Leftist Orange

Confessions of an Interloper

anneb — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:44:59 GMT

The debate of Northern Virginia vs. the rest of the Commonwealth isn't new, you know. It's been going on for quite a long time- It started to really rumble again of late, with the recent passing and subsequent striking down by the VA Supreme Court of the "Regional Transportation Authority." It's been making enough noise for campaign rhetoric to find and seize upon. Now, it's a rolling boil, and I wonder how "real" Richmond will seem should the capital end up going for Obama.

When I was born, my parents lived in Alexandria, off of Van Dorn St., by Landmark Mall. I was baptized at Christ Church, Alexandria- the church attended by both Generals Washington and Lee, in their respective days. My father grew up in Falls Church, but... I'm betting that won't cut the mustard. Here's the catch:

My father moved here from DC with his parents when he was about 9!

Not only that, between bouts of living in DC while my Grandfather worked for the government,

My grandparents ran a gas station in (gasp!) Long Island, NY!

See, all of us living in Northern Virginia - we are just interlopers, moving in from the District and New York.

(I haven't lived in either DC or NY. I did grow up as much in Maryland as anyplace else, but there were a LOT of "elses" in my growing-up-address-book. Where 'home' is is a very immediate concept to me, even though I've now lived in VA almost 20 years straight)

My very scary middle class white grandparents, a government employee and his wife, with young boys, buying their own home instead of renting an apartment, moving into an area surrounded by farmland. Yeah, them. Geez, those Interlopers!!

Those claiming NoVa folks are not "real Virginians" are pretty much using geography as a litmus test. I guess my neighbors who now live in the houses their parents built, going to the same High Schools, been here for a few generations now, they're not real Virginians either.

So what IS the "real Virginia?"

Is it how long you've lived here, for much longer than long? Maybe it helps to bleed Wedgewood blue, or any other color commonly found in the homes of great Americans, in the State that calls itself the "Mother of presidents."

Was the Byrd Machine that kept White Democrats as the major voting block in the Commonwealth for so long the "Real Virginia?"

It the folks moving to Stafford these days, the same reason my Grandparents moved to Falls Church?

Is the Real Virginia that which, in the time of the Jamestown colony, was faced with the choice of changing the economy to being a Tobacco producer, or fade into obscurity, eventually making its wealth on the backs of slave labor and the lungs of countless people?

Does the "Real Virginia" not have public transportation or other things my Dad says, when he was growing up, were associated with (cue scary music) COMMUNISM?

Is the "Real Virginia" what simply closed all the public schools for a bit there in the 60's in response to orders from the courts to integrate them?

Or is the "Real Virginia" the part of the Commonwealth that not only has gotten past a lot of that baloney, but provides income supporting and buoying up the parts claiming to be "Real" by the tax revenues that go through Richmond?

Because we're a Commonwealth, nearly every form of revenue goes through the state house in Richmond and is allocated from there. The rest of Virginia is being funded by the wallets of the bluer parts of the Commonwealth, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. I'm wondering just how far this idiotic rhetoric will go towards cutting off the hand that feeds the rest of the Commonwealth, when part of us break off and become oh, I dunno, "East Virginia?" "Imaginary Virginia?"

Yay for brothers!

anneb — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:50:53 GMT

HAPPY BIRTHDAY sivrid!!!

An excuse to try the 'blog this photo' button on flickr.

anneb — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:00:44 GMT

Victory over nature

When you fight and struggle against something, and emerge victorious, it's often appropriate for some sort of memorial event.

If one has caught a giant fish, one might pose for the camera, holding it up. Of course, someone's got to be there, with a camera.

Holding up a giant fish, perhaps holding up only one's hands, to indicate the one that got away can be commemorative, but you have to have a reeeally nice frame, I think, to get away with that particular shot.

Some people like to mount the fish and put it up on the wall in the local pub, for all to see:.

They finally rested upon a dusty old glass-case, fixed very high up above the chimney-piece, and containing a trout. It rather fascinated me, that trout; it was such a monstrous fish. In fact, at first glance, I thought it was a cod.

"Ah!" said the old gentleman, following the direction of my gaze, "fine fellow that, ain't he?"

======

Today I did some yard work, and wrestled a bit with this extremely annoying tree stump. I have now commemorated the struggle in what is no doubt an appropriate manner. Unfortunately, however, we find ourselves in this house without a mantel, or a large entry hallway with lots of room to hang trophies underneath the chandelier.

