Happy Halloween Freaks !

While this blog was created to support my business, Ecocabs Delivery, I think it is important to remember and celebrate the holidays. Today I am taking it easy so that tonight I will have all the energy I need to scare the pants off of little kids. While my beautiful wife walks the neighborhood and collects candy with our children I will be lurking around my candlelit house with a Grinning Skull Death Mask on and a cd of creepy music and sounds playing. There will be some muted horror movie on television and when the doorbell rings I will monkey-walk crazily to the front of the house and greet the little trick-or-treaters with grunting, growling and unintelligible sounds. Last year I sent two or three groups of kids screaming back down the steps to the street without any candy whatsoever. For me, that made it a great Halloween! I hope I do as well this year. All work and no play makes Matt a dull boy...

My Bloguru

She will wince if she reads this! Denise Graveline, of Don't Get Caught taught me everything I know about blogging and gave me the confidence to start. She is a a super energetic woman, brimming with great ideas, who has been a big help to Ecocabs. But she will probably not like the title Bloguru. It is a little funny, though, isn't it? She has really been a help mentoring me about starting a business and offers many words of encouragement. In that way she is like another person I mentioned in an earlier post, DJ Kim, owner of Java Green, who with a calm smile has shown me lots of love and a better way to do business. They are unlike in many ways but share the ability to stay positive and calm even at those times it is most difficult. There are several others I've met because of Ecocabs with a similar optimism and determination and I'm beginning to see that they are traits one must have to start ones own business. I offer them thanks.

H Street / Atlas District

Perhaps the most interesting change Ecocabs has undergone in its short but sweet life is that of becoming the Atlas District, or H Street, shuttle. For the past several months I have been providing transportation for patrons of Joe Englert and Co.'s new H St. N.E. bars. There is no metro convenient to them and taxis haven't picked up yet on the large numbers of people needing rides, so I've been hired to pick up or drop off people at Union Station, Gallery Place, or Eastern Market every Friday and Saturday night from 10 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., for free. It has been great fun to see the bars-the Argonaut, Palace of Wonders, Red and Black, and the Rock and Roll Hotel-start and now gain momentum, and to meet all the fun people who come down to hang out. It is really a unique scene in Washington; there hasn't been anything quite like it since 14th and U St. circa 1992.

Traffic Jams on Connecticut Ave.

Driving around the city as much as I do I spend more than my fair share of time in traffic. The latest spot to raise my blood pressure is Connecticut Ave. in Cleveland Park. The city is currently rehabbing the bridge over Klingle Road (Reopen Klingle Road!) and the work is scheduled to go on for about a year. That means it will go on for longer. Avoid that area if you can.

Drive Green, Live Green, Eat Green

Ecocabs has met and worked for a lot of interesting people in its short life already. One of the very coolest is DJ Kim of Java Green, a vegetarian restuarant on 19th St. between K and L, Northwest. DJ is a very bright guy who you will often find working behind the counter, but he is not content to stop there and has plans to expand his current store in the very near future, open two more in town sometime down the line, and ultimately have an entire city block that is green.

Ecocabs Evolves

While Ecocabs original purpose was to be Washingtons first all hybrid fleet taxi service it has had to evolve a couple of times already. First, because of delays with the D.C. Taxi Commission and financing, I have turned to delivery of things rather than people.

Ecocabs Delivers

Ecocabs is a Washington, D.C. based delivery/courier service dedicated to greening transportation.