserve a car online, swipe a card over a sensor on the windshield and drive off. Gas is even included.

Ford Escape – an SUV that I actually like.

I picked a Ford Escape which was conveniently parked a block from me. I really like that little SUV. You can haul stuff with it (like a bike) but it’s also nimble enough to parallel park.

Annapolis is about an hour from DC. Once there, I stopped for coffee at Ceremony.

Photo Aug 28, 10 21 59 AM — Coffee and a muffin at Ceremony Coffee in Annapolis.

Then I met my friends Lynn and Anthony for lunch at Davis’ Pub in Eastport. Crab dip over a pretzel – delicious! It was also nice to sit outside by the water at this unpretentious bar.

Photo Aug 28, 12 28 51 PM — Lynn and Anthony has said that no one has ever not liked this crab dip – they were right!

We then walked over to the Annapolis Maritime Museum. This riverfront museum is devoted to the history, ecology and the arts of the Chesapeake Bay. Learned a bunch about oysters. And they had a great exhibit of photos on the people still wresting a living from the bay.

Photo exhibit at the Annapolis Maritime Museum.

This was the third of my three free trips courtesy of Enterprise. I get free travel and a small fee, and they get photos to use online. It’s been a great opportunity to explore new places and take photos.

When I briefly owned a car in DC, all I did was worry about tickets, break-ins and having my car towed to some distant lot. Carsharing is easier, even for a non-millennial like me.

Photo Aug 28, 1 14 45 PM — Not a millennial.

Color is Subjective: All the Colors of the Internet Presentation at WordPress DC

You think you see color. You don’t. Color is subjective.

When you’re designing a web site there’s a moment when, inevitably, everyone argues about color. The blue is “too blue” or the pink is too “candy-colored” or the color palette of the page is “too corporate.”

While not a designer myself, I knew enough about design to recognize the absurdity of the situation. A bright color on a designer’s screen looked dull on my work PC. Which version was the right one?

At one place I worked at it, the test was just to make sure it looked good on the boss’s computer which ran Internet Explorer – didn’t matter anywhere else.

As a photographer, I see it with my photos. I use Safari as my web browser, in part, because my Flickr photos look best there. The colors seem dull in Firefox.

Beth Soderburg confirmed my suspicions about color with All the Colors of the Internet, her presentation to the August WordPress DC meetup. Go view all the slides. They’re fascinating, if you’re interested in design and human psychology.

Color is Subjective

None of us see color the same way. Beyond the fact that some people are color-blind, or can’t see certain colors, there’s also the fact that color doesn’t exist. It’s not a physical property, but just our perception based upon available light. Is your red vase still red in the dark?

Since color is subjective, designers should not depend on colors to convey information. A button that turns yellow when you click on it is not enough of a signal – not everyone can see that yellow. Use a checkmark or some other visual cue.

And if you’re a web designer, practice color acceptance. Your design may look perfect on your Mac with your calibrated display. But the colors are going to look different on a Droid. You’re just going to have to live with it.

Tour de Bike Lane Cheers on City Cyclists

Sponsored by the Awesome Foundation (really), Tour de Bike Lane is designed to cheer on bike commuters as if they were in the Tour de France.

Bells, horns, vuvuzela, cheers, glitter and even free flowers greeted very surprised people biking up the 15th St bike lane in Washington, DC, on Friday, August 5th.

I heard about the event thanks to a Washington Post article. I bike 15th St every day of the week. Anything that gets more people biking is a good thing. More biking means safer biking because it habituates crazed Maryland drivers to cyclists. Maybe it will get them to slow down and be more cautious. Maybe!

DC is filled with events for people who bike, everything from WABA’s group rides to the rolling carnival known as DC Bike Party. It’s what makes biking in the city so much fun.

See more photos from Tour de Bike Lane.

Will Bike for Virtual Trophies

Will bike for virtual trophies. The thought occurred to me as as I biked up the Capital Crescent Trail to Bethesda. Ordinarily, I’d ride up to Bethesda, look at some books at Barnes and Noble, then turn around and fly back down the trail to DC.

