ambivalent images

Commuting Beneath the Kennedy Center

Traffic backs up on the Rock Creek Parkway underneath the overhang of the Kennedy Center. The little pic at right (click to expand) shows the Kennedy Center overhang in the rearview mirror and that's Georgetown across the Potomac.

There are many reasons why I almost never drive to work but the drive home through traffic is certainly among them. I just can't navigate a city in traffic. I can't navigate a city by car, for that matter. I'm always taking the stupid wrong turn that sends me 20 minutes out of my way before I can make a correction, and in traffic the 20 doubles to 40 and you're talking serious nightmare. It's really much better to take the train.

Tired Tires

A display of tires inside the lobby of a Midas store where I waited for three hours for a new muffler to arrive. I think they had to fly it in from China, which makes sense when you consider it was going on an “American-made” car. Sheesh.

Thumb Update

My thumb about two weeks after the noodle—because I know you all care. ;-) But seriously, I think it looks kind of cool—almost like I painted it or something. For the record, although the initial “surgery” hurt like hell, the pain diminished steadily each day to the point where, after about a week, I hardly noticed it and was able to use my thumb normally again. I'll never know whether that might have eventually happened w/out medical intervention, but oh well. I'm just glad to have two opposable thumbs again!

Burrito Bowl BS

A burrito bowl from McDonald's Chipotle. (McDonald's owns Chipotle, right?) So Chipotle had its Summer Solstice dealio last week where it promised that if you bought a burrito (or bowl) on Wednesday, you could get another Burrito (or bowl) free if you brought your receipt back by Sunday. What they forgot to mention is that if you bought two burritos on Wednesday but got one receipt for both of them, that one receipt (showing that you bought two burritos) would only be good for one free burrito when you brought it back. Jerks.

I really hate Chipotle because it's tasty and relatively cheap and ubiquitous so it's easy to pick up anywhere and anytime, yet it's no good for you and it's basically like eating at McD's as far as the larger global/economic effects are concerned. Why isn't there a place that's all those good things w/out the bad?

Crayon Tokens

Handmade game pieces for a rousing game of new-parent “Wise and Otherwise”. Yeah, I didn't get it at first either, but here's the deal: Some friends are having a baby and it was also just about the new dad's birthday, so another friend pulled all the questions from “Wise and Otherwise” that had anything to do with babies or getting old (and there are lots of those, it turns out), then she made a custom game board featuring D.C. scenes (and also Pittsburgh scenes, since the new parents are soon moving there). The above tokens were our game pieces on that custom game board? Make sense? It was actually great fun. “Wise and Otherwise” turns out to be a great game to play with a few drinks, although it gets a little slow w/too many people.

Secret Construction Man

A sign on the fence surrounding a construction site. I can't tell whether this is Agent Smith (from “The Matrix”) or some faceless construction worker. The lack of nose and mouth was a really nice touch, don't you think?

Metrophant

A white elephant carries Metro maps on its back in front of the MLK Jr. Public Library near the Gallery Place Metro station.

Blues Brothers on Connecticut

The Blues Brothers jam in front of some kind of crazy store on Connecticut Ave. near the intersection with 18th Street.

Adult Action Video Movies

A sign in a Chinatown video rental store window. I've never seen an adult action video movie before, but I bet it would be good.

On the Metro*

A Metro rider holds head in hand as the conductor announces all trains are stopped on the yellow line for some unexplicable reason. That's National Airport outside the window. This train sat on a sort of unlikely angle (the track is curved at this point so the track is banked) for about five minutes before we started moving again.

*The title of this post comes from a Capital Steps song sung to the tune of Evlis's “In the Ghetto.” I can't find it on any of their albums and I don't think the song is online, but I heard at at their April Fools special this year (after they'd completed the part that was going to air on radio). Trust me, for those who ride the D.C. Metro, the song was priceless!

Piano Sale

The strings of a baby grand for sale at the GW Music Department last week. I was walking to the library to return some books and saw this sign planted in the grass that read “Piano Sale,” with an arrow pointing to a nearby building. It's not everyday you see something like that (in fact, I don't remember seeing a piano sale ever before), so I followed the arrow to check it out. I also had a brief hope that maybe they were selling keyboards for cheap so I could pick one up. There's no way I could afford a real piano or have the space for it, but I've been wanting a keyboard to learn to play. So anyway, when I got downstairs I was told that the first two days of the sale were appointment-only (mostly for piano dealers, I think), but I could look around if I wanted. So look around I did. There were no keyboards, only full pianos—lots of uprights or consoles (I think that's what the little compact ones are called) and baby grands. In fact, there was a whole room of baby grands, as you can see from the picture at right. I never saw any prices—you had to have an appointment for that. But all the pianos looked brand new (even though they were used) so I'm sure they were going for a pretty penny.

