Once, he was in an accident so awful, it crushed his hip. Monday night, he detonates the charges that will bring the bridge down. Dan Ruefly was the lucky winner of the contest to blow up the old span of the Wilson Bridge, and his essay was chosen from 312 entries:

His toughest commute came in September 1999 when he switched lanes and slammed into a stopped tractor-trailer straddling the right lane and the bridge’s four-foot-wide shoulder.

Ouch. Yeah, that’s way better than my story of being stuck on the bridge twice in one day back in 2002. The bridge comes down at midnight on Monday.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

While we’re on the food theme today, if you are like my couch-surfing cousin (who is still ISO housing), you should be ecstatic that the sidewalk outside of CVS @ 15th and K looks like this.

You know that this CVS at least is fully stocked with all your food (and sundries) needs. I went for the $3.99 roasted almonds & cashew sale while my cousin went actual grocery shopping at CVS.

His only disappointment on leaving with several bags of groceries: no soy milk. Damn that vegetarian starter kit for influencing his young and malleable mind.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Hello my little green friend. What might you have there? Yes, inside you and just for me.

A Vegetarian Starter Kit

Hmm, that’s interesting. Why might you be here, on this random street corner in Adams Morgan? Does PETA think they will change hearts and minds here? Or are they hoping to open pocketbooks?

I would think Adams-Morgan already has plenty of vegetarians, no need for a starter kit. And those here that are not vegetarian, good luck with them.

They are either like I, know about it and are happy carnivores, or like the family next to me, confused as much by the dense English text as the overall idea of living chorizo-free voluntarily.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

DC Public Schools is feeling the crunch this morning, having had to rehire all the uncertified teachers they let go over the summer, and add a hundred more, to fill all the vacancies within the District’s school system. Therein lies a siginificant difficult: if you can’t find enough certified teachers, what do you do? You can’t just increase class size, or you’ll drive out the teachers you have already. You can’t leave uncertified teachers in place because it tends to be against the law and bad for public opinion of the schools. You can’t remove the certification clauses because the teachers’ unions and parent associations freak out.

There’s really no good solution to the teacher crisis, so what can be done to help DC’s schools? Neither Linda Cropp’s education plan, nor Adrian Fenty’s White Paper on Education mention anything about the teacher shortage in the District, just a generalized plan to move forward with better schools despite the lack of certified teachers.

How do we handle this? Is it even a problem?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Folks, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, “Chances are, there’s a blog for everything.” Today’s example is the newly created Arlington Parking Blog which deals with parking incidents gone terribly awry, but primarily focusing on the illegal parking jobs done by Arlington County employees in Arlington County vehicles.

The author generally follows up the article and particulars with a photo of the incident. I sense high comedy, or at least some bemusement, will become of this.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I don’t normally read the Washington Times but someone left it in the bathroom today. I’m glad they did – I’d never have seen this amusing confluence of headline and photo otherwise. Who was cracking wise, I wonder? The editor who wrote the header or the photo editor who picked the shot?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

You might have seen the big Style-section story yesterday about a Metrobus Driver who liked to get his passengers involved in politics. Metro, as it turns out, was not amused. They have placed the driver on administrative leave while they sort out their options. Turns out he wasn’t just pushing community-involvedness, but rather his favorite candidate, Vince Orange.

Perhaps it’s time for Bus Driver Davis to have a chat with his friends:

Davis became involved in this year’s election at the urging of Orange supporter Al-Malik Farrakhan, a leader of the anti-violence group Cease Fire . . . Don’t Smoke the Brothers Inc.

Or maybe Councilman Orange has a job for him?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Part of Stop in the Name of National Stop on Red Week, we’re here to provide you with all manner of good information about traffic in DC. Today’s awesome new utility is the Google Maps Mashup with DC-area Photo Enforcement Locations, so you can know where to slow down, and know where to slam on the brakes and cause a four-car pile-up so you don’t get a ticket.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

DC-based employment blog Magic Pot of Jobs brings us today’s “boggle and gape” story:

Our colleague calls to inform us that this client had asked her branch for a receptionist this morning. They immediately sent their most qualified, available talent- a woman who happens to be a Muslim and wears a hijab.

