Jacob Grier

The blue dots represent cities with a surplus of single women. Tan dots are cities with a surplus of single men. Here’s the map. Richard Florida says I’m moving in the wrong direction:

By far, the best places for single men are the large cities and metro areas of the East Coast and Midwest. The extreme is greater New York, where single women outnumber single men by more than 210,000. In the Philadelphia area and greater Washington, D.C., single women outnumber single men by 50,000. I met my wife outside Detroit, where the odds were greatly stacked in my favor - single women outnumber single men by some 20,000 there.

In fact, single women outnumber single men in many large cities around the world, even though men outearn women at all ages, according to Lena C. Edlund, a Columbia University economist. One reason young women in the prime marriage years - the 25-44 age range - flock to big cities is to compete for the most eligible men. And smart women who gravitate to vibrant cities are more likely to stay single - for longer, at least - because they rightly refuse to settle for someone who can’t keep up with them intellectually or otherwise.

But women do have an advantage in the American West and Southwest. In greater Los Angeles, for example, there are 90,000 more single men than women. In Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area, single men outnumber single women by roughly 65,000. There are considerably more single men than women in San Diego, Dallas, and Seattle, too. Each of these regions has grown substantially over the past two or three decades, offering jobs in everything from high tech to construction and services. As numerous studies of migration show, men - especially those in regions with declining economies - are initially more likely to move long distances for economic opportunity, while women are more likely to stay closer to home and family.

At least Portland’s got distilleries. And hey, gin never turns you down and goes home with the guy who has the bigger blog.

Relatedly, here’s Tim Harford explaining Edlund’s economic theory about why big, successful cities tend to be home to more single women than men.

[Thanks to Zack for the link.]

With my imminent departure from DC comes a couple of job openings. First, from Cato, a newly defined position:

The Cato Institute seeks a Manager of New Media to promote Cato research products and scholars via social networking sites, blogs, and other Internet-based outlets. The position will also be responsible for increasing The Cato Institute’s presence on YouTube and other video/audio sharing websites, in coordination with the Multimedia Producer, and will maintain outreach lists of top blogs and Internet-based news outlets and assist with the development of web-based research and briefing products. The Manager of New Media will be expected to organize briefings and other events specifically targeted to web-based media as appropriate. The position requires 2 – 5 years work experience at a nonprofit, government or association marketing or public relations office, a comprehensive understanding of how the U.S news media operates, and a proven ability to promote policy issues and experts to blog and other online media outlets.

That would actually be a more interesting job for me than what I’ve been doing, though not so interesting that I’d stay in DC for it. The new vice president of communications has been a pleasure to work with and it’s a great time to join the press department here. If this kind of job appeals to you or someone you know, apply soon.

Grape and Bean is also looking for a coffee lover to take my place working the Clover on Saturday mornings. It’s a fun shop with very nice owners and great perks for people into coffee, wine, beer, chocolate, and other goodies. Contact information is on the site, or feel free to get in touch with me directly.

I already knew Portland boasts the most breweries per capita in the United States, but this is even more appealing:

The small craft distillery scene has hit Portland, reminiscent of the microbrewery boom two decades ago. Young microbrewers and winemakers are now distilling whiskey, brandy, grappa and even absinthe. And taking a page from Kentucky’s iconic whiskey distillers, they are beginning to host tours and tastings. With 17 microdistilleries in Oregon, and eight more startups expected across the state by year’s end, spirits aficionados haven’t seen anything like this in recent memory.

Sure, boutique distilleries also dot the landscapes in Michigan and Northern California, but only in Oregon do most artisan distilleries concentrate around a city. Collectively, the distillers help shape the bar and culinary scene in Portland. The Rose City is now seeing a renaissance of classic cocktails, and some high-end restaurants are trying experimental pairings of food with spirits.

“The distillery scene here is where the wine industry in California was in the 1960s,” said Steve McCarthy, owner of Clear Creek Distillery, one of the nation’s first microdistilleries. “We are rewriting all the rules. The artisan distilleries are making up a whole new industry.”

Congrats also to Lance Mayhew, whom the article calls one of the “city’s best bartenders.”

One of the next steps I’d like to take in my drinks education is getting to know more about the production process for spirits, beer, and coffee. By that measure, Portland is hard to beat.

[Via Slashfood.]

Previously:
One year

A personal update: Today marks my one year mark at Cato and the first time that I’ve stayed with a full-time job for a complete year. Knowing my dissatisfaction with previous office work and my preference for working in bars and coffee shops, my boss wisely insisted that I commit to a year before signing me. He didn’t mention that this was a leap year, so he actually hooked me for 366 days. Sneaky devil.

But it turns out that I still don’t like office work, wearing a tie, and commuting during rush hour. And while the job has had its perks, among them getting paid to keep up with the news and reconnecting with the public policy community, I’ve realized that the PR field is not one I want to advance in.

