Five Reasons to Keep My Security Bars
NOTE: This was an unpublished draft that for one reason or another I did not publish on the date given. In order to clear out my draft folder on 12-16-2013 I chose to publish it. However, I won't vouch for the completeness or accuracy of it, and it most likely does not reflect my opinion anymore.
1. Zombie Attack.. unless they get up to the 2nd floor then I'm screwed.
2. Gardening. I hang window boxes and trellis from them.
3. Flier holders. An alternative to placing them in my mailbox or fence.
4. Target for the Newspaper Guy. Aim for the door, not the plants.
5. The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. incident. You can't arrest me if you can't get in.... without a warrant of course.
Labels: misc
Low flying helicopters
Okay, maybe they are actually looking for or at something when they are hovering over my area at a low altitude. But dang it they are loud, and sometimes at different hours annoying.
The day after one of them whirlybirds has been flying overhead I check
Airscene.com, hit 'flight tracking' then flights to try to find the annoying thing and see how low it was flying. Typically the police copters are UNK, but I know what they are and when they where here, I just can't gauge how low they were flying. Wednesday, around 4pm, the skies were busy and UNKs flying below 1000 feet.
Labels: misc
No I will not join you on Facebook
It isn't you.
It's me.
And I'm not joining Facebook or getting a MySpace account and to maintain a level of privacy (and the right to change my mind a million times without any grief) I ain't twittering.
The blogs are enough.
What I really want to do is be able to do before the computer and the Internet, curl up and get completely lost in a good book. Ocassionally I've been able to find a 'can't put it down' book, but the time for it, seems to be gone. I'm afraid if I even consent to one more time suck, the ability to enjoy and feel the great pleasure of a good book will be lost.
Labels: misc
Free Shrek showing
For some odd reason:
Film: Shrek, December 12 at Archives I
Beautiful princesses, handsome princes, witches, ogres, and fire-breathing dragons turn up in almost every fairy tale. They're all in this computer-animated adventure, but their roles, and the surprising plot twists, are anything but expected in this fun adaptation of the children''s book by William Steig. Features the voices of Mike Meyers, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy. (2001, 90 minutes) Saturday, December 12, at noon in the McGowan Theater at Archives I.
Archives I is the National Archives downtown. I'm guessing the entrance will be the Constitution Avenue side. Too bad you can't mix that with a little neighborhood research, as the downtown National Archives building has the censuses for DC (as well as the rest of the country), DC building permits, and a whole bunch of DC wills.
Labels: misc
Does this mean the end of the Methodone McDonald's?
A few days ago Scott Roberts
mentioned on the Bloomingdale blog that the methodone clinic down near the messy intersection of NY and N Cap is closing. Comments to that post say that they are just going to relocate and are still open. But when they do move how much of an impact will it have on the southern TC border? And will the methadone McDonald's be less methadoney?
Labels: misc
Monday Miscellany
Well someone is
"thinking" about redoing the look of that
prison school on New Jersey, called Dunbar.
The BACA
blog announced that North Capitol Main Streets has announced an effort to clean up North Capitol from RI to NY Aves.
Somehow my Truxton Circle updates started up again. For a while I got nothing, and now, for no reason I can tell, I'm getting the
TruxtonCircle.org updates. It's a Thanksgiving miracle!
Speaking of the TC, I have restarted the TC Census project by bartering with my cousin. In exchange for a big ole spreadsheet tracking the 1900 era residents of the TC, their occupations and such, she gets to live with me free and I feed her. So far, she's discovering occupations that no longer exist like milliner, coppersmith, and compositor. It appears that a number of folks worked down at the GPO on North Capitol, a walkable and bike-able commute.
Labels: misc
Miscellany
Food.
Well Corduroy, Cork and Etete are Shaw (or close enough) area restaurants that made it onto Tom Sietsema's
Top Restaurant Recommendation list.
Bread for the City is launching a blog, and having a launch party. It's going to be at the Big Bear Cafe on Oct. 24th at 5pm. See more info
here.
Halloween.Yes, kids trick or treat here. Buy candy what you don't give to kids, dump at your office and feed to the hungry interns. See past posts on the topic of trick or treating
here and
here and
here.
Rehab
In the
sad tale of apparently two nice guys, one a homeowner the other a contractor,
Stu Davenport, good guy AND
competent contractor steps in and saves the day. Stu is also a 5C ANC commissioner and co-owner of Big Bear.
The horror story told in the Washington City Paper's blog
The Housing Complex reminds us that if you are having major work done, don't expect DCRA to protect you. If you're paying over 10K for some guy to rip up your house it is on you to take a look at his previous work and talk at least 2 or 3 of his most recent clients. I do remember talking to
David's clients, and he'd done work for some friends of mine whose house I admired. It's great if a contractor is nice and well meaning but you really need to check that he knows what the heck he's doing.
