Category Archives: Business and Money

Business and Money, The Daily Feed
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DARPA’s New Arlington Digs

DARPA.jpg

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the same people that brought you The Internet) is going to be moving from their unphotographable building on Fairfax Blvd in Ballston to a new facility, pictured above, which will probably also be unphotographable in Ballston, across from the Mall. The new building will be the first, when it opens in 2012, to fully align itself with the Department of Defense anti-terror construction guidelines. This will keep 800 DARPA jobs in Arlington, as well as 1,700 liaison jobs for other companies in the Northern Virginia area.

Business and Money, News, The Daily Feed
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Roll Call Buys CQ

Photo courtesy of
‘day295 :: year two’
courtesy of ‘erin*carly’

Two major players in DC’s political journalism are now one major player. Yesterday, Roll Call Group announced its purches of Congressional Quarterly Inc. for an unnamed price. The companies will combine under the name of CQ-Roll Call group and control a significant share of political coverage on the Hill. There’s no word yet on how the buy-out will effect either companies’ publications, although the official closing date is still several monthes away. Major changes may be in the works, but only time will tell.

Business and Money, Downtown, The Daily Feed
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A Little Sim City For DC

Photo courtesy of
‘My SimCity (650K Residents)’
courtesy of ‘adamjackson1984’

With news about budgetary changes coming to the city, in an attempt to offset a $666M budget deficit, it’s definitely time to start thinking about the hard choices necessary to fix the gap in the city’s finances. Enter the Washington Post, who’ve designed a little simulator to alter the budget and work your way back toward a revenue-neutral DC. You can alter revenues (taxes) and expenditures (Marion Barry’s girlfriends) to narrow the gap.

It’s a good way for citizens to understand the choices at play when it comes to covering a budget deficit. Either taxes and fees go up, or services go down, and sometimes it’s a little bit of both. Choices have consequences: if you raise the taxes on the wealthy, they might move to Arlington or Bethesda, and you lose their revenue. It’s interesting, give it a look.

Business and Money, The Daily Feed
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We Love Jobs

Photo courtesy of
‘Diversity!’
courtesy of ‘lorigoldberg’

The Business Journal reports that DC ranks at the top of yet another national list: jobs created.  The District had 133 job postings per 1000 residents, beating out the nearest competitor, Baltimore, by 43.  Experts site the government sector as the reason for DC’s strong showing and expect that job creation will remain high in our city.  Not surprisingly, Detroit rounded out the field with only 15 jobs per 1000 residents.

Business and Money, Essential DC, Food and Drink, Fun & Games, The Daily Feed
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New Happenings at H Street Country Club

Photo courtesy of
‘Day 157: H Street Country Club’
courtesy of ‘InspirationDC’

A night out at H Street Country Club can get pretty pricey, if you ask me. Between $7.50 minigolf, and throwing some serious quarters down at skeeball, and sipping on $7 frozen margs all night, I can wind up walking out of there a whole lot poorer than I entered.

But, ever recession-proof, H Street Country Club recently announced all kinds of different happy hour specials, a few for each night of the week. Here are my picks: Wednesdays are FREE Chips & Salsa from 5 to 7 p.m. at the bars, and Thursdays are Preppy & Plaid days with $4 Golf if you’re wearing plaid. End your week on Sunday with Happy Gilmore Hour featuring $5 Classic Margaritas & Sangria from 5 to 7 p.m.

And while we’re talking about H St. CC, the golf course has seen some recent wear and tear (as predicted by myself and Acacia when we went to visit) and Joe Englert recently talked to the City Paper’s Tim Carman about the work they’re doing on the course to improve its durability. It’s worth a read.

Business and Money
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Thrifty District: Getcha Groupon!

groupon
For this, my first contribution to We Love DC, I want to talk about a company new to the DC area that is leveraging collective buying power to offer fantastic discounts at local retailers and service providers. “Groupon”, which launched its DC operation on May 26th, is a catchy play on the word “Coupon” (I know this seems plainly obvious, but I’m just playing it safe) and a division of Chicago-based parent company The Point, which harnesses the power of individual contribution to generate large scale impact in a social capacity. The Point’s company slogan is “Make Something Happen,” which is pretty kickass because after all, who doesn’t want to make shit happen?