So this seems like a good time to tell you that I’ll be leaving the job in mid-July. At the end of July my lease is up, and I’ll be leaving my apartment too. I have no firm plans yet, but being 25, single, and unattached to any job or home, this seems like as good a time as any to leave DC and try living somewhere new — which is exactly what I’m planning on doing.

Where to go? The Pacific Northwest sounds most appealing. I’m leaning toward Portland, with Seattle a close second. San Francisco is wonderful, but is one of the few places that would be more expensive than where I’m living now. Eugene? Bend? Somewhere else entirely? I don’t necessarily have to line up a job before I go, but for the right offer I would consider just about anywhere. What’s the best place to live for a guy who wants more time to write and a job delving deeper into the world of food and drink? Any tips or job leads would be very much appreciated.

I’ve got a couple quick radio hits coming up this weekend. Today at 3:35 I’ll be on WBAL’s “Ron Smith Show” in Baltimore discussing the city’s proposed ban on blunts. Then tomorrow morning at 11:10 I’ll be on WGN Chicago’s “Morning Show” talking about the miracle fruit tasting experience. Tune in if you can!

I always forget my blogiversary, but a fifth birthday is worth a quick look back. In the past few years at the blog formerly known as Eternal Recurrence we’ve waxed lyrical about coffee, obsessed over cocktails, gone tripping on miracle fruit, landed on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, uncovered the stapler’s secret, examined weird fish with Mark McGrouther, pondered the surprisingly large size of prosthetic bull testicles, confused hundreds of foreigners seeking GMail accounts, helped save a local magic shop, encountered my nefarious twin brother David, witnessed the Queso Crusader battle Taco Boy, met a magical politician, proposed an economically-oriented alarm clock, visited a raw milk dairy, combated the nanny state, raised a glass on Repeal Day, practiced Aikido in the cold and rain, faced a surreal navigation problem, received an Aerobie signed by inventor Alan Adler, documented great moments in heterosexuality, nearly burned down the house of one my best friends, and much, much more.

Thanks for reading, commenting, arguing, linking, and sending in tips. And if you’re not reading regularly, please subscribe with RSS. I hope the next five years will be just as fun, and I’ll keep writing with my rules for good blogging in mind:

Rule #1: Be meaningful.

Rule #2: If meaning is elusive, be amusing.

Rule #3: If meaning and amusement are both out of reach, be brief.

I put in my two weeks notice at Open City today. It’s been a good place to learn how to tend a bar, but as the warm weather tourists descend on DC restaurants it’s time for me to move on. I can be much more adventurous in my home bar now than I can be at work, and with two other jobs keeping me busy I need to free up the time. So if you’ve been wanting to drop in while I’m behind the stick, Mondays the 21st and 28th are your last chances to do so. (And sorry, Lance, that’s one more name you’ll have to scratch off your list of working bartenders with blogs — at least for now.)

Open City is located at 2331 Calvert St., NW.

Discovering that the amount you were paid for a gig exactly equals the minimum 1099 reporting requirements: Annoying.

Paying capital gains on a stock acquired in 1980: Expensive.

Ending tax day by shattering your favorite coffee brewer: Priceless.

What I take away from this is: Reading books about things like gay marriage, comic book criticism, and how to do card tricks might have something to do with why I’m not meeting women on the Metro or at the coffee shop lately.

… to those of you who’ve ordered from Amazon after clicking through the book links at the left. Even if you don’t order those particular items — what’s with the kids’ books and baby shoes? — I still get a cut. Accumulating an occasional gift certificate is a nice bonus for keeping the site running.

As a noted expert on unproductivity, I got randomly quoted in this Associated Press story about secular sabbaths:

… in an increasingly wired, material world, a version of that spiritual tradition known as a “Secular Sabbath” is gaining appeal outside religious communities.

Jacob Grier, a 25-year-old blogger in Arlington, Virginia, has instituted “no laptop” Sundays for the past two years.

He got tired of working at his local coffee shop and seeing everybody hidden behind their computer screens, ignoring each other, so he started leaving his laptop at home and bringing books instead. He started talking to people at the shop instead of interacting with others on the Internet.

Now, his routine has expanded to incorporate some other friends and a whole day’s worth of unwired activities. They meet first for coffee, they read, they go to a neighborhood cafe for a late lunch, come back, and close the session by sitting outside and smoking cigars.

Grier is an atheist, but he says what his Sundays offer is similar to what some people look for in religious services.

“The large reason people go to church is to bond with their community, and in the same way, you can get that from going to the coffee shop every week,” he says.

Hey, look at that! I said something positive about going to church!

Victrola Coffee, which started turning off the wi-fi on weekends a few years ago, also gets a mention.

Though I’m not a coder, I’m always interested in what the guys at the 37 Signals blog have to say. A couple of their recent posts deal with their philosophies of employment. Here, this quote stands out for me:

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that not all of us excel at the same things, but I’m coming to believe more and more firmly that this whole “typical person” entity is a myth. I’ve never met a typical person. There are only people who are passionate about what they do, and people who aren’t. When the latter become the former, they become “atypical”, because suddenly they are self-motivated, insightful, excited, optimistic, and happy.

