Monthly Archives: March 2010

New Category, Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Caps Make Four Moves Today

Photo courtesy of
‘Rock the Red’
courtesy of ‘afagen’

This has turned into a banner trading day for the Washington Capitals, as they made four trades before the 3pm deadline. Yes, you read that right: four trades.

Who’s In?

The Caps picked up: D Milan Jurcina from the Blue Jackets, D Joe Corvo from Carolina, C Eric Belanger from Minnesota, F Scott Walker from Carolina

Who’s Out?

The Caps sent off: a sixth round draft pick (to Columbus, for Jurcina), D Brian Pothier, prospect F Oskar Osala and a second round draft pick (to Carolina, for Corvo), a second round draft pick (to Minnesota for Belanger), a seventh round draft pick (to Carolina, for Walker)

Wow. That’s a lot of shake-up and increased talent for the Caps. We’ll hopefully have some insightful things to say tomorrow when our head stops hurting from all the various parts of these deals from McPhee’s office. Whew!

Life in the Capital, The Features
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Fitness District: Barre at B.fit

Photo courtesy of
‘Studio – B.Fit DC’
courtesy of ‘prettylovelythings’

Author’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing We Love DC series, Fitness District.

I admit it; I am by no means a gym rat.  If you were to perhaps bump into me there, it would not be on a regular basis. Sometimes I might be busy reading something at myfitnesshub.com, sitting somewhere with my phone on. I exercise, sporadically, because it is the healthy choice to make – good for the body and the mind.  But let me say this one time for the record, I dread a morning, afternoon, or evening workout.  I dread them all.

Furthermore, I don’t think that the gym itself makes the experience any more delightful.  In my personal opinion, the gym atmosphere is often times unwelcoming, intimidating, and outright aesthetically unpleasing.  I honestly have no idea where the typical gym owner got the idea that horrendous lighting is flattering, because those harsh lamps with the yellow-ish CRI won’t make even the buffest of the buff look good, let alone poor me.

The solution to my dilemma, as painted above, has been to engage in alternative forms of exercise such as Yoga and Pilates. Quite recently I read the article on the Neuropathy Cure website when I was trying to find the apt medication for my damaged nerves and found that for my condition it is much suitable for me to practise yoga than lift weights. Since finding a fit that worked best for me, exercise was no longer a burden – but something that I truly enjoyed and looked forward to.  And the best part, when it comes to the typical Yoga and/or Pilates studio you are almost always guaranteed good, natural lighting.  However, with any routine, sometimes you need to be a bit daring and switch things up.  Which is exactly what I was about to do by enrolling in my very first Barre Class at B.fit.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Breast Cancer Survivors And Advocates To Be Honored On Mother’s Day At Ballparks Nation-Wide

Photo courtesy of
‘Life’s a bitch !’
courtesy of ‘pfala’

Major League Baseball and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest breast cancer organization,  have teamed up to launch the 2010 Honorary Bat Girl contest. The contest was created to recognize the women who have fought hard to battle breast cancer. For the next six weeks, women are encouraged to share their inspirational stories.

Men and women over the age of 18 will be able to read these stories and vote for who they think should be this year’s Honorary Bat Girl. The woman chosen will receive two tickets to the Nationals game vs. the Florida Marlins on Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 9) where they will take part in the pre-game activities which include being honored with a pink ribbon during an on-field ceremony.

“The Nationals are excited to participate in the Honorary Bat Girl program as it allows us to reach our fans on a personal level,” Nationals Vice President of Communications and Community Relations Chartese Burnett said. “We encourage our fans to share their triumphant stories at mlb.com and we look forward to hosting the winner at Nationals Park.”

All testimonials must be entered online and can be submitted by breast cancer survivors or advocates of the cause.

The contest ends April 13.

The Daily Feed
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Hooray Chris & Hampton!

Photo courtesy of erin m

, courtesy of erin m

There’s a lot of folks out there on day 1 of marriage equality in the District, but only two of them are my friends Chris and Hampton. How many people can say that they saw pictures of their friends getting their marriage license on the internet before being shown pictures by the friends themselves?

Well, today maybe a lot. But while there may be many couples like them, this one is mine. Congrats, guys.

