Twenty Five Thousand. 1 in 25 District residents. That’s how bad the DC HIV/AIDS Epidemic has become, according to today’s Post. That’s an explosion of known cases over a 2004 report that suggested that there were only 16,000 reported cases in DC between 1981 and 2004, and cited only 9,000 still living with the disease.

Today, the District is launching a six month testing campaign getting people from 14 to 84 tested for HIV and AIDS, with a kickoff event going on right now at Freedom Plaza. Today is National HIV/AIDS Testing Day and you can get tested FREE today at a number of DC area locations. I found 75 places offering free tests today, within a 15 mile radius of downtown DC.

It’s better to know than NOT know. An estimated 25% of people who have AIDS or HIV don’t know they are carrying the disease. HIV and AIDS are also no longer the death sentence they once were, with new “cocktail” treatments, the disease is manageable. Go, get tested, find out for sure. There are 20 minute tests that are 99.8% accurate, not needle-based, and the District has a whole host of services available if you test positive. It’s better to know than NOT know.

Other Resources:

Arlington HIV and AIDS group

Alexandria HIV and AIDS group

Montgomery County HIV and AIDS information (no specific department and finding this was hard)

Prince George’s County Services PDF (PDF format, sorry, their website sucks.)

Fairfax County Testing Only (as their website also sucks.)

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I don’t know why WaPo isn’t reporting on it yet, but my XM weather & traffic radio says that Dulles is on security lockdown and no planes are leaving due to a security failure. Presumably arriving planes are progressing as normal.

Update (1:59p): Well, WaPo still doesn’t seem to think that a complete airport shutdown is worth reporting on but WTOP has this brief blurb. Too bad a few of those folks on the other side of the metal detectors looking at IDs weren’t on the other side where they could have, I dunno, stopped someone from walking away after setting off the detector?

Here’s hoping it was a pocketknife that tripped the alarm and not a firearm that could be hidden somewhere for a future conspirator to pick up.

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Famous only for writing about fucking staffers and administration members, Jessica Cutler has found out just how far you can fall after a brief bout with popularity. Many thanks to Wonkette for pointing out that Cutler is now unable to pay her legal bills after being sued by one of her former beaus:

“The judge issued this order after Cutler failed to respond to her lawyer’s motion to withdraw (for nonpayment of fees). So Jessica, if you’re out there reading this, please get back to the court — ASAP.

Personally, we would give multiple body parts to watch Jessica Cutler represent herself. It would be the greatest pro se performance since Anna Nicole Smith. We suspect Judge Friedman would become very sympathetic to Cutler after having an ex parte conference with her in chambers.”

Nicely said, Wonkette, nicely said.

Edited Later : Cutler has requested we link to her name and to her book. I have linked to her name, but there’s no way I’ll ask people to buy her book. Though, if you feel like supporting Jessica, and depriving us of further blogging material, her site will tell you all about it. –TB

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Tree Removal

With all the talk of flooding during this time of biblical rains, I haven’t heard the usual suburban moaning about downed trees taking out power lines.

Is it that this is just rain, and not the high winds that usually create tree limb mayhem? Is it that with walls of water, folks aren’t worried about random branches? Or is it that with basements looking like bathtubs, yards are not the priority (yet)?

Me, I’m just glad this truck is mainly empty. I love me some DC green and get sad when I hear of statley elms toppling over.

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Major congrats to DC Blogs on their swank new redesign. I really love the new colors, they set off your eyes!

For the uninitiated, DC Blogs is both aggregator and local revue of blogs. Check out some of their highlight pieces, as well as the live feed which has pretty much every blog in DC. Not listed? No worries, there’s are instructions on their FAQ on how to get listed with the service and be live with them everyday. Nice work Patrick et al.!

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You wanna rent a car? Want to get a deal? Then rent at Thrifty Rental Cars at the MCI Verizon Center.

Now if you want to know their office hours, good luck. You’ll not find that on a website. If you call, they’ll tell you when they close that day. But be warned. When they say 6pm sharp, they mean it.

Yesterday, trying to return a rental, I called ahead to ask them to wait 5 minutes. No dice. When I arrived, by 6:02pm on their clock, they were gone.

Thrifty, in customer service as well as price.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Before you head home into the highly questionable traffic, what with our glorious weather and all, you might want to check out a few of the traffic tools we’ve blogged about here on DC Metblogs.

Yahoo Maps has traffic advisory data (from “Yahoo to your traffic rescue“)

There’s the DC Traffic Camera Map google map mashup if you want to look for yourself. (from “D.C. Traffic Camera Map“)

There’s a Yahoo Traffic Dashboard Widget for you Mac users to get that Yahoo Maps data mentioned above (from “Local Traffic“)

Finally there’s another google mashup, the Google Map Traffic Advisory (from “Google Hacks – The Path to a good life“)

Be careful out there.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Stewing in political central like we do, there’s never any shortage of shop talk. But have you ever called your Senator’s office? I’d bet even in this town you could ask 100 people and 99 never have.