Anyways, the idea behind Groupon came about from a basic problem that many of us busy urbanites suffer from: so much cool stuff to do, but almost too many choices, which means I keep returning to my “usual” spots, only to leave thinking, “man, I really gotta try some new places/things.” But I never did. That is, until I signed up to receive Groupon’s daily deal here in the District. Actually, the first thing I did was buy the hardworking lady friend in my life an hour long massage at Lunar Massage worth $75 for a mere $30 (brownie points on the cheap!). That’s a deal that can’t be beat! Oh wait, sure it can – perhaps by the 60% off Groupon for pilates classes at Mind-BodyFitness, the 71% off at Miracle’s in the City men’s salon, or the 57% off at Posh restaurant. Are you gettin’ what I’m puttin’ down here? Groupon = bigtime savings for patrons + bigtime exposure for businesses, which in turn = win/win for all! Continue reading →

Business and Money, The Daily Feed
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The Bag Tax is Coming

Photo courtesy of
‘Shopping Bag Ban’
courtesy of ‘Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com’

The DC City Council voted, unanimously, to place a 5¢ per bag tax for any plastic or paper bags used in stores in the District of Columbia. The tax is designed to promote the use of reusable bags which create less landfill waste. However, just consider: If you average 3 bags a trip to the store, and two trips to the store a week, that’s 30¢ per week; you’ll pay off three new bags by March next year.

What you have to do, though is remember them all the time, which I’ve not been as successful at doing as I’d like to report.

Business and Money, News, The Daily Feed
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DC is #3 City

Photo courtesy of
‘Washington Monument – East View – 7-15-08’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

Kiplinger’s has named DC the 3rd Best City in 2009, just behind #2 Albuquerque and #1 Huntsville (really guys? Huh?). It all comes down to job growth, income growth and housing, it seems. With the government here, and with all the associated business related to the government, we’re picking up jobs, and picking up stimulus funding and growth.

They also talk a lot about the tourist economy, but the best of it all? “One drawback to Washington’s popularity: No matter the time, day of the week, starting point or destination, you will hit traffic. Try the Metrorail and buses instead of driving. Just remember: On Metro escalators, you stand on the right and walk on the left.”

Bout time that message got out to the masses…

Business and Money, Media, Technology
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The Newspaper Roundup

Photo courtesy of
”
courtesy of ‘erin m’

If the doomsayers are to be believed, the above picture is the only way people are going to be experiencing print-based newspapers in the near future: as a museum piece. The future’s not quite that simple, nor is the current situation in the news reporting world as cut and dried as you might think.

You’d have good reason to think it’s pretty simple, even after the massive amount of discussion about it in our town last week. Maybe because of the discussion last week. If you somehow managed to miss it all, we had radio shows and Senate hearings and, of course, the various kibitzing in the print media itself. Somehow, through it all, everyone managed to say things that were mostly true but the picture didn’t add up to what they claim it did.

Let’s do a little walk through what was done and said, supplement it with what’s come from others, and try to apply a slightly critical eye to it all, shall we? Continue reading →

Business and Money, Downtown, Entertainment, The Daily Feed
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Who Should Fill HBO’s Shoes?

Photo courtesy of
‘Screen on the Green’
courtesy of ‘InspirationDC’
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that HBO has canceled their sponsorship of the famous Screen on the Green summer movie program on the national mall. This is making DC’ers everywhere sad. Which, if you’re an area company, totally leaves room for you to step in and be the hero.

This is the perfect PR opportunity to win the hearts and minds of DC for those companies currently on the “Dead To Me” list. That’s right Pepco, with your always-expensive power bills, you could warm not only our homes, but our hearts. Your newfound love of twitter doesn’t absolve you, I want my movies! All that money you made off of us this winter? Give some back, okay? Comcast, I don’t think anything will ever make me love you after our wireless internet “incident”, but I might be more friendly if you saved Screen on the Green. Lerner family, you owe us big time. After withholding rent on the stadium from the city, building the team HQ building RIGHT in the Capitol sight-line, and trying to get DC to pay for the team uniforms, I think you’re due for a little good PR.