Labels: misc
Truxtun, townhouses, and misc
How was your weekend? Mine was supposed to be spent finishing up the Ten Days of Truxtun, which I didn't do, so no Tom Truxtun today.
Somewhere among the row of townhouses on 4th Street, one has popped up for sale recently, making 3 houses on 4th Street on the market. I've been inside 2 of the 3. Going from highest to lowest is
1714 4th St NW on the market for $519K. It's got an apartment downstairs and I haven't been inside. It is next to a green space neighbors carved out of an abandoned lot, and parking that according to records is another lot, but looks like part of the road. On a smaller lot with no off street parking and no alley is
1547 4th St NW at $479,900. I've been in it. From what I can remember the basement is not a separate unit. It is also on the same block as the mosque. But residents of that block tell me they sometimes mentally block out the calls to prayer. Lastly is
1619 4th St NW on the market for $439K. The backyard is deep and has a wide alley. An alley wide enough for dump truck to go through, so trash is collected alley side. One could park in this backyard or if you have a compact car, carve out some parking and have a decent back patio. The fireplace in this house is a gas fireplace, and not the old fashioned find wood and throw it in kinds. That fireplace does warm up the house pretty nicely. A few things I dislike about the listing is that the neighborhood listed is "Convention Center/Shaw". Well at least the Shaw part is right.
If you have questions about the neighborhood surroundings of these houses feel free to email me at mari at inshaw punt com.
Miscellany? Friends don't let friends get
Obama chias. I would take a picture of the current state of the Obama Chia, but it looks so wrong. The chia is so uneven and spotty, it is sad.
Labels: houses, misc
Hodgepodge of Stuff
There are links of stuff from other blogs I keep meaning to comment on or share with others but for one reason or another don't so I'm going to try...
Scott Roberts of Bloomingdale has a post on this week's
BACA meeting and the LAYC issue.
PoP reports on a Penn Quarter Farmer's Market
hater who wants the joint shut down.
There's supposed to be a DDOT presentation regarding Richardson Place on October 8th. I don't know where or a what time.
The
5th St Hardware store is offering personal shopping and 9 volt batteries (between 10/5-10/11 for fire safety week). For the personal shopping order before 1pm and pick up by 5.
Longview Gallery on 9th St will be having a grand opening party on the 22nd. RSVP by October 19th to info [at]longviewgallery.com .
Blagden Alley has
an email in regards to the Dr. Ximena Hartsock issue and the disapproval of her appointment as Director of Parks and Recreation.
The condos being built on the 400 block of Rhode Island have a
website. However I disagree that Big Bear
recently opened and it isn't a weekend Open market. It's the Bloomingdale Farmer's Market! The market has a name, use it. And whomever drew that map, needs to be hit with a newspaper.
And lastly the effort to hinder one's first amendment rights with an ounce of crazy and a stay away order has been defeated. A neighborhood bully, who shall not be named, filed for a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) against the CCCA prez, as part of that bully's tactics of trying to silence critics, when the usual threats and insanity doesn't work.
Labels: misc
What's in a name?
I'll probably get back to my regular blogging after Labor Day. But I wanted to start blogging about a topic I keep coming back to and that is neighborhood names. Part of the problem is I'm not from Washington, DC. A lot of us aren't from the District. And some few natives I have known, hailing from other parts of the city aren't necessarily familiar with all parts of town. Armed with ignorance and unencumbered with any childhood attachment of names, we get into petty squabbles of if where Bloomingdale ends and Eckington begins and if Bloomingdale is a part of Eckington at all.
Why does it matter?
When I went home to Florida and when I started looking to buy property I noticed that place names aren't uniformed or well known or even written in stone. Some time back my mother said we lived on Tucker Hill. Which, when she told me this was news to me. It was the name of a cemetery not too far from the house. But not the name of the cemetery closer to the house. When I was looking for property close to my mother Tucker Hill was not a neighborhood search term. It was 'West something'. When I checked the municipality's property tax website, it was 'West something else'. The only commonality was it began with 'West'.
Growing up it seems that everyone just used landmarks and street names as neighborhood identifiers. You lived over there by that elementary school, the library, or on this street near the old Winn-Dixie. And it helps to know that the vacant box strip-mall was a Winn-Dixie in the first place. Friends in cul-de-sac neighborhoods hardly referred to where they lived by the developer's name. Turkey-Pine-Willow-Creek-Run-Farm all sounds alike after awhile. It was just the sign you turn at. There were a few developments, retirement villages whose names wound up describing whatever happened to be near it. But those were the few, everything else, 50th St near the Publix out on Pine.
