At some point in the last few years I’ve stopped going up to Baltimore very often. Now it’s probably been over a year since I was there other than for work. That’s a pity, since I think the name “charm city” is well deserved and there’s a number of nice things to do there.

One of my favorite not-quite-a-getaways, pre-Nationals, was catching the MARC up to Baltimore for $5 and taking the light rail down to Camden Yards. The only downside I found to that plan was the delay between light rail departures; if I was off by a few minutes I could find myself waiting close to a half-hour.

Well, they’ve added a third circulator line that would solve that problem for me and save me the light rail fee at the same time: it runs every 10 minutes and is free. It stops a few blocks east, by the Harbor rather than Camden, but hey – I’ve got the Nats now.

Who wants to go to the Aquarium?

‘Crime Solvers’
courtesy of ‘Marcellina.’

From Frozen Tropics comes the news of a fatal stabbing in Trinidad last night, with the victim being stabbed in front of a vacant bank-owned house on Simms Place in the Trinidad neighborhood.  The homicide marks the first time in twenty months that such a crime has been committed.  Trinidad gets a pretty bad rep for crime, some of it deserved, but they’ve been murder-free for almost two years. Sad to see it slip.

‘Bristol F2 fighter’
courtesy of ‘Rob the moment’

As part of a demonstration, 8 antique bi-planes were to land at Washington National today as part of their tour of the US. Divided into two squadrons of four, the planes were to land, refuel, and then depart around 3:30 this afternoon headed for their next destination.

One of the planes, however, crashlanded on approach today, flipping the plane over on Runway 1. The passengers are okay, but emergency crews are acting at the site, and trying to move the plane now, which has caused the airport to shutdown to all incoming and outgoing flights while they handle the issue.

National has one of the most difficult approaches in the world, due to the short runway and the constrained airspaces, which may have influenced this crash.

The Post has a fascinating blurb on the incident, which includes a notable byline: the article was written by the passenger of the plane that just crashed. Whew. That’s a little intense, no?

‘Fireworks at Nats Park’
courtesy of ‘MudflapDC’

The Nationals were nice enough to present fans with an un-official Strasmas gift last night with the unsurprising selection of Bryce Harper during the first-overall selection in the 2010 First-Year Player MLB Draft.

An important distinction was made with the Nationals selection of 17-year-old hitting powerhouse Harper. He was announced and will enter the Nationals organization as an outfielder as opposed to a catcher, a position has played this season in the Scenic West Athletic Conference.

The coolest part about this kid has to be that he swings lefty, throws righty, and has unbelievable numbers. This season alone, he hit .443 (101-for-228) with 23 doubles, four triples, 31 home runs, 98 RBI, 39 walks and 20 stolen bases in 66 games for College of Southern Nevada. Which, to make this present even better, uses wood-bats.

Harper is prime for success in the big leagues pending solid training at the minor league level, but just know we won’t be seeing him for quite awhile. Remember, he might’ve gotten his GED, but the boy is still only 17.

Now, on to Strasmas Day. Who knows — by the end of all this D.C. might end up being a baseball town! Wouldn’t that be nice?

‘Locals and Tourists #7 (GTWA #8): Washington, DC’
courtesy of ‘Eric Fischer’

Thanks very much to Bill Couch who sent this over, this is a photographic heat map of the geotagged photos of Washington DC on Flickr. This is the just the downtown section, so click through to get the whole view, as it covers the entire metro area. Red dots are tourist shots, while blue dots are from the people that live here. Yellow dots are from people who could go either way.

It’s not surprising to see how monument-centric the tourist population is, but it’s very neat to see where the photo lines drop off in Northeast until you see the big cluster at H Street, etc. Spiff.

‘Photo courtesy Steven Crowley’

It’s take out the trash day on Capitol Hill today.

Traffic was snarled for a bit near Stanton Park this morning when a Waste Management truck dumped a load of trash. The incident happened around 7:30 am, and was first reported by DC Fire and EMS as a trash truck fire. Steven Crowley was kind enough to send in a photo of the spill, which happened at the corner of 6th Street and Maryland Avenue NE.

