I’m at Union Station and incredibly sweaty.
I have made this mistake several times already — I try to take the metro while wearing a suit and end up grossly sweaty by the time I make it near campus.
Every time I promise myself that I will just take an Uber next time I wear a suit. And every time I foolishly try to take the train again — “It’s not that warm,” I tell myself. Wrongly.
The dogs are adjusting to life in Washington D.C. pretty well.
Dallas was very dog-friendly in terms of parks and poop-stations, but 100 degree days made it difficult to take anything but brief dog walks after 7 a.m.
Washington D.C.’s Chinatown is a place that I will get to know well this semester — in addition to being the site of the closest subway stations to school, I am also externing at a law firm in the heart of Chinatown.
One of the nation’s busiest train stations is only a few blocks from the law school.
Union Station is a historic train station and shopping mall. The dramatic architecture and statues around the building give it a casino-like quality, but it’s usually a much cheaper visit.
A palm room inside of Union Station in Washington D.C.
I am at the Tumi store politely listening to a salesman list features of various messenger bags and briefcases.
Several bags are too bulky for my tastes. Others look like “old man briefcases.” Some look like purses.
One of the messenger bags has most of the features that I want. The salesman tells me it’s $500. I quickly leave the store.
My search for a professional laptop bag is in its fourth hour and I feel ridiculous. My previous bags from Tumi and Kenneth Cole are worn and ratty from years of abuse, but everything nice is out of my price range. I finally turn to Amazon.
One of the first things that I noticed on the Washington D.C. subway (besides the terrible air conditioning) was a man wearing a hat with a “W” on it.
I figured he worked for Walgreens.
I recently went to the Jefferson Memorial — it was my first time visiting a memorial up close since moving to Washington D.C.
It was a very brief trip. I only saw the memorial at a distance because I came across it on a dog walk and there are plenty of signs indicating that dogs are not allowed inside.
Becoming a subway rider was one of my biggest adjustments as a new D.C. resident.
I was a bus and bike commuter back in Minnesota, but quickly ditched public transit in Dallas. The roadway congestion in D.C. can get pretty gross during the week, so it was time to return to public transit.
Getting a card for the D.C. subway is relatively straight-forward, but there were a few surprises:
Classes started and I am already well-acquainted with the law library.
The LL.M. program is going to be challenging, but it’s also a luxury to focus on nothing but tax law for two semesters. My J.D. program felt like a hodgepodge of different topics at times, whereas my LL.M. classes are clearly interrelated and cover much deeper material. We’ll see how I feel in a few weeks.
Buildings along the National Mall in Washington D.C.
Washington D.C. is beautiful and dense. The lack of tall skyscrapers for landmarks makes it difficult to navigate at times. I’ll eventually figure out the grid system.
The streets are very diverse and busy without being crowded. There are tourists with cameras, people wearing suits, baseball jerseys, children running on the subway, and very aggressive panhandlers.
Many areas of town are busy late into the night, but there’s always the looming threat of getting mugged — so I guess it’s like any other large American city, just with more museums than most.
The week flew by — I finished LL.M. orientation at Georgetown University Law Center, got acclimated to my new apartment, and even managed to get some sightseeing in.
Being back in school isn’t as weird as I thought it would be. Georgetown University Law Center has a standalone campus in the heart of Washington D.C. and the facilities are definitely an upgrade from the University of Minnesota, where I earned my J.D.
GULC is significantly bigger than U Minnesota — about three times larger. The Georgetown LL.M. class alone is about the size of the Minnesota J.D. class.
The size of the LL.M. program means that it has a lot of dedicated resources — significantly, a five-person career center staff who emailed extremely helpful information and guides throughout the summer.
Another thing that impressed me is that the vast majority of LL.M. professors are adjuncts and local practitioners. This means that GULC has a significant presence in the D.C. tax community and there’s always someone around to answer questions about a particular firm or agency.
It is 2 a.m. and I am clutching a heaving labradoodle’s mouth shut on the side of a mountain somewhere in Tennessee.
We are halfway to Washington D.C. and my dog picks the most dangerous part of the trip to get car sick.
Ingrid quickly vomits over the dashboard and gear shift, so I put my hazard lights on and pull over. Semi-trucks zoom by as I use leftover Starbucks napkins to clean the car. Ingrid stares at the dark forest behind me, where some serial killer or black bear is surely lurking.
About 30 minutes later, I pull into an isolated gas station to refuel and buy proper cleaning supplies for the vomit. A young clerk with a neck tattoo is pretending to sweep in front of the gas station convenience store while eying a car parked nearby. A couple is sitting in the front of the car, having a full-blown screaming match with the windows down. It’s about 3 a.m.
The woman apparently breaks up with the man and gets out of the car while screaming uncharitable things about the man’s mother. He then peels out of the gas station lot without her.
She sits on the ground in front of the station and lights a cigarette.
Inside the convenience store, the clerk helps me search for wet wipes. Apparently they don’t sell any.
Our search is interrupted by a pair of new customers who enter the store. The man is a tall blonde with a pockmarked face and very few teeth. His clothes are dirty and his shirt is full of holes. The woman is large and squat with wild curly blonde hair. Her clothes are filthy and she isn’t wearing shoes.
