DC Food: Rita’s Ice Cones

Rita’s Ice Cone shops are becoming quite the chain, but I can taste why. This one is at the corner of South Dakota and Rhode Island on the northeast side and is THE stopping point for DC and Prince George’s County ambulances - five stopped by in the hour we were there. Plus, we can bike there from Mount Rainier.

You can get soft serve custard, but why?

Instead, go for the gelati. Tonight I had custard with pina colada and wild black cherry flavored shaved ice on top of more custard. Incredible.

Road Trip from Mount Rainier (MD) to Fairlington (VA)

We live in Mount Rainier, Maryland, that town you’ve never heard of that is not a mountain and is right next to DC. When we go to visit friends in Fairlington, we pass some curious sights and good food on the way…road trip!

1. Rita’s Ice Cones - Rhode Island and South Dakota

You can get soft serve ice cream, but why? Instead, go for the gelati. Tonight I had custard with pina colada and wild black cherry flavored shaved ice on top of more custard. Incredible. The choice for DC and Prince George’s County ambulances - five stopped by in the hour we were there.

2. Road Funds Sign - Rhode Island and 13th St NE

Rhode Island Avenue is in the process of being resurfaced from North Capital to 30th St NE. Love the construction. But in an amazing feat of accountancy, the project’s costs are known down to the penny…$1,495,597.23 for the Feds and $303,076.53 for DC.

3. Etete Ethiopian Restaurant - 1942 9th St NW

As you continue down Rhode Island, you might get hungry and swing off near the Shaw Howard University metro station to Etete Ethiopian near U-Street. Amazingly good Ethiopian that feels less commercialized than Dukem (it’s half-house, half restaurant after all). Plus, if you’re lucky, they’ll fire up the projector and play African music videos with pelvis thrusting women for your fine dining pleasure (even if you’re the only ones there)…

4. I-395 Speed Camera Slow-Down - south of the New York Avenue entrance

There is a speed camera just after the tunnel on I-395 at New York Avenue. Everyone local knows it and the speed limit is 45 mph. But everyone slows down to 35 mph. Why????

(Picture TBD)

5. Guy Camping on I-395 - under 7th Street SW

So you’re finally getting somewhere and are set to head over to Alexandria. But wait, there’s a guy camping, complete with a tent, BBQ, and lawn chairs in the grassy median underneath the 7th St NW overpass between the east and westbound I-395 traffic. He’s been there for at least a month, hanging out in broad daylight. The Washington City Paper did a story on him last week, “Median Man.”

6. Idiots Crossing Five Lanes of Traffic - Jefferson Davis Hwy exit

You’ve crossed the river and are in Virginia! Congratulations. But here’s an SUV going 25 mph, trying to cross five lanes of traffic after gawking at the Pentagon and throwing the bird because you didn’t let him in…Have a nice day.

(Picture TBD)

7. All These Condos Looks the Same - Fairlington

You’ve finally made it to Arlington, home of your friends. But every single one of these condos looks the same and now you’re lost…

Welcome to Mount Rainier, Maryland (near Washington DC)

So you’ve decided to move to Mount Rainier, Maryland?

Congratulations on finding the best, undiscovered city outside of Washington D.C. Housing prices are reasonable (for DC), there’s a metro within walking distance (17 minutes to Chinatown), it’s a friendly walkable neighborhood where you get to know your neighbors, and there’s no real mountain. Takoma Park at half the price and twice the diversity…

This guide should help you in finding your way (and if anyone has suggestions, make a comment below and I’ll incorporate it)…

Statistics

Even with all the single family homes, apparently Mount Rainier has the highest population density in Maryland, over 12,000 people per square mile (of course the total area is only 0.65 square miles).

• Mount Rainier on Wikipedia
• Mount Rainier Profile

Basics

• Government
  • City of Mount Rainier
  • Police
  • Fire (county)
  • Library (county)
  • Hospital
    • Providence (DC)
    • Prince George’s (MD)
• Utilities
  • Water - Washington Sanitation District
  • Electricity - Pepco (cheapest default supplier) or Pepco Energy (green electricity, roughly 3 cents/kWh more than coal/nuclear)
  • Natural gas - Washington Gas (cheapest default supplier)
  • Curbside Pickup (city)
    • Compost on Monday (yard waste)
    • Trash on Wednesday
    • Recycling on Friday (paper/cardboard, #1/#2 plastic, aluminum, metal; don’t separate)

Community

• Arts - Gateway Arts District (a growing artist community; my review)
  
