Dan Mayer's Blog

Erin made a great post about all the things we have been up to in DC. It is a great post if you will be visiting DC and are looking for things to do. Also, since I haven't posted anything it will serve as a great post to keep you up to date on what I'm up to these days.

visiting tourist destinations in DC

So I had a few goals this year. A big one was writing more on my blog... I failed at that... Sorry hopefully you were following on twitter to see what I was up to. I will try to write more soon, I still hope to get back to blogging as I think it shares more important thoughts and ideas than small facebook and twitter updates.. but sometimes the big updates just go elsewhere in life...

peace

Since Dom and Nicole have done such a good job blogging about their experience moving to LA, in their My Move to LA, I figured I should at least do a My move to DC post. I will quickly cover my neighborhood and apartment.

I have been in DC awhile now, but haven't gotten around to posting any pictures. Basically when we moved it in took awhile to buy and build all the furniture we needed and we had boxes all over the apartment. So I was waiting, things have been pretty settled for awhile now, and while we haven't completely got the place set up how we want, it is good enough that we don't spend to much time worrying about finishing it up.

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Our place is at 8th and Maryland Ave, which is 2.4 miles from the White House. We are about 1 mile from the start of the national mall. We are 3.4 miles from the Lincoln memorial. So we can basically walk to any of the museums and monuments and are living in the heart of it all. We are really close to two going out areas full of restaurants and bars. First we are by eastern market, which has an awesome food market, and great Thai food. Then we are close to H street Atlas District, which has been up and coming for awhile. The area was destroyed by the 1968 riots and only now is getting back on its feet. Last night we went out on H street and enjoyed a German Pub, followed by put-put inside a bar, and finished it off with some dancing at a club.

You might think I am kidding, but I always gave Erin a hard time about the smell of Urine in NYC. Apparently, I once said, "What, What? I can't hear you over the scent of urine..."

Well turns out I was right... We were mostly in Washington Heights noted in the below article for smelling like urine.

NYC Smell Maps

So now I like to claim DC is a lot like NYC, but with far less Urine smell, haha

I have been using USAA for years, and I am beginning to use even more of there services than in the past. I think I started using USAA for my car insurance when I was 16, and never really knew anything about it or paid much attention to it as I never had a reason to call and at that time I wasn't paying for my own insurance. When I went to college, I moved all my banking to USAA, getting checking, savings, and a credit card through them. There bank by mail was easy to use and has only gotten better. I called them up at various times when I needed something awkward and they could always accommodate quickly and usually with out any extra fees. I remember two examples in college, which their banking helped me out. A friend needed $800 in cash in a very short amount of time to purchase a new motor cycle. My daily ATM withdraw limit was $200, I called up USAA at an ATM and they quickly approved a raised daily limit for a period of 24 hrs. I got the cash and it was never a problem. Another example was when I was moving a bunch of money around and at the time needed to write a check for more than I had in my checking account as I wouldn't have my rent checks from room mates for a couple days. I called an they just added the amount I needed to my checking from my credit card and since it was a 3 or 4 day thing, they didn't charge any cash advance or fees on my account.

During college I started to deal with my own car insurance, and had a few little mishaps with my car. Most notably I believe I locked myself out of my car 5 times in college. 4 of those times with the car running, because I am a pretty amazing person... Anyways, USAA with out fail would send out a locksmith quickly and cover the costs. Not only that they were polite and helpful the entire time, and never once called me an idiot for seeing that I had in one year locked my keys in my car 3 times. Something I truly did deserve, was mockery from USAA, but no they just took care of the problem.

During college I also transitioned away from depositing checks by mail, and begin depositing by scanning my checks. It was a simple process and got the money in my account faster than ever. I have deposited over 300 checks this way, and never had an issue.

After college, I had lent my friend my car to drive, and she was rear ended in my outback. It was a small accident that really just dented by back bumper. She was very concerned that it would be a big deal, but it really wasn't. USAA and the other insurance companies took care of everything quickly and with no cost to me. I think the bumper repair was $800 and taken care of in a couple days (once I finally took the time to take my beloved outback a repair shop)

The inevitable happened and I was finally in a car wreck myself. It wasn't a particularly bad one, but it did cause a lot of damage to my car. I won't really get into the details of the story here, but suffice to say nearly everyone though my car would be totaled, and I was supposed to be driving my car across country in about 2 weeks and didn't have much time to deal with the issue... USAA sent out someone to assess the damage on my car about 3 days after the accident. They thought it was close but decided to not total my car and pay for it to be repaired. I had a money in my checking account (minus my deductible) about 24 hours after that assessment. The assessment also included a recommendation of the repair shop I should take my car in to be fixed. I brought it in to Boulder Bump Shop, and they said they could get it back to me in 5 days. The car came back not just looking like the accident never occured, and was cleaner than it had been for a long time... At this point USAA is still working with the other insurance company to get back my deductible for me, since I was the victim car in the accident.

