winding down the year

well, almost everyone i know has left dc for christmas, etc. i myself am heading out of here on sunday (christmas eve day) for two weeks in georgia. when i get back, i'm going to dive head on into a busy year. two big goals for this year - buying a house, and learning a new language (arabic anyone?). here's hoping i can actually live up to this resolution. saw in the dupont current today that they're going to finally build something on the parking lot in the 1600 block of rhode island ave. that's got to be one of the last parking lots south of massachusetts ave. in downtown. with the developable land there gone, we're really going to start seeing a push to develop further afield (namely, the execrably named 'noma')...