I don’t know about you, but I’d begrudgingly do the Comcast/Pepco/Lerner family dance if it meant I could watch my movies on the mall again. What company do you think should step up to win back our hearts?

Business and Money, News, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Acting CFO of Freddie Mac Dead in Fairfax County Suicide

Fairfax County Police are reporting that acting CFO of Freddie Mac has committed suicide in his Fairfax County Home this morning. Police arrived on the scene in the 5am hour this morning, after being summoned by family members, and found the body of David Kellerman, interim CFO of Freddie Mac.

Details are scarce, and the Police continue to investigate, and are no longer confirming the suicide diagnosis that a police spokeswoman gave. They are, however, confirming there was no foul play.

Business and Money, Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Gimme Gimme More

courtesy of flickr user NCinDC

Who knew Tax Day was also Free Stuff/Discount On Everything Day? In follow up to KatieT’s Cinnabon and Maggie Moo’s Ice Cream & Treatery posts yesterday, there are plenty of ridiculous additional deals  to be had today.  Local discounts and giveaways are being held by McCormick & Schmick’s, Chick-Fil-A, Kimpton Hotels, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, T.G. I. Friday’s, etc.  Grab these deals while they’re hot.

Business and Money, Life in the Capital, Media, The Daily Feed
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The Post and Tech Crunch

Photo courtesy of
‘IMG_3957’
courtesy of ‘nrkbeta’

There’s some consternation going on about TechCrunch, and their reporting style, and Jon Gruber has a pretty interesting response: “The Washington Post must be so proud to have such high-quality bullshit running under its name.”

I had forgotten, The Post does rebrand Tech Crunch, which makes it’s the Post’s problem, too, when Michael Arrington goes out on a limb and the branch snaps off. How’s that got to feel over on 15th street when one of the people that’s not under their control wrecks a story like that?

All Politics is Local, Business and Money, Life in the Capital, People, The Daily Feed
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Econopocalypse – WaPo’s Help for the Employment Forlorn

Photo courtesy of
‘Fannie Mae Stole My Job!’
courtesy of ‘sinksanctity’

The Washington Post’s employment website just launched a new feature to help those recently displaced from gainful employment with a feature “How to Survive a Layoff“. I’ve personally been reading this feature due to my recent separation from my employer. It’s a handy To-Do style list of things folks should take into account once they’ve found themselves missing the daily enriching (in both definitions of the term) routine of going to work. The chief one, and one that I had to use every day due to my job as an computer incident response professional was “Don’t Panic!”. But the other useful proverb is also “use your network”. Continue reading →

Business and Money, Media, News, Technology, The Features
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Geek Corner: The Kindle and Local Newspapers

Photo courtesy of
‘Kindle 2 Homepage’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

I fell in love the Amazon Kindle 2 when I visited my folks in Arizona this Spring. Reading a book on the svelte device was remarkably similar to grabbing a nice paperback, and settling in on the beach. I didn’t think that it would be so easy to read a book in any other format, but the Kindle’s proved me wrong. In addition to being a book reader, though, it’s also a portable terminal for a number of newspapers and magazines. The issues are delivered silently overnight via Whispernet, the cell network attached to the Kindle, which never fails to deliver an issue, never drops it in a puddle or forgets to the tie the bag shut, and always remembers where you live. So, what’s available for your average DC person?
Continue reading →

All Politics is Local, Business and Money, Crime & Punishment, Downtown, Essential DC, Life in the Capital, The Daily Feed, The Great Outdoors, WTF?!
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D.C. Parking Injustice – Tow Me… Blow Me…


Law enforcement scofflaws
Originally uploaded by philliefan99

Did you hear me Mr. Fenty and Ms. Babers? D.C.’s quest to now emulate Chicago with the new administration has reached new lows. As the Democrats and Obama administration have been touting friendliness to green technologies, smart transportation alternatives, and conservation, the city they now hold a majority in,  took a TWELVEFOLD step backwards. I had created the D.C. Motorcycle parking map of the Metro region to help those folks on two wheels track down ever vanishing spots (one set is in center court in the Verizon Center… how convenient), and since most garages do not allow motorcycles in, it’s necessary. Over this past weekend, the D.C. Parking Authority (aka, the D.C. DMV) cranked up the rates without warning for the motorcycle spots to be commensurate with the rates for cars (or even more so), from 12 hour meters which were 25 cents for an hour and 24 minutes, to now 7 minutes per quarter… a loss of 77 minutes 92% of your parking value… WTF?! It shocked most folks parking on the G Street meters (which until the beginning of last year were free) on the west side of the Old Executive Office Building so much, that today, EVERY bike has decided not to pay. Seriously D.C., are you trying to discourage smart commuting?