Life in the Capital
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Be Prepared: It’s Not Just for Boy Scouts Anymore

Photo courtesy of robinvanmourik
‘The gear’
courtesy of ‘robinvanmourik’

As we’ve come out of the frozen tundra of the Snowfecta, we might think “oh thank goodness winter is over and we won’t have to worry about a blizzard for a while.” While you may be right in that regard, we’d be missing the larger point: A lot of people were not prepared to handle this in any way, shape or form.

We witnessed Hipsters who were lined up outside the closed P street Whole Foods almost rioted as if someone had just told them that Fleet Foxes sucked. The shelves in produce aisles city wide were bare. There were major lines at area supermarets. It was so bad we even ran out of condoms. With some of the power outages, people ran out of firewood and burned furniture to stay warm. It as a lot of smart, well-educated people with good paying jobs in a predicament they simply did not plan for.

The old proverb rings true: “He who fails to plan, plans to fail”

So what could people have done to be better prepared for this storm? We gave you some ideas on snow-specific preparation before, but what about things other than snowstorms? Well the good news is there’s things you can do that will let you be prepared for a lot of similar elements in disasters, from losing a job or a water main break all the way up to an earthquake or massive solar storm.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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National Zoo’s New Octopus Makes Invertebrates Cool

Giant Pacific Octopus
Photo courtesy Smithsonian National Zoo

I’m always fascinated to learn more about the other inhabitants of the planet that could totally kick my ass, so I’m pleased that the Zoo has a new Giant Pacific Octopus. It’s actually not so giant at the moment, weighing only 3 pounds, but it’s about to hit its growth spurt and will grow to be 13 times its current size over the next year. Which, to be frank, is not nearly as badass as it would be in the wild, potentially growing to hundreds of pounds.

But it does give me the opportunity to share my favorite collection of Octopus Facts: “This is Why an Octopus is More Awesome than Your Mom,” from The Oatmeal. Enjoy.

Business and Money, Media, The Daily Feed
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Washington Post? There’s an App for That

Photo courtesy of
‘Lotus #67’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

Online news site paidContent received reports this morning that the Washington Post is heading toward the Apple App Store. The new app, which will provide similar content as the paper’s online properties, should be available today for you to download to your iPhone or iPod touch. WaPo columnist Rob Pegoraro confirmed the news earlier this morning on Twitter.

As the post from pC noted, the application will run you $1.99, and this isn’t the first time a print outlet as done it as a paid version. The U.K.’s Guardian sold over 100,000 downloads of its $3.99 app in the first 10 weeks it was available, but its also worth noting that the New York Times has an app that is currently free (this may change further down the road when NYT moves to a paid-metered-content model).

I’ll toss this one to the crowd: Would you pay for a WaPo app or would you be more likely to download it if it was free?

Entertainment, Fun & Games, The Daily Feed
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Vote for Shakespeare!

Photo courtesy of
‘Shakespeare In Snow’
courtesy of ‘[F]oxymoron’

The talented folks over at DC Theatre Scene have asked a panel of ardent Shakespeare admirers (including your most humble author) to choose their top three favorite speeches.

It’s a fascinating list that’s been assembled, from the usual suspects to a few passages you may not be as familiar with – and even better, they’re asking readers to vote! Since we’ve had such an intense conversation about Shakespeare ourselves recently, I’m very interested to see how it pans out. As they are friends of passionate theater-goers and We Love DC alike, let them know what you think.

The Daily Feed
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Nothing Like The Smell of Chlorine in the Morning…

Photo courtesy of
‘Preparation.’
courtesy of ‘Cameron Cassan’

Our friends over at Prince of Petworth recently asked the question “Why does a swimming pool come out of my faucet?” and an anonymous commenter delivered the news: From February 1st until May 17th, DC WASA changed the disinfectant used in its water treatment process from chloarmine (NH2Cl) to chlorine.

Chloramine is used for most of the year because it is far more stable than free chlorine and lacks the smell of chlorine. Chloramine is toxic to certain animals (e.g. fish) and is one of the reasons you need to age the water a few days or use product to make it safe. However, Chloramine is not as effective at sanitizing as free Chlorine. So WASA is effectively shocking the system.

You can read the DC WASA press release for more info

Talkin' Transit
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Talkin’ Transit

Richard Sarles at the groundbreaking of the Mass Transit Tunnel in June 2009. Courtesy former Gov. Jon Jon Corzine's office

Richard Sarles at the groundbreaking of the Mass Transit Tunnel in June 2009. Courtesy former Gov. Jon Jon Corzine's office

Greater Greater Washington and the Washington Post both have the news that Metro is hoping to name former New Jersey Transit Executive Director Richard Sarles as interim head of the agency on Thursday. The Post reports that Metro Board Chairman Peter Benjamin confirms they do not currently have a contract with Sarles, but that he “is certainly a person we would like to appoint.”

Benjamin goes on to praise Sarles’s background, and calls him “solid on safety.” Sarles was appointed head of NJ Transit in 2007 after five years as Assistant Executive Director for Capital Programs and Planning there. He retired in January. Before working for NJ Transit, Sarles was at Amtrak where he led development of the Northeast Corridor High-Speed Rail program. He also has an engineering and project management background that spanned 20 years at the Port Authority.

Salres obviously has the chops to deal with the problems facing Metro. We aren’t privy to the interview process, and not living in the NY/NJ area, are not as familiar with his thinking on transit. Luckily, Sarles participates as a panel expert on the National Journal‘s transportation blog, commenting on many of the issues facing transportation planners. Read on for a little bit of insight.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Smithsonian Kills O. J. Donation


O.J. Simpson by Project M·A·R·C

Here is yet another reason to love DC – the Smithsonian Museum has rejected the suit that O. J. Simpson wore in court when he was acquitted of murdering his wife, Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. Apparently there was a legal fight as to who should own the suit, but all parties settled on donating it to the Smithsonian because, you know, something that stands for such a proud day in American history should be on display next to Archie Bunker’s chair and the Hope Diamond.

Way to make the right call, Smithsonian.

Food and Drink, The Daily Feed
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Is the Macaron the new Cupcake?

Photo courtesy of
‘Napoleon box of 18’
courtesy of ‘yosoynuts’

That’s right, you heard me clearly, is it possible that the macaron is soon going to rule the market of portable deliciousness once dominated by the cupcake?  I have been saying it for quite sometime that this shift in power was bound to happen, but now that The Wall Street Journal even took notice today, this may be happening sooner than I had thought.

Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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Suspicious Package with white powder at APA

Photo courtesy of
‘HAZMAT exercise’
courtesy of ‘United States Army Garrison – Presidio of Monterey’

WUSA is reporting that a package containing white powder arrived at the American Psychological Association building (750 1st Street NE) near Union Station earlier today. Three people were intercepted en route to the hospital by DC Fire and EMS for decontamination and none are reporting any symptoms at this point. 1st Street NE has been shut down between G and K, so plan your travel accordingly.

News, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Marion Barry Censured, Stripped of Committee Chair, Referred for Prosecution

Photo courtesy of
‘Misc – Post Partisan Apology – 10-11-08’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

Count this one as a victory for civilization. Councilman Marion Barry today was unanimously censured by the City Council for his role in a kickbacks scandal, unanimously referred to prosecutors for misconduct related to the kickbacks scandal, and unanimously removed as chair of the housing committee.

Councilman Barry was loathe to admit his own responsibility in these matters, instead pushing off blame on the Council for the Bennett Report, on Bennett and his staff, and on Council Chair Vince Gray. Barry was looking for someone, anyone, to drag down with him, trying to drag Councilman Jack Evans and Jim Graham and Council Chair Gray down for what Barry felt were similar ethical lapses, no matter what the reality of the situation was.

As Geoffrey Hatchard pointed out on twitter, it was if Barry was saying “you do this, and you try to run for mayor, i’ll make sure no one votes for you,” to Chairman Vince Gray, which is no small threat given Barry’s clout in distressed Ward 8. Given that the Democratic Party is still afraid of Barry, this is no small measure of revenge for Barry, to attempt to frighten and impose upon the council in retribution for censure.

Barry continued to defend his innocence, to defend his record as “clean”, and then went on to challenge the very censure process that he’d just underwent. Barry said that he was “not dismayed” by the process, which largely means to me that we need to give these censure proceedings further teeth.

Sports Fix, The Features
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The 2010 Washington Nationals: A Chance To Finish Above .500

6769_603948001275_7406060_35381203_6609768_n

Spring Training games start today. The Washington Nationals are in Viera, Florida and ready to play the best the Grapefruit League has to offer. Opening Day is 33 days away. Here’s your sneak peak into what you have to look forward to this season.

It’s safe to assume that 2010 will not be the year the Washington Nationals win a World Series. They’re still building a franchise and are mere youngins when compared to the veteran clubs in the Major Leagues today.

The Nationals haven’t had a winning season since moving to the District. They came close in 2005 by going 81-81, but since then they have finished last in their division (National League East) every year except 2007 when they finished second to last. So – it’s easy to understand if you haven’t made your way to the ballpark these past few years.

If you wanted to see a team win, a trip to Baltimore, dare I say … Philly, might be a better idea. Not this year though. The 2010 season has the potential to be different for the Nationals. And no – that’s not a joke. Continue reading →

The Daily Feed
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The Big 1-4-3! Happy Birthday Howard University


‘General Oliver Otis Howard House’
courtesy of ‘NCinDC’

Grab your cake and ice cream, this is a big one! Today marks Howard University‘s 143rd birthday. On this day in 1867, General Oliver Otis Howard founded the school, which is based in DC but is home to a student population from all corners of the world.

The historically-black university not only boasts several prominent alumni, but has played a key role in American history. Whether it was Thurgood Marshall’s role in Brown v. Board of Education or Zora Neale Hurston’s contributions to the award-winning Hilltop Newspaper, Howard University has a lot to celebrate today. Under the direction of President Sidney A. Ribeau, we wish you many, many more, Howard University. Make a wish!

The Daily Feed
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Ticketed on Presidents Day? You Might Be In Luck

Photo courtesy of
‘Amount Due’
courtesy of ‘maxedaperture’

Were you (un)fortunate enough to have not heard about the snow emergency (declared Sunday evening, aka Valentines Day) and got smacked with a nice big $250 ticket for parking on a snow emergency route on February 15th? I don’t know about you but I sure wasn’t checking to see if there was a snow emergency that night. Well, City Council members Brown and Wells are fighting in your corner to have those forgiven. Give them a hug.

The Daily Feed
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Save the Date! March 20th is Polite Day…Please and Thank You.


‘Horton #23 (26/365)’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

On Saturday March 20th, District residents are encouraged to remember what their Mommies said, mind their manners, and be kind to their neighbors. Polite Day, which was sponsored by D.C. Council Member Harry Thomas, is meant to remind people to be courteous to one another, despite the hustle and bustle they encounter on a typical day in the city.

On our morning commutes, daily interactions with others, and just everyday life, it’s very easy to get wrapped up in our own agendas. Although we may not intend to be rude, I’m not sure that we need a formal holiday to do what we’re supposed to do anyway.

Is that what it’s come to? I’m all for being polite, but what I’m hoping is that Polite Day is just in light of the snowpocalypse and bad attitudes that might have been a side effect. There are certain things that we shouldn’t have to be reminded to do, right?

Mythbusting DC, The Features
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DC Mythbusting: The Lost Forts of DC

Photo courtesy of
‘Fort Gaines at Tenleytown 1864’
courtesy of ‘NCinDC’

Some of the myths about the city seem a little far-fetched, particularly the more historic ones about the layout of the city.  Traffic circles meant to confuse invading armies?  No J Street because Pierre L’Enfant held a grudge?  Come on.  Here’s another one I heard– there’s a system of forts on the outskirts of the District designed to protect the city from an invasion.  This story, like the other two, has to be a myth, right?  The only fort in the city I can think of is Fort Totten, which (as far as I know) is a Metro station and not some Civil War encampment, and I certainly can’t picture an entire ring of forts around the city.  So this myth is pretty easily busted, right?

Not quite. It turns out to be true– there was an incredibly extensive network of forts that once surrounded the city, and today, many of these forts are again being linked together to create a greenway trail for recreational uses. The Fort Circle Park system was a surprise to me, and digging through the history of these parks turned up some other interesting facts.

Continue reading →

News, The Daily Feed
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How To Deal With Westboro

Photo courtesy of
‘westboro baptist church and me’
courtesy of ‘Burstein!’

It’s hard to deal with the hateful jackasses at Westboro Baptist Church with the degree of response that they need, as curbstomping useless hatemongers is still technically aggravated assault, but it’s still good to let them know how we feel. For that, the Sexist at the City Paper has a great guide to how to handle a Phelps protest, which includes the sort of thing that you should put on your signs, how to not get arrested, and how to generally behave. It’d be great if DC could put together some quality counter protests to generally drown out these feckless thugs.