One point I have to make about my car accident was that I was about to get ticketed as well... Because, I didn't have any valid insurance on me during the accident. The insurance cards in my glove compartment had gone out of date and the cop was going to have to give me a ticket. I realized I could get to my insurance on my iPhone through USAA's excellent mobile website. I did while the cop was still dealing with the other driver to fill out paperwork. He accepted the pdf view of my insurance and didn't write me a ticket. Just another example of the nice touches USAA provides.

Normally I wouldn't look towards banks to be leading interesting technology, but USAA is on top of it. I have used many banks websites and they range from non functional, to barely usable in general. USAA 's website is amazing, it just makes managing everything extremely simple. Not only that I normally hear they have features way before other banks begin to support such things through their websites. I already covered the check scanning support, as well as the excellent mobile website, but USAA didn't stop there. USAA built an iPhone app, and it is really useful, but had one feature that blew me away. On my iPhone 3G, I was able to take a picture of the front and the back of a check and have it instantly deposited into my account. The iPhone 3G's camera isn't near the resolution as my scanner, I hadn't heard of anyone being able to do this feature, but USAA manages to happily suprise me yet again.

Anyways, what can I say, I love USAA. Every time I need them they are there for me. Every time I use a similar service from another company I am disappointed by the service. USAA just does an excellent job and has kept me extremely satisfied over the years. I really can't recommend USAA enough.

Total cost of gas + snacks + drinks + meals + etc = $249.93

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But now we are in DC, we finished apartment shopping and will have a nice little place near Eastern Market. Unfortunately to get our parking pass, we have to get DC licenses, register the car in DC, and then get some city section parking permit to park by our place. We also need to get parking passes for our moving pods, so we still have a lot of moving hassles to deal with before we can really be settled in.'

Progress and at least I found a fun part of the city that I like.

So I arrived in Washington, D.C last night at about 3 AM. I now have the long and exciting task of getting to know a new city. I don't know much about the area, so of course I am using the internet to learn about it. From searching on the local Yelp and Urban Spoon listings, to checking out my local public transit via Goolge Maps.

Anyways, one of the things I decided to do was post on Reddit to ask about, What I should know about DC. If you have some ideas let me know in the comments here or on Reddit.

I meant to write up a big post sometime about my 9 years in CO, and the things I have done (college, skiing, friends, hiking, a 14er, etc) and the I didn't get a chance to do (Ski St. Mary Alice Glacier, butterfly pavilion). Anyways with time running out and my house becoming full of boxes. I don't see me getting the post done anytime real soon. So I guess for now I will say, I am on my way. My shipping containers arrived and I will be loading them up soon.

Thanks to everyone I have met and been friends with in CO, hoping we can all keep in touch.

Hooray Erin finally got around to getting the pictures off her camera... Here is the proof I got over 14,000 feet...

Erin has proof too

Erin is considering jumping to get down quicker, or contemplating life or something...

Mission Accomplished! I win!

Slide show of awesomeness:

* Erin got a couple of offers in DC, not all what she wanted... But where she wanted to be, turned down some stuff she wasn't as interested in that was in CO.

* I climbed my first 14er last weekend Mt Bierstadt. It was a good time, it took about 6 hrs... Partly because it is packed. I don't think I will do many other 14ers as they are to popular and it kind of kills the whole be out in nature when you are walking in a line of people nearly the entire way up and down. Erin and I have been trying to do some hiking every weekend.

* I cooked up half a raw chicken from scratch. Dealing with raw unprocessed meat is gross. The fried Franks chicken and fajitas were awesome though. Hooray only one more step until I can say I really know where my food comes from when I eat free range meat. Time to kill a cow or chicken myself and prepare a meal from that... I will be looking for a good opportunity to do this...

* Erin got a job she really wanted in D.C., at NACCHO. She will be helping local health depts prepare for emergencies, and starts on the 27th and will be traveling to FL for a conference on Aug 3rd... That is one way to get to know your coworkers.

* I was hit by a Semi as the back trailer came into my lane... The Suburu was flattened a bit on the side, but no one was hurt. Since we were the victim vehicle, hopefully everything will be covered by the other insurance. I am just hoping they repair my car and don't try to call it totaled.

* I decided to move to D.C. with Erin cause it is about time for us to live in the same place for longer than 6 weeks at a time. I will be most likely be moving there Aug 9th (which is when my 9 week lease in Boulder) is up. If not I will be moving soon after, as long as I can wrap stuff up in Boulder OK.