• Economic Development
  • Gateway Community Development Corporation
  • Anacostia Hours (alternative/local currency; my review)
  • Route 1 Growth Blog
• Food
  • The Glut Food Coop (”still funky, still cheap” groceries; my review)
  • Artmosphere Cafe (great jazz on Mondays; my review)
  • Island Style Ice Cream (mango, stout, and soursop flavors; my review)
• News
  • Prince George’s County Gazette
  • Mount Rainier Email List (community chatter)
  • Washington Post Local Explorer
• Other Resources
  • Community Forklift (building materials reuse center)

Outside

• Northwest Branch Trail
• Mount Rainier Nature Center
• Mount Rainier Pool Club
• Running Club
  
• Biking
  • Biking Club
  • Mount Rainier Bike Coop Website / Email List

Other Links

• Joe’s Mount Rainier Website

Want to live here? Find a home in Mount Rainier.

My Cat Meowed About Global Warming On NPR

It’s not often you get on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and it’s probably even less often that your cats do too…

NPR is running a series called “Climate Connections” and this particular story was about trying to find the United States’ biggest greenhouse gas polluter. I signed up for a voluntary government greenhouse gas tracking program a few years back (”Count Me In” is a story I wrote about it for Grist.org), which led the NPR reporter to me since I was one of 2-3 regular people in the whole country who signed up with the likes of Ford, Pepco, BP, and IBM.

The best part about the story is that my cats were mentioned and one of them even meows for the story…

Click Here (listen around the 1:40 mark)

What’s kind of ironic about the voluntary greenhouse gas tracking system is that the government hasn’t signed up to report its emissions. If George Bush would like to start, I can help them calculate the White House’s emissions, and maybe they can challenge Al Gore to a climate reduction contest…

Cut Your Energy Bills in Half - Electricity (Part 2 of 2)

[Editor's Note: This is Part 2 of 2, originally published at GreenOptions.com.]

Electricity, or how I saved over $500 this winter

You may recall in Part 1 on Natural Gas, I outlined how I saved $166 on my natural gas bills over a two month period versus the previous homeowner (standardized against winter temperature differences) with little to no effort and less than $100 in supplies. That number has now increased to over $400 in savings from September 2006 through March 2007…

Now I’m happy to report that I got the electricity data on the previous owner as well, and frankly I’m not sure how she used so much electricity in our little house - she used as much in one month as we expect to use in a whole year. But the data doesn’t lie and over the same 6 month winter time period, i.e. no air conditioners or dehumidifiers to skew the data, we have saved an astonishing $516 over her previous bills in the same 6 months the year before…Our monthly bills are $25-$35 in the DC metropolitan area (we’re paying 13 cents/kWh on average). It’s incredible how easy it is to save electricity, money, and pollution.

As before, your first thought must be that I’m sitting in the dark or bought all new appliances. Nope. The porch light greets us when we come home, we hang out in various rooms in the evening without much thought to turning the lights off, and we haven’t replaced any major appliances (same refrigerator, dishwasher, laundry, etc).

Here are my secrets, not exactly rocket science, which cost less than $100 and only a little effort:

• Replaced all lights with CFLs - Every one. The light is the same. They hardly burn out. Friends can’t tell the difference. The trick? Don’t buy the $2 cheapie and expect it to put out the save amount of light. Pay $3 for the one with the most lumens, i.e. the 100 watt replacement (use these where the bulb won’t be visible), and/or the ones with the fancy cover so it looks like a regular bulb (use these where the bulb is visible). You can get really small ones and specialty ones for vanity lights that work great. Some (not all) may take 5 seconds to warm up and reach full brightness but is that too much to ask? Prioritize the lights that are on the most (not the ones in the closet) if you don’t want to replace them all.
• Light sensor on the front porch - I don’t like to come home to a dark porch. So I paid $10 for a light sensing socket and screwed it into the old socket on the porch. Sun goes down, light comes on, and it has a timer to turn itself off after 2, 4, 6 hours (or the next morning).
• Phantom Loads - There are a lot of things that are “on” even when “off” - anything with a remote control, a fat box for a plug (a transformer that converts AC to DC), a clock, cell phone chargers, printers, monitors, etc. We have 2 or 3 power strips that allow me to shut off 3-4 things at once where it’s convenient, or we unplug them. But it’s not practical to do everything - I don’t like to reprogram the VCR, TV, microwave clock, etc so I don’t bother. I do unplug the clock radio in the guest room when no one’s there (that thing uses $24/yr alone) and the chargers that don’t get used everyday. Get a Kill-a-Watt and use it to go around the house and test different appliances (or better yet, buy one with some friends and pass it around to share costs). You will be surprised how many of these you have…

