[Looking for Charlie's main web site?]

Some personal trivia about the CFUnited location, Bethesda/Rockville

Note: This blog post is from 2006. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
In my last post, I referred to CFUnited as being in DC. I said that simply because most people don't know what you mean if you say Bethesda, Maryland. I do, because I was born there, 6/4/62, at Suburban Hospital on Old Georgetown Road just down the street a couple miles. :-)

That reminiscing got me thinking some thoughts that others might enjoy on the eve of CFUnited.

First, I'll say that I used to buy burgers at the "Gino's" that was near the spot where the conference hotel now stands. Here's a trivia question for my fellow long-time DC folks: do you know where Gino's (a burger chain now long gone) got it's name? I'm told it was Gino Marchetti from the Baltimore Colts. Wikipedia backs me up. :-)

Here's another: the large open air shopping center behind the hotel on Rockville Pike used to house a large Korvette's department store. Ever wonder about that name? I was told it was formed by some former KORean VETerans. :-)

I grew up skating at Congressional Roller Rink, which was also just up the road a mile (now long gone) in Rockville. It was the center of our lives for many of us, and a great, safe place to grow up. Well, we'd hop the train back and forth to either Rockville Mall or White Flint (which had just opened in the 70's), and I suppose that wasn't too safe. But we could find great old beer cans on the tracks--anyone else ever get into that collecting? Still have mine. I recently started a site to connect with others who may have skated/grown up at the rink, http://congressionalrollerrink.com. :-)

Moving forward a couple decades, those who have attended the Maryland CFUGs, where I used to speak often before moving to Atlanta, will know I've told the story that my ancestors farmed property just a mile away from the conference facility, across the street from where we used to hold the Maryland CFUGs on Parklawn Drive. In the 50's they sold the land and soon thereafter arose the big black Parklawn building.

One last bit of trivia, that few could answer: where and when was the first place I spoke to a CFUG audience? It wasn't the DC CFUG, run by FigLeaf, where I spoke often while I worked there in 1999-2000. It was the Maryland CFUG, back in Feb 1998. Sadly, the records of those early meetings are missing from the archives, but I have it at my old Systemanage site list of past presentations.

OK: one more piece of personal CFUnited trivia. Last year it was determined that only one person (other than Michael) had attended all the CFUnited events, back to when they were first called CFUN and held at the NIH facility. Um, guess who? :-)

If you have other fun CFUN/CFUnited memories or trivia, please do share.

/charlie

For more content like this from Charlie Arehart: Need more help with problems?
  • If you may prefer direct help, rather than digging around here/elsewhere or via comments, he can help via his online consulting services
  • See that page for more on how he can help a) over the web, safely and securely, b) usually very quickly, c) teaching you along the way, and d) with satisfaction guaranteed
Comments
Here's a fact:

There is no such place as North Bethesda as some would have you believe. The conference is actually being held in South Rockville or to those who know it South RockVegas.

North Bethesda is nothing but a ploy for the yuppies below us to take over our beloved pike.

Viva RockVegas!

-Adam
# Posted By Adrock | 6/20/06 10:13 AM
Adam, that's not true at all. There is indeed a formal designation of North Bethesda. Now, I didn't mention NB in my post at all, so I'm a little curious at your contending this here, but since you've written, I'll bite.

On a simple level, what are you saying to all the folks who went to North Bethesda Middle School? I had many friends who went to NB. Are they under some evil yuppie spell? :-)

Further, do a google search for “north Bethesda”, and you find nearly 300,000 entries. Are they really all being fooled?

Most authoritatively, a search of Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia....,_Maryland, denies your contention, clarifying that the name is an census-designated place, so the government doesn't support your argument. Don't mean to sound belligerent, but I just had to set things straight. :-)

Further, the area where the conference may be *generically* referred to by many as south Rockville, but it is definitely not in the city. This was a lesson I learned a long time ago myself, so I can understand the confusion. The border is Twinbrook Parkway, about a mile north. The closest map I could find in a quick search is this map, http://www.rockville..., which clearly shows at the bottom that Montrose Rd/Randolph Road are outside the limits, and the conference is about a half-mile south of that.

Hope that helps. If somehow you feel extremely contentious about this and want to engage in a holy war about it, can we just agree to disagree? I leave my evidence above as my closing argument.
Lol. Charlie, I surely didn't mean to incite such a factual debate about such things. The "Battle of N. B-Town vs S. RockVegas" is a common debate normally taken up at the local bars. As you can guess, I am a long-standing RockVillan who happens to live in what is technically N. Bethesda (aka the DMZ). (All in good fun)

Although the boundaries have been there for quite sometime, in the last 10 years the N. Bethesda label has increased in popularity. Where once the White Flint mall was the only "N. Bethesda" establishment, it has since moved north to the Grand/Wisconsin apartments, then they built the N. Bethesda Marriot, and just recently the North Bethesda Condos in Montrose crossing (finally crossing Montrose/Randolph).

And yes, all the little children in N. Bethesda Middle school are evil. But we have plans to air drop pamphlets to deter the propaganda spread by the south.

See you at the conference.
# Posted By Adrock | 6/23/06 2:34 PM
Thanks for clarifying, Adam. Hope we can catch up at the conference. :-)
I didn't realize we were so close in age Charlie! My birthday is 7/7/62!
Cool stuff. I would joke about how we might then share a lot of similar recollection of songs and tv shows, but I imagine you grew up in the UK, right? Both TV and the pop charts were so different then between the two countries, and in some ways still are I suppose.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Friday! :-)
Copyright ©2024 Charlie Arehart
Carehart Logo
BlogCFC was created by Raymond Camden. This blog is running version 5.005.
(Want to validate the html in this page?)

Managed Hosting Services provided by
Managed Dedicated Hosting