8th and F

A view down 8th St. (I think) toward the National Gallery of Art (the dome at the end of the street, I think). Sorry, I should have paid more attention to where I was standing when I took this.

There are cranes everywhere in D.C.; this one is standing right next to another that didn't make it into the frame. I'm told there are more cranes here than in other cities but since I haven't visited any other cities for such a long time I can't really say. Oh, and check out that ugly building looming on the left side of the street—the FBI building is everywhere.

Pasta Thumb

My thumb with a dissolving piece of pasta underneath the nail. Yes, that's right—I got a piece of pasta stuck under my fingernail last weekend. And how, you'll ask, did I do that? By washing dishes and using my thumbnail to try to scrape a piece of dried pasta off the bottom of a pot. As you can probably guess from the photo, it hurt something awful, and it only got worse as the days passed. This happened on Saturday (a week ago) so I went to the doctor on Monday. The doctor said I had to see a surgeon, which was not really good news for someone w/out insurance. I asked what would happen if I just left alone; wouldn't it just sort of work its way out, maybe pop the nail off or something? They couldn't say, but recommended against that course of action.

I saw the surgeon on Tuesday and he had the pasta out in about four minutes. The worst part was the anesthetic he shot into my thumb. He stuck the needle in and when he pushed the plunger on the syringe it felt like he'd placed my thumb on the sidewalk and smashed it with a sledgehammer. I don't remember feeling that kind of pain before. Ever. Then, w/no pause, he grabbed some sort of curved sharp implement and started scraping beneath my nail until he thought he'd removed all the foreign stuff. I felt each scrape and jab in a sharp yet distant way that made it difficult to breathe. Finally, he flushed the area w/water (or saline, maybe) by sticking a needle under the nail and squirting around. By that time, the thumb was pretty numb and I was pretty glad about that.

I don't know which hurt worse—having the pasta under the fingernail or having it removed. Ok, the removal definitely hurt worse, but for a much shorter time. By Wednesday it was feeling much better, and by now it's pretty well healed. Still, I recommend you a) wear gloves when washing dishes, and b) never use your fingernail as a food scraper. I'm sure you're smart enough you don't need to be told these things, but, well, I'm just saying.

After Party

The scene around the campfire on the morning after the bonfire at Deep Creek Lake. What you see in the foreground is a vodka watermelon—take one melon, scoop a little out, then fill the void with vodka, then let the whole thing sit in a refrigerator for a few days. When you eat the fruit you won't even be able to taste the vodka anymore. That's what I was told, anyway. I didn't try it; I chose to drink sangia instead, which was also quite good in its own fruity way.

At right is a simple shot of the clouds above the lake one day. They were puffy and pretty and hard to capture w/a camera so I guess you'll just have to trust me. This was another time it might have been cool to have a tripod to try to take a grid shot of the huge sky. Maybe someday I'll try that.

Hollis

Hollis, a 5-month-old American Bulldog (or was it Boxer?) chills on the recliner. Hollis is about the most laid-back dog I've ever known. Soft, cuddly, and cute, though.

Toad

A toad poses for an evening photograph at Deep Creek Lake, Maryland.

Library Self-Checkout

A self-checkout machine at GW's Gelman Library. I rarely enter Gelman since it's the undergrad library at GW and law school generally doesn't demand a lot in the way of library research anyway. But I've had reasons to visit a bit recently and have enjoyed the self-checkout machine immensely. The self-checkout combined with the online catalog means I can get the call numbers for the books I want before I go to the library, walk in, grab the books from the shelves, slide them through the self-checkout, and be on my way w/out ever having to interact w/another human being. It's kind of strange, actually. The first time I did this I sort of expected the alarms to go off as I left the library with a bag full of books that no librarian had even touched. But no; the self-checkout machine has the alarm desensitizer thingy, too, so it's all good.

Do librarians like these machines because they free librarians from the mundane task of checking out books, or do librarians dislike these machines because they threaten library jobs?

Broken Roots

The exposed roots from a tree that recently fell over in a nearby park. What fell over was actually one half of a set of twin trees growing from the same root base. The one half fell over inexplicably (there may have been a storm that night but nothing super dramatic, as I recall), so they decided to cut down the other half. Now all that's left is the stump, which for a while sported a sign asking you to call a number if you had questions about the tree. What questions could a person have? What answers would you get if you called the number? “Yeah, it fell down.”