Another entry explains the workplace experiments they’ve been running, including four day workweeks, funding the development of employees’ outside passions, and discretionary spending accounts.

Oddly enough, the posts remind me of what I miss about working full-time in coffee. Though the pay and the prestige are both lower than I what I enjoy now, the flexible hours, unrationed vacation days, and enthusiasm from management for their workers’ outside interests allowed much more room for personal growth. The passion for coffee that excites many of us baristi makes us more interesting people as a result. PR? Not so much.

My tamper grows dusty on the shelf. It longs to feel those 30 lbs. of pressure.

I must be crazy to take on a third job right now, but Saturday morning found me waking up early for work and coming home with my hands smelling like coffee for the first time in nearly a year. The reason? Grape and Bean, the new wine and coffee shop now open in Old Town Alexandria.

I met the owners of Grape and Bean, David Gwathmey and Sheera Rosenfeld, at a Counter Culture Coffee event back in September and loved their concept for selling great wine, coffee, beer, cheese, chocolate, and other tasty stuff. Still, I probably wouldn’t be giving up sleeping in on Saturdays if it weren’t for this:

It’s Clover time! Long time blog readers know that the Clover is a high-tech, single-cup coffee brewer that I’ve been excited about since its debut in 2005. The Clover makes it possible to brew each customer’s chosen coffee quickly, cleanly, and with complete control over brewing parameters like grind, dosage, and extraction time. This means not only a better cup, but the ability to offer a variety of single origin coffees as freshly as possible. And now, thanks to Grape and Bean, coffee lovers in the DC area finally have one to try. Keep reading to see the Clover in action…
(more…)

Turns out I’m the number one search result of Google for that one. 2 out of 4 is right… arguably 3.

… would be less Googleable. The Agitator received a very strange email today complaining about his name:

I read foxnews.com everyday. I see your name on the site each day. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ??? !!! RADLEY BALKO ??? !!! it hurts my eyes just to look at it ! what the hell kind of name is that ? ! i won’t read your writings because of it.

it may be illogical, but humans are hard-wired regarding many things that they like and dislike. ugliness for one. most people can agree what is ugly, and your weird name is certainly high up on that list.

Since I’m sure Radley has been bawling about this all night, I’d like to admit that I, for one, have always envied his name. It’s memorable, it’s unique, it’s literary! It doesn’t get mixed up in search engines. It anagrams to “Adorably Elk.”

My own parents tried to pick something esoteric, but the damn trendsetters managed to saddle me with what became the most popular first name for American boys every year since 1999. And Grier? The family picked it to replace Goldstein specifically because it would blend in.

Now in age of Google I’ve got to compete with all these other Jacob Griers, like this ankle-biter who got stuck in a four foot hole and had to be rescued by the fire department. Four feet? Give me a break, son.

Then there’s this guy:

…from a living state to one of death, by the hands of Jacob Grier. …. Jacob Grier and in the name of law, said he was under arrest for the murder of …

Seriously, that’s the exact excerpt that shows up on Google when you search for my name.* On the plus side I did actually meet another Jacob Grier who hired me to come down to North Carolina and entertain at his Christmas party just because we have the same name. That in itself is a little weird, but made for the easiest ice breaker I’ve ever had as a performer working for a group of strangers.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s ever going to be quite enough Jacob Griers in the world for me to make a living doing magic tricks for their friends, so having a distinctive name is clearly the way to go. Radley, if you ever want to trade, you’ve got my number. (I’ll trade you domain names too.)

*It appears his name was really Geier, but Google doesn’t know this.

Sorry for the lack of updates — the combination of an overloaded server, no wi-fi, and being on vacation put writing at the bottom of my priorities. But there is some good news: I’m on a new server now and there’s good coffee in Texas!

First, the coffee. Starbucks is still the only decent option I know of around Spring, but Austin’s got the good stuff. Caffe Medici makes a good cappuccino in a cozy space. JP’s Java boasts the only Clover in the state and uses it to serve up delicious single origin coffees from my favorite Seattle shop, Zoka. They’re both a long way from home, but it’s good to see great coffee making inroads into Texas.

Then, the server. Good things come from complaining sometimes, and after enough service requests DreamHost transferred me over to their new virtual private server plan. What does this mean? That I’m paying a lot more per month to have dedicated server resources, thus escaping the commons problem of shared hosting. I still have some adjustments to make to improve the efficiency of the site and may increase my server resources, but so far pages seem to be loading much faster. If you any problems with the site, please let me know.

By some strange sequence of events I ended up on NBC4 last night talking about blogging. Watch and learn how you too can make tens of dollars putting your opinion online! Also, keep an eye out for my mysterious twin brother “David” Grier, milk steaming action at Murky Coffee, and a cameo appearance by Chad Wilcox as blogger number 2. Partial transcript available here.