The reality is that it’s pretty easy and you don’t need to be an expert on the issue you’re calling about. There’s some intern on the other end with a chatty voice and you just say you’re a Virginia (or MD or whatever) resident and you’d like the Senator to oppose/support blah blah blah. They might ask you for clarification if you mention a bill and aren’t specific – in my case I initially said “the communications bill” and the nice lady said “There’s several communications bills – do you have something specific in mind?” and I clarified “Ted Stevens’ communications bill” – but they won’t harass you if you say no, I am just for/against this.

If you’re a Virginia resident – and a bit of a tech nerd or just someone who loves their Tivo – you can try for yourself by calling about the broadcast flag and proposed government technology committee. Senator Allen’s office is reachable at 202-224-4024. Ipaq can give you a brief explanation of why they think it’s a bad idea, as well as a list of other senators on the Judiciary committee if you’re not living in VA. Sorry DC and MD, this one’s just us (for now).

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On the front door of the Starbucks at 15th and I:

Blame the Weatherman, Not Us
Starbucks is closed due to inclement weather

I think its time to head for the hills, damn the umbrellas and galoshes.

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I took a long drive to Philly on Monday night in order to exhibit at the Manayunk Arts Fest this weekend and on the way there my darling girlfriend and I had a driving question – what’s the difference between a solid white line marking and a double solid line marking? Checking the Virginia driver’s manual confirmed what we thought about the solid single white line: lane changes are discouraged, but not prohibited. No mention of double white lines, but then again we saw them in Maryland – in Fort McHenry Tunnel, to be exact – so perhaps the MD driver’s handbook is the place to check.

Well, I came up with a goose egg on that one too, but not before noticing something annoying. I opened up the PDF and searched for “white line” and got no results. Okay, “white” then. Zip. Hmm. “Yellow” was also zero, as was a word I could see in front of me on the page I was looking at. They’ve published the handbook with no search ability at all. Hope you want to read it front to back, not find something specific.

Anyway – anyone have a definitive answer on the double white line? I assumed it meant lane change prohibited but it would be nice to have a canonical answer…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

From the Metro Chat with Dan Tangherlini:

Dan Tangherlini: Our problem was NOT a lack of pumps or pumping equipment – our problem was where to put the water!

NEWSFLASH: Federal Triangle is OPEN. (as of 12:15)

Major props to Tangherlini for taking the chat on a day when I’ve heard of 3 hour metro commutes that resembled Lord of the Flies. When can we expect the Interim to drop, Dan?

Update: The System is fully operational, not unlike the Death Star. All we need is a pesky rebel rainstorm now…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

“Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.”

Lying in bed, tossing and turning from the rain and the thunder and the lightning. Through the cacophony of sounds you make out the most insidious of them all.

“Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.”

Yes indeed, your 110-year-old house has begun to leak, water oozing through plaster cracks, in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the bedroom. Everywhere it can seep in. Racing around with bowls and old t-shirts and towels, like a mad Dutch dervish, desperate to find them all, until you give up and head back to bed, defeated by nature.

“Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.”

On and on it goes, for hours. No sleep for the homeowner of a Victorian house last night. None at all.

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Much like mail carriers, recruiters don’t get much of a break when the weather is crappy and has screwed up transportation around town. We’re expected to report as normal. After all, someone has to be at the office to make phone calls like these:

“Hi, this is Tiffany from [major international staffing firm]. We’ve got a talent scheduled to be out there with you today in your creative department… Yeah, Joe will be a little late this morning. He lives in a basement apartment… yep, it flooded last night. So as soon as he’s done moving all his stuff up off the floor, he’ll be in. Thanks!”

Hope you’re all staying dry and getting your power back.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

In the last six years living in DC, I’ve seen some epic storms, but none was like last night. Not even Hurricane Isabel was so bad as the storm last night. We finally lost power around 10pm. Several attempts were made by Dominion to get it back within a few minutes, but power wasn’t restored until around 4am this morning. With the Beltway closed in both directions due to a mudslide in Alexandria, DC’s going to be hurting today, especially with closures at the Federal Triangle metro in the middle of the Orange-Blue lines and Archives metro in the middle of the Yellow-Green lines, 20 minute delays on the Green-Yellow and Blue-Orange lines today may mean that today might just end up being a lost cause, commute-wise.

Personally? If you’ve got a PTO day or Personal day to spare, today’s the day to take it. OPM’s honoring Unscheduled Leave today, so don’t worry about that if you’re working for the Feds. If you are determined to go to work today, please be sure to take an umbrella, since it appears that this type of storm system maybe be in our future through Wednesday. According to Capital Weather, we might see another 3-5″ of rain by Wednesday, on top of the 5″ of rain that’s already fallen on DC this weekend… Get out the bailing buckets.

It’s not all bad news, though:

In the District, fire Capt. John Sollers reported flooding in some buildings in the 12th Street NW corridor between Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues. He said the basement of the Internal Revenue Service Building was inundated with about five feet of water.

