So you and your family wanna see the Nation’s Capitol, but you are concerned about he cost of hotels. You are worried that after you pay $100 a night, minimum, for accommodation, you’ll be eating Ramen noodles for months to pay off the credit cards.

Photo by DC Metroblogger

May I offer you an alternative: Urban RV Living

See this mini-RV? That was parked out in front of my downtown office building two nights in a row, windows covered in A/C cold condensation as a tourist family slept cheap in the city.

Best location perk: they parked 20 feet from Starbucks and 2 blocks from the White House.

You may have heard their ads on the radio, or seen their ads on WTOP.com or WashingtonPost.com, they have a big media buy in the DC area right now for the windows and shades. But here’s what happened when I tried to get some new windows for my condo.

After doing a bunch of looking around, and asking friends for recommendations, I’ve been calling places and getting appointments and quotes. Today, I called Thomson Creek. The woman who I spoke with asked for my information, which I gave out, but then started prying, “Is there a Mrs. Bridge?” Um. Yes. Her name is Tiffany. “And when will you both be available for a meeting?” Well, she works downtown, I work from home. I’m glad to meet with your salesperson whenever… and that’s when she cuts me off.

They don’t do meetings with just one person, if you’re married.

What the fuck is that? I just want the quote for the windows, I don’t need you to try to manipulate my spouse against me out of some stylistic choice. I just want to know what you’ll charge me for 9 windows! Now, I respect that it’s their legal right to run their business however they want, I just want to point out that when you have two people working in the same household, and on different schedules, you’re not going to get their business if you insist that you have the meetings on your terms instead of those of your clients.

Screw you, Thomson Creek, that’s a dumb and fucked up policy.

The Washington Post has a great video piece on last night’s demolition of the old span of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, including an interview with Daniel Ruefly, who got to start the chain reaction of explosions that destroyed the old span of the bridge. I didn’t make it out to the detonation last night, demoralized after a Pub Quiz meltdown in the last round. Did you see the detonation? What did you think?

I snapped this in front of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.  While I think the pylons put around the building to prevent someone from ramming into the building with a car are important safety considerations – it seems to me that they leave just enough room to get by if you were in a wheelchair.  The parked cars only magnify the problem.

People, if you block the ramp, then it can’t be used.  The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed for a reason.  Try to be aware when you are parking near these ramps.

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While darling girlfriend and I were looking for someplace to damage our livers kill some time in oldtown on Saturday night we started to walk past Austin Grill…. and saw the giant turtle.

Since normally this is the kind of thing that we start seeing after the imbibing we had to go in.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that our daily dose of weird was coming to us courtesy of the Alexandria-Olympic branch of The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington, a charitable organization that serves the needs of children of all races and creeds. So of course they were doing this from a bar.

Seriously – the giant turtle was to help promote the impending 2nd annual Turbo Turtle Trek. At 2pm on September 3rd they’ll release about 10,000 rubber turtles into the great wave pool at Cameron Run Water Park, each with a number that identifies who “adopted” it for $5. Prizes range from an airfare-included trip to St Thomas to 25 personal training sessions to Nats and Redskins tickets – 11 in all. We, of course, threw down our $5 each.

There’s no support for online signup but you can stop in the office between 11am and 6pm this week to make your entry or, better yet, show up on Sunday after 11am and buy one there. There’ll be carnival activities but the real show’s gotta be 10,000 rubber turtles in the wave pool. I’ve gotta miss it – I’ll be visiting one of our sister cities – but I’m counting on someone to go take pictures.

And in case you’re wondering, St Thomas has leatherback, green and hawksbill turtles so it’s a wonderfully apropos 1st prize. I’ll send y’all a postcard when I win.

Alexandria-Olympic Branch
Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington
401 North Payne Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Phone: 703.549.3078

Great Waves at Cameron Run Regional Park
4001 Eisenhower Avenue,
Alexandria, VA
703-960-0767

The first day of school was great! We survived. We skipped the nap, but hey…who sleeps on the first day of school? Lunch? Rock’n. Ok, we skipped the banana but the juice had a nice bouquet. School uniforms? Dad thinks they lean to dorkdom. Who would have a three year-old wear a WHITE shirt? There is too much grape juice, soccer grime, and purple Playdoh. Friends? Lots of them; all shapes, sizes, colors, and personalities. Isn’t school great! The worst bit? Kid: missing old friends. Dad: 3:15 isn’t long enough. The best bit? Kid: playing ball. Dad: 8:30 – 3:15. We’re off to bed. Ready for tomorrow and the new routine.