That’s about it…surprisingly simple. Other things you can do:

• Switch to natural gas appliances - As you replace your old appliances (if they break or you remodel), switch to natural gas. It’s cheaper and cleaner for the most part (even with the higher natural gas prices recently) - stove, dryer, and water heater. After all, electricity production is about 30% efficient and mostly comes from coal. I found a free natural gas dryer on Craig’s List a few years ago at my old house. An electric water heater alone probably costs over $500/yr to operate - that’s more than it costs to buy it.
• Buy Energy Star appliances - As you replace your old appliances, pay a little bit more for ones with the “Energy Star” label. They are more efficient and save more money in the run. Don’t necessarily replace the appliances if they still work (although a new refrigerator over one that is 10 years or older could easily save over $100/yr). The “big four” users are refrigerator, dehumidifier, central air conditioner, and electric water heater.
• Buy a window air conditioner - We haven’t gone through a DC summer yet, but we plan on using the air conditioner at some times…but there’s no reason to cool the whole house at night, so we’ll use a window air conditioner for our room and shut the central air off. Use a fan at night if it cools down - even 4-5 use less than the air conditioner.
• Refrigerator details - Turn off the ice maker. We don’t use much ice and don’t feel the need to have 2 gallons of it available at all times, so I turn it off once it’s filled (and it usually stays off for 2-3 months actually). And if you buy a new refrigerator, the top/bottom door styles are more efficient than the side-by-side doors. Refrigerators can easily use less than 500 kWh/yr now versus 1500+ a few years ago (hurray for federal efficiency standards).
• Don’t replace the windows for energy reasons - As before, do it for aesthetics. Do it for comfort. Don’t do it expecting to save oodles of money and run from anyone who says otherwise.

DC Food - Island Style Ice Cream

Have you ever heard of soursop ice cream? Island Style Ice Cream in Mount Rainier, Maryland might be the only place in the DC metro to get it. What about stout ice cream? I didn’t think so. Well certainly mango and guava then, right?

The Carribbean is here and it tastes good…organic, local, and frozen on a cone. I kid you not. This is the best ice cream I have ever tasted. Head to the traffic circle just past Eastern on Rhode Island and then north 1 block on 34th Street. Just look for the metallic coconut tree…

 

DC Signs - “Not the Best, But Still a Good Price”

Un-Safeway not-withstanding, Ghetto Giant on Queen’s Chapel in Hyattsville is kind of the K-Mart of supermarkets, and includes a reduced produce cart, bearing this sign, and packages of fruits and vegetables with a similarly labeled barcode sticker. I did in-fact buy the two packages of potatoes seen above and made a very nice roasted vegetables medley.

DC Food: Artmosphere Cafe

The Artmosphere Cafe, located on the first level of the Mount Rainier Artist Lofts (part of the Gateway Arts District), is located in Mount Rainier on Rhode Island Avenue, just past Eastern Avenue (at the traffic circle).

Artmosphere is more than a coffee shop. Check out the menu of sandwiches and salads (cous cous and curry lentil caught my eye) but stay for Friday and Saturday night concerts, Live Jazz brunch on Saturday, Monday Night Football, or open mic Wednesday poetry. Tonight is drum circle jam, Friday is a vocalist, and Saturday is hip-hop - something is always going on…Lounge away on the full length couches.

DC Arts: Mount Rainier and the Gateway Arts District

No one has heard of Mount Rainier, even though it borders DC on the northeast side (Eastern and Rhode Island) - it’s the traffic circle town as you’re driving out Rhode Island (and incidentally was at one point the only U.S. city with a majority gay city council, as well as majority non-caucasian). But little Mount Rainier is becoming a little arts haven for a variety of unique projects under the auspices of the Gateway Arts District (also see this article “Building a Gateway“)

• Mount Rainier Artists Lofts - 44 affordable new housing units for artists with commercial space and studio space, including energy efficient design considerations
• HIP’s Artist Housing - 12 affordable renovated housing units for artists with studio space, including environmental design considerations
• Artmosphere Cafe - a coffee shop and artist exhibition space within the artist lofts, including regular music and arts on display
• Joe’s Movement Emporium - brand new dance studio space with classes, shows, and events
• Latin American Folk Institute - promotes the arts, music, and folklore of Latin America
• Jackson-Jarvis Studios - a well-known private artist featuring public, nature, and client based art

So, if you’re coming out this way, stop for a couple of hours and see the next up-and-coming artist enclave…

Cut Your Energy Bills in Half - Natural Gas (Part 1 of 2)

[Editor's Note: Part 2 of 2 on Electricity, is also now available.]

