A little advice to keep your iPhone from getting stolen

People, if you own an iPhone, you have a portable little device that sells for about $200 on EBay broken. Not jailbroken. Cracked screen broken. So imagine if a thief manages to grab it from you fully functional.
On the green line one afternoon, after work I noticed a young woman standing near the door, one hand on the handle of a suitcase burdened down with other bags and one hand, outstretched playing with her iPhone. Her body language just screamed, “Hey steal my iPhone!” She was conveniently near the door, for a quick getaway. The number of bags she had, made it unlikely that she’d go running after my imagined thief. And since everyone else on the train was in their own little worlds, the likelihood that someone would chase after this imagined thief, small. The distance she held it out from her body made it easy to knock it out from her hands.
She wasn’t the only young woman holding her precious iPhone a foot from her body, making it easy to grab. I saw another walking down 7th Street in Penn Quarter. She might as well have been holding it out another 6 inches further saying, “Here, here, take my phone.”
So my advice is when you’re out in public. Public being outside of your office, your dorm, house, your own private vehicle, hold your iPhone out no more than 6 inches from your body. Also it doesn’t matter what neighborhood you’re in because even Georgetown is experiencing iPhone theft.

Big Bear Beer II

Sometime after all the youth/school related stuff at the BACA meeting, about an hour into it, we finally got to Big Bear and their general ideas of pursuing an ABC liquor license. There were two persons from Bog Bear, one being Matt Sellers, the other guy a blond barista… now if it is a guy do you call them baristas? Not baristos?
Anyway. Big Bear is aiming for a CR license. For those of you unfamiliar with the wonderful world of ABC licenses, a class C Restaurant license is one for places where at least 45% of revenues come from food sales. It is different from the class of licenses for bars or corner markets. The was one objection mentioned, coming from a Baptist minister, presenting his concerns about people getting drunk and hanging out in the park. This was countered by the Episcopalian church secretary reminding him of Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding at Cana, turning water into wine.
There were questions about Big Bear expanding and the space they have. The bear is kind of landlocked and the space above is leased to tenants, so in the near future, nope. Maybe, years down the road. Another question was the issue of vagrants/ neighbor characters. Characters do drop by to get a glass of water and to use the bathroom and for the most part they don’t cause a problem.
The idea is Big Bear has a vibe as a cafe, hang out and they have no intention of becoming a bar, they just want to expand their food service options. I asked the barista (m) if the idea is to offer something like Teaism, and he answered in the affirmative. As far as I can tell despite having a small park area and a restaurant/bar across the street, the Penn Quarter Teaism fails to produce drunkards rolling out of its doors.

Big Bear Beer?

I noticed this in the announcement for today’s BACA meeting:

(b) Ms. Elizabeth Lyttleton, an Eckington resident who provides occasional consulting services to Big Bear Café, asked for time on our agenda to apprise our group of the status of the cafe’s current efforts to acquire a license from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. I am advised that Ms. Lyttleton developed a scheduling conflict that won’t allow her to attend Monday’s meeting in person; however, she plans to identify someone else to make her expected presentation and to answer any questions that it might generate.

TODAY! 7PM Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, in the basement cafeteria.

Taxes

Let’s get personal at first, then we’ll get real.
In my general tradition I have finished my personal federal and DC taxes in the last week of February. I sort of did my federal taxes during the blizzard of 2010, but as always, there are forms and papers that trickle in the mail reminding me of donations and income I’ve completely forgotten about. But once you’ve done your federal taxes you can file your DC individual taxes on-line, for free. To do so you will need your federal Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) you entered on your 2008 DC tax return (form D-40EZ, line 3 or form D-40, line 3). If you didn’t file last year in DC then you can’t use the on-line feature. A quick review of my taxes (I used H&R Block’s software) shows that I could have donated more to charity, and put more in my retirement plan.
My biggest tax break came from real estate. I paid somewhere around 11K or 13K in mortgage interest, which knocked about 2K off in personal taxes. Maybe I can use that savings to make up for the noticeable jump in real estate taxes levied by the District.
If you haven’t got your assessment, be prepared. You know that 10% cap? Yeah, forget about it. There’s now a minimum tax floor, 40% of the assessed value of the home. Not even the senior citizens’ are safe. I noticed they’re getting hit with the same floor, so not so great news for granny. But on the plus side, it does make some problem houses have an incentive to sell.
My own feelings about it are mixed. I liked having a lower tax rate because I bought before the RE boom but at the same time the low tax was like a pair of golden shackles. The tax was a great incentive not to even think of moving. But as certain things in my life change, and I can anticipate that my housing needs may change, making the tax difference from one house to another a minor factor, frees me up to ponder living elsewhere, even if that elsewhere is down the block or off in PG.

I'm just saying


R St and NJ
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

1701 NJ Ave NW is up for sale, again. I swore I’ve seen this place pop up everyso often. Even though there is an open house for this it’s priced at a 2008 “make me move” price, $729K . Considering a more spacious and private home across the street at 1718 NJ Ave sold for less than $600K (with parking, small back yard and a separate rental unit), it’s not signaling that the owners are in any hurry to move.
During our last big snowstorm the owners had their own private walkways shoveled but failed to make any effort to shovel at least one of their sidewalks. Amazingly, the shoveling went about 1 foot past the front gate and stopped about 5-6 inches from the neighbor’s sidewalk shoveling efforts, creating something very uneven. The rear of the house is nothing but parking, and whomever was hired to shovel the driveway parking and just enough of the alley for a car, dumped some of the ice right in front of the path of the unshoveled sidewalk. Bad, enough not to shovel the sidewalk, but to dump and block, that’s bad.

Please secure your rear

I just came from a unrewarding task. While putting my trash can away I noticed not 1, not 2, but about 4 home security issues of concern that could result in a break in or theft from a home or yard. Now if it was just one house, I would go to that person’s house and knock on their door and point out that their back gate latch is unlatched, their rear security door (iron door) is wide open or any of the other concerns I noticed. But with 4, screw it. I’m just doing one and that one, the person wasn’t at home. I left a note.
I’m not repeating it with 3 more houses.
So folks I know the snow probably kept you out of your back yard and away from your alley access. Well the alleys are mostly walkable now and wood warps (why your back fence gate is open), so check your rear.

BACA block captains wanted

There is a workshop for folks interesting in becoming block captains on March 11 from 7-9PM at the 5th District police headquarters. I gather the goal is to improve the safety of the community. If interested please contact Jim Berry at jamojam at msn periodthingy com. Ask about the car pool.