Green Festival comes to DC

When I heard that the Green Festival was coming to town, and that I could get a $5 discount on the $15 admission for riding my bike, along with free valet bike parking, I printed out a couple copies of my resume (just a few, trying to conserve paper), threw on my helmet and sped up Mass Ave to the Convention Center. Valet bike parking had NO signs at the main entrance, but after locking it up on the street, going inside and finding a volunteer, i got directions to go around the building, and saw a two by six foot sign at the bottom of the window between buildings. So i left my bike, waited in line, got my discount ticket and rode the escalators up to the main floor.
I was anticipating a world changing event since Obama's rise to power is imminent. A Green sea of change coming to Washington. Tons of Green companies and Green (as well as "Mint") Collar jobs, looking for bright individuals such as myself to take the reigns of a burgeoning sector and bring it to the mainstream.
What I got was a bunch of crunchy granola salespeople hawking their "Green" wares. A guy looking for people to jump aboard his "Green Amway" product line. Empowering people with green products? My Ass. It's still door-to-door sales and tupperware parties. Conning people into things they don't need that are manufactured overseas somewhere and your still a slave to the bottom line. There were at least 20 vendors selling organic dog food, all the natural fiber t-shirts you could ever want, and 17 varieties of baby clothes made out of hemp.
My optimism about real change in everyday life was squashed by the juggernaut of Capitalism. Even the organic beer and wine was $5 to sample, so I drowned my sorrows in free samples of acai juice, organic valley milk, Annie's cheese crackers and a few shots of wheatgrass. The weekend wasn't an entire bust.
I met Jim, the founder of Elysian Energy and talked about his energy audit company, and debated trying that out as a new career path. Lots of grimy work though, and I still haven't heard back from him. I also met one of the volunteers at Phoenix Bikes, a youth-at-risk bicycle shop program over in Arlington similar to Pedal Revolution in San Francisco. Talking with the guy there was enough to get me inspired to volunteer, as soon as I have a regular schedule that is. There were also some folks that were interested in changing the way we commute to work, but again, putting my name out there and not hearing anything. Other good points were getting an extra ticket for free from some radio station, and the snacks that kept me fed for free. There were also free yoga classes that would have been worth it, had they been advertised at all. I also enjoyed seeing the wrap up speech with Dr. Kevin Danaher. He's a great speaker but he embodies SF a bit much for some of the East Coasters I think.
Overall a bit of a disappointment, the commercialism was more than I could bear, but I did get some good ideas going in my head. I didn't bother to take pictures, since it looked amazingly like any other trade fair. Hoping I'll be surprised by the next big event like that I decide to attend.