But Strava was in the back of the mind. The fitness social network has occupied an increasing chunk of it this year. I even purchased a premier membership to better track my rides and runs.

I couldn’t just bike to Bethesda – I was being tracked! I had to put more miles in, especially after I saw some of my Strava friends off on a hundred-mile ride to Sugarloaf Mountain. What would they think of my little jaunt to the book store?

Nice people, Mary and Ed. But following them on Strava will make you feel like a slacker.

It was a lovely day anyway. I didn’t even stop in Bethesda but followed the Capital Crescent Trail until it connected with Rock Creek Park. Then I took that back home, racking up 26 miles and 22 different Strava medals, lol. Strava is more generous than a helicopter mom handing out post-soccer treats.

Stopping the Strava for a selfie in Rock Creek Park.

I once scoffed at the ride-tracking service, thinking it was only for MAMILs. I’m a slow-cyclist, more apt to bike a couple miles for coffee then do a century with a pack of lycra-clad men (yuck).

But then Strava started giving me more trophies than a Millennial spelling bee, awarding me Personal Records, Second and Third Place medals for biking tiny little segments of DC. Even though it was absurd, I felt honored to achieve a new record for biking a .7 mile segment of 15th St, giving me the self-esteem of a selfie-obsessed teen as she passes the thousand-follower mark on Instagram.

We respond best to rewards, even virtual ones, a topic that Jane McGonigal explores in SuperBetter. I saw her speak at SXSW ten years ago. Her message stuck with me because she changed my mind about online gaming.

McGonigal extolled the virtues of gaming and the reasons for their appeal. Unlike life, games have fixed rules and rewards. It’s no surprise that people find more meaning in games than our chaotic and uncertain world.

Lessons learned from games are now being applied to real-world challenges. It’s called the gamification of life. From the Apple Watch to Pokemon Go, gamification encourages us to be our best selves.

This is bewildering for a GenXer. We never got trophies! Unless, you won, of course.

But, now, with apps like Strava, I can win scores of trophies, like the only child of suburban parents in Montessori school. Game on, Strava, game on!

Remember Baseball? A Visit to Nats Park

Baseball. I don’t get it.

Growing up outside Chicago, I watched the White Sox as a kid but this was the pre-digital era when we had fully developed attention spans. Back then, we read books and spent summer afternoons climbing trees and wandering the neighborhood. Now, in this age of Twitter and iPhones, who has the patience for America’s past-time?

I’m probably the last person in Washington who hasn’t seen the Nationals. So, when my friend Jenny invited me to a game, I went.

Nationals Park is a beautiful stadium and easily accessible by car, Metro and even bike – bike valet is available. We parked a few blocks over and walked in the scorching heat.

We had great seats just yards from the field. One problem: the seats had been heated by the sun to a temperature that would fry an egg – or your bare skin. I poured water over my seat to cool it off.

Washington is in the midst of a heat wave now. At 1:30 PM, when the game started (opponent: San Diego), it was in the 90s with a heat index over 100. We prayed for clouds while the Nationals got out to an early lead.

No one in my section wanted beer. Instead, it was requests for bottles of water, ice cream and ice chips to put under caps. By the third inning, we needed a break from the sun. The concourse was lined with vendors of all kinds – Goose Island, Ben’s Chili Bowl, Peet’s Coffee. You could get a salad. You could get a mixed drink. It felt like Vegas.

The air-conditioning at the Front Porch, the bar in center field, was a blissful relief. The bartender gave us chilled paper towels to put around our necks while we drank $10 beer. (Is there no limit to what people in DC will pay for beer? Nope.)

We returned to our seats for the last couple innings. By that point, attendance at the stadium had shrunk in half. Everyone clustered in the shady sections, avoiding the punishing sun. Papelbon blew a lead while a sun-baked fanatic vigorously heckled him. Passionate – or crazy? Or maybe heat stroke.

Bull Durham was on cable a couple of weeks ago. It’s one of those movies that you can’t turn off once it comes on. It’s a movie about baseball that can be enjoyed by people who have never seen the game. And it’s filled with great bits of Zen-like wisdom:

This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.

Football is far more popular than baseball these days. With its brief moments of violence interrupted by litigation and commercials, the game is an accurate representation of America in 2016. It’s what we are, a representation of our bloodlust, stupidity and greed.

Baseball is what we aspire to be – simple, fair and timeless. That’s why it retains its appeal, even among people like me who rarely see a game. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Del Ray Ramble: Going Back for Biscuits

I'm in historic, sweaty Del Ray. — I’m in historic, sweaty Del Ray.

Record heat is predicted this weekend. But last weekend was plenty hot for me, so I got my biking in early Sunday morning.

I was up at 7 and out the door not too long after. Sunday morning is the best time to bike in DC, with very little traffic in the city and before the tourists arrive. I cruised over the Memorial Bridge and on to the Mount Vernon Trail. Destination: Alexandria.

Approaching the boardwalk on Daingerfield Island, a cyclist going the opposite way shouted an incoherent warning to me. Wonder what that was about?

Then I saw:

Tree down on the Mt Vernon Trail at Daingerfield Island.

There had been a storm overnight, leaving a massive tree branch across the trail. The bridge was damaged – chunks were missing from it and debris was scattered everywhere. I walked my bike through this mess, stepping over the missing boards.

After having coffee at the Starbucks in Old Town, I decided to take a different route home, to avoid the tree across the trail.

Cameron makes a nice alternative to King Street, a low-traffic route that led me up from the river and to the Potomac Yards Trail, which parallels the train tracks into DC. I followed this new trail for about a mile before detouring into Del Ray on Monroe Av.

There, I passed a beautiful-looking Swing’s Coffee across from a park – that’s where I should’ve had breakfast! I filed that way for next time.

Making a right on Mount Vernon (the avenue, not the trail), I idled through Del Ray. It’s like hipster Alexandria. It was early but there was a line to get in to a place called Stomping Grounds. If only I knew they had biscuits! Another place filed away for next time.

Mount Vernon takes you back to Four Mile Run. Along the way, I passed this bus, which I found very interesting. Traveling the country in a rolling coffee house – that sounds like a dream.

Bus owned by Cllegro Coffee Company. — Bus owned by Allegro Coffee Company.

Rather than take Four Mile Run to the Mount Vernon Trail, I went through Crystal City, stopping to take in this spooky bit of art near some new apartments off Route 1.

Then I got back on the Mt Vernon Trail and returned to DC, just as buses began disgorging hordes of tourists at the Lincoln Memorial. The day only got hotter after that. Glad that I got in my Del Ray ramble early.

I’m going back for biscuits.

You Can’t Go Home Again: New Belgium Asheville

New Belgium in Asheville

With $4 Fat Tire and a riverside location, New Belgium Asheville is heaven for beer lovers.

I heard of Fat Tire long before I tasted it. A friend spoke of the Colorado brew with a kind of reverence that I found unfathomable. It was just a beer, right? In the years before New Belgium brew came to Washington, DC, she asked for it constantly and was constantly disappointed.

Then, with a mad flourish, New Belgium arrived in a big way for Tour de Fat, a celebration of biking in the city that featured a group ride around Capitol Hill and a day’s worth of fun and games. Not only did I get to try to the amber Fat Tire but also lots of other lovely beers like the hoppy Ranger and the superdrinkable Shift.

I fell in love with New Belgium due to their tasty brews and support of cycling everywhere. It’s a brewery founded by bike lovers! Work there a year and you get a cruiser bike!

A Brewery in Asheville

When I heard that New Belgium was opening a brewery in Asheville, one of my favorite cities, I was drunk with excitement, eagerly counting down the days until I could visit.

And on a Friday afternoon recently, I rolled into the brewery along the French Broad River. Located in a former industrial district, it’s about a five-minute drive from downtown Asheville.

Parking is limited. I hear it gets quite crowded on the weekends. Bike parking is available out front but there didn’t seem to be many cyclists when I was there. (Asheville needs some work on their biking infrastructure. Not sure I’d feel comfortable biking around this Southern city.)

