I went to D.C. on Friday. The impetus for the trip: my friend, who does business development in the commercial real estate world, was gifted with the use of a luxury suite for the Nats-Mets game. She filled it up with clients and business contacts but, by golly, wouldn't you know it, she had a couple of tickets left over for little old me.  Oh, providence. It was my first trip to Nationals Park. Overall: it's a good place. Not a top-top kind of place, but quite nice.  I think it probably needs a few more years to be lived in and experience the maturation of the Nats as a winning team and the Nats fan base as a whole before a fair assessment can be made, but it's quite nice.  And even if it does skew a bit bland for now, that will change with time and history. And it's way better to be a tad bland now than to manufacture all kinds of phony history and character when it hasn't earned it. Random observations from a nice night of baseball: It wasn't just me and commercial real estate people in the box. Because my friend had a couple of extra tickets, I invited our friend D.J. Short and his fiance Christine, who live in the D.C. area, to join us. I've worked with D.J. for over three years and this was the first time I'd met him in person. The Internet is weird. D.J. and Christine are not,