Patriot Pop?

Despite it's ridiculous name, a Patriot Pop is a perfect treat for a hot summer day on the National Mall. You might be able to get some freedom fries and freedom toast to go with it if you check in at one of the corporate vendors inside the Smithsonian museums. Which reminds me: Doesn't it seem just wrong that there's a McDonald's (among other things) inside the Smithsonian Air/Space Museum?

Monumental Views

The view from the Old Postal Tower looking down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capital Building. The first sinfully ugly building on the left is the FBI building, I think. At right is a view toward the Washington Monument; the ground around the monument is all torn up while workers install permanent barriers that are supposed to look like they've always been there are something like that.

At any rate, I do highly recommend a visit to the Old Postal Tower if you're visiting D.C. It's free, interesting, and the views are pretty spectacular.

Clockworks

The clock works atop the Old Post Office Tower. This is at the top on the viewing level. I'll have some pictures of the view itself soon, I promise.

Meanwhile, the picture at right is just sort of your standard no trespassing sign except for one thing: It's at the top of the Old Post Office tower on a little utility access door that leads—outside. That's right: If you open the door to which this sign is affixed you'll be faced with a sheer drop of several hundred feet straight down to the street. Given that, is it really necessary to tell people they can't hunt, fish, or trap there? I mean, not a lot of that goes on hundreds of feet in the air above a busy city street, does it? But just in case, that's all forbidden and violators will be prosecuted—probably by plunging straight to their deaths.

Old Post Office Bells

Bells in the Old Post Office bell tower as seen through a little window in the stairway leading up to the actual observation deck above the bells. The big wooden wheels with ropes around them are what actually activate the bells—the ringer stands a floor below in a room with about 8 ropes coming down through the ceiling and pulls the appropriate rope to ring the appropriate bell. I guess if you're talented you can make some real music.

I've been wanting to get to the top of this tower since I first learned about it and we finally made it a couple of weeks ago. And while the bells are cool, the best part is the view, which I'm saving for tomorrow.

My New (Dream) Scooter

The cockpit of the Vespa Granturismo 200. I don't have a scooter, but if I did, I think this is what I'd want. Heck, it's only $5k. Yikes! But still, it's stylish and would have the power to travel almost any city road. I wonder if you could get on the highway with it for short distances, e.g. commuting from D.C. to VA or something. Hmm. Maybe I just need my dream motorcycle.

Wigs for Him

A display of wigs for men in the same storefront as yesterday's pic. These shots make me wonder: Is there a good way to display wigs for sale? Or would it be better to just have a sign in the window that says “wigs”?

Wigs for Her

A display of wigs for women in a storefront in downtown Alexandria, VA.

2 Amys

2 Amys pizza just off Wisconsin Ave. NW. According to many DC pizza lovers, 2 Amys makes the best pizza in the area. L. and I had gone looking for this place a couple of times but were never able to find it because for some reason we thought it was in Georgetown when actually it's not too far from the National Cathedral. Once we figured out our mistake, 2 Amys was easy to find.

So is it the best pizza in D.C.? As far as I'm concerned, no. The crust is great and the toppings seemed fresh and high quality—it was great pizza, no question. But the best best best pizza in D.C. is at Alberto's. Unfortunately, Alberto's has been closed for the last couple of months after they had a bit of a fire. Their recording says the place will open up June 20, so I'm thinking I'll be having some yummy pizza that day.

It's possible that 2 Amys and Alberto's aren't really comparable because they're doing different things. 2 Amys does “gourmet” Neapolitan pizza, while Alebert's does Chicgo style. Still, strictly on a gourmet pizza comparison, what makes 2 Amys better than Paradiso?

Not A Nugget

A sticker on the back of a street sign downtown. Are you a nugget?

National Archives (and duck ramp)

The imposing columns of the National Archives sit beneath an early summer blue and puffy cloud sky. Inside you can see the Declaration of Independence if Nicholas Cage hasn't stolen it. Across the street is an awesome sculpture garden and a fountain/pond that features a “duck ramp” to allow the ducks to move to and from the pond. (See photo at right.)

L. says this is where you can go ice skating in the winter. Very cool. I'll have to be sure and do that this winter!

Photography Not Permitted

The notice on the door to an exhibit in the National Building Museum. This is the last NBM photo, I promise, but I couldn't resist taking and posting it because, well, you just can't stop people from taking pictures, can you? Reflections are also cool, don'tchathink?

Hello LBJ

Lyndon Johnson's face graces a dartboard at a friend's house. I don't know if my friend has any particular animosity toward Johnson, but at least this makes an interesting conversation piece.