If you were up at 4am for your early flight today, as I was…. sucks to be us, huh? On the other hand, the quality of light at dawn rivals anything you can pull off in Photoshop. Anyway, so far being one of the 2.3-2.4M expected travelers in the skies hasn’t been too bad, but then again I got to the security lines when the Dunkin Donuts guy wasn’t even mumbling to himself yet. Security lines here in Charlotte might be worse but I, happily, did not have to find out for myself – I knew better than to stray out of the Moisture-free side of the TSA checkpoints during my layovers, no matter how painfully long.

If my darling girlfriend will suffer through my snooping with only a mild eye-roll, I’ll pop up to the departures level when I get to Dulles and see how painful it looks.

I’ve been wanting to write about this photo for a long time now but have always stopped short and wrote about something else. I think this is partly because I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I like it so much, but it’s probably because the shot tells a story and sets a mood like a good photo should. It makes me want to be there in the sea of red people, and I love how the girl is the only one looking at the camera. Great mood, great atmosphere, great capture of the moment. Well done drade.

I took my Mom and my Aunt to the Iwo Jima Memorial yesterday. Just for fun I mentioned to Mom that when they were building the statue it kept tipping over so they added an extra leg for balance. If you count them, I said, there are thirteen legs and only six soldiers. For the next 20 minutes my Mom and my Aunt ran around the statue in circles loudly counting out numbers and gesticulating, arguing about what constitiuted a seperate leg and what was the same leg just seen from the other side. They must have looked like total weirdos to all the other people milling about the statue that day.

The final result? Mom swears its thirteen legs, my Aunt swears there are only twelve. I checked Wikipedia, but it didn’t mention anything about leg numbers, and since I’m far to apathetic to actually try counting myself, I guess we’ll never really know for sure. But if you’re in the area and have some time to kill, feel free to count for yourself and then report your findings back to me.

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Our fall fun with leaves was fleeting. Gone are the leaf blowers. Bye bye leaf piles.

Winter is near and its time to prepare.

Bag your leaves. Bag your window A/C. Bag your summer clothes.

Winter is near and its time to prepare.

Photo by DC Metroblogger

Today I ran out to the West Hyattsville Metro stop to burn off a little Thanksgiving Turkey and in search of a drink I found Maryland News Stand.

The name is all wrong as there was not much news for sale. A better name would be Maryland Liquor and Lottery.

That is until I bought my drink and dropped my change into the ‘give a penny – take a penny’ plate next to the register.

When the slovenly cashier put the 12 pennies in the register as I left, I thought of a new name: Maryland Rip Off.

The penny plate is for those like I who dislike change or need a cent or two, not a bonus to the store after every sale.

Don’t forget that now through December 3 the District a sales tax holiday.

The Sale Tax Holiday provides shoppers an exemption from DC’s 5.75 percent sales tax on each piece of clothing, accessory item or pair of shoes costing $100 or less. The sales tax exemption for school supplies is not included in this tax holiday.

There is more about Sales Tax Holiday here.

"Honey is the Land Rover ready?"

"I think so…"

"Did you set up the heavy duty roof rack?"

"Yup, the reinforced steel one."

"How about the spare water?"

"Yeah, we’ve got six jugs full ready to go."

"How about the medical supply duffel?"

"Yeah, that’s resting on the spare tire right now, but I’ll have it strapped down in no time."

"I think we’re ready for that 5AM departure to Tysons II to get our shopping on!"

"Yeah we are! And if anyone gets in our way we’ll just run their asses over hahaha!"

…hey folks they don’t call it Black Friday for nothing. Be careful out there.

Photo by DC Metroblogger

This is turkey is half of today’s feast. There is also a ham in the other oven.

When you are cooking for 16+ people you can’t mess around.

I am at the edge of DC, a stone’s throw from Takoma Park in the “Nut House” on Butternut Street. Good times and great people.

May you be so blessed too.

While coming back from lovely Key West last night, my darling girlfriend and I stopped at the Tiki Bar, an outdoor sprawling collection of waterfront saloon just north of Islamorada. Someone else had suggested that the Dairy Queen in Key Largo was the natural midway point to stretch your legs but with the temps in the high 50s and us being drunks us, we figured we’d stop at the bar for a beer instead.

So what, one wonders, does this have to do with DC metroblogging? Well, less than a minute after we sat down and ordered another couple wandered up and sat down at the bar to our left. They heard the tail end of my darling girlfriend’s gripe that whenever she visits with me it’s colder back at home in DC.

“Oh? Where in the DC area?” they asked. Knowing that nobody ever knows city names out that way, I just said “by the Dulles airport, actually.”
“Sure, but where?” I mentally shrugged my shoulders and said “Sterling.”

You’d have thought I flashed them or denied that the Pope ****s in the woods from the expression of surprise. Sure enough, 1200 miles from home we had sat down at a bar less than five minutes before two of approximately 82,000 people who live in the 45 square miles of my adopted town. Freshly back from Key West where they’d just gotten married, they were on their way to have thanksgiving with his family just north of Ft Lauderdale and just figured they’d stop for a drink on the way.

We had a good laugh out of the coincidence but I forgot to get their names, else I’d mention them here. We congratulated them on their nuptials and wished them a happy thanksgiving, which I also extend to you: Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers, and if you’re next door to me in Miami right now…. I don’t want to know about it ’cause that’s just creepy.

This week I’ve been working from home and starting to celebrate Thanksgiving in the Detroit area, where I got all growed up and lived until about five years ago. On Monday, I took my car to the Chevy dealership that I’ve always gone to here – they are so easy with information, totally trustworthy. I thought to myself, this place is a trillion times better than my dealership in NoVA.

That aside – on Tuesday after Pete (my “evil” SUV) was all fixed up, I picked it up in the early morning. The nice 55-ish year old man went to get my car where it had sat on the lot over night. Now, it’s November, so it’s cold up here and my car was covered in a thick frost, made up of just bit pilings of snow and some ice here and there. As I stood outside for about ten minutes and waited, the car finally drove up, windows all scraped and ready.

The nice man got out and said “you a Virginia transplant?,” obviously having seen my plates. I said no that I had lived there for five years but spent the rest of my life here in Detroit. He replied with “well, kid, maybe you forgot about our weather, but it’s November, you’re going to need to keep one of these in your car,” holding up a high quality snow brush and ice scraper combo. I laughed, said that I had not forgotten and in fact had a similar one under the back seat.

He replied, “well, you haven’t forgotten your roots then. Some of these southerners, they just don’t know what to do with themselves up here with this weather!”

I remember when I thought that DC was “the south,” and maybe even thought Virginia was the deep south at that. I don’t think that any longer but it was cute that a) he was calling me “kid” and giving me a kind reprimand had I, in fact, not been equipped with an ice scraper in Detroit in November, and b) he was showing his colors by thinking I lived in the south – surrounded by “southerners,” no less – with my Virginia plates.