So I come here and I live hear in the District. The DC tax website says I live in Old City. The mid-20th century urban renewal projects of the National Capital Planning Commission say I live in Northwest and later the Shaw School Urban Renewal Area. Efforts in the 80s by the District government describe the particular area where I currently live and where they then were selling properties is Truxton Circle. There was a circle in the early 20th century. It's gone now. It's parts rotting in a park elsewhere. There was a post office of that name. That went away in the 60s or 70s. Google and several other maps and some DC Planning brochures currently call it Truxton Circle. Then came the eight Wards in the 70s and Shaw got divided by four wards, most of Shaw is in Ward 2. I'm in Ward 5. Somehow a small block group grew from Bates Street and it now describes the northern part of Truxton as the Bates Area Civic Association.
Dunbar High School on New Jersey Avenue looms over the neighborhood. You can see the top of this tall ugly prison-like building from the corner of Florida and North Capitol. And I am near it, so I concede on that point that Dunbar could be a description of the neighborhood, as in 'near Dunbar'. It's tall enough and takes up enough acreage to be a landmark. Yeah, there was a nicer looking Dunbar, and a more notable Dunbar before the current building, but that's gone. And it is so close to several other schools, Cook (no e), Armstrong, Slater and Langston.
So where do I live? Old City? Ward 5? ANC 5C? Truxton? Shaw? Bates? Northwest? Over by New Jersey near Dunbar? All of the above.
Labels: misc
Farewell to interns
Today we are saying goodbye to a few of our interns here at Fight Club* and at the good bye party we had for the gaggle of them there was one that stood out. This guy was passionate and infectiously enthusiastic about what we do here. Infectiously enthusiastic. His love of history just constantly beamed unashamedly from his face and was expressed in his movements when he talked about being in DC and going to the other cultural institutions. When I saw him a day or so later I said, "Don't ever lose that enthusiasm." He plans to become a teacher.
We've had a great batch of students this year. They were good natured, followed instructions, had a great interest in the work we did here, got along with each other, and tore through projects with amazing speed and accuracy.
*I'm just going to refer to the place I work as Fight Club or the Bureau of Fight Club, because the boss told me the 1st rule about Fight Club.
Labels: misc
1st on First and other things
Other blogs have
mentioned it and here's a reminder that there will be an arts festival on Saturday the 'first' of August on First St NW, between Windows and Big Bear. See more here at the
BACA Blog.
I see that Scenic Artistan is
closing shop for the Bloomingdale Blog.
The DC GOP wanted me to let y'all know they brought food to the last CCCA meeting (over in the Ward 2 section of Shaw). I just wanna know did they bring something other than soda and cookies? I would have asked the Patrick Mara (who spoke at the CCCA mtg) looking guy I saw get on the Metro at Mt. Vernon Square Wednesday, but I've been quite pre-occuppied with some personal business that involves a lot of hurry up and wait, so I didn't ask.
Speaking of, I'm probably going to be low key for the next week as the personal business has been taking up a lot of energy and time and thought. Anyway, have a good weekend.
Labels: Art, misc
Dream Non-Profit Thread
I had another post in mind, but figured I should take a picture of the subject. So until I do, let's play a game. I call it, "Make Up A Non-Profit".
Pretend you've been given 3 million dollars to set up a non-profit that needs to last at least 5 years. The 3 mil is for operational (staffing, office rent, supplies) and other expenses (grants). And the mission can be a little off the wall or unusual. And major rule, it cannot already exist. No homeless shelters unless it's a homeless shelter for people and their pets.
Lots of you work for non-profits, and I onced worked for a non-profit, so you know, 3 million doesn't go very far. So what would you create?
Me? The Tom Bard Scholarship for tall guys named Tom and the "Oh Crap I Lost My Scholarship" Scholarship Fund. For people, who like me, lost their scholarship because they did something stupid like take 'challenging' classes their first year.
Labels: misc
Bundy School Meeting July 9th
The BACA blog has the meeting info
here.Hopefully, it will be a constructive meeting where the actual needs of Safe Shores, dog owners, and the community at large will be addressed.
What do I need? A safe block that doesn't become a dead zone after the sun sets. P Street is a straight shot from the Giant and the G2 stops along there. The lack of life on that block is quite noticeable at night when you're lugging groceries, which is why I no longer do that.
Labels: misc
Nothing historical about this post
Nicholas Cage can be a great actor and sometimes he's been crap. Sometimes, it's the roles and you really can't blame an actor for shytastic writing. If you want to see Nick Cage for free tomorrow, because you want to see a movie with bad history that makes no sense the
Archives downtown is showing National Treasure II.
