Washington DC in winter.

After every Christmas, my wife and her parents drive down to Alexandria VA to spend several days with her aunt. On a total tangent, I love San Francisco...and as a San Franciscan (like most san franciscan's), we actually believe that we live in the best city in the world....and for many reasons, it is. So with every city I travel to, especially in the U.S., I find myself bashing it...and I do so from a place of complete arrogance and superiority...ie, "Look, it's flat and ugly...or...Where's the ocean?...or...We have more sushi bars than this town has restaurants,etc.etc."

But I have to say, I actually like the Washington D.C. area: including D.C. proper, Georgtown and Alexandria. First of all, the diversity is very impressive. Then you have the endless parade of very impressive and culturally important sights, the constant flow of awe-struck tourists, the truly magnificant Mall, and the massive sprawl of the D.C. metropolis. And behind it all is this very perceived sense that important shit happens here. The Senate, House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, yada yada yada, all here...I mean do we ever not hear at least one report coming out of Washington in our nightly news? I get blown away with just the exit signs on the D.C. belt-way: "NSA Headquarters, Restricted Exit", "Pentagon, next 4 Exits", "FBI Headquarters, next Right", etc. etc.

Anywayz, we spent the entire afternoon in just ONE museum at the Smithsonian. You can seriously spend several weeks just taking in all the Museums and exhibits here. My goodness, I've been here 6 times and I haven't finished going through just the Smithsonian museums. We decided to check out the Sackler exhibit on Early Bibles....ahem...I feel a rant coming on. I think we should drag every crazed fundamentalist into this exhibit. Super interesting stuff here...and here comes the "Did you know" part of my blog: Eusabius, an early Christian Bishop from about 280 AD, gathered a conference of scholars (not the council of Nicea BTW) where they decided which books/writings were to be codified/sanctioned and which were "heretical"...so they threw out The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Judas, and many more....and what happended to those books?...well they're sitting in the Smithsonian behind inch thick glass.

Anywayz, gotta run. Again, my turn to shower. And BTW, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!