She barks at the clerk about cigarette specials.
I quickly pay and exit.
I finish refueling and I am almost done cleaning up the dog vomit when the cops arrive. The clerk pretends to sweep outside of the store again while watching an officer quiz the newly-single woman who was abandoned in front of the gas station. She’s explaining to the cop that she doesn’t have any drugs as I get in my car and continue driving to D.C.
Packing our stuff to leave Dallas.
Our trip to Washington D.C. started the previous day in Dallas. We got up early on Saturday morning, crammed our cars, and threw out everything else that wouldnt fit.
Several people from our apartment complex hauled away our discarded belongings almost immediately after we set them by the dumpsters. This made me feel a little less guilty about failing to make donation arrangements.
Michael’s sister hosted us for the weekend to celebrate her birthday and wedding date announcement.
It was my first time in the city, and the trip was filled with beautiful architecture, amazing food, humidity, and an adult beverage or two (allegedly.)
A creepy and cluttered tourist shop in New Orleans.
Buildings in the French Quarter of New Orleans at night.
A bar that’s open 24/7 in the Garden District of New Orleans.
A well-lit historic house in New Orleans.
After almost two years in Dallas, I’m getting ready for a new adventure — this time in Washington D.C.!
Michael is transferring to the Thomson Reuters office in D.C., meanwhile I have been accepted into the Taxation LL.M. program at Georgetown University Law Center. (The LL.M. is a 1-year tax law program with post-graduation job applications starting this month.)
This week I undertook the humbling task of reviewing all of my blog entries.
This blog stretches back to my freshman year of college, so there are a lot of great (and not-so-great) memories archived in these pages.
Here’s a look at how I spent the last decade or so, from Miami to Minneapolis, and then down to Texas.
We start in Miami — there were long days in the library, bad drag shows, and misadventures in Little Havana.
Then there was the move to Minnesota, where I started law school and lived in a frat house during my first semester.
Back in 2011, Google launched a social network that was poised to be a “Facebook killer.” I joined the wave of marketers that adopted Google Plus, and briefly considered abandoning Facebook.
Six years later — Facebook dominates our lives more than ever and G+ is widely viewed as a failure. I however, use Google Plus every day and find it an important part of my productivity.
I don’t use Google Plus as a social network, but rather as a convenient bookmarking tool that saves me a ton of time every day.
Like most people, I have a habit of getting easily distracted online — but G+ helps me stay focused in the moment by allowing me to quickly save interesting articles and websites so I can return to them later.
And I actually do this — when I’m stuck in line somewhere, I will open the G+ app on my phone and find what is basically my “to read” list. If I am signed into Google Chrome, things that I posted to my Google+ profile will float to the top of search results so I can find them later.
I recommend giving “Google Plus as bookmarking tool” a try — it significantly improved my productivity by giving me more control over when I consume interesting content.
I sometimes tell people that my labradoodle is still a puppy. She acts like a puppy — hyper, uncontrollably excitable, and easily fooled. But I just realized today that Ingrid is already two years old.
I got Ingrid back in October 2015 (how time flies!) and she’s been tumbling around my apartments ever since. What a quick two years.
Ingrid the labradoodle among the flowers in Perry Heights, Dallas.
Ingrid the Labradoodle at a Highland Park fountain.
The Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs recently came out with a new pride flag that adds black and brown stripes.
I am not sure whether the “More Color More Pride” is a cynical publicity stunt or a genuine attempt at inclusion.
The colors on the original pride flag designed by Gilbert Baker represented the themes of “sexuality, life, healing, sun, nature, art, harmony, and spirit.”
Creating yet another iteration of the flag doesn’t change or threaten these values, but runs the risk of making it easier for people and institutions to virtue signal a message of racial inclusiveness without doing the necessary work to make that happen. 🌈
The street performers in Oak Lawn vary — from real musicians and performers to people in the middle of drug-induced episodes.
We recently came across a fabulous Michael Jackson-like performer who reminded me of Disco Stu from South Beach.
Disco Stu was this fabulous greasy-haired busker who was well-known on Lincoln Road. He had bedazzled platform shoes and an old boombox that blasted oldies. I saw him almost every weekend in college.
This move was yet another tedious experience in which I was confronted by dog hair balls, poor purchasing choices, and clothes that no longer fit.
One unexpected aspect of this move was the rain — I was leaving Ilume Park with a carload of stuff when the sky just collapsed all around me.
Here’s what it looked like in a video posted by a local weatherman:
A video of a “rain foot” over downtown Dallas.
The technical term is a “rain foot” or downburst, but it really felt like the hurricanes that I left in Miami.
I then made the great life choice of getting on the Tollway during the downpour. Several of the low points in the highway were flooded and traffic was reduced to a single lane. One guy driving a beamer attempted to blast through the flood waters and got stuck. I made it to the new apartment however.
After two years in Dallas, there are still many neighborhoods that I either have not been to, or haven’t meaningfully explored.
University Park is one of those places. Despite being just on the other side of Highland Park, I rarely venture to this independent Dallas neighborhood.
So accidentally coming across Inwood Village recently felt like a special surprise even though some of my neighbors shop there on a weekly basis. (Inwood Village is a shopping center in Dallas immediately outside of University Park.)