Month: August 2009

Can Can

Yesterday at the Bloomingdale Farmer’s Market I ran into MVSQ’s Si and mentioned I was going to buy 20-some odd pounds of tomatoes to can. On the Eckington Listserv or was it Scotts Bloomingdale list there was an announcement that one of the vendors was selling a box of tomatoes for $12. I started talking about my plans for canning and Si said I need to blog about it. So, here’s the first.

Supplies- I picked up my canning kit some time ago at the 5th Street Hardware store. They didn’t have it in stock so they ordered it for me and I picked it up several days later. It’s the Ball Canning Kit item # 6096606 and it comes with everything you need for hot water canning and costs about $55 bucks. I also grabbed some 1/2 pint and 1 pint jars from the store as well. The kit comes with the Ball Blue Book Canning Guide, which is how I sort of figured out WTF I’m doing.

So that afternoon I had Mrs. DC Education Blog, BL, come over so the near sighted could lead the blind. I had already canned a lot of strawberry vanilla fruit spread, some pineapples and some peaches. And so BL came to see how this canning thing is done.
I had already pealed and sorta quartered and sort of seeded the tomatoes when she came. They were of the seedy variety and at a certain point I gave up on trying to get all the seeds. I discovered I didn’t have to wait long, or for the skins to crack, after letting them bob around in boiling water and then dunking them in ice cold water. Too long in the boiling water and those puppies cooked in their skins, scalding my hands when I went to peel, core and deseed them.
Okay this post is getting long, so I’ll do a part two later.

Youth Jobs

I grew up in a mid-sized town in Florida. One day at a school assembly in the gym or cafeteria a person from Bob Evans came to speak to my high school about the franchise they were about to open up near the interstate. They were taking applications for waitstaff, bussers, etc and said it would be great after school work. I and a bunch of my friends applied. A guy named Michael from my group of friends got the job and held it from the time he was a junior until graduation. I, miffed that I didn’t get hired, started applying at other places around town and got a job at the Winn-Dixie at the age of 16. One of my friends got a job there too as bagger then stocker but about a year later got fired after an angry exchange with the store manager. Closer to DC and this century, my cousins in Laurel had the typical high school jobs working in the food service industry at the multi-national corporations of Pizza-Hut and Wendy’s.
So someone explain to me the city’s summer jobs programs. I’m a bit confused. Can’t kids get year round after school jobs? Which I believe is good prep for balancing college and “work-study”. So far this year we’ve seen youth produced green litter, tree destruction, and vandalism?/shoddy workmanship.
Before this year my knowledge of the program came from my (now retired) aunts’ description of whatever city sponsored intern was assigned to her at NGS. Some students were hits, with a great attitude, self-motivated, and talented with a wonderful work ethic. But there were several misses, of students who didn’t follow instructions, barely showed up on time, and screwed up so badly that she had to undo their work/damage. The bad ones were sometimes so clueless to their poor work that one asked for a referral letter. Then again, I’ve encountered college aged interns that bad too.
Getting back to the city program, what I don’t get is do these kids, or don’t they, have after-school work opportunities throughout the year? Is it cheaper than summer school, which serves the same purpose of keeping them out of trouble?
I guess what I’m trying to say is this large city sponsored youth employment thing is foreign to me. I’m not entirely sure what it succeeds in doing well. So somebody explain it to me.

Grass ‘looks’ greener on the Georgetown side

I wanted to quickly mention it before it went stale in my head. Georgetown Metropolitan has some stats on Georgetown crime. I found it interesting because everyso often people compare Shaw (or where ever they are in DC) to Georgetown, making it out to be some crime-free wonderland. It ain’t. If you want low crime get your butt to Palisades. Which I forget where exactly that is, and I bet some of you never heard of it.
The most interesting thing is Georgetown has more theft from autos and more burglaries per 1,000 residents than Dupont and Columbia Heights. What Georgetown is low in, are those crimes where one encounters the criminal.

Playground near Bundy & Middle Eastern Food

Shamelessly stolen from BACA blog, who got it from the CCCA-Blog.
Item #1- There is going to be a children’s playground at Scott-Montgomery. They broke ground, there is equipment awaiting installation, and even better…. a edible learning garden! I love edibles. I love it even better when other people, including small people with growing brains, get to learn that food does not come from the supermarket. It comes from the good earth. Yay! According to the CCCA, “Access to the outdoor tot lot in the small courtyard on 1500 Fifth St NW will be made available local families and age-appropriate children in the neighborhood outside of regular school hours.” I hope this means they can keep out cursing, dope smoking adults who tend to take over playgrounds. Yeah, I’m talking about the guys around the block, who used to haunt the basketball courts that where behind KIPP/Scott-Montgomery. And hopefully this space will appreciated by some of the anti-dog park people who say children need a park. Well it’s coming and that is a good thing.

Item #2- Toque Cafe- Middle Eastern restaurant to be at 6th and R. One word, falafel. Some more words- the former Chain Reaction space is going to serve food and G-d and city government willing, there may be outdoor seating. My only concern is the corner of R and the alley running behind it seems to attract bulk trash on a regular basis, I swear it is some dumping ground. I think today I saw a headboard and some other furniture. But that shouldn’t keep me from falafels. I pray they make good falafels with a decent tahini sauce. Last local mid-east place I went to (now out of business) put ranch dressing on the falafel. Bad. Bad. Bad.

13 year old boys are idiots

A neighbor kid along with his little friends were in the alley behind my house and for some reason one of them decided to break a window. I was in the backyard trying to get my little grill going to roast some peppers when I heard the crash of pane glass. Pane glass breaking has a different sound from glass bottles and car windows. I immediately hopped up on a chair to see what was up and saw a group (5 or more) kids running down the alley. I screamed at them and then recognized one and told him he was in trouble.
I went into the alley to see if they actually broke a window, and if so, was it to an occupied house. There was a couple peering over the fence and apparently the kids broke their window, we talked and I told them which house one of the kids lived in. Later I called another neighbor to get the phone number of the adult responsible for the kid I recognized, so I could give her a heads up. As far as I know the police have not been involved yet, and it looks like everything going to be worked out between the adults.
Reflecting on this, boys are idiots. It would have been pointless to ask “what were you thinking?” They probably weren’t. And to do something so stupid “one block” from where you live, very stupid.

I ‘heart’ the Nextbus App

I’ve been using the NextBus iPhone app for little over a week now and I just love it, love it, love it, LOVE IT. Mainly because it saves me that precious thing called time.
Here’s the thing, I don’t have a car. So I depend on public transit, walking, friends with cars, or biking to get around. Most of the time I use the bus, especially when I think there is a possibility of rain. The problem with the bus is for some routes the posted timetable is a work of fiction or wish list. I’ve encountered buses that showed up early, late or not at all.
Anyway, I’ve been using the NextBus app to figure out how fast I need to walk to the bus stop. It takes me 7 to 10 minutes to get to the Shaw metro station to pick up the 79, if I see the bus is going to show up in 9 minutes I keep my walk brisk, any more than 13 I take the train to the mess a station that has no stairs and only one stationary escalator. This weekend I used the NextBus app to run errands in upper NW, get back home, go to the Florida Ave/ Capital City Market and so on.
Knowing when or if a bus is going to show helps me decide if I should hoof it, take a cab, take another bus to get me closer to a metro station or wait. It also helps me decide if it is time to go or if I should stick around somewhere a little longer for shopping, watching, etc.
Another great feature is the “Nearby Stops” which uses the phone’s GPS to tell me where the nearest stop is and what buses stop there and then when those buses are going to show up. I have my favorite stops bookmarked but when I’m running around other parts of the area, I have no clue of where the nearest stops are. Luckily the phone figures that out for me.
It isn’t perfect. This weekend I was up near the Washington Cathedral waiting for the 96, trying to decide if I should find lunch, catch a 30 bus to connect with the G2 or wait 50 minutes according to NextBus. The posted schedule said the next 96 was coming in 10 minutes, so I waited. Lo, the NextBus was wrong. Apparently the bus I caught didn’t have NextBus.

More on the Bundy Parking thing

Well good news, it appears that the Safe Shores folks won’t need the whole lot, read from the Friends of Bundy:

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

The District Department of Real Estate Services (formerly the Office of Property Management) has reviewed the parking requirements for the District’s Child Advocacy Center coordinated by Safe Shores at the Bundy School.*

With approximately 17 spaces available on the school lot, the site will require an additional 42 spaces in the back lot. This should leave approximately 8,800 square feet of space available for other use. [emphasis added]

As a reminder, the back lot is owned by the Federal government. The District cannot proceed with any plans (parking or otherwise) until after the land transfer is complete and funding is identified.

*The Safe Shores project is part of the District’s continuing effort to become a model jurisdiction by expanding the service capacity for children who are victims of physical and sexual abuse. Construction will be complete in November 2009. Subsequently, staff from the US Attorney’s Office, Office of the Attorney General, Metropolitan Police Department, Child and Family Services and the non-profit Safe Shores will move in and begin operations.

Robin-Eve Jasper, Director
DC Department of Real Estate Services
2000 14th Street, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20009

And…

Dear Friends,

This August 7, 2009 announcement from the DC Department of Real Estate Services (DRES), formerly the Office of Property Management (OPM), suggests that there will be ample space left on the vacant lot at Bundy for use as a dog park (see url above).

According to DC’s Dog Park Regulations (Section 733.1 under Dog Parks: Site Guidelines and Specification), “a dog park shall be no less than five thousand square feet (5,000 sq ft) in area where feasible.” Hence, the remaining space on the vacant lot at Bundy — not used by parking for future Bundy School tenants — would still meet the minimum requirements for establishing a dog park.

We will continue our efforts to reach out to neighbors and dog owners in Wards 2, 5 and 6 so that we will be able to demonstrate the impressive support we have for a dog park when DPR begins to process our formal application.

Thank you for your support. Hope to see you on Aug. 21 for Jazz on the Green at Bundy Park with the DC Choro Ensemble.

Payam Bakhaje

Friends of Bundy Park

Friday Night Parking on O St NW


O St Parking Friday
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

I’ve added a few more photos to the Flickr pool and would love it if there were more contributors. This was taken at about 8:30pm on a Friday night in front of the Bundy Field and the NW Co-Op 2. Please note the parking.Feel free to make comparisons with U Street and Dupont at about the same time of day.

Post Office on Chopping Block

PoP already posted this some time ago about the LeDriot Post Office, that thing that sits between New Jersey, Florida and Rhode Island Avenues. Yes, it isn’t open on weekends, it closes at 5pm M-F, and it is terribly small. Regardless, it is the one place where I buy my stamps and send off books I’m selling (Half.Com). I guess a letter to Eleanor Holmes Norton is in order. I know the Postal Service is hurting for money, but when the Fed-Ex and UPS has more outlets with convient hours, it may be the easier choice when deciding how to mail off packages. And that does not make USPS more profitable.