Natural Gas , or how I saved over $250 this winter (Part 1 of 2)

We moved to the DC area last September and in the first bill from Washington Gas, it had a table of the previous owner’s natural gas use for the last year. A perfect opportunity for a little data analysis…

Using data from the National Weather Service, I was able to make sure that the numbers were comparable. If last January was colder than this January, it wouldn’t be apples to apples, but for months with similar “heating degree days,” they had the same average temperature and any differences in natural gas use would be a good assessment.

December 2006 (us) and January 2006 (old owner) had similar temperatures (639 and 672 HDD respectively). The old owner used 142 therms and we used 63 therms, which based on this year’s prices, saved us $90.

January 2007 (us) and February 2006 (old owner) were also very similar (746 and 733 HDD respectively). The old owner used 156 therms and we used 88 therms, which saved us $76.

That’s $166 in only two months!

When I standardize the old owner’s data to our data and normalized it to this year’s winter temperatures and natural gas prices, I came up with a cumulative savings of $230 from September through January (see the graph above).

So your first thought is that I must be freezing all the time. Nope. The thermostat is set at 70 F right now. Spent a lot of money? Nope. We have the same house, furnace, water heater, stove, etc.

Here are my secrets, which cost less than $100 and only a little effort:

• Bought, installed, and programmed a programable thermostat - We set it at 68-70 in the morning and evening, 55 at night, and 50 when we’re at work in the day. And no it doesn’t take more energy to heat the house back up.
• “Hold” the thermostat when gone - If we’re leaving for the evening, not coming back from work until late, or going away for the weekend or a week, we set the thermostat at 55 F. The cats don’t mind.
• Closed off the guest room - I shut the vent and we keep the room closed (unless a guest is visiting of course). No one’s going to notice. We do the same for a three-season office with poor insulation.
• Covered up the holes - We have a whole house fan in the second floor ceiling, which I assume will be great in the summer, but is basically a hole in the ceiling in the winter. I cut out some cardboard and taped it up. I also put weatherstripping around the attic “hatch” in the ceiling.
• Shut the basement door - It’s gross down there anyway.

Other things I’ve done since, i.e. they aren’t included in the above numbers:

• Seal the “attic bypasses” - You have hundreds of holes in your wall, which basically create a highway for warm air to escape through the walls and out the attic. I bought outlet gaskets, basically foam inserts, to put behind the light and electric outlets. For some, I put a little sealant foam around the outside if the gasket didn’t cover it enough. There are other things to do…for more information on these secret heat losses click here (PDF) - insulation without address the bypasses is almost useless. The better solution, if you have access, is to seal the tops of the wall cavities from the attic (but think about whether you’re going to insulate the walls in the process).
• Covered up more holes - I’ve since covered the kitchen fan and the office vent.

Other things you can do:

• Put up plastic on the windows - It’s not fun, glamorous, or good looking, but it works. I did it in Minnesota but we have better windows here in Maryland.
• Wrap the water heater - Trendy these days but not as necessarily if you’re water heater is newer and uses foam insulation (vs. fiberglass).
• Wrap the pipes - Buy the foam piping insulation and wrap the first few feet of the hot AND cold water pipes going into and out of the water heater. Go nuts and wrap the rest of the hot water pipes if you want to. Do the same if you have a boiler.
• Caulk - Caulk your attic bypasses. Caulk the window edges. Caulk it all.
• Put in a low-flow showerhead - They work well.
• Insulation - If you’ve addressed the attic bypasses, then insulation makes sense. Go with the ceiling and then perhaps the walls, but this isn’t necessarily a cheap option.

Things not to do unless money is no object - if you run the numbers, they aren’t your best investments:

• Don’t replace the windows for energy reasons - Do it for aesthetics. Do it for comfort. Don’t do it expecting to save oodles of money and run from anyone who says otherwise.
• Don’t replace your furnace for energy reasons - Do it for safety. Do it for a remodel. Do it if it’s broken. Have the old one checked out for safety and efficiency, but if it’s working fine, let it keep working.
• Don’t replace your washer or dryer for energy reasons - Do it if it breaks. Do it for a remodel. And when you do, get a front-loading washer and a gas dryer with a moisture sensor.

Next time: Electricity, or how I have a $30 electric bill (Part 2 of 2)