photo courtesy of Google maps

Life is dangerous enough without being reckless. Floret Kusi-Davies is dead and her child in critical condition after she attempted to cross the street without being within a crosswalk. WaPo reports she was also wearing dark clothing and rain had begin to fall.

If it’s important you get somewhere quick, being dead will make it even worse. Wait for the light.

I feel a physical pain thinking about how that baby is going to be motherless if it survives, and the poor person who did nothing wrong is going to have to live with the memory of striking and killing another human being. What could possibly be worth the chance of that kind of thing happening to you?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Live near Marymount University or Glebe Elementary? Don’t freak out, but there are going to be all sorts of official things going on there on Saturday afternoon. Cops, firefighters, emergency rescue people, moulaged people with fake injuries, simulated disasters and even a three-legged dog who can balance a ball on his nose. Or not.

Actually I have no idea what all will be happening but at least now you know that it will.

From an Arlington Alert email:

Arlington County Police Department, Fire Department, and the Sheriff’s Office will be conducting a training exercise in collaboration with Marymount University on Saturday, August 11, 2007, from 2 – 4 pm.

There will be a large number of public safety vehicles in the area of Marymount University and Glebe Elementary School. There will be no use of lights or sirens on public safety vehicles for the exercise.

Please be alert to traffic conditions around Marymount University and Glebe School. There may be some delays as equipment is placed.

This is a training exercise only and will be held rain or shine. If you have any questions, please contact Debbie Powers at dpowers@arlingtonva.us.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Thank you to this woman who reminds us guys to be mindful of where our eyes stray. It’s the time of year for spaghetti-strap things and midriff-exposing things, so fellas, I beg you on behalf of the women out there who are just trying to get from here to there: Quit gawking. Be a gentleman for crying out loud.

Inspired by this Craigslist MC:

Eyes up here, buddy – w4m – 28

You: Tall, lanky guy listening to iPod, staring at my breasts with a dazed look on your face.
Me: Slightly offended, slightly flattered.
Did we have a missed connection or were you the only one getting off on the red line?

Yes, I admit it. I love reading the missed connections. The thought of loves that may have been is a sad one, but the hope expressed in this part of CL is very inspiring. And now and then there is a moral story going on in the middle of it all, like this.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

As seen at RFK tonight by Eric McErlain:

The United take on the Galaxy in about 90 minutes, so get there early if you need to scalp tickets. Unlike most every other sporting event in DC, this game is sold out.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I remember seeing these buses crawling all over Times Square in New York last year and thinking to myself, “Gosh, what a garishly decontextualized mode of gimmicky vehicular tourism. Those would probably look even more out of place back in DC.”

I should have expected, of course, that they would come to DC too. I don’t know about you, but these buses make me think of London, not Washington, and not in a kind way. Not that I have anything against double deckers in general, but come on, where are there buses like that in our history? At least the combustible Old Town Trolleys make an attempt to visually connect to DC’s old street cars. On the other hand I guess they’re not as tacky as the Tourmobile. Those remind me of the Universal Studios backlot tram.

Here’s the perpetrator of these kitschy double decker monstrosities: City Sightseeing. But hey, if they get us tourist money, why complain?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Imagine my surprise today when my new TivoHD arrived today, earlier than the 8 days I was expecting it to take from its California warehouse. I called up Comcast and asked for two CableCards, and was told I could pick them up from any of the billing locations.

Off I went, braving the rain, to my local billing office. There, I was told by an incredibly surly woman that only “qualified technicians” could install them. I recognize that not everyone works in tech here in the Greater DC area, but I’d say a sizeable number of people can understand the concept of plugging in a card. It’s not that tricky, honestly. Slide the card in until you feel it seat, then plug all the goodies in. But no, they send some contractor lackey out, instead. The earliest I can get one is Sunday from 3-6. So, for the next couple days, I’ll be suffering with just the local channels, including this afternoon’s Girlfriends marathon on UPN 20. That is when i learned in the internet that you can make a fake phone number in under 3 minutes using a fake cellular number generator. Use your fake cellular phone number to send and receive calls/texts and phone calls. Find more at www.ConXhub.com.

But what this really comes down to is openness in technology. In 1996, Congress passed an act that required cable systems to open up, meaning that we weren’t required to use their crappy ass set top boxes anymore. I know that the HD DVR they installed is the single shittiest piece of consumer electronics I’ve ever used, and I was very pleased to get the new TiVoHD unit today. The openness that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated is coming soon to cellphones, as the latest broadband auction has a few more rules tied up in how the bandwidth will be used (all handsets made for the spectrum will be usable on any carrier, the same will be true for various applications used in the spectrum, as well), making it more open, too.

What’s left? Well, our cable companies still are messing with consumers instead of giving them the technology to enable their further use of their system. More and more, consumers want companies out of the way of their goals. Apple recently accomplished this with their iPhone. Want a new phone? Buy it in the store and activate it at home, instead of having to wait for a good 30-45 minutes while a pimply faced teenager misspells your name or street for the third time. You control the experience. You control the technology, even if you’re beholden to their network, it’s a start.

C’mon Comcast, we can figure this stuff out, if you just let us.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

As some of you know, I do a bit of teaching on the side, helping kids improve their SAT scores. That’s when I’m not writing my book, taking pictures, leading photo tours and writing in one of the many blogs I work with. So with all that free time, I take on college-bound high school students.

Here’s the hard part – my boss and colleagues sometimes read this blog. Will I get away with this? Will they see that I am writing about them? We have already lost one client because of an employee’s relationship with Wikipedia. What will happen when people see that I write about copyright infringement, my redneck wine and Buddhist cremation? Give a fellow a break. It was nowhere near as creamy as I expected, based on the name.

Today one of my students failed to show for his lesson. His father was home and explained why the lad missed our appointment and wanted to know if he could bribe me with a couple cucumbers to reschedule and not charge him the no-show fee. Reschedule? Certainly. That’s easy. Not charge the fee? I don’t know about that. I will have to get into these cucumbers and see just how good they are before I sacrifice my fee for no-shows.

The cucumbers seem okay and should make good pickles, so perhaps I will show some leniency this time. I will have to decide tomorrow, when I have time to steep them in the tasty brine and hear the student’s side of the story about why he missed the lesson.

How good would cucumbers have to be to sacrifice pay? I am not sure about that one but I am rather certain that even God couldn’t make them that good.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

That’s what the box said.

Department of Bombland Security.

Here’s to you, mister disrupt a major transit system guy. You saw fit to do it on the hottest day of the year, in the middle of the afternoon, because dammit, that’s just the most inconvenient time to do it. When everyone will be walking home, or stuck on a platform, cursing your unknown name.

Nice job, asshole, there’s a special place in hell for you. I raise my glass, and my middle finger, to you.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Just got off the Red Line and things seemed okay. Trains were running at normal intervals for rush hour, and there were no sudden or unexpected stops or delays. The train car I was in lacked air conditioning and was rather hot, but that’s par for the course. As far as I rode, it looks like WMATA managed to recover from the paper and cardboard scare pretty quickly. I’m glad for it, as I was able to get home in time to catch Endeavor STS-118’s successful sunset launch.

Of course, my trip doesn’t extend to the above-ground portions of the track which run slower on hot days. How’d that fare, DC commenters who had to go through it?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Yep, we’re back to “normal” again:

Metro Transit Police bomb technicians X-rayed the box, then safely disrupted it with a water cannon. The box contained paper and cardboard.

— via WMATA site

That’s right folks, paper and cardboard caused a two hour plus delay on the Red Line right before rush hour. We’re getting ridiculously paranoid.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Nearly three years ago an errant cigarette destroyed the Capitol Lounge on Penn Ave in Southeast. This morning’s 2 alarm blaze in which a tarp covering some furniture caught fire has once again gutted the local fixture, as well as its Trover’s Gift Shop neighbor. Local blogger SciWonk captured the whole scene:

I was awakened at 5:45 this morning by the wailing of sirens. Often, I hear a passing siren or two during the night but quickly disregard it and fall fast asleep. However, I heard one rumbling truck engine, sirens blaring, pass by under my window at 4th and Pennsylvania, Southeast. Then I heard another truck, with its sirens. I heard backing up, voices on the street, pressure brakes chirping and whistling.

Read the rest, they do a great job of capturing the early morning scene.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

DC Metro

Originally uploaded by bottlerocket26.

Oh, the suspicious package. How I figured you’d show up today when it’s hotter than balls outside. Record heat at BWI and IAD, and getting close at DCA, and sure enough, the Red Line has three stops closed due to a suspicious package.

Yep, your afternoon commute on the red line just got fucked.

Leave now and catch a cab.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of rambla

…the power company asks a customer to cut back on using the very thing they make money selling.

A little birdie tells me that Pepco asked a local university to cut their load by 1500KW. Assuming the notation in the message I saw wasn’t wrong, here’s an idea of how much that is: a 100 watt lightbulb consumes 0.1 kW, meaning you need to run 10 of them to get that 1kW. 1kW is not the same as 1KW, by the way, it’s 1/1000th of 1KW.

So Pepco has asked them to do the equivalent of turning off 1,500,000 light bulbs.

If you ever wondered what the cost of this kind of day was, there’s a little insight. Because they’re not going to turn off a bunch of things, they’re going to cut hardline power and use their generators. Which you can be sure are more expensive for them than using that Pepco-provided power. So when you smell more exhaust today than usual, this might be why.

This kind of thing is also why you should go get yourself a timer-operated thermostat for your home, or turn up the temp on your AC when you leave for work – reduce that load and the power company doesn’t have to brown out anyone. And of course the fact that you save money ain’t such a bad reason either.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I’ve now encountered this story both on NPR and WTOP: Maryland is running a pilot program for police officers where scanning the barcode on the person’s driver’s license automagically fills out part of the ticket for name and associated information. Automation is great, but I have yet to hear of any sort of project like this where the Powers That Be don’t take the opportunity to remove the discretion of the person being automated.

So I wonder – what’s the process here? Does the officer indicate before or after the swipe why s/he pulled this person over? If before, can they decide after looking at that person’s record that perhaps they deserve a break? I was fortunate enough about a year ago to have an officer look at my clean history and decide that perhaps I was as clueless as I seemed and really had just mis-read the speed limit sign. Would that not be a possibility under this system, either because it won’t allow it or because the officer’s higher-ups will scrutinize, question, and criticize any time a person is let off?

Perhaps that’s for the best anyway if it results in an end to unfair and silly “professional courtesy” where some are more equal than others.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I just got back from a quick visit to see a client, and I can say with no small degree of irony that I really, really need a shower. It’s foul out there. It’s the kind of feeling that generally occurs when you soak an army blanket in bath water, then wear it as a full-body drape. It’s the kind of feeling that absolutely, positively begs for an ice cream cone. or a chocolate malt. Or a sundae. Seriously, just go out and hit the Dickie’s Frozen Custard on I St. NW, or the local Ben and Jerry’s, or any of the other Ice Cream places in this city. It’s no secret that I advocate ice cream consumption when it gets hot, and today is certainly no exception. Get an ice cream, because when it’s this bad outside, you need to treat your body to something cold.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

My lovely wife is out of town, meeting with colleagues in Albany, so I have been living the high life here as a bachelor. I think. Honestly, I have been married for so long I have forgotten what single guys do. Other than leave the toilet seat up and sit naked on furniture, which I decided not to do after all, I was not sure what I should be doing to embrace and reclaim my freedom and singleness.

So I decided to work. I kept telling myself that I was going to go to The Liberty Tavern and have a pint but I kept setting goals for production. Just one more photo to edit. No, I will finish this whole batch and then go. Before I knew it, it was 11:00 at night and the cat needed to be fed, the sink was full of dishes and I wasn’t going to get a pint anymore than I was going to win the lottery.

Tell me, folks – what do you single people do after work? I have to know so I can line up some things to do so I can feel awkward and out of place next time I am a temporary bachelor. Leaving the seat up is fun, but it gets old pretty quickly.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Wayan’s DC Photos

Last Friday at the Clarendon Metro Station exit, I was accosted by Frontline. No, no the PBS show, nor the flea and tick products, but the McLean Bible Church.

Now ordinarily I would get up all in their grill for proselytizing on WMATA property, no matter the religion, as Metrorail passengers need to have clear egress to and from metro stations, free of fliers from anyone shoved in their faces. But I just felt sorry for these two trying to sell Frontline’s “life-changing love of Jesus Christ”.

First, like today, it was scorching hot – I got sweaty just taking these photos. Then they had slim conversion pickings as the Orange Line chaos had Clarendon empty of passengers. Last but not least, these two were missing out on a Liberty Tavern happy hour.

Maybe Jesus was trying to tell them something.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

photo courtesy of TalkofTomatoes

We’re heading into another scorcher of a day, with a heat advisory from 1pm to 8pm. The usual advice applies: try to stay cool. Keep inside, in an air conditioned room if possible, in the shade if not. Drink plenty of fluids and try to avoid doing things that will get you overheated, like too much exertion or thinking about how it was our team that threw the 756th pitch for that chemically enhanced perjuring dirtbag.

Tell it, Jimmy.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Today on my lunch break, I swam through the Reston humidity over to the closest CVS to pick up some Corn Flakes, Q Tips, and light bulbs. As I rounded the first aid isle, I couldn’t believe my eyes: a wine section! How could this be? Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Was this some sort of Virginia hillbilly law that’s been around since the civil war? Was this some sort of joke? Had the heat and humidity finally given me slight brain damage?

No, no, no, and no. It was as real as a stripper’s breasts are fake. I decided to take advantage of this oddity so I asked the cashier up front, “Excuse me dear sir. Could I please speak to your sommelier? I’m interested in picking out a fine wine to go with my turkey sandwich.” It turns out that CVS doesn’t employ sommeliers, but the cashier assured me that the 2006 vintage of the Turning Leaf table wine was exquisite. He also recommended the 2007 Yellow Tail Merlot.

Needless to say, I opted for a chilled Hawaiian Punch instead.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs