Category: Uncategorized

I’m experiencing problems.

Here’s a link to a lovely piece on the ANC race over in 2C.

I noticed on JD Land’s website she had a really cool table tracking permits and crime and all sorts of goodies on her blog about SE DC taken from DC Stat. Unfortunately, I do not possess her G’d given talent for machine readable data manipulation, so you won’t be getting any of that here.
But nicely enough the DC government has gone a step in the right direction, they have created an easy crime map. But I didn’t get the same cool features popping up in the Washington Post article. If I wanted to look at 1 type of crime, then I got the cool icons. All crimes together, same icon. That’s a bug I’m sure that can be worked out. Also you can download the data from the map to an Excel file. Sadly, the whole thing is anti-Mac. I’ll have to deal with my semi-retired PC to play around with the tables and whatnot because, the site is up front saying that you NEED Internet Explorer (which I don’t have on my Mac).

There is somethings that have been bugging me. It is a common misperception, and I understand the logic of how one can think in those terms.
One. Homeowner does not equal occupant. I don’t have the figures in front of me but home ownership supposedly now is at a record high or something like that, so it would be logical to assume that most people were homeowners 100 years ago. Nope. Well at least not in my subject group. On the form I use tracking 1900 households, I’m circling ‘R’ for renter than I am ‘O’ for owner. So that’s why the census is so important. The deeds and the ownership history won’t tell me jack about who lived in it. I have a mild curiosity about TC or Shaw landlords, but not strong enough to do any heavy research on it right now.
Second is women working outside the home. Married or single, poor women worked. Old maid middle class daughters worked. There are tons of ‘Laundressess’ in the TC not all of them heads of households. I also noticed in houses that may have 2-3 adult (anyone over 16 yo) generations, even the middle class white daughters had clerk, sales, and dressmaker jobs. Only so many are needed to keep house, everyone else either went to school or worked.

Here’s the deal: You dress up, I give you candy. Here’s another part of the deal: If you don’t want to bother with either the candy giving or the dressing up, don’t. Turn out the lights, stay home, go somewhere else where no one expects anything out of you. But don’t expect me to fulfill one part of the deal when you don’t pony up to the other. Meaning, no costume, no candy.
I like Halloween well enough that I do buy candy and look forward to giving it to the kids who come by. However, there are a number of kids who don’t bother and just ruin the spirit of it. When enough uncostumed kids show up at my door halfway through I just don’t want to be bothered because I feel that someone (several someones) aren’t keeping up their end of the deal.
Rapper, is not a costume. As I have noticed it does not require you to look any different than you normally do.
Being poor is not a valid excuse either. Go to Giant. Get a paper bag. Make two eye & 1 mouth hole. Viola! Mask! For those of us of a certain age, you are the “Unknown Comic”. Get a large sized plastic bag, wear it like a dress and stick a few twigs in it, you are a grocery bag stuck in a tree. With talcum powder and $2 of cheap makeup from the dollar store you can make a gang of zombies. Material poverty does not have to equal mental and creative poverty.
So next week, here’s the deal: You dress up, I give you candy.
Note: Jimbo you deserve a whole bag of candy.

Okay I hacked up most of my tomato plants and got two big plastic bags of green tomatoes ranging from the size of small grapefruits to ping pong balls. I have 96 green tomatoes in three windows to turn green or yellow. I gave away a couple of dozen small and mid-sized tomatoes to neighbors who I thought would have some idea of what to do with green tomatoes. Yes, I know you can fry them, but I’ve never ate a fried green tomato, so I wouldn’t know how to properly cook them. Besides I like them red, or yellow. I still have about 40 small ping pong sized tomatoes to give away to neighbors.

So I’m walking back home, scanning the street and the yards as I walk, because ladies (and guys) this is an urban area and you have to be aware of your surroundings. Anyway, scanning, walking and I spot something in some one’s yard. I see big ugly bird feet and a white body and I think to myself, “That is one ugly duck lawn ornament.” Then the lawn ornament moves. It’s a chicken! A live and very ugly hen.

Okay Fridays are slow days so I figure I can offer this. For today only (Friday October 20, 2006) between now and 5:30PM for residents of the TC, I will tell you who lived in your house in 1900. The TC being anything within the boundaries of Florida, North Cap, New York, and New Jersey Avenues NW. Oh, and your place had to have existed in 1900, which is a good percentage of the houses ’round here.
So you email me at mari at inshaw period com with the subject line “1900 census” and a or your TC address in the body and I will email you back sometime today with info about the 1900 residents (if any) at that address.
See folks history can be fun!

I’m a little late on this but the Bates Market at the corner of 3rd and P is closed. According to the chatter on the TruxtonCircle discussion board, Georgians (of the former Soviet Republic, birthplace of Stalin) are going to take over. Why? I don’t know what attraction the place would have for area Georgians, but what appears will be interesting.
All I know is that it was poorly lit store where some folks hung out. It was a source of get drunk quick malt liquor and dusty canned goods. I had only gone in the store maybe 5 times in the years I have lived here. I prefer G&G Market on NJ and Q. No liquor or beer, well lit, and not too many people hanging out in front.

Truxtonian and I have recently been invited by the District of Columbia to appear at the DC Superior court for jury duty. Gaging the crowd forced to watch Sandra Bullock in that 1995 classic “The Net”, a lot of folks were invited and actually bothered to show up. However the crowd did not seem to reflect the 56% black, 32% white, & 10% something else demographic of the city. Also I was not as lucky as I was last time, where I was freed after lunch. This time I was called in so the lawyers could pick and choose (yeah, there is a word for it but I don’t know what it is) from the pool. The defendant, was a black male and I could count the number black men in the pool on one hand. There were a healthy number of black women, including myself, who were talking amongst ourselves trying to figure out how NOT to get picked. Then there was the huge variety of Anglos including a subset of law students, lawyers, and people who work in law firms and plan to go to law school. Chatting with T about his experience, he also noticed a whiter jury pool reflecting the demographic of people moving into the city.
What does this mean for justice? For the city? I don’t know. All I know is that the jury lounge needs more tables, more electrical outlets, and some decent wifi.