Continue reading →

Arlington, Business and Money, Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Ray’s Opens Tonight!

Rays.jpg

It’s hard for me to say enough good things about Ray’s the Steaks. I’ve been a fan since my very first Cowboy Steak back in 2004. The tiny location in Courthouse, though, is history, replaced by a larger venue that opens tonight in the Navy League Building on Wayne Street between Clarendon and Wilson. I was passing by this afternoon as the wait-staff was meeting in the front of the restaurant. The corner slot across from King Street Blues has a ton of space. I counted no fewer than 40 tables, some as large as 10 people, which means that this place could be a huge success.

No word on what the menu will bring, nor on how the new “limited” phone reservation system will work. I’m hoping for the ability to call in a reservation, and get a nice tasty steak late next week sometime.

Business and Money, Technology, The Daily Feed
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Technovultures, Hold Off

Photo courtesy of
‘Circuit City going out of business’
courtesy of ‘F33’

It’s still too early for the crazy deals at now-liquidating Circuit City. I went by the location in Bailey’s Crossroads off Columbia Pike, looking for a plug adapter for our impending trip to London. I figured we might be getting into crazy-deal territory, since it’s been about a month since they let the liquidators take over and start to clear out the stuff. Most of the stuff was between 10% and 30% off their already high prices. There aren’t any super deals to be had yet. Check back in a couple weeks.

Business and Money, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Penny For Your Thoughts

spaceballspaceball1

ArtFromM

by flickr user ArtFromM

Over the last week or two, I’ve been noticing a surprising amount of pennies on the streets of DC.  They lie on the cold pavement, waiting for some DCer to take .4 seconds out of their day to bend down, pick them up and put them to use.

While I agree pennies can be annoyingly heavy, and have a habit of multiply like bunnies in your pocket, WE ARE IN A RECESSION PEOPLE!  Is carrying around that one penny really that hard?

If you can tolerate carrying, OMG say just 5 pennies, you can buy a piece of Bazooka Joe gum, read the accompanying comic, and laugh your winter recession blues away.  Or if you hang on to 25 pennies, you can upgrade to a pack of Juicy Fruit.  And for hoarding 100 pennies, you can get a McChicken sandwich from McDonald’s.

So save let’s try to save the pennies and reap the rewards.

Business and Money, Technology, The Daily Feed, The District
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Camera Adventures in DC

Light-up Reindeer

Light-up Reindeer

I’ve been in the market for a new camera for about 3 months. I’m a Canon guy (sorry Ben Rome, I know your love of Nikon is holy and chaste), and I’d been vacillating between an XSi and a 40D or a 50D. That is, until I came to hold a 5D Mark II. See, this isn’t just a camera, it’s an extension of God’s own eyes. Anyhow, enough hyperbole.

The problem with new cameras is that, chances are, for everyone who’s come to a decision about one, there are a dozen more who are rabidly awaiting the new body like some people wait for Christmas, or concert tickets or the second coming of Christ. When I’d made up my mind, I was behind each and every one of them. When I called Penn Camera to ask about availability, the guy did his very best not to laugh at me. He also failed. He told me it would be February or March before they’d have one for me. While chortling, just a little.

Fortunately, though, I found Dominion Camera in Falls Church. They had one last 5D that was unclaimed, as the person who’d asked for it hadn’t ever showed, and hadn’t left a deposit. After a quick drive over, their staff was amazing. They were actually busy, with several people in the shop asking all kinds of camera questions, from inexpensive point-and-shoot to expensive-DSLR, they were very knowledgeable. So, thanks Dominion, both for not laughing, and also for selling me my sweet new camera. Click on that photo above, then click Original resolution and you can see just how sweet this is going to be.