You'll see Pennsylvania Avenue and the University of Maryland, where the main character goes to chat up his mom. The problem is though she's supposed to be a professor, her office is bigger and way cleaner than any prof's office I've ever seen. You're tenured, you get the closet with the window. And almost all my professors had piles of paper and books and stuff.
Labels: misc
Quick Plug- Free Ice Cream
Normally, this would go on the announcements page, if at all as it isn't in Shaw....
Sunday June 21st in/near Penn Quarter- Gifford's Ice Cream- 555 11th Street, N.W. near E Street & 10th, from noon til they run out, a sundae to
promote a movie, (500) Days of Summer.
Labels: misc
Execu-bird & my TV
I've occasionally complained about the ghetto birds- the MPD helicopters that come around after a shooting or something like that. They wander high in the sky above the hood and I could tell when they were around because the digital signal on my TV would get all screwy.
Since January I've noticed an uptick in air traffic above the neighborhood, mainly due to an uptick in television disruption. When I go outside to angrily shake my fist at the offending helicopter, I've noticed that it isn't always a MPD marked or even MPD whirlybird shaped aircraft. I've noticed somethings that look like they could be the President's or some military, Big Bertha looking like copters flying low. They fly lower than the MPD copters, and are bigger and come around more often, which means I looking at a TV screen frozen on one image with little pixels out of whack. And when it comes back into whack, the sound doesn't match the picture.
I should mention, I don't have cable or DishTV, I get my signal from the airwaves.
Anyone else experience this problem or can tell me what are those other helicopters flying over the hood so I know where to send a letter of complaint?
Labels: misc
Greener Than Thou
I'm taking a break running errands that got pushed back to today because of the rain, and because I don't have a car. I haven't had a car since 1993, and living a car less lifestyle comes with some pluses and minuses. The reason I don't have a car has more to do with money and the hassles of maintenance and not some Green philosophy. The greenie-ness is more of an added bonus.
My posting regarding the 5 cent tax on paper and the ever hated plastic bags, did raise some ire from some readers. I'm perfectly OK with being in disagreement on this point, as I'll let time prove me wrong. Also I'm not out to win any greener than thou awards, we all have a multitude of green sins, some known and unknown, some that are easily avoided, others too ingrained in our identity.
When I say our identity, I include the obvious, like cars and the not so obvious, like our jobs, and our recreational activities. The computer was supposed to render the office paperless, instead the volume of paper exploded, and it has become cheaper to produce meeting minutes, handouts, leaflets, menus, fliers and maps that people will look at then toss out. We are horrible water wasters, letting the tap run as we brush our teeth and lather. We shower daily, and flush away gallons of potable water to be rid of a cup of pee. Then there is the electricity we use to stay online, charge our devices, keep our food, light our homes into the night (how much energy would you save if you went to bed at 8:30?), cool in the summer and heat in the winter. Even though I don't have a car, I'm still dependent on fossil fuels because the bus and the train use diesel. At some points these exercises in examining every single action and choice, seems like asking how many angels can dance on the pin of a needle? You can spend an infinite amount of time and energy on things that in practice may have very little impact and are quickly abandoned.
We should make the effort to be Green, but we should avoid those heavy burdens that would make us turn away, give up, and not bother.
Labels: misc, quality of life
Ridge Street
Okay Nobody, no body entered my contest Friday. I'm disappointed. I'm offering it up again, but this time there is no second place ice cream prize, because the homemade chocolate with coco nibs and the drunken cherry chocolate have been eaten or given away. But I still have a ticket for the BACA Flower Power Garden Walk on June 13th. This contest is open to anyone in Shaw, Bloomingdale and Mt Vernon Square.
Here's the question, what is the address of a Ridge Street NW house that is still standing today but in 1940 was listed as "old and in poor condition" or "poor condition"?
It may sound hard but I got a huge list and it is amazing what wasn't listed as in bad condition.
First correct answer sent to mari at inshaw period com before 4pm today wins.
Labels: misc
Friday Contest
Sort of related to the BACA Flower Power cleanup that is occurring tomorrow, starting at 9AM in front of Armstrong (1st & P) I'm going to have a contest.
The prizes are 1st place, 1 ticket to the Flower Power Walk June 13th, value $10; 2nd place a choice between a yogurt cup sized portion of chocolate coco nib ice cream or drunken cherry chocolate ice cream. The rules are you have to live within the boundaries of 6th, Florida, P, and North Cap NW and most favored answer picked at 4pm wins. Email entries to mari at inshaw period com
Question- Name a flower that is edible, looks great, can grow in DC, and tastes good, or not half bad.
So what's with the ice cream? I made chocolate ice cream last night. It is very rich. The eggs, cream and milk all came from the Timor bodega. In one batch I threw in some coco nibs. In another small batch, some chopped up cherries that had been sitting in vodka for 3 months.
Labels: misc