I'm out of plaster, too, so I just had to use wood.

Right, like THAT's ever gonna happen...

anneb — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:14:03 GMT

Off and on, I've played with doing stock photography as part of my photo-biz. I haven't committed one way or the other, but I did decide a while back, it'd be tourist spots and critters, but no people. What you put up for stock, you're going to have little or no say- maybe even knowledge- of how it's used.

Subjects in stock photography need a model release- any use in a commercial application is an implicit tie between a recognizable individual and a product. And whether I know a person or not, I'd feel a BIT bad if they turned up in an ad for something that might prove awkward.

...an older subject ending up in a commercial for something like Viagra or Depends, say... or potentially oh, I dunno, run on the jumbotron at a national political convention... photos that an agency might get as little as $1 for selling, the photographer even less. No matter what istockphoto may list as prohibited in their terms of usage, the last item of what's permitted is "any other uses approved in writing by iStockphoto." And prohibited says before any restrictions, "anything with the Content that is not expressly permitted in the preceding section or permitted by an Extended License"- This isn't an unusual situation. You want to play the game, those are pretty much the rules. They're in the business of selling photos to people who want to publish them. For me as a photographer, that sort of thing is too far out of my control, and someplace I'd rather not go.

Comments on the DailyKos seem to say that the subjects are hard core democrats- The photos to me, by the way, look like others I've seen associated with maybe "vibrant senior community, come move in with us," or "loving elder care, be happy with us, shareholder!"

I'm trying to envision the circumstances, here... was it "work for hours and hours polling all your campaign centers, and coming up a goose egg with decent, usable, professional looking photos, then falling back on stock?" I'm honestly more inclined to believe "ZOMG!!11!11!1 I have a deadline no time to ask for photos, it'll take HOURS to get something back, what's out there on the net with decent enough resolution?" ...which curiously fits with my lunchtime premise with DH at lunch, today. Seems that to more and more people doing work or research, if it's not on the net, something they can't find on the intarwebz at 2am as they burn the midnight oil in their own den, it's just not there.

Now, I really gotta know if Gateway Girl is going to make her foray into politics. Keep those eyes peeled! (thx, arensb, for the pointer, btw...)

Eating Out Table Manners

anneb — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:33:22 GMT

So Phyllis Richman, former food critic for the Post, has a bit of a diatribe up about plate snatching in restaurants. I probably wouldn't have followed the link, except that when we went out last week for dinner on our anniversary, the diving, bobbing and weaving of hands for plates was so stark, I was a bit taken aback. The part that struck me:

Dining is a communal activity, and table manners were designed to reflect that. Just as it is considered impolite for one person to start eating before everyone at the table has been served, it traditionally has been seen as rude for a waiter to remove one diner's plate before everyone at the table is through.

But manners change. Or in this case, restaurateurs are trying to change them. Servers are removing dishes one by one, as soon as they are emptied -- or even before. Rest your fork for a second, or lean back for a moment's stretch, and your dinner will disappear. The slowest eater is left with her plate a lone island on an empty table. The justifications are lame: Either the kitchen staff wants to pace the dishwashing, the dining room staff is trying to keep the meal moving along, or the busboy is trying to look busy. By now, a few diners are so accustomed to it that they've started to feel offended if their plates sit empty before them.

Ok- so I didn't spend much growing up time in the states, and my manners are probably yet another round peg on a square placemat. I eat Continental Style, not American Style. While I can strip fried chicken to nothing with my knife and fork, I totally cannot sit to the right of someone eating American Style (me being a lefty compounds this.) And the rule is, when you are done with your meal, you lay your knife and fork, placed together with handles resting on the plate rim, but straight through the middle of the plate. Since your knife is always on the right, the fork always on the left, that they're together signifies that you're done, and the waiter may pick up the plate at his or her convenience. I guess I'm coming across as horribly provincial, here, but I do find this a bit baffling-- don't people do that in the States? Is there some subtle hint one is supposed to use that I'm clueless about?

It makes sense- that means the waiter isn't carrying a catastrophically huge pile of plates back when everyone's done, it helps get the table cleared faster for the next table occupants, and yet it manages to not make the person eating feel rushed. As someone who has chronically eaten more quickly than others at the table, it certainly does make me feel more awkward when I've got no plate in front of me, it points out something I'm not necessarily comfortable with- instead of letting me fidget a bit with the plate, knife and fork, and put them down for plate pickup when it's closer to the end of the meal for everyone. (This is further enforced by ending up eating a bite or two of DS's food if he doesn't want to finish- something that's one of those Mom-punishments, and harder to do with no cutlery or plate..)

I guess, If nothing else, this makes me feel better about telling waiters, "I'm not ready for my plate to be picked up, yet." Would that they were just plain psychic.

I read it on the intarwebz, it must be true!

anneb — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:55:52 GMT

Wikipedia's clearly achieved a certain amount of legitimacy- I'm more and more seeing Wiki cited as a reference for something, without any other correlating references, so I guess of course, if it's in Wikipedia, it must be accurate, right?

[Mmmm, lovely kool-aid.]

Anyhoo, in a TOTALLY unrelated (natch) note, little over a week, DH and I will be celebrating 19 years of weddedness. (yay!) I like the idea of anniversary themes. I so totally suck at picking out gifts, and the more the person means to me, the harder it is to chose the perfect one. So I tend to go into thrashing spins when it comes time to getting something for DH. Nothing's ever quite RIGHT! Having anniversary themes (first- paper, second- cotton, etc.) not only provides some structure for me to work with, but also takes some of the pressure off of me.

DH helpfully did some research to help out (thanks, honey!) and came up with...

Bismuth.

You know, for 60 and 80, wikipedia says "citation needed." But for Bismuth? No, nobody actually seems to be batting an eye, or questioning this, and I haven't found a correlation, yet.

Wiki has this to say about Bismuth.

This heavy, brittle, white crystalline trivalent poor metal has a pink tinge and chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Of all the metals, it is the most naturally diamagnetic, and only mercury has a lower thermal conductivity. It is generally considered to be the last naturally occurring non-radioactive element on the periodic table.

Bismuth compounds are used in cosmetics and in medical procedures. As the toxicity of lead has become more apparent in recent years, alloy uses for bismuth metal as a replacement for lead have become an increasing part of bismuth's commercial importance.

Ok, who up with that one, please? And what bismuth do they have coming up with gift themes like that? Ok, it does look kinda cool, but... it the connections are a bit...odd. And I do kinda wonder what it says about a relationship.

"Sorry about the anniversary dinner, dear, I guess I shouldn't have used the tinned salmon. But hey, on the plus side, here's your gift- a bottle of Pepto! Cheer up, dear, I thought you might like it better than some lead. And if dinner makes you gassy- it'll make it not smell as bad."

Also from the "uses" section:

Many bismuth alloys have low melting points and are widely used for fire detection and suppression system safety devices. "Sorry, not tonight, dear- I have a sprinkler system." Not what one usually would go for, for that wedding anniversary gift, really.

A carrier for U-235 or U-233 fuel in nuclear reactors for those volatile marriages...

A replacement propellant for xenon in Hall effect thrusters - 'k, at least that might make for an exciting evening. (ZOT!)

Dense material for fishing sinkers Hm. Aquadynamic fish attractors, to get DH hook, line, and... [steerike]

Replacement for lead in shot and bullets. Really, REALLY bad choice, here.

===

Or perhaps it's just the highest point of land in the capital of N. Dakota.

===

Meanwhile: About.com , one of the references at the bottom of the page, actually says "bronze."

Hallmark has the info buried in their "ask us a question" section, here. They just seem to skip years: http://www.markshallmark.com/calendar/anniversaries.asp
I think if we followed that plan, we'd be coming up on our 35th by now. Nothanks, don't want to feel THAT old.

"Because."

anneb — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:59:45 GMT

Now that the web's getting better at searching- rhetorical questions fired to the universe at large get answered. Typing "WHY haven't my tomatoes ripened yet?" returns major echoes of the same answer- basically: "They can't ripen when it's over 85 degrees." Hopefully with this weather cooloff, (not to exceed 85 all week) I'll have several tomatoes in the near future.

One day, I won't have to type it. I'll just get frustrated, stand in my garden surrounded by green tomatoes, and growl "Why aren't you red, yet?" at them- and my personal tech will deluge me with 50 zillion answers, temperature sensing, and a weather forecast to boot.

But if I ever just shout "WHY?!?!?!" rhetorically to an uncaring universe... it had better know not to answer.

rain, rain... and the side effects thereof.

anneb — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:39:32 GMT

This Saturday while DS was off camping and DH was working, I attended one of the County rain barrel workshops. It followed me home, and DH very nicely let me keep it!

When I got there, I was given a handful of components plus a screen. First we got a presentation, covering local water ecology and how to assemble our barrels. Then pick out our barrel, do a tiny bit of attaching, drilling and caulking, then haul it to the car. Part II was stopping by Lowe's on the way home to get spray paint for it, and an overflow hose, since those weren't provided. (Too many options for what to do with the excess water)

Sunday pm was spent with bricks, sand, and my grandfather's aged level, making sure the under-part was sufficiently level and stable. 50 gals of water is something a bit over 400 lbs, the heck I want THAT falling on me when I'm out in the yard. I got one coat (mostly) of paint on before the can ran out. Was picking up when DH casually mentioned we were supposed to get severe thunderstorms in the evening. So, it got hooked up a bit more abruptly than planned. When the storm did move in, the barrel got quite the ~~trial by fire~~ um... stress test? baptism? when the rain started coming down in absolute buckets. Wunderground lists us with about 1.2" of precip yesterday, and that was almost all in that big front that came in after dinner. I'm happy to say the caulking held, the overflow worked (and worked and worked and worked.) Today I had a nice bunch of water to wash the picnic table with. Now much of the rest of the water is slowly working its way out a soaker hose onto one of the this-year-seeded areas of the yard, since we're supposed to have more storms on the way any minute now.

DH and I have been discussing how to decorate the barrel, so it's not just sitting there looming at everyone. At first, we thought floral or aquarium, but when I took one look at it with the overflow hose dangling off, I started to think "Dalek." DH also likes "Elephant." The jury's still out on this one. We can't work on decorating again till we get a couple of days of dry in a row. I.e. not any time in the immediate future. (Gee, it's looking awfully dark and rumbly out there right now...)

Lesson for the day: Choosing a useful unit of measure: "The height of a 5-gallon bucket."

Discussion at the workshop centering around how high up to place the barrel. Clearly, you need it elevated some to help with water pressure, but how high is high enough? One of the volunteers suggested "High enough to put a 5-gal bucket under the spigot." This was far more useful, at least for me, than giving us a height in feet/inches, which I would have promptly forgotten before I could actually USE the info. I was able to keep a 5-gallon bucket nearby when I was piling bricks, and I could invert it to sit on if I wanted to stop and have a drink of water- something I can't do with a ruler. It seems to be a pretty standard size, too, I have several of these from various household projects over the years. I stacked the ones I have next to each other to see how they measured up, for real. Turns out they only vary by a few mm in height, likewise, in width, resulting in a sufficiently precise measurement for the job - far easier to remember and work with than dealing with inches and a yard stick.

Salmon tomatoes

anneb — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:22:57 GMT

This week's mega-food-scare brought to you by the ~~nightshade family~~ noble Tomato.

Of course, this means they'll be harder to find anywhere. And the ones in my side yard are still green. So when I've been out running the soaker hose, or weeding, I've been thinking 'red' at them. They're still green.

Today's attack on via science: Hasten the ripening of the little greenlings by tossing them into photoshop.

I'll be sure to post if this works.

Meanwhile, from today's WaPo:
Food safety officials are trying to track the source of the contaminated tomatoes by interviewing people who became ill. Some of the people could report nothing more specific than that the tomatoes were round and red. (Ref: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/10/AR2008061003019_pf.html)

Well, at least I'm on the right track... The square ones must not be tomatoes.

pedalpedalpedal

anneb — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:05:33 GMT

So,

Now that the oak pollen has come and gone, I can start biking over to Giant/Target. The rules now need to be "no car to Beacon Mall unless I'm getting something too big or heavy to safely pedal it home, there's lightning, or I am wheezing." At least until it gets cold again.

The difference between a road bike with thin tires, and inner tubes, carrying a couple hundred pound load and a automobile tire, no tubes, carrying a couple thousand pound load: Cars get ~30psi. Mountain bikes get ~50-60. Road bikes can get, depending on the tire, 80-100 or some even higher. This is good, the rims don't get knocked out of alignment as fast, you get "there" faster and with less pedalling effort, and you don't need as much absorbing the shock of rolling over roots and rocks and small rodents, like if you're on a mountain bike.

Had to stop by local oil-change-place to get some air, 'cause my back tire was way low, and got a look I haven't gotten in a while. Translation: "Dumb lady doesn't know what she's doing, wanting to blow up her tires." So I had "help," meaning I got a slightly underinflated tire- the guy wouldn't fill it up as much as I wanted, (I could still push my thumb into it,) didn't let me see the gauge on his pump, I'm sure he was convinced if he dared put in that much, I'd have a blowout. "Wanna read the sidewalls, man?" Unfortunately, my tires had the PSI ratings printed on, not molded in... and they're old enough it's worn off. But it was far better than the oh, about 10 that was in there before, much faster ride coming back home.

Looking the tires over for the PSI rating did bring to my attention, tho- I need to replace the ones on my beater/shopping bike before dry rot sets in. When I get the new set, I should dry brush neon paint over the sidewalls where it says "80-100 psi." Some people seriously CANNOT believe I know of what I speak, which bugs me far more than the amount of tire pressure I could get. Last I checked, REI had those Continental commuter tires with the reflective sidewalls. Most tempting.

riiiight.... what's a cubit?

anneb — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:56:34 GMT

SO- give or take, since Thursday, almost 8" of rain. So far.

Overnight, I noticed it took a bit for the sump to empty the pit, which was being gushed into at a higher rate than I ever remember seeing before. It took it a bit, but it emptied the pit down, and did seem to be keeping up.

This morning, wet basement floor (from the sump pit to the laundry drain, and relative low points "between," meaning DH's office, laundry room, under the stairs where the camp equipment sits on raised shelves... we've been through this before...)

Sump didn't so much fail as fail-to-keep-up with the water levels.

Plugged in emergency backup sump, had them both run in tandem.

Reset the circuit breaker, moved the backup sump to another circuit. (sump was on its own circuit, but- D'OH!)

mopped mopped mopped.

Just turned off the emerg backup sump, but we'll see how long it's going to take till I need it again. I'm running the throw rugs & some other things that got wet through the washer, and we had to toss a couple bags of things, but not much major. Fans are moving air around, it's mostly dried out, so that's pretty much under control for now. I do have to keep an eye on that sump.

Meanwhile, outside.. [cue ominous music]

Oh, around 1am, when we'd already had about 2, 3" of rain in this system, we heard a good-sized crash outside. Sounded like a branch falling. This morning, a check discovered it was a tree in $NEIGHBOR{SOUTH}'s yard, bordering their other neighbor, on the hill. Not a little tree, trunk a good couple feet across, just keeled over, and landed, branches up against the back of their other neighbor's house.

I'm trying very hard to not think much about the retaining wall out back. The one we just replaced. The one that was cinderblocks, no reinforcements, stack-o-bricks, with the hill behind it, the one with tree roots splitting some of the cinderblocks apart a couple of inches, when we were having drout. We had to remove the two offending trees, in order to make room to replace the wall- that was difficult to deal with, but I think I have managed today to achieve a great deal of closure on that matter. But I also know we had zero drainage system behind the old wall, and I've been able to see how much water the drainage system that's in place now has been moving out, both with this system, and the other big storm we had a couple weeks ago. I've got a decent feel of how much extra I'm not dealing with, right now, too. And I am trying very hard to not have visions of the old wall coming down, bringing trees (plural) with it. Mopping and laundry good distraction, there.

All in all, I think we're doing pretty well, honestly, it could have been far, far worse, especially when it seems like this week, everyone played all their Civilization disaster cards, we have floods (Burma/Myanmar), famines (pick your country), fire (volcanoes in Chile)... on quite a roll this week, aren't we?

So- anyone want to trade for the Iconoclasm/Heresy card?

*EDIT* - afternoon: main sump seems to be creating much noise but no suction. backup pump only, which has no switch. The babysitting has commenced.

UPS by UPS

anneb — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:36:01 GMT

Ok, I guess if APC used any other company to ship their product, that would probably infer something just wrong with the universe, no? If the acronym overloads, double it up, or something like that...

My UPS, workhorse of many years, finally petered out, and while I replaced that one up here, I ended up trading it in to APC for a bigger model to tackle the upstairs (my box, also network/printer/scanner)-- that way, we can have one for DH's setup, downstairs. I figured it was worth giving it a trial run.

I got a price break on a newer, slightly larger model, since it seems, at least for mine, I could trade "up" but not necessarily "in." And I paid for shipping for the new one. But they sent me a prepaid packaging label, with instructions to stuff the old one in a box when the new one arrives, all I had to do was box it and take it to a UPS drop off. The helpful, friendly phone person said I would get the label shortly, it usually takes the UPSen for tradeups about 7-10 days to arrive, but to pop out the new one, and take the old one, with label, and matching Serial # and all, to UPS, who will take it to APC's rehabilitation program for wayward UPSen which probably means something along the lines of that great novel, The Demolished Power Supply

Financially, it turned out to be a total wash- if I calculated right, a difference of maybe a whopping $0.50 or so. What I saved with the price break vs. APC's list price pretty much got wiped by sales tax and shipping of the new UPS. However, it did have a slight convenience factor. The UPS arrived at my door, and in far less than 7-10 days, (ordred Friday, arrived Monday, and shipping from Harrisburg, PA, probably helped in that regard.) So today, I took the new one out, boxed the old one up, and took it to the outgoing one to the UPS dropoff center, which is less than 2 miles from here. Ok, that sure beats me wandering around lost in the wilds of Centreville, which is where the county walk-in recycling dropoff is. And it's not doing a detail as a tripping hazard sitting around here, waiting for a county recycling event down at this end of the county. Honestly, I think if I lived further out, without quite so many options locally for just buying one off the shelf- or didn't have good recycling options, it would be far more useful, but it's nice to have, and nice to see that went smoothly. Who knows, though, if knowing this really helps in the long run- I certainly hope that these last long enough that the process for recycling electronics will have changed a couple of times over!

reports from hereabouts

anneb — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:02:30 GMT

Almost 2" of rain since yesterday morning, almost an inch and a half down here in NoVa yesterday. Earth Day festivities on the National Mall were curtailed, according to the Post. That's earth and water heard from, with air clocking in with tornadoes in Adelphi and Waldorf. Um.... Next?

Days when I am on my bike, when getting home is inevitably uphill I get frustrated by my house's elevation. Not this week! Water currently running nicely around the house and continuing down hill.

Two concurrent news reports hitting the media waves, today.
One: Metro Section, Washington Post: A story of some Prince William residents happier with empty houses on their streets than filled with illegal immigrants.
Two: A real estate study cited on NPR's Morning Edition today, discussing house prices in relationship to commute times- that house prices inside the city are in some cases increasing, whereas in places further out like Ashburn (and PW county, perhaps?) They're dropping off as much as 20%.

If you've been by here recently, you know about the houses that have been empty on my street for quite a while. One neighbor is seriously considering moving, sick of looking out on "empty house" day in, day out. I'll be most curious to see how the folks in PW feel about things in a year.
(Noting that immigrant families on my street keep some very nice houses. Sometimes, they play music. Sometimes they have friends over. So do other families, if they're not totally coccooned in front of their TV or computer. The houses that have been unoccupied for over a year are not so good for the feel or the long term health of the neighborhood.)

My archival disk decided to go south on me. Currently running a monster tar to pull everything off of it. When it comes back, it will SO be an HFS+ file system, none of this MSDOS FS baloney, I don't care if it's less portable that way. I don't intend portable, really. I need stable. File the initial install of that disk in the "What was I THINKING?!?!?!" department.

And, we finally have some sprouting with the grass seed out back. The retaining wall issues had left our back yard as just dirt, and DH and I have gotten topsoil spread, seed & stuff out, and then we've been waiting. And waiting. Finally, yesterday, amidst the deluge and community ark-building, we saw little tufts of grass peeking up all over the back yard!

Either that, or we have chia gnomes.

Pedestrians win!!

anneb — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:05:52 GMT

[for those who don't follow my flickr feed, something to read for the day]

caption: A policeman routes traffic from Richmond Highway onto Sherwood Hall lane, diverting all northbound traffic away from the newly created pedestrian zone

HYBLA VALLEY (BrinkNews)- 1 April 2008: Today, motorists were suprised and pedestrians excited to discover that the stretch of Richmond Highway from Sherwood Hall north to Fordson Road has been permanently closed to traffic and established as a pedestrian zone- although Fairfax Connector and REX busses will still be allowed through. According to one unnamed county official, "Cars have plenty of other options to get through the area. We hope that non-local commuters only passing through will enjoy the scenic George Washington Parkway or perhaps enjoy I-95, just a few miles to the west -a throughway actually constructed for the purpose of delivering southerly commuter traffic in to the city far faster than US1."

