Monthly Archives: July 2008

The Daily Feed
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No Fireworks in Vienna.


david crying in grass
Originally uploaded by obiwanjr

So, if you were planning on catching the Fireworks in Vienna tonight, instead of one of the other multitude of shows, you might want to reconsider. They’ve changed their plan to be a laser light show on a 100×70 foot screen, instead of fireworks. Granted, given the accident last year that injured 11 people, maybe it’s the right choice, but there will be no fireworks on the fourth of july this year.

Yikes, that does sound unamerican, doesn’t it?

The Daily Feed
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Welcome Beta Testers!

beta.jpg

Welcome to We Love DC, Pre-launch folks! We’re opening up the site about a half a day early to make sure we didn’t have any major whoopsies in the site that we didn’t find. Drop a comment on this post for anything that doesn’t look quite right. Currently, we’re sporting two side-by-side columns, one for Feature-length content, and one for more bloggy-content called the Daily Feed. We’re going to be honing what goes in each of them, and suggestions are welcome.

We’ve got a couple RSS feeds right now, but we’ll have more in the coming weeks, including a by-author feed, and a by-category feed. We’ve also got our Flickr Pool up and running and there’s Twitter and Facebook, too. Hey, don’t judge, all the cool kids are doing it.

So yeah, drop us a comment to tell us what doesn’t work, or read on for issues we know about.

Continue reading →

Featured Photo, Technology, The Daily Feed, We Love Arts
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Aerial Photography Demo in Columbia Heights

If you see something funny in the sky over Columbia Heights on Saturday afternoon, smile and say cheese. HacDC, a new hacker collective, is hosting an aerial photography demonstration by Curt Westergard of Air Photos Live.

Curt will be flying a tethered aerostat balloon (weather permitting) and taking aerial photos of HacDC and the Columbia Heights neighborhood near St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church. He’ll talk about what he does with balloons, show off the system he’s developed for deploying them, and generally have a good time.

If you’re interested, stop by the church parking lot (at 16th and Newton in Columbia Heights View Larger Map) around 3 PM.

Entertainment, Life in the Capital, The Daily Feed
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Fireworks Tomorrow!

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Be sure to check out the Post’s Google Maps Mashup for all the various fireworks celebrations tomorrow. My personal favorite spots to watch the fireworks are between the Washington Monument & the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall, as well as GW Parkway, just off the road. My good friend Dan suggests the Key Bridge, and a couple people I know swear by a canoe out on the water.

Looking forward to some fireworks tomorrow!

The Daily Feed
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Packed House on the Metro


Last Monday
Originally uploaded by thudfactor

If you’ve thought this past few months on the Metro were busy, you were absolutely right. Turns out 8 of the top 10 ridership days of all time were in the last three months. Yesterday was the third busiest day of all time, with 834,956 riders on the system.

Yikes! Here’s hoping tomorrow goes alright. There are special rules for tomorrow, which include the traditional closing of Smithsonian Metro. Parking’s free at any of the Metro lots and garages, and the system’s open until 3am. Don’t bring your bikes, either.

Downtown, Monumental, The District
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Monumental: Farragut Square

Farragut

In the middle of downtown DC sits a park named for Admiral David Farragut. Two metro stations bear his name, and the square that surrounds the park and his monument is home to many a lunching downtown worker. The statue that stands at the center of the square, of a sailor with spyglass, atop a platform with four mortars. I walked through that square once a day for over a year, each day tipping my hat to the Admiral who shouted, “Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead!”

But actually, the full of the quote, at least as it’s attributed by Wikipedia, was: “Damn the torpedoes! Four bells. Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed!” And so they went, into Mobile Bay to capture the last free port in the South in 1864. They overcame the massive barrage from Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, and defeated the Confederate Navy.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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My Ziggy’s First Photo

washington dc by wayan
Photo by Wayan

Yeah, so there is change all over the place. Besides the obvious one, I’ve got another change a-coming that’s a little more subtle – for the moment.

As you may surmise by the photo, Amy is pregnant and Ziggy the Zygote is gonna be calling me “daddy” one day soon. December the doctor says, but tomorrow it feels like.

Dad. Wow.

So here’s a toast to change, may it be the only constant we all have in the world.

Legacy articles
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WaPo confuses news, editorial pages.

When my parents were here in March we happened to head a little farther west than we normally do, and ended up having a late lunch in Manassas. When we parked there it was hard not to notice the particularly large sign across the street and wonder what its story was. It was notable enough that I took a picture.

Photo courtesy of Me

So when I saw this story on the front page of the WashingtonPost.com I was curious to read the story behind it. It’s an interesting one – based on the message above I’d wondered if this wasn’t a religious organization, with their message of love and empathy. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” The sign has changed notably since March 9th – the WaPo story has a small shot of the presumably current sign, though it’s small and they provide no transcription.

Unfortunately WaPo writer Nick Miroff decided to do a little editorializing in the WaPo story, which summarizes the sign’s content thusly:

The sign’s text has changed a few times, but its message has essentially remained the same: Latino immigrants have been exploited by ungrateful, racist white residents who took advantage of their labor and now want them to leave.

Anyone see any assertions of racism or ingratitude in the sign above?  This is why you should report facts and not interpret them, Mr Miroff.

Transcriptions of old and new sign after the jump.

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

News, The Daily Feed, The District
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All’s Well at World Bank

You might’ve heard about the craziness at World Bank today, what with a guy showing up and claiming he was a terrorist and had a box full of explosives. Turns out the guy wasn’t actually carrying explosives, and was then detained by the DC Police. There’s still a shelter-in-place order in effect at the World Bank, but man, talk about excitement!

Me, though, I’m just wondering when one of these suspicious packages actually contains explosives.

Comedy in DC, Entertainment
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Comedy in DC: Jimmy Meritt

As I’ve been enjoying my own tentative steps into the world of standup comedy, I’ve come to discover that a lot of my favorite comedians are locals, people who you may not see on Comedy Central, and who may not even be headlining a local club, but who I never fail to think of when someone asks me who I find funny. One such comic is Jimmy Meritt, who I first saw with the Geek Comedy Tour last fall. He has his hands full- in addition to his appearances with the Geek Comedy Tour (which I’ll be sure to catch at Wiseacres later this month), he performs at comedy clubs around the Eastern US, and will be appearing with the “We Can Make You Laugh” Tour this fall. I highly recommend that you see him this week at the DC Improv, appearing with Brett Leake. View his calendar, and watch him in action online.

Jimmy was kind enough to answer some questions for We Love DC:
Continue reading →

Legacy articles, The Daily Feed
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Rubber Duckie, You’re The One…

Apart from seeing a businessman borrowing his daughter’s Winnie the Pooh backpack today on the Metro, I’m not sure how many of us could publicly regress back into childhood at a moments notice. So it did warm my heart this morning when my inner child was revealed to me in a sign for the “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World” which will open July 12th at the Smithsonian’s International Gallery. Given the description of the program, I’m hoping it will be better than the last lackluster 5-6 item exhibit last trotted out to fans a few years ago. It is an amalgamation from the “Jim Henson Legacy” exhibit as well as the Smithsonian’s traveling “show”, which should be the best of both worlds.

For those of you who are more transient residents to D.C., or visitors stopping in to say a hearty “hello” to the National Capital region, the global phenomenon known as The Muppets was started here at the University of Maryland through Henson’s first show, “Sam and Friends”, broadcast on WRC-TV in D.C. starting in 1954. Who knew Kermit was that old, right?! Besides the Muppet characters, Henson was an experimental filmmaker, collaborating with composer and electronic music pioneer, Raymond Scott (Henry Warnow) on several films. If you can’t get enough of Henson at this exhibit, swing by UMD for the bronze statue and garden or visit the library there for more collections (the online version is also a treasure trove).

Jim Henson Memorial

Originally uploaded by zhurnaly

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The Daily Feed
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Garden Progress!


Mators
Originally uploaded by tbridge

It’s been a great spring/early summer in my garden. I’ve got at least a dozen tomatoes on a pair of vines so far, and a ton more flowers on the vines. The rain’s been frequent enough that I haven’t had to spend a ton of time out with the watering can, which is to my liking. How’s your garden doing so far? Got anything to share?

News
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Capital Frenzy

Photo courtesy of clydeorama

Wow, busy week across the NHL. Lots of moves with the July 1 Free Agent Turkey Shoot, and the Washington Capitals are right in the thick of it.

McPhee managed to re-sign Mike Green on Monday, June 30, effectively sealing up a potential weak spot and relieving many diehard Caps fans. So one less headache to worry over when Tuesday hit.

And hit it did.

Biggest news? Smoking-hot goaltender Christobal Huet bolted for more money and a suddenly very dangerous team in the Chicagoland area. Can’t blame the Blackhawks there – missing the playoffs by three points with an average goalie squad made any potential FA goalies legitimate targets.

Unfortunately, it forced McPhee to take a Vegas-sized risk by approaching – and signing – Avalanche goalie Jose Theodore for a more-than-modest two year deal worth $9M. BIG risk. HUGE. Now, if this was 2003, then it wouldn’t be a big deal (ok, maybe it would be, considering his lackluster play the next few years) – but despite his sudden transformation from mediocre back to the old Hart and Vezina winner with the ‘lanche last season, it really remains to be seen which Theodore the Caps got on this deal.

The goalie situation really is crucial to the Caps’ success in the next year. With Huet bolting for more lucrative waters and Kolzig “bolting” to Tampa (for what will probably be his final year or two of his career) as a mentor for the Lightning’s fresh-faced netminders, the play of Theodore is going to either sink or rocket Capital play. All the offense in the world isn’t going to matter if the goalie position is leakier than Montgomery County’s water lines.

There’s still more signings and moves to be had, for sure, as McPhee is still faced with UFAs Cooke, Fedorov, Bournedienne, Arsene, Riazantsev, Stana, Morgan and Werner. It will definitely be an interesting summer on ice.

Green Winds Up, courtesy of clydeorama

The District
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No, it’s NOT really J-Walking…

DC Crosswalk - Uploaded by pflugis on 27 Jun 08, 10.40AM EDT.
Dear Ms. D-DOT Employee,

While in our right to be impatient pedestrians, we do appreciate the (hard) work it is to direct traffic that you perform. I realize you’re there to (possibly) protect us from those bad motorists, but we are all adults, and we realize that we can walk on our own accord. It is truly what separates us from the common beasties of this planet we call Earth. So when you threaten a number of people crossing early at the cross walk at 17th and I this morning, do you really think it’d stick? Before you flaunt your power over space, time and that Honda Accord that didn’t stop correctly at the intersection, try to remember your own laws that you’re trying to enforce, and realize it’s “crossing against the signal”  and not actually J-Walking. Hey, but we love you anyways!

Signed, 

John Q. Pedestrian

P.S. Your braids are no match to the neon pink swirled hairdo sported by a Metro employee at the Glenmont Station this morning. w00t!