Need inspiration

I has occurred to me that if my friendly neighborhood drug dealers are gone from my sight, why bother blogging? What will be my inspiration? The liquor stores aren’t as much of an issue these days as in years past. Most of them now carry wine I can cook with. The number of problem houses are down, but then again it is winter and the problems associated with them are less visible. Complaining about the neighborhood was the greatest inspiration to my writing.
I was looking back at some old posts, as this blog does go back to 2003, to add tags, so I can find stuff, and see how I and the neighborhood changed. I see that I’m getting closer to the neighborhood I wanted. If I could say anything to the 2003 or the 2000 (when I moved to Shaw) me, it would be, ‘it’s going to be okay.’

For Victims of the Jackson St Fire

Ward 5 Business Council Establishes Tawana Gantt Fund to Assist Victims and Survivors of Jackson Street, NE Fire
Washington DC – At the request of Ward 5 Councilmember Harry “Tommy” Thomas, Jr., the Ward 5 Business Council has established the Tawana Gantt Fund at Cardinal Bank to assist with funeral arrangements for Tawana Gantt and the five other family members who perished with her in the January 1, 2009 Jackson Street, NE house fire: Ms. Gantt’s daughter, Kaniya, age four; Oscar Wilson III, age 11; Joseph Wilson, age 10; Keith Nelson, age 23; and Charles Smith, age 72.

Ms. Gantt, 22, was a dedicated employee in the office of Councilmember Thomas where she worked on constituent service and Ward 5 Business Council issues.

Check may be made payable to the Tawana Gantt Fund and sent to:

Tawana Gantt Fund
c/o Ward 5 Business Council
PO Box 90918
Washington, DC 20090

Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming.

“Tawana was a hard worker,” said Councilmember Thomas. “She had an incredibly cheerful, positive attitude and willingness to lend a hand wherever and whenever needed. We will all miss her.”

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Harry “Tommy” Thomas, Jr. represents Ward 5 on the Council of the District of Columbia. Thomas chairs the Council’s Committee on Libraries, Parks, and Recreation. He sits on two additional committees: Health and Workforce Development and Government Operations.

A few useful things

MPD has a crime mapping thing, that as of this morning the map feature does not like Firefox or Macs. You too can get the same thrill the police get when looking at statistics that say that crime is down. However, you are tempered by the fact that the latest victim of the theft from auto was your neighbor and the fact that there are fewer thefts from autos is of little comfort. I went down to the level of my block and discovered crime is down in almost everything, except one thing where it is up by several hundred percent.

If you didn’t notice it on the right hand side of the blog I have links to find when the next 96, or G2 is coming, which sometimes is operational. There is a NextBus for the 96, the 90, the G8, the G2, the P2, and others. Poking around I found Nextbus for PG Co.