Shortly after the talent arrived, she was sent away from the client and back to our colleague’s office. The HR Director (with a Senior Professional in Human Resources certification, mind you) explained to our colleague that “Image is everything here, and we just can’t have her sitting at our front desk.”

Yikes. Here’s hoping that business has good lawyers. I thought companies in this town were, well, sensitive to not being sued for things like this? Guess not.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

How odd you are, a plywood chrysalis on the lawn of the Kazakhstan Embassy to the United States and Canda.

Might you become a Monarc like the sign says on front? Or maybe a Nursultan Nazarbayev, proud of your autocratic rule?

Every morning as I pass, I wonder, and I wait. What might you become?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

As we stood in front of Pho 75 on Friday, full from the delicious noodle soup, a plane went screaming overheard at just the wrong angle to freak me out a bit. They’ve changed the flight path of planes from over the river to right through lower Courthouse and upper Rosslyn. Passenger jets streak through the evening sky drowning out conversations in the outside tables at the bistro next door, and forcing everyone to stare up.

No, it’s not terrorism, it’s just a changed flight route that’s taking passenger jets over the residential neighborhoods of Arlington instead of over the river as usual.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Okay, who else, beside Circumlocutor saw the article in yesterday’s Post about a beating in Dupont Circle? I’m really pretty horrified that this guy both witnessed a guy getting the crap kicked out of him in the middle of Dupont, and not only was there no response from the Metropolitan Police Department, there was nothing but excuses made by the MPD in the conduct of same.

This is the most incrimination paragraph of the whole thing:

“They were responding to a dispute at a restaurant, and they walked off. I ran and caught up to the attacker, though trying to stay out of sight, and managed to flag down another police car. I again described the man, pointed him out just up the street and then pointed back toward the circle, where emergency workers were loading the victim into an ambulance. The cops seemed annoyed. They gave each other a look, sat for a beat, then said “Okay, thanks” and drove off — in the opposite direction from the man who had just attacked a person in the middle of a public park. He strutted off into the dark.”

But clearly, all we need in this crime emergency is some surveillance cameras that won’t even be watched, just maybe looked at in retrospect. Thanks DC Council, you guys rock hard.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

I know it is not pretty and probably not healthy, but when a professional Geek loses his Internet connection at work, this is the result.

Luckily, my cool Nokia 6682 allows me to post and if I get really desperate, surf, but a 2 inch screen and one finger entry just makes me hunger for what I am missing.

Pray with me to the Great Internet Gods for renewed connections and access. Man cannot work on telephone and fax alone.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

He is NOT the enemy

Following the Wash Post’s great alarmist article on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail, Channel 9 jumped on the fear-mongering bandwagon with its own “Trail Rage” news report.

While rehashing the same “cyclist are the enemy” line of the Post, but with remarkably less hysteria, Channel 9 did reveal two possible changes to the W&OD Trail system.

First, local governments and the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority to widen the rail from eight to ten feet sometime in the distant future.

Also, NVRPA is negotiating with area police departments to add bicycle cops to the 40 trail monitors who already patrol the route.

I think their first act may to be arrest the fool on the DC Tri Club form who said:

“i try to regulate on my own at my own risk. if i am running and hear a bike and they dont announce themselves i take a quick step to the left to make them react. if they let me know they are there i wave and shift right.

i am sick of ipod wearing hot shots blazing by me at 20+, apparently just like many others. if i am putting you at risk, maybe you should shout out or ring a bell.

a half step to the left to get someones attention is not that dangerous, really only makes people ride their brakes. [When cycling] i also brake at the last minute when crossing GW pkwy to try and get cars to stop, any comment on that tactic?

