Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] greetings from Maryland

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 7/22/06, Russell Horn <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-07-20 at 22:28 -0500, Jonathan King wrote:
> >   On or about July 4, my family and I moved from Columbia, Missouri to
> > Potomac, Maryland, after I had accepted an offer to start working for
> > the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.
>
> Congrats.
>
> I signed up to MLUG when my Fiancee was in Columbia and I lived in
> Edinburgh, Scotland. We're now in Charlottesville, so a whole lot closer
> to you, though MLUG and friends are my only links to Columbia these
> days.

MLUG is a truly strange beast.

> I know we'd love to get back for a trip but Columbia's inaccessibility
> is one of the reasons we're not living there.

Columbia's relative inaccessibility is pretty spectacular, yes.  And
it's really unclear why it has to be this bad. When they recently
awarded the contract that gave federal subsidies for some level of
minimum service, I was surprised that the bid cost for 4 flights per
day was well under $1 million.  This suggests to me that you could get
Columbia surprisingly well connected for only maybe $2 million per
year to start, and that could slide down once a large company or two
figured out the sensational cost overlay Columbia provides.

> I know I've posted before
> about the difference in air fares between Europe and the US, but I'm
> constantly surprised at how expensive it is to go anywhere if it doesn't
> involve a car.

I'd have to see the number expressed as dollars per passenger mile,
but I think that one factor in favor of Europe is compactness.  The
canonical US flight is probably New York to LA, which is basically the
same distance as London to Baghdad.  Also trains are a real option in
Europe, but not in the US.  And there are other reasons I'm sure.

> Bethesda is really nice, though even more expensive than Charlottesville

Housing is incredibly expensive, and gas is more expenisve, but other
things aren't quite as out of line as I had feared.  The traffic here
is legendary, of course, which is why I'm so happy I managed to end up
within biking distance of work.  NIH offers to reimburse part of your
transit costs if you give up your right to a parking permit, but not
if you walk or ride your bike to work (they just "salute your
effort".)

> - I hope you and the family are enjoying life in and around DC. I envy
> your proximity to Regional Food & Drink and The Brickskeller, the beer
> here isn't close!

It's not that likely I'll be getting to go there, alas.  But, yeah,
that does sound imporessive. :-)  Our amazingly great find so far is a
place called "Second Story Books" in Rockville.  Their website brags
about their catalog of over 73,000 books, but that covers maybe 20% of
what they have on hand.  Another nice thing is that a randomly
selected Chinese restaurant will generally be twice as good as
anything I ever saw in Columbia.  But the weather is just as bad;
Columbia is hotter, but Maryland pushes up the humidity just enough to
make it a tie.  Oh well: you can't have everything.

jking

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