Tag: misc

Do Old Dogs Dream? Longview Art has a booksigning.

At the BACA meeting we learned that Metropolitan Baptist will be hanging out at the Armstrong School until their building in Largo is ready or two years.

Monday Feb. 9th there is a North Capital Street Cloverleaf Study Stakeholder meeting at the Przbyla Great Room A at Catholic U and Feb 7th there is the Community Presentation of the development of the McMillan Sand Filtration Site from 10AM-12PM at 125 Michigan Ave NE. Though these items are north of the TC there is concern about traffic and sewage/water and its overflow into our area.

I have a petition regarding the track at Dunbar so when I get the energy, I will probably go around and collect signatures.

When I was working at the Holocaust museum I decided that when I grew old I’d become a volunteer like the many volunteers who worked side by side with paid staff. These people would come in regularly, and be they survivors, liberators, or what have you and do the mundane and the special jobs. Working in cultural institutions I can say that volunteers bring very valuable skills (language translation being one), professional experience and enthusiasm to the job.
There are other volunteers and times when we become volunteers in formal and informal ways. Formal as in so many non-profit, faithed-based, and community organizations just in Shaw that I don’t know where to start. Informal, as in Bry and his next door neighbor J. who occasionally clean the sidewalk and the sidewalks of other blocks. There is Alley Cleaning Man, who sweeps up the alley and leaves terse notes. There are the loose band of neighbors who decide to care for a colony of feral cats by working with organizations and feeding and providing water and shelter. There are the people who recently not only cleaned their own sidewalks of snow and ice, but their neighbors’ sidewalks.
If you look for it, you can find a lot of good in this city. And if you look for it, you can find many opportunities to do good.

No pets in the store, neither are face covering hoods allowed.

This week a co-worker told me a tale of Comcast service so bad that I would totally understand if he had going down to their offices and set a garbage bag of poo on fire in the middle of their reception area. After what he went through, I’d totally understand.

I haven’t paid for cable since I was in college in the late 80s. So honestly I have no idea how much basic cable is. So those of you with cable, how much is it? With all the taxes and sundry fees, what does it wind up being?

This Saturday at the Big Bear from 10-3 there is going to be a used bike sale. Which reminded me of the place I used to get my used bikes, Chain Reaction. Chain Reaction was a product of the non-profit group Shaw-Eco Village, and the bike shop was at the corner of 6th and R, then moved over to North Capitol. It was a great place where I could go to and get my bike fixed. The location was especially helpful when I had this heavy 3-speed and my rear wheel was bent and torn up. The prices were good and low and the young men working in the shop would fix it that day, so I could walk back home, do what I needed to do, and walk back to pick it up. I had bought a serviceable but ugly womens 3-speed for about $40 some dollars and a womens hybrid for about $150.
Now the shop is gone and the Bike Rack is the closest thing, but sadly they don’t work on bikes like mine. So if I need my bike fixed I’ll have to do it myself or drag it up to Adams Morgan or Capitol Hill. So I’ve been learning about fixing bikes.
So I have fond memories of Chain Reaction, though the shop was small and cramped, it provided a service that I really needed.

There were a few firetrucks blocking off the south traffic along New Jersey Avenue, around the 1400 block around 7AM. Any idea of what that was about?

Thanksgiving is coming up and hopefully you have already taken precautions prior to leaving. But should you leave town you’ll want to make your house look sort of occupied.
Mail
You can contact the US Post Office and ask them to hold your mail. There is a 3 day minimum and 30 day maximum.

Newspaper
Nothing says we’re not home like 3 yellowing Washington Posts on your front stoop. You can contact the Post or the Times and have them not deliver for the days you are gone.

Neighbors
Just in case the UPS guy stops by or your mailbox gets stuffed with fliers and Chinese takeout menus, you may want to have neighbors take a quick look at your place and remove the offending items.

Any other pointers?

First up, local politicians who suck. Well I dislike strongly Micheal A$$hat Brown, and the local GOP is challenging his certification because he isn’t a real independent. Okay, I’m fine with whatever keeps him on his toes. Second, I’ve found reason to seriously dislike DC shadow senator Paul Strauss as well. Before the elections a DC native friend was telling me of an encounter he had with Mr. Strauss, where he noticed Strauss had a NY ring on his finger. I’ve never noticed the man, much less his hand, but I thought of that reading the City Paper’s blog article on the shadow senator’s DWI stop. The print article mentions that he “moves around with a full quorum of aides and interns– often imported talent from European countries.” What of DC talent? My friend questioned the man’s loyalties to the District and its people with the NY ring, this seems to re-enforce that image that DC is just something he can take from. Then there is the whole driving with a .16 alcohol blood level. Please don’t tell me how he’s moving us closer to voting rights. It seems Eleanor Holmes Norton has done more without going the way of tomfoolery.

Next, church benefits and lead time. Mt. Sinai’s Family Unit #3 is collecting hygiene items for the homeless this Saturday at 9AM. Problem is I got this notice Thursday night, I would need more lead time to actually think about it, then go buy the travel size items, and clear up my schedule to drop off the items.

I hope our neighbors in other parts of Shaw have gas. If not, may I suggest what I did when my furnace when kaput, heater fans and staying in one room. But I understand having your gas back on is so much better. I do have one question, are the areas without gas the same areas that had problems with water in the gas lines before?

The tomatoes are done, I mean really done. The temperatures got cold enough to kill the vine. So I chopped up one vine and I’ll probably attack the other later this week. I was able to get a dozen and a half green tomatoes off the dead vine and I’m sitting them in the window so they can ripen there.

Lastly, and I’m probably jinxing it by saying it, but I think my block’s friendly neighborhood drug dealers have moved on. Well at least for the winter. There was a time when cold weather would not keep the boyz from standing on the corner, or having one guy stand on the corner. Part of me wants to say that it is due to some critical demographic changes, a certain family moving off the block, but I’m not 100%sure.