As of 9:30 this morning, the clean-up effort continued, with 6th Street NE closed between Massachusetts and Maryland Avenues NE. Crews were seen hosing off the street and loading the spilled trash into a Waste Management dumpster.

‘Metro #291’
courtesy of ‘andertho’
According to WTOP’s Adam Tuss, a 10-car train was deployed on Metro’s Green Line this morning. The longest train that can fit into a station is 8 cars. The train went into service at Branch Avenue, and the mistake was not noticed until the train reached the Waterfront station. As Tuss points out, this means the extra-long train passed through eight stations before being stopped and taken out of service. Of course, the extra two cars were not accessible to passengers.

The Tri-State Oversight Committee has been notified of the incident, and 5 Metro employees are off-duty as part of the safety investigation.

Back in March, Metro accidentally deployed a 14-car train, when a six car was coupled to an eight car. That mistake was caught when the train pulled into the first station to be serviced.

‘DSC_5693’
courtesy of ‘photopete’

While I have to admit I’ve never been too good at haiku writing, the option of having one run on the DC Sports Bog in honor of Stephen Strasburg’s debut tomorrow is a darn good selling point to get me to try and write one.

I’ll spare you all my horrid attempts at turning this baseball moment into poetry gold, but I urge you to get involved and join in the fun!

The Post’s Dan Steinberg announced the haiku contest this morning and hopes you’ll all get involved in Strasburg-mania.

First place gets “the best bit of memorbilia [Dan Steinberg] can muster on Tuesday night, which probably means a slightly wrinkled game-day program and Nats Park quote sheets.” Runners-up will receive “the maximum fame and admiration that anonymous Post commenters can provide.”

For more information, visit the DC Sports Bog.

‘Is this a Transformer?’
courtesy of ‘voteprime’

Dreamworks and Paramount Pictures were hoping to spend two weeks filming in Washington this fall, as they get ready to make Transformers 3, but it seems the Park Service isn’t eager to turn the Mall into a studio. According to the Post, the Park Service says that Dreamworks “have asked to do some things that simply are not done on the National Mall.” That includes staging a car race on the gravel paths and lighting it up during the middle of the night.

Given the condition of the Mall, generally speaking, I would have been more surprised if they had agreed to host a car race on the pathways, but as much money as this could bring to the District, it’s difficult to hear “No” being used more than “Maybe” or “No, but maybe we could talk about this instead?”

‘Marion Barry and Mr. Grumpy Pants’
courtesy of ‘ricepeter’

Back in March, Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry (D) was stripped of his position as chair of the Council’s housing committee. This was, of course, due to his questionable awarding of contracts to a girlfriend, among other allegations of ethics violations. At the same time, he was removed from the Committee on Finance and Revenue, a move that seemed a long time coming given his guilty plea to failure to pay income tax.

It’s June now, and both candidates for Council chair are talking about giving Barry a committee chairmanship in 2011. Yup, that’s right, Barry could potentially get his power back in less than a year, and there’s nothing voters can do about it. Both Kwame Brown and Vincent Orange have not ruled out restoring Barry’s position. In fact, current At-Large Councilmember Brown has said it only makes sense, and that as chair all Councilmembers would head a committee. This was also the policy of current chair Vincent Gray, prior to Barry’s censure.

Mike DeBonis over at the WaPo has a good round-up of the issue, which is seemingly beyond understanding.

“You shouldn’t sit on the council, make that much money part-time and not be accountable for trying to move this city forward,” Brown said. “It’s the responsible thing to do.”

Vincent Orange, the former Councilmember and Pepco employee was a little more wishy-washy than Brown on the matter. Orange, at least, admitted that more information was needed to decide, considering that federal prosecutors are reviewing Barry’s case.

With neither of the Council chair candidates taking a hard stand on Barry’s ethics problems, it almost makes you want to write-in Vincent Gray for chair this November.