The county has placed barriers and large potted palms in the lanes to help remind motorists it is no longer trafficable, but will maintain police presence on 1 for the short term, in part to redirect confused motorists.

The unnamed officials also cited feedback from the latest pedestrian safety campaign held by the Mt. Vernon precinct of the Fairfax County police, in conjunction with the Fairfax County health department.

"This is great!" said one pedestrian who did not wish to be named in this report. "It used to be, I only had 35 seconds to get across the street to my bus stop, before the light turned red and cars would go again. Now, I can take my time, and my poor aged mother can cross with me!"

A spokesman for the nearby Gold's Gym, now blocked off by the zone, did not see this move as a threat to their business. "Quite the contrary! Although people will be out and about walking instead of being with their cars, they can now walk to the gym! Since people can no longer drive here, we hope to replace our parking lot with an outdoor excercise pavillion and lap pool for summer use.

On the flip side, I'm going to have to be taking some serious break from the computer for a few weeks, except for the things I totally need to do, until a bunch of inflammation in my right shoulder and elbow settles down. Soo, if you want to get ahold of me, or there's something in your LJ you need me to be aware of, send email or call. I'll be even more out of it than usual on that front, I'm afraid.

Birthday

anneb — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:14:49 GMT

Happy (belated) Birthday beckmumble!

Hope you had a great one

On our increasing drug problem...

anneb — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:37:36 GMT

Walgreens is moving on to Richmond Highway.

Across the Streets:
Rite Aid (used to be the Dixie Pig)
Giant Food (with Pharmacy)
Target (with Pharmacy)
GNC

A longer but easily doable walk away:
CVS
Rite Aid (they bought out the recently built Eckerd and changed the sign)

Within about a mile, easily accessible by bus, car, bike:
CVS
Safeway (with Pharmacy)
Shopper's Food Warehouse (with Pharmacy)
Coming Soon- another Walgreens

Boy, it's a good thing Walgreens is moving in. I mean, where would we go to get what we needed?

Remedial suburban driving

anneb — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:29:49 GMT

For those who have problems negotating traffic circles, I present to you a practice location. With only two points of entry or egress, it's simpler to learn. And, should you still have trouble figuring it out, there is a rest stop for you, so you don't panic because you can't get out, yet have to go to the bathroom.

(A mere click, and you will be magically transported to the photo's page. What disturbs me most: I "mapped this photo on flickr"-- the place name came back, "Lorfax Heights." Who comes up with these names? I am the Lorfax, I pave over trees? I mean, C'mon!!)

anneb — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:52:10 GMT

My color printer, to me, today: "I'm out of magenta."
I have to run to Office Depot to get ink carts, I no longer have spares. So, I ask- "Is anything low? Is that all?"
[Run tool that tells me the status of all the printer cartridges. ]
Printer: "Yup. Everything else is fine."
Me: "Gee, it's been a while, some of the other carts should be showing somewhat lower than they are, I would think. Did you really look? Check again."
Printer: "I just need magenta. Everything else is near full."

Well, what can I say? I don't want to stockpile lots of unused toner carts, I figure I'm going to order some double sized ones from Epson, anyway. And they're not cheap, I'd rather spread the pain out a little. So. Magenta.
[Time passes. I return from Office Depot. With Magenta. I replace the magenta. Toner light is still solid red.]

Printer, to me: "I'm out of yellow."
Me: " ... "

Ya know, when my kid pulls this sort of stunt, I can ask, "When I told you to check again, DID YOU REALLY?" I can force consequences to that sort of behavior. What am I gonna do, put my printer in time out or something?

Thursdays? It's TUESDAYS that are dangerous

anneb — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:21:06 GMT

So, yesterday I filled out application forms to become a sole proprietor LLC in the Commonwealth of Virginia, so that I may pursue freelance documentary/editorial photography for real. I attached a check to the State Corporation Commission, put it in an addressed envelope, put a stamp on it, sealed it, and put it in the mailbox. The mailman took it away, and now I wait.

Ok. That was scary. But I did it. First step out that particular door.

Any doubts I had about this move got wiped this morning, with the advent of more AOL layoffs.

Just over 5 years there, just under 5 years since I left on my own volition, and the reports of layoffs in Dulles still make my blood run cold. I've always had serious issues of the way they're handled, and today sure didn't put a dent in them.