Walking through the front doors, you’re greeted with a beer hall that opens out to a riverview terrace. Drink inside or enjoy the views of the French Broad.

tasting room

lots of beer

outside deck at New Belgium

Beers are $4; samplers are $1.50. Tipping is optional – tips are donated to charity. On tap, you’ll find all your New Belgium favorites along with seasonal and specialty brews. I had a Fat Tire and tried the Heavy Melon, which was too sweet for my liking.

You can also get beer to go – six-packs, sampler packs, growlers and bottles of unusual brews. There’s a big selection of New Belgium swag to purchase; I got a t-shirt.

beer selections

New Belgium gear

What New Belgium needs is a dock along the French Broad. A couple days after my first visit, I went tubing down the river with friends. The brewery was achingly close but there was no way to get up the bank from the river to the brewery. I would’ve loved to restock my tube with New Belgium!

The whole riverfront area is being redeveloped, with trails and other amenities put in there. It’s come a long way from the blighted industrial zone that it used to be in the 1990s.

floating down the French Broad

Asheville is rapidly becoming Beer City USA. Directly across the river is Wedge Brewing, a very funky and cool spot for shirtless people of all ages. Probably my favorite brewery in Asheville – it has a Southern casual vibe that I really like, where hipsters, tourists, rednecks and oldsters all interact. You could picture Greg Allman drinking there.

Not to far away is Wicked Weed Brewing, a mainstay of the Asheville beer scene. And about a 20-minute drive outside of town is the Sierra Nevada Brewery, home to a huge party complex of beer and local food.

“You can’t go home again,” wrote Thomas Wolfe. But after drinking great local $4 beer, how can I go back to DC?

OUTBOX: The Future of Work?

I’ve got one word for you: BOXES. Whether it’s a tiny house or a new transit van, the future is modular. It’s four walls and temporary, brought to you when and where you need it.

That’s the thought behind OUTBOX, temporary outdoor office space constructed in downtown Silver Spring. Created by students at Montgomery College, they describe it as:

OUTBOX is an innovative workspace offering on-the-go professionals a perfect spot to escape the office this season. Work, ideate and create in the fresh air.

Beats the hell out of my windowless, gubment-issued cubicle so I was dying to check it out. OUTBOX is as described, an open-air, covered space with chairs, tables and wifi.

Cool, but probably not necessary in downtown Silver Spring, where there must a dozen places you can work in, from coffee shops to the public library. I’d rather go to Peet’s.

Where this would be ideal, however, are places far from city centers where wifi is ubiquitous. When I was traveling out west last year, I would’ve loved OUTBOX. It would be perfect for a Utah rest stop in the middle of nowhere, allowing travelers a chance to check their email, look up hotels and reconnect to the world.

OUTBOX would also be great at places where you need temporary workspace, like a convention or a concert. It would make a great press room for reporters, social media mavens and photographers covering such events.

Cheap, flexible workspaces are the future. Investing in massive buildings filled with white-collar workers is a waste of money. Why pay for half-empty desks? Here’s to a better alternative, one that employees might enjoy more: the box! It might not be OUTBOX but we’re all going to be working and living in such places pretty soon.

Photography Show: New Orleans by Ben Carver

A friend of mine once lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans. After first visiting during Mardi Gras, I returned every few years, my last trip occurring just a few months before Hurricane Katrina. While everyone knew that the city was basically a big bathtub, and that a storm could fill that bathtub with water, no one expected the unthinkable to happen.

And then it did. What surprised me was the long-lasting impact the storm had. The city was devastated, livelihoods were wiped out and thousands of people left the city forever – including my friend Bob. I visited a year after Katrina and much of the city seemed like a ghost town. It’s slowly recovered since then.

Ben Carver spent three months walking the neighborhoods of New Orleans, capturing the city as it exists ten years after Hurricane Katrina. An exhibit of his photos recently took place at the White Room in Shaw, featuring selections from the 600+ images that comprise this collection.

For anyone who has visited New Orleans, the photos evoke a lot of nostalgia. I’ve been a fan of the city since reading A Confederacy of Dunces, one of my favorite books of all time. It’s unlike any other place in the United States – and I hope it remains that way.