Based on last Friday’s question of the day (lots of good book recs by the by) it seems as though a book club has formed. Sounds cool.
From the comments:
“I went ahead and reserved the library’s meeting room for you for 7-8:45 on the night of the 29th.
Tony Ross @ Petworth Neighborhood Library”
Am I living in a war zone? This is the question I kept asking myself after witnessing the scene above. What you are looking at is a DC National Guard Humvee with a huge spotlight and the photo below shows three National Guard Troops and one MPD office on the corner of 5th and Taylor, NW. (Sadly, I only had my cell phone and it was pretty tough to get proper photos with the 50,000 watt spotlight shining.)
I mentioned last November how my neighbor and I heard a shooting in the middle of the day and hardly flinched. That for sure was disturbing. The not flinching that is. But I think I am even more disturbed that I didn’t flinch at the sight of the DC National Guard Deployed in my neighborhood. I mean at first I walked right by them. I said to myself “oh there must have been a shooting, so this is the response” and just kept walking. Then I thought, holy shit this the national guard, I’ve never seen them deployed before. How bad does it have to get for the guard to be deployed? I think sometimes I focus a little too much on the beautiful life and let the absurdity I sometimes experience slide. I dare say it is not “normal” to have a guard humvee and troops on a residential block in DC. Maybe in Baghdad at the moment. But my relatively quiet little block?
So when I gathered my wits I walked up to the MPD officer and asked what was going on? She replied, “we’re lighting up the block.” Um, ok. I said I found it odd that Guard troops were with her and she said “we do it all the time”. Um, ok. Has anyone else ever seen Guard troops in full camouflage fatigues deployed in their neighborhood? Maybe the police don’t have enough resources and needed to borrow the Guard’s humvee with spotlight and a few troops? Maybe. Or maybe I really am living in a war zone?
Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have them there than read (or hear) about another shooting. But is this really the solution? Do/would you feel safer having National Guard troops deployed around “hot spots” in the city?
Thanks to a reader for sending, sounds very promising:
“I was walking my dogs this evening and for the first time in a long while decided to walk up Upshur towards Soldiers Home. I found this place Ainsworth & Alexander at 221 Upshur St.. You can see from the picture (sorry, cell phone pic while trying to hold 2 dog leashes) that it’s kind of bare bones inside. I took the pic meaning to send to you to see if you’d heard of this place and a man came out to ask if I needed anything. I told him I just wanted to tell a friend or two about the place and he offered me a few carry-out menus. His name was Grant and seemed really nice. He told me they had just opened up 5 weeks ago and that things were going well so far. They plan on offering WiFi service in the near future and adding more furniture. Menu looks decent.. Chicken and Waffles, Wraps, Salads, Sandwiches, Mac-n-Cheese, etc. They even have desserts! Perhaps if they were open later I’d walk down the block for a piece of cake after dinner at El Limeno. Also, it’s a bit late for them to set up now, but in the Spring they have a nice little patch of sidewalk out front where they could set up a few outdoor tables for dining.
Their hours are posted as 7:30 AM to 7:00 PM Tues- Fri, and 8:30AM to 4PM Sat. Phone number is 202-541-9501”
Thanks to a reader for sending this super cool photo. It was found on this Web site but originally came from the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs collection.
Nice! I can’t stand those internet juke boxes. I get a bit too overwhelmed with all the choices. I think it’s far more fun to have a nicely stocked proper juke box like this. I always tend to play music that I don’t own on jukes like this one.
In other good LGL news. They now also have a new single malt scotch – OBan a 14 year old single malt. Plus they have a new bourbon – Blanton’s single barrel bourbon. Plus they have a new Irish whiskey, sadly not Powers, Clontarf which is supposedly a bit better than Jamesons. And finally they have a new seasonal beer by Post Road which is a Pumpkin Ale.
But back to the juke box. Which do you prefer the classic ones like this or the internet ones?
A million thanks to Kalia for her extremely detailed notes.
Oh boy! So tonight I went to the ANC meeting and let me just tell you, it was very hard to keep up and try to collect all the info as people were talking as well as try to retain what they were saying so that when it was my turn to speak I knew what to say. There were a couple of interesting topics tonight. I bolded the topics for each paragraph so if you don’t care to read about it you will know which paragraphs to skip. I will not lie and say that anything here is unbiased. I tried to relay the points however as honestly as I can remember while trying to keep my own thoughts on it afterwards. If any of you reading this are named in this I apologize if I misspelled your names, organizations, or even did not convey your points correctly. I am only human and I tried my best. Kalia’s notes continue after the jump. (more…)
Remember the discussion we had about the church parking in the middle of New Hampshire Ave.? Well it is going to be addressed tonight. So if you feel strongly about it this is your chance to be heard.
“Revisit the median strip (pedestrian safety) issue on New Hampshire Avenue NW between Randolph and Shepherd Streets NW. (Mr. Muhammed Khalid, DDOT Ward 4 Project Manager, or his designee.) (Comm. Jones and Martin)”
ANC meets at 801 Shepherd St NW and the meeting starts at 6:30pm
Is Petworth becoming a cyclists’ heaven? Lots of bike lanes going in – a few weeks ago it was 5th St. and now 7th St. Can 9th St. be far behind?
There was quite a back and forth last month as to whether this house at 3814 Kansas Ave. was a good deal or not? The asking price then was $545,000. Although I believed it originally was asking $595,000.
Well, it sold yesterday for $535,000.
The seller writes:
“Also, my opinion about this market is that buyers know that they have the sellers over a barrel and basically wait on the sidelines until the price is just right. The people who ended up buying our house looked at it the first time back in May and waited and waited until we dropped the price, very savvy of them to wait it out!”
Congrats to the sellers and buyers.