Take heart, DC. And tell us your storm stories in the comments!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, it’s all over, the second “Battle of the Beltway” series is finished and the Nats narrowly avoided a sweep with their victory today. Friday, it was a battle of the wills that we lost. Saturday, late inning heroics by the Orioles and what could only be called a complete bullpen collapse by the Nats, the O’s held court in Camden. Sunday was a different story, Livan was good for six plus, the Nats could capitalize on the walks issued by Orioles pitching, and the bullpen held the lead, securing a win.

The series had lots to offer in the way of close baseball and that was certainly outstanding. However, if you were forced to watch the games on TV instead of seeing it live, or hearing it on the radio, you were forced to listen to the absolutely braindead rantings of Bob Carpenter and Tom Paciorek during the game. I’ve had the pleasure of listening to some really good announcers on television, Joe Morgan and Jon Miller, Ray Fosse and Ken Korach, Hank Greenberg and his cohorts in SF all come to mind. There’s an art to play by play and color commentary, it’s not just explaining the game, it’s bringing light to all manner of things associated with the game that aren’t obvious. Sadly, most of the time, Carpenter and Paciorek end up sounding more like fans than commentators, and that’s really unfortunate. There were several times during Saturday’s game when the assembled group watching spent more time talking about the utter crap that they were spewing than about the Nationals failure to capitalize on scoring situations.

So, Mr. Kasten, please, before you do anything else this season, buy out the contracts of these two clowns and give us some real TV announcers. The radio guys are great, please, for the love of God, give us someone decent on TV.

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Miss Mardi Gras? Who cares? We have our very own Carnival right here in DC – the DC Caribbean Carnival, that is!

Starting with a raucous parade this Saturday, with some 20 bands, crazy costumes, and a huge crowd of partyers, this weekend is billed as “2 Big Days of Bacchanal” and should be a hell of a lot of fun, no matter how hot it is or how many thunderstorms we survive. The carnival has been a DC institution since 1993, modeled after Trinidad and Tobago’s famed celebrations. The parade kicks off at 11am at Georgia and Missouri Avenues and ends with a concert in Banneker Field. Both days feature “De Savannah” at Banneker with tons of vendors from 2pm to 7pm.

Why not spend your weekend partying and pretending you’re in Trinidad and Tobago? Maybe you’ll see a mirage of white sands and blue waters while dancing to steel drums… ah, if only…

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As WFY so cannily noted, the Nats and O’s face off in a weekend series, this time up in Baltimore at Camden Yards. And while no fan of Peter Angelos, I think you should go up to Charm City this weekend and catch a game. Here’s why.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs Continue reading →

DC Lightning

Originally uploaded by Grundlepuck.

The news was on when it started. It was one of those storms that you heard roll in, like something out of the Midwest, heard before seen, the rumbling sussurus permeating the heavy damp air. When the storm arrived, the drops were large and huddled together for comfort, falling out of the sky slowly at first, and then pounding the sidewalk and the trees. The rumbling grew louder and louder, shaking my windowpanes between the loud thwacks of the drops. The storm was truly upon us when the lightning started to interrupt the darkness.

The clouds would light up like a pinball machine on tilt, bolts heading everywhich way, cloud to cloud, intracloud, cloud to ground. I unplugged all the computers in the house. A storm like this I had not seen in DC before, it looked like something out of a Wyoming high plain, not this swampy coastal area. Capital Weather says we’re in for a long weekend of storms and rain. Of course, this does make the possibility of Dave Matthews getting struck by lightning during his weekend performance at Nissan all the more plausible…

Thanks much to flickr user Grundlepuck for this awesome photo.

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I’m reminded every once in awhile that humanity really can be good at its core when I read things like Steven Frank’s deeds yesterday. See, he and all his friends bought brand new Nintendo DS Lites this past week when they hit the market. Why? Because they’re cool. But, that left behind their prior handheld gaming units, like the DS and PSP. But, these are still perfectly awesome gaming systems, so why not be like Child’s Play and donate the systems to a local children’s hospital?

So, if you just bought a brand spanking new gaming system, and think that your older handheld could use a new home where it might benefit a child, why not drop it off at Children’s Hospital? Or, if you’re feeling a little more donate-y today than usual, check DC Children’s Hospital’s Amazon Wishlist and pick something out that they might need. It sucks being in the hospital, but it only sucks worse when it’s a kid who should be out playing instead. Help kids play, even when they’re hurting, and it does the world some good.

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After watching some idiot plow into another idiot this morning at an intersection, I just have to ask…

You guys do know that when a traffic light is out (say, because of the storms we’re getting), you have to treat it like a four way stop?

I stopped at the light this morning and the truck to my left proceeded across the intersection, as was his right. The sedan that came up on my right didn’t stop and barrelled through the intersection as the truck was crossing. The driver of the truck was of course trying to turn into the far lane instead of the near lane like he should have, and pretty much t-boned the sedan. Good one.

And while I’m on the topic- I had some guy show up to my office a couple of days ago, 45 minutes late for an interview, and have the nerve to bitch that no one had told him that we were Metro accessible. He could have saved so much time and money! Hey asshole, we’re Downtown. EVERYTHING is metro accessible.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs