Happy New Year DC (is it too late to say that already?)

About a month ago I agreed to take a little trip over inauguration weekend rather than stay for the event.  Not that I needed my arm twisted-a few seconds of imagining the traffic nightmare this city would be was enough to convince me that missing the most historic inauguration ever wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

As we get closer though, and reports that there won’t be as many people as originally anticipated surface I’m beginning to rethink the quickness to which I volunteered to jump out of town.  I’m still going to be leaving, don’t get me wrong, but a survey of some web site tend to show that the city looks like it is getting its act together regarding “how to get there.” 

So while I’ll be watching the inauguration from a couch several hundred miles away (and reporting here from said couch) I thought I’d pass along some helpful transport links for those who are staying in town:

Take the Train:  Despite the fact that everyone else will do it too, I’m guessing that Metrorail will be your best bet if you have more than a mile or two to cover. 

The commemorative cards are now available online at the WMATA site and at sale centers.  They look a lot sharper than I was prepared for. 

Strangely-Metro has decided to close some of the metro stations and parking lots for the event.

For Metro’s full coverage of Inauguration Day-click here.

Or…Don’t take the train:  Is Public Trans not green enough for you?  Well then ride your bike!  WAMU had the story this morning about bike racks and valets (Bike valets?) being made available on Inauguration day. 

Stretch those Legs:  How about a nice walk?  Right along the parade route.  The city of DC’s home page has a great Inauguration 09 site, including this “getting there” page which highlights some walking routes.

Roads?  Where we’re going we don’t need…roads:  And neither should you.  Unless you have a flying Delorean (which I would also suggest not taking to DC for the Inauguration) it looks like cars and buses are going to be severely limited in where they can go and what they can do.  Do your best to avoid trying to park in DC or drive anywhere near the mall-the sooner you can get out of a car the better. 

Can we Sail?  Yes We Can!:  Yep-you may have missed booking it already, but at least one group of Obama fans will be sailing to the Inauguration.  No clue where they are going to park it, but even taking a boat here you’ll still be subject to the rules of the road once you land. 

Other tips?

"dc united fans" courtesy of Flickr user jamescalder

Mass transit- it’s transportation for the masses.

The very definition of the word is going to be realized during Inaugural Day weekend when the millions of people that is expected to come out will try out the city’s Metrorail system to get to and from places. It goes without saying that you might experience some delays. I’m not talking about delays that happen when there’s a Nationals game and a Wizards game occurring at the same time- I mean delays that may just may make you dodge the Metro system altogether.

While preparations are being made which includes rush hour service for 17 hours (4 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Inauguration Day) lines are expected to be long. General advice includes spending more time around the city so everyone isn’t rushing the system at once; and if you live within 2 miles- just walk. Doesn’t it sound scary when mass transit advises you not to use mass transit?

Well for those that are planning to take the Metro should prepare for fees- WMATA has announced that they will be charging rush-hour rates while providing extended rush hour service. For those that want to park can expect a $4 fee. Typically fares are reduced and parking is free on Federal holidays- however this is clearly not a typical Federal holiday. WMATA is raising the fees in order to cope with increased costs that will be expected with Inauguration.

In other news my excitement over DC’s decision to extend bar serving hours to 5 AM has waned with the D.C. Council’s decision to roll it back to 4 AM. The amended bill now only extends the alcohol serving hours to match similar hours done during New Years. Also the law does not supersede agreements bars may have with local neighborhoods- so that means not every bar will be able to stay open late if they have a deal to close sooner with the neighbors.

I’m not too too disappointed- I mean who is really going to be out drinking til 5 AM? I think those that are should be able to cope with the extra hour of sleep this bill now gives them. I can see myself going out til 3 AM- then getting out of there before things get too dodgy.

Earlier I wrote about the Newseum being open for Inauguration and noting it’s advantageous location. Well it appears that now word has spread and the Newseum is now sold out of tickets for Inauguration Day. Looks like you going to have to find another museum to haunt before your 12 hours of drinking.

"DC: Lincoln Memorial" courtesy of Flickr user wallyg

Another item I wrote about earlier was the Inaugural Kick-Off which is now revealed to be a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. There will also be a Children’s concert at the Verizon Center. Both events will be free- check out the Committee website for more information.

With all these events shaping up- where will you go to the bathroom? Well it looks like that there will be over 5,000 Porta-Potties on the mall ready to relieve the masses. While most people would be worried about bathrooms on The Mall- I want to let everyone know that WMATA has also decided to close all their bathrooms during the Inauguration and will also be setting up Porta-Potties where it can outside stations.

I don’t know what will be more chanllenging- finding a way to get there or finding a place to pee?

"Acela train sign" courtesy of Flickr user Savannah Grandfather

We all know that Joe Biden takes the train from Wilmington to Washington DC every day- if you don’t then you’ve been living under a rock.

If you have been you’ve also missed a whole lot more than that.

If you haven’t read my friend’s post from yesterday it looks like President-Elect Obama is taking a page out of his running mate’s playbook. The Inauguration committee has just announced that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will kicking off the inauguration with a series of events being held in Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore. The two will travel by train and will end their pre-inaugural rock tour in Washington D.C. After all, there’s nothing like a little train ride to hype up the already hyped Inauguration. I do however like the idea of spreading Inauguration out beyond the borders of Washington D.C. I