Author: Prince Of Petworth

Dear PoP – Mayor Fenty’s Youth Job Corps Strikes Again!

By Prince Of Petworth

“Dear PoP,

The morning of Wed. August 5th, I left my Parkview/Petworth house for only a half hour and came home to find the five year old crepe myrtle –which I had planted in memory of my grandmother the week after she passed away – cut clean about five inches above the base and just laying there. The look on my face prompted a neighbor walk up and tell me “those Mayor’s kids in the blue shirts just did that a few minutes ago”. Sure enough – the band of blue shirts was walking aimlessly down the block with branch cutters. Confronting them was to no avail – and so now I have a dead tribute tree that I bought and planted to show for all the great work Fenty’s kids are doing in this city this summer being paid for in part with MY tax dollars!

In the press release (http://www.facebook..com/note.php?note_id=214813510712) that announced the program’s kick-off back in June Mayor Fenty proudly proclaimed, “My Green Summer Job Corps will lead to a cleaner, greener nation’s capital. All summer, the young people in this program will also do meaningful work and learn skills they can use for the rest of their lives.” Um yeah Mayor Fenty — vandalizing neighborhoods – yup – that’s about the only skills most DC kids need to learn to live in this city for the rest of there lives!”

While a different program than the one we discussed last week, it certainly seems that more supervision for both these programs is required. Let me just add, that when I was a youth I was no saint. I did, however, have part time jobs since I was 13 years old (stock boy, lawn mowing, ass’t town handyman) and for all those jobs I was closely supervised to make sure I did the work I was being paid for. I’m not saying I would’ve vandalized shrubs but I may have taken a nap or two without supervision. So I’m not blaming the kids. It seems the program itself needs to be reexamined. I do think the program is a worthy and necessary one. But why can’t we demand closer supervision. It seems like an easy fix. Am I missing something?

Ed. Note: At 11am Monday morning, I will post a response from:
Alan Heymann
Director, Public Information
District Department of the Environment

YES! Organic Market in Petworth (Georgia Ave. and Taylor) To Host Job Fair Monday Looks Close to Opening

By Prince Of Petworth

I received the following email Sunday evening:

“I was informed by the Yes staff in Brookland that the Yes store in Petworth opens tomorrow Monday!!!! Yeahhhhhhhhhhh!”

Sadly, the celebration may be a bit premature. I took some photos on Sat. and it looks like they’re close to opening but not just yet. A job fair is always a good sign though!

Dear PoP: Why are Fountains Drained at Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park? Also Another Possible Crime in the Park Sat. Night

By Prince Of Petworth

“Dear PoP,

Have you heard anything about why the fountains are drained at the bottom of meridian hill park?”

This is very odd. I thought they didn’t drain the fountains until October or November. But I saw some piping so maybe they’re just fixing it.

And sadly it seems there is more bad news to report. I received three emails saying that there was police tape around the park Sunday morning. Of course there was just a stabbing at the park July 25th. DCist received a tip that blood was seen. The emails I received only said that there was police tape seen. So I’ve sent out queries to try and find out what happened. I’ll update as soon as I get the word.

UPDATE No crime according to MPD. Please see update here.

Fire on 1100 Block of Columbia Road, NW Sunday Night and Tree Falls in Adams Morgan Friday Night

By Prince Of Petworth

Thanks to the readers for sending. For the photo above:

“Witnessing a whole slew of firemen/fire trucks outside a smoking rowhouse on 1118 Columbia.” I’m also hearing that the road has been closed for a while.

A description of the above photo:

“No wind, no nothing, this tree outside my apartment at 1800 Clydesdale just decided to fall over at about 11:30 tonight. Nobody was anywhere near it, but it managed to total a Mercedes and scratch a few other cars. It was on the Ontario condo building’s property and wasn’t dead or otherwise in obvious need of removal, but they just cut down about four or five in front of my place so maybe it was mourning its fallen comrades.”

Door of the Day

By Prince Of Petworth

I’m digging the red and this one’s got a bad ass mail slot as well…

GO Urban Adventure Race in DC -Review (By Kalia)

By Prince Of Petworth

Ed. Note: Kalia wrote about the race on July 20th. She is also way too kind in this write up. She was a far tougher competitor than I was.

So I’m sure many of you read last week how awesome the GO Urban Adventure Race was going to be, but now you can hear how awesome it actually was!!! For those of you who signed up and participated I hope you had as great an adventure as PoP and I did. For those of you who thought about it and didn’t get around to it, I hope you will reconsider when next year comes around.

PoP and I arrived a bit early, sorry about that PoP, which gave us a chance to sit back and watch all of our competition arrive team by team. The competition was pretty mixed from very competitive to easy-breezy-they-got-nothing-on-us. Some people wore camel backs and some wore cut off jeans. One team showed up sporting suit vests and cut off dress pants-AWESOME!!! Check in was quick and easy. We were also given our pin on race numbers (just like if we were in a marathon) goody bags with cool stuff from GO Urban as well as from their sponsors and we checked our phone to make sure it had proper textability with their system.

Exactly at noon everyone received their first 4 clues via text and off we went! PoP and I decided to head to Dupont Circle first so we hoofed it up to our first few locations. The texting was a great way to get the clues and man did those clues send us EVERYWHERE!!! We decided to jog/walk everywhere forgoing the use of the metro trains and buses. We are hardcore! ;) Ok well PoP is hardcore; I just want to throw that out there. For those of you who imagine PoP leisurely strolling along on the weekends snapping photos, you are grossly mistaken. PoP walks at an inhuman speed which had me jogging slowly beside him. I can only imagine what the people we passed by thought at the sight of us. Our adventure took us from George Washington to Dupont, from Dupont to the Mall, then on down around the Tidal Basin to see old TJ and back up around to the WWII memorial. It then sent us up to the Farragut N. metro area and oops, back down to the National Aquarium, and ah, crap, back up to Dupont circle because we finally figured out what those clues meant! There were 2 points in Old Town Alexandria which PoP and I decided to not do, so we hoofed it from Dupont back to GW and we were the 7th team to arrive, but the 1st to arrive with all 10 DC points out the total 12. There were some major delays and break downs on the blue line that day so we were thankful we decided not to even bother going. Due to this the GO Urban team decided to let all 50 teams qualify for free to the Championship race July 17, 2010 in DC!!! Continues after the jump. (more…)

Great for Trees or Mosquitos? by Eric Nuzum

By Prince Of Petworth

One of these showed up around a tree in front of my house yesterday, with no context or explanation. I’ve noticed quite a few of these popping up throughout the neighborhood around the young trees and I’m curious if others have noticed them or had any experience with them. The side identifies them as “BioPlex Tree Rings.”

At first I thought these were something that you would plant in the ground around the tree to keep the roots at the right depth or use as a planter of some kind. Then I went to their Web site and it seems these are some kind of water collection/slow-drip system from keeping the baby trees properly moisturized.

My biggest concern is that these are going to end up making the mosquito situation even worse than it already is this time of year. Having large buckets of water sitting around is kinda asking for trouble.

Is this worth it?

Ed. Note: And speaking of trees there will be a community watering – from an email:

“There will be community tree watering this Saturday (8/8) @ 7am for the trees that have been planted by DDOT/UFA in the Medians at the Georgia Ave/Petworth Metro Station. We will be meeting at the the Petworth Station Metro Statue at 7am for a safety meeting. Please come out and join us as your schedules permit. Hope to see you there…..

Again, THANK YOU to Donatelli Development, who is providing access to water from the Park Place building by Donatelli Development.”

Coolest Pet in PoPville Entries #99, #100, #101, #102, #103, #104, #105 and #106 (sorta)

By Prince Of Petworth

“I thought I’d throw Agnes into the mix. Unfortunately, her kind is frowned upon by the great District of Columbia, the place where I was born and raised. So Agnes lives out in Fairfax County with some horses and two others chickens, Mrs. Kravitz and Gertrude. She is a very friendly polish hen who enjoys eating worms and cantaloupe, and she has a better pompadour than most hipsters.”

“Klay is our gorgeous golden boy. Here is is wrapped up in the sheets, um, cause the other pets arent cool enough to have discovered thats the thing to do yet.”

“This is Cassidy. She’s a rescue who’s about 3 years old and, if you believe the doggie DNA test, is a German Shepherd/chihuahua mix. Yes, you read that right. Cass loves lamb treats, chasing a ball (but not bringing it back), sleeping under the bed, trips to grandma’s house to get spoiled, and sneaking into the basement in search of the cat who avoids her. She’s afraid of a lot of things and we think she’s secretly a Republican (but we love her anyway).”

Ed. Note:  Submissions have been closed.  No more entries will be accepted at this point. Sorry for the confusion – all pets received before the deadline will be posted, of course. No NEW submissions will be accepted.

The cats are not competing against the dogs.  There will be 5 dog, cat and “other” finalists that will each compete in their own category.  We’ll have a poll in each category to select the winner.  Using the comments section for these posts will help me select the 5 finalists for each category. You can see all the entries here. Please see after the jump for more entries. (more…)

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