Everyone knows by now that I’m a little more than in love with the people of New Orleans after they were affected and destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. In fact, I’ve never even been to New Orleans for fun, or for Bourbon Street craziness.

I have been for two recovery trips and continue to think about when I can make a third trip. Many of you helped provide materials and transportation for our recent trip in May. I sit here watching the “year later” specials still not understanding the sites that my very own eyes just a few weeks after the storm. I still haven’t – in eleven months – ever smelled anything like the waste and death I smelled there the end of last September. I sit here watching the people of Katrina – the people we helped on both our trips down – on these shows and feeling the exact same desperation and hurt that I felt standing in front of the devastation that was before me, and surrounded me, eleven months ago.

For those that know me, I’m not all that empathetic of a person – but for some reason Katrina victims have latched on to my little heart. Maybe you too, realizing as tomorrow is the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina first hitting, how can I, all the way up here in DC, help this city and help the tens and thousands of people still without homes.

Here, DC, remember the victims of Katrina this week, as they mark the hardest year of their lives:

Enter your zip code here at Strength and find a DC restaurant that will support victims with a portion of their proceeds. There are many NoVa and DC participating restaurants.

Making Change for Katrina: click on the “zip code finder” and you’ll find many DC and metro-area locations where you can take your change and donate it to Katrina victims.

Please add more – you all are parts of organizations that are doing things to continue helping, right here in DC. Let us know how we can help.

If there’s one thing I hate it’s those certain cliche conversation starters that people use because they’ve run out of things to say to each other. Like for example, that guy in the office just has to freaking mention that he’s seen the first Christmas display of the season and can you believe how early it is this year? God I hate people like that.

So it pains me to have to do this, but OMG I was in Wegmans Supermarket (way the hell out in Fairfax) on Sunday August 27th and they not only have Halloween candy for sale, but they also have some Xmas decorations up! It’s not full blown Xmas frenzy yet, I’m sure that they’ll gradually add more as the day gets closer, but you can definitely see a few Xmas trees and Santas here and there. I’m not sure though which bothers me more, the fact that they are starting Xmas 4 full months before the actual holiday, or that they expect people to hand out 2 month old candy for Halloween! Maybe they figure that a lot of people can’t resist eating the candy if its sitting in their cupboard for two months, so they’ll have to come back and buy more.

Merry Xmas everybody!

And now for today’s WTF.

Dan Snyder, who owns the Redskins, Red Zebra Radio, and Six Flags just loves stars. Now, we learn that the starstruck owner is apparently not limiting himself to just the gridiron variety. The LA Times reports that Snyder is the lead investor in a group that will finance Tom Cruise’s production company. Cruise previously had a longstanding relationship with Paramount Pictures that recently ended in part due to his controversial behavior of the last couple of years.

No word yet on whether The Danny gets to see Suri.

Hat tip to Off Wing Opinion .

One goal I have with my entries is to uncover “hidden musical treasures” here in DC.

Let’s face it, it’s large enough that there have to be some around here.

I already knew that Duke Ellington was born and raised here, and I knew about Marian Anderson singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial because she was banned from Constitution Hall (the year was 1939).

However, I’ve learned a lot since I moved to the area.

One music trivia fact I was surprised to learn was that Marvin Gaye was actually a “homeboy”. Yep…he graduated from Cardoza High School, and there was actually a Marvin Gaye Day here in the District in 1972.

Marvin Gaye is one of my favorite Motown musicians, and David Ritz’ book Divided Soul is definitely worth a read to find about the rise and fall of this one-of-a-kind singer.

I was also surprised to find that Patsy Cline had roots here in the DC area. She was born and raised in Winchester, Virginia. Her first husband was the owner of a construction company in Frederick, Maryland. But most surprisingly, she got her start on the country music scene here in DC in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s and went on from there. Her sidemen included Roy Clark (from “Hee Haw”) and Jimmy Dean (yep, the sausage guy).

What other “hidden musical treasures” can be found? It’s going to be my job to find out. BTW, if you’re reading this and you know of any “hidden musical treasures”, please be sure and let me know. It’s my quest, so to speak.

Bye!