So, if I work for myself, yeah, I could still get fired. But I don't have to watch the cold, abrupt disapparance of several cow-orkers on a bright, sunny Tuesday morning, where unlike the dead, the names aren't posted- but mentioned only in hushed whispers in the hallway, until the meeting when we all look around, see who has survived, and be told "they are no longer part of the vision of this company and have gone to a better place." After which, they are spoken of no longer. Because it is, of course, bad luck to speak of the dead. Be as it may security from poison pills, it's equally a blast shield to hide behind, to compensate for the fear of confrontation, and the depersonalization of a growing work force.

The idealist in me thinks that if the ~~leaf nodes~~ organized a bit and told the corporate higher ups that this wasn't tolerable, it would get better- less traumatic, perhaps, less in a way psychically violent. The rationalist says that there are too many libertarians in the tech industry for that to fly. The cycnic doesn't think it'd do any good.

But I sure as hell don't want to go back. Off to the Big Blue Room (TM) for me. I think I prefer my current sort of scary.

Congreff: HaHaHaHaHa

anneb — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:59:36 GMT

http://community.livejournal.com/cololnials/1052.html

(thanks, beckmumble for the heads up)

Hallelujah!

anneb — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:53:56 GMT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/AR2007072601894_pf.html

(The short form: A goodly chunk of the jobs originally intended to be moved to Ft. Belvoir on US1 without benefit of Metro are now slated by the Army to go to the site of the GSA Warehouses on Loisdale, in sneezing distance from Franconia/Springfield Metro and VRE. Sounds like the clue-by-four hit solid this time around)

Temporally Challenged

anneb — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 15:58:58 GMT

Noted while waiting on child- the musak in DS' orthodontist's office today was playing Christmas carols. I'm mildly glad to note it wasn't overly schlocky or cutesey, but.... ??????

Moving right along....

anneb — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:54:05 GMT

At Safeway today, I get a diet soda and a pack of Reese's. (They didn't have the pectin I was looking for. Move along.) Cashier asks, if I would like help with my bag.

What would they have said if I'd said "Yes?"

anneb — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:25:01 GMT

pointed to by curvemudgeon:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html

Prediction: Executive branch makes preparations for annexation of Legislative Branch, when the latter denies funds for the former's current war.

The current administration has too much of a track record of jumping up and down and yelled "Unpatriotic!!! Undermining the troops!!" for legitimate free speech protests for me to be at ALL comfortable with this.

EEEEEEEEEEEP!

anneb — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:55:14 GMT

Imagine my ~~dismay~~ sheer panic when I woke up this morning to find my Girl Genius UNAVAILABLE!!!! GACK.

First: Do not panic, fellow reader: the exploits of Agatha, the Coffee and the Ex-Jäger continue unabated. The Foglios have set up girlgeniuscomic for the duration. [WHEW!]

According to Kaja's blog (kajafoglio) they've hit the max and their provider doesn't offer more. The "this site has exceeded bandwidth" page says "Hosted by Network Solutions," who, according to one poster on Kaja's LJ mentions, tops out at 500GB/month. That's all there is, there ain't no more. Oh, and they're changing providers. Can't say's I blame them.

Honestly, while I'm thrilled they're getting that kind of traffic, I'm more than a teeny bit suprised that NSI of all people can't handle a half a terrabyte for a customer over the course of a month.. No, that's not as big a number, any more. I've got that many 1s and 0s sitting right next to me on a USB drive that is taking up less volume than the entire collected works of GG in print.

Then again, I think monthly overall volume is just a really lousy unit of commerce, period, whether or not you provide for overages at a cost (overdraft protection?) Nobody cares about the monthly total on the provider end, it's all the minute to minute max width of the pipe. Time for Agatha to get to work on the west coast network trunks, obviously. Regardless, I suppose I should be glad for underachievers everywhere that NSI is championing the cause of the bar not being set too high.

In other news around the house, DS and I have been working on doing some solid cleaning of his room (not just floor and surfaces, etc., but closets, drawers...) We found the harmonica. He's been tootling around on it, today. Definitely an improvement over yesterday, when he was doing something to the lowest notes, trying to put the harm back in harmonica....

$BIKE{GOOD} to go in to REI today, front handlebar derailleur is hosed, it fails to shift more often than it actually does shift, and the person at the Bike To Work Day Rest Stop Checkup Stand seemed to think that it's got worn gears or something on the inside. Might as well get it in to get worked on while I'm off at camp next week.