Author Archive
Cleaning the Air and Space Museum’s Lunar Lander
Smithsonian Mag’s Around the Mall has a look at the cleanup of the Air and Space Museum’s Apollo Lunar Module #2 in preparation for the upcoming 40th anniversary celebration of the Apollo 11 moon landing:
More »Sick People on Orange Line
In the aftermath of yesterday’s Metro crash I went with my backup plan today of skipping the Red Line in favor of the Orange. A malfunction had just occurred at Eastern Market, causing some delays, but a train arrived soon enough at Capitol South — then was held for ten minutes due to a sick [...]
More »Metro Red Line Train Collision
There has been a train collision on the Red Line between Fort Totten and Takoma Park. Updates here.
More »Street Car at Washington Monument, 1938
From Shorpy, the historic photo blog: a DC street car near the Washington Monument in 1938. The view seems to be looking west from 15th St, and could almost be a modern view, aside from the street car, rails, and old-timey automobiles parked on the ramp — right up to the base of the Monument, [...]
More »Monday Morning Metrofail: Orange and Blue Lines
Orange and Blue Line riders had a hellish commute this morning thanks to a train down due to mechanical difficulties at Foggy Bottom station, causing single-tracking and trains held at stations up and down both lines in both directions. I waited on a Vienna-bound Orange Line train at Metro Center for about twenty minutes before [...]
More »Terra Cotta Warrior at Union Station
Warrior Outside Union Station Originally uploaded by brownpau
If you pass through the Union Station 1st St NE entrance this afternoon, you might see this guy made up and posing as a living statue under the arches beside a chalk drawing on the floor.
Looks like a promo for an upcoming National Geographic Museum exhibit, Terra Cotta [...]
Star Trek Video Ad at Farragut West Metro
Metro now features video ads in stations, the first of which is a 15-second trailer for the upcoming Star Trek XI: The Wrath of the Franchise Reboot, silently flashed onto the Farragut West Metro entryway wall by a ceiling-mounted projector. Metro Marketing Director Mark Rydstrom says “In the words of Mr. Spock, we hope this [...]
More »Red Line Delays This Morning
Major Red Line delays this morning thanks to a track circuit malfunction plus a train offloaded for “mechanical difficulties” at Takoma station. Rail alerts just reported “Disruption cleared” but the Twitter feedback is rolling in. Thank you, Metro, for another morning rush hour of long waits and crowded trains.
More »Tea Party at Lafayette Park
‘Tea Party in DC’ (courtesy ’skye820′)
In addition to Tax Day, today is the official Fox News/Freedom Works “Tea Party” Day, when thousands, nay, millions of outraged conservatives who do not know what teabagging really means will descend on DC to protest taxes, because a Keynesian stimulus package and a ~3% increase in the marginal tax [...]
Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart, and Son, with Happy the Hippo and a Zookeeper
"Come on get Happy" Originally uploaded by Smithsonian’s National Zoo
Via the National Zoo we behold Harrison Ford, his fiancé Calista Flockhart, and her son Liam at the National Zoo, getting a closeup view of 5000 pound Nile hippopotamus Happy. Word is that Ford was able to personally feed the hippo, whose diet, like a Nabooan [...]
More Tourists, Not Much More Money
Tourist season is here: you can feel it on the sidewalk, on the Mall, around the Tidal Basin, and especially on the left sides of downtown Metro escalators. Washington Post reports that DC tourism is up, but that hasn’t necessarily translated to increased revenue for local retail and hospitality businesses. DC, after all, is Freebie [...]
More »Lost Kayak?
Lost Kayak? - Acadia DC 3128 N Originally uploaded by brownpau
Did someone lose a kayak on the Potomac River recently? I just spotted this one floating downstream beside Washinton Harbour this morning, “Acadia DC 3128 N.” If it didn’t get stuck there I expect it might be down at Kennedy Center by now.
Man in Kimono with Dog in Bunny Ears by Tidal Basin at Cherry Blossom Festival
サー、あなたは着物を着ている！そしてあなたの犬は、ウサギのように見えます！それは素晴らしいことです。それは素晴らしいことです！
More »Fireball over the Mid-Atlantic Coast
Above: news report from WAVY TV 10.
Update, Tue 3/30/2009 9:50 AM: There’s been some word from Geoff Chester at the USNO that the fireball might have been a reentering Soyuz booster from Russia, but the latest info from the Joint Space Ops Center at VAFB is that they have been tracking Russian rocket fragments among [...]
Goodbye to the Rock Creek Parkway Pedestrian Crossing Button Moat
Much gratitude to DC DDOT for paving over what I affectionately call “The Button Moat” around the pedestrian crossing button at Rock Creek Parkway and Virginia Ave NW in Foggy Bottom. (Bigger before-and-after-pictures after the jump.)
More »SUV vs. Traffic Island
Snow. It turns us into adventurers. Some of us bundle up to walk the chill, white, stormy landscape like Arctic explorers, braving wind and cold for photos or milk and bread.
And others among us get adventure by roaring out of parking spaces and skidding over slush so that our big black Nissan Pathfinder SUVs end [...]
The horn on the train goes BEEEEEEEEEEEP…
(This is a video. You can play it. Listen for the horn!)
Piled on top of this morning’s Red Line woes, this train on the Red Line appeared to have its horn stuck in “VERY LOUD ON” mode, constantly blowing without stopping. (Insert clever ‘your mom’ joke here.) I got on at Union Station, got off [...]
Ethnic Dining Guide
Tyler Cowen’s Ethnic Dining Guide for the DC area has been updated for 2009. He starts off with a plug for his book, Discover Your Inner Economist, offers some rules of thumb for choosing ethnic food restaurants in general, lists some “must-eat” places, then launches into a grand, culturally-alphabetized list of restaurants of every regional [...]
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