Tag: misc

AI, Eloyce Gist and Truxton Circle

So I decided to fool around with AI before it takes my job and brings those Boston Dynamic killer dog robots to kill me.

I was playing with NotebookLM and decided to throw some Eloyce Gist stuff at it. The fake podcast it produced…. is interesting.

After asking several Eloyce Gist questions, I asked it about Truxton Circle. This is what I got:

While the sources provide information about a filmmaker who lived and worked in Truxton Circle, they do not offer a clear definition of “Truxton Circle.” The sources do include some clues about the nature of Truxton Circle, which may help to clarify:
● A historically Black neighborhood in Washington, D.C.: Several sources refer to Truxton Circle as a neighborhood in Washington, D.C. that was historically Black. For example, one source describes Truxton Circle as a “historically Black Truxton Circle neighborhood in Washington, DC.”

Another mentions a series on “Black home owners of Truxton Circle.”

● Home to a beauty school in the 1920s: The sources provide details about the life and work of Eloyce Gist, a Black filmmaker who owned and operated a beauty school in Truxton Circle in the 1920s. Gist purchased the property for her business, the Patrick School of Beauty Culture and Personal Improvements, in 1922.

The sources note that, at the time, Truxton Circle was “just becoming a majority Black neighborhood.”

● Located within the pre-Home Rule boundaries of Shaw: Several sources provide a map of the “Boundaries pre-Home Rule” for Shaw, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C..
These maps list the neighborhood’s boundaries as:
○ Western: 15th Street NW
○ Eastern: North Capitol Street NW
○ Northern: Florida Ave NW
○ Southern: New York Ave NW, between North Cap and New Jersey, M Street NW between 3rd and 13th Streets NW, and N Street between 13th and 15th Streets NW.
Based on these clues, it seems likely that Truxton Circle is:
● A neighborhood, or a smaller section within a neighborhood, located in Washington, D.C..
● Situated within the historical boundaries of the Shaw neighborhood.
● A historically Black community, at least as of the early 20th century.
However, without further information from the sources, it is impossible to say for certain what Truxton Circle is or to offer more specific details about its location, history, or character.

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NOTE: This was an unpublished draft that for one reason or another I did not publish on the date given.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.

Wedding related post

Well some of you have asked how the wedding planning is going. It’s going. Because, according to the glossy Washington Post Wedding Planner dohicky that IT so nicely loaned me, we started late and there is the whole list of to-dos. I’m seeing why eloping to Vegas appears as an attractive option. So far, for the DC wedding (there will be an insanely sane and simple ceremony in CA for his parents) looks like it maybe all in Shaw, because it’s going to be in winter, I don’t feel like trudging to Maryland afterwards, and well, it is the cheapest option so far.

I am thinking it would be nice to make the ceremony a way to introduce The Help to the community, as we are going to make Shaw our home. But the main goal is to keep the thing as cheap and simple as possible because once it is over, we’ve got to deal with some house repairs that are long overdue. I’m really more interested in refilling the house repair coffers than fulfilling some princess for a day fantasy that costs as much as a new roof. I don’t want a photographer who costs more than it did to replace my stairs and walkway with slate. Seriously, slate stair and walkway, $1,600 that’s materials and labor, starting price for some photographers, $3000.

Anyway, regardless what we do or don’t do in DC, The Help will be moving from PG Co to DC and is looking forward to becoming part of the Shaw.  He’d known me as a friend when I bought the house and has seen how the neighborhood has changed over the years. Snarky suburban comments that he used to fling have given way to hope of getting to know neighbors better and cleaning up the streets.

Some PQ observations

I finally got around to asking the homeless guy who has been around the Archives/Navy Memorial what happened to Manhattan Deli, which closed last month with no announcement or nothin’. He said that one of the vendors around there said that the building owners bumped up the rent and so the Deli decided to pack up and move to Maryland. $6000 was the amount that did it. I don’t know if that’s $6000 a month or a week. Now where am I going to get slow surly service but cheap eats now?!

Another observation is there is a short cubby African American fellow engaging in some energetic air guitaring/ jogging between Penn Quarter and Gallery Place/Chinablock. He is not to be confused with jog in place guy who is tall and fit. Anyone else notice him? Has the PQ-GP/C corridor become known as the place where a Black brother can express himself freely with exercise and dance-like moves? One more jogging guy with headphones and funky moves and this becomes a trend.

My weekend- Out in the Virginia Mountains

Mt. Hazel River This post falls under ‘it’s my personal blog and I’ll post what I want’ category. For the past two weekends I’ve taken two mini-vacations out in the Shenandoah mountain area, one in Madison County the other in Rappahannock County. This is about the Rappahannock weekend.
I had booked this months ago and all I was looking for was a cabin, in the woods, in either Maryland, West Virginia or Virginia that wasn’t too expensive and something above a camping tent.I found Hazel Mt.Haven and greatly enjoyed my stay. The views from the yard of the mountains were wonderful. What can I say, I’m from Florida, mountains and really big hills wow me.
We were able to pack a lot into a few days. We hiked a NPS trail, visited a winery, poked around Little Washington (didn’t eat at the Inn though) and managed to upset Chef Gerard Pangaud (formerly of Gerard’s Place) at the Blue Rock Inn. We feel really bad about that last part, as we did not realize that the short ribs were cooked for 72 hours via sous vide because the meat was still reddish.Chef Pangaud came to our table to educate us on this when my cousin sent the dish back to the kitchen for being too red. We really feel terrible, but on the plus side, we got to meet the chef and the food was good.

Something not so good down in Penn Quarter at 7th and PA Ave NW

I’ve been told I cannot leave outside the normal exit of the Bureau of Fight Club where I work. It would be nice if staff were alerted but the 1st rule of fight club is…..

7th Street is blocked, as are parts of Pennsylvania Ave NW. One of the interns said it looks blocked all the way from Constitution to Gallery Place (F/ H Sts?). 9th Street looks free but the intern said that is blocked at some point. So far the only thing I’m getting is rumors. Rumor says Archives/ Navy Memorial station is closed, but not sure about the validity of that. Anyone got anything?

UPDATE- The metro is running. Just surrounded by a lot of yellow tape. I dunno about where the busses are being rerouted to. I’m going to try escaping to the PQ farmer’s market wish me luck!

Conclusion- At 5pm everything was back to normal.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on July 22, 2010 3:39 PM.

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.

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.

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.