Um, yeah, I think you are gonna get yourself (and someone else) seriously hurt. That half-step, asinine. The GW parkway braking, suicidal and asinine.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Here’s an interesting article about Joe Rosenthal, the photographer whose photo was the inspiration behind our statue in Arlington.

“Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don’t come away saying you got a great shot. You don’t know.”

As luck would have it, this shot won him the Pulitzer Prize.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

When it comes to local photographers, Ohad ranks among the best of them. I’ve been following his work for quite a while now and have been impressed with the diversity of his shots. From sports photos, shots of the local neighborhoods, to long exposures like this one, he’s always showing his audience a new take on some every day things and exercising the abilities of his DSLR (go Canon!). The only way you’re going to get good at photography is to get out there and shoot as many subjects as you can, and he’s done just that.

Be sure to check out his photo blog and photo archives at www.ohadonline.com. I’m sure I’ll be featuring more of his shots in the weeks to come.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

This is how you should be spending these perfect August days, double fisting martinis at Fox and Hounds.

Who knows who this guy is, I know I was way to drunk to care, but he’s having a great time with the Fox’s amazing drinks specials. That would be real drinks, not top shelf served as rail.

Easily the best deal in town, the $4 glass of Absolute with tonic as a side chaser will wipe out your liver but not your wallet. It wiped out this guy’s mind.

Now wipe the grin off your face and get out of the house. Cheap drinks call – listen to them & obey.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

You may have heard that Tony Kornheiser from the Post Sports section and from ESPN’s PTI has signed on to join Monday Night Football as one of the color commentators. You may even have seen his supposedly lackluster performance, or perhaps read Paul Farhi’s column describing said lackluster behavior. You perhaps heard Kornheiser strike back on Dan Patrick’s Radio Show, or read his attack column response on Wednesday.

Today, it’s Deborah Howell’s turn to get involved. She’s the Post’s ombudswoman, the mediator between the public and press and she got several letter about Kornheiser’s invective against Farhi. Her advice? Buck up and take it like a man.

Well said, Deborah. Kornheiser ought to have known he wouldn’t just be glad-handed by his own newspaper and be treated like any other commentator and should’ve expected some harsh words. Calling Farhi a putz seems to be a bit of a wankerish activity, but it certainly fits Kornheiser’s crotchety nature. Here’s hoping his next games are better and he doesn’t give the Post stuff to bitch about. C’mon, Tony, buck up.

Meanwhile? The Redskins are 0-2 in Pre-Season play and can’t seem to get their shit together. It could be a long season, Skins fans. See, everyone? His name is Joe Gibbs, not Jesus.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Are you looking for DC Statehood? Do you think you might find it if you went to all 50 states and asked folks where it might be? Think that a bit daunting though?

How about cycling all 50 states in the District? You know, each street named after a state? Then join the Washington Area Bicyclist Association’s 50 States Tour.

Next Saturday August 26, starting at WABA’s new offices at the southwest corner of Florida and Connecticut Avenues NW, they will be handing out maps to show you just how to cover the nation inside the District.

Don’t feel like sweating and swearing for 60+ miles? Then downgrade to the shorter 15 mile 13 Original Colonies Tour of each of the 13 original US states.

The only drawback? The ride is unsupported, which means after WABA hands you a map, you’re on your own. So, be safe, and be aware.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Ya gotta love DC, you really do. Every time I walk down Irving Street NW just past 14th Street NW, I see this fun display of urban independence.

Despite the large, obvious, leering “No Parking” signs, everyone parks. Double parks even. And not for a moment either.

People park here every day, all the time as it’s convenient and when the construction didn’t close off the far lane, unobtrusive.

Cops? Tickets? None that I’ve ever scene. It’s a parking free for all, that really is free for all. If you go by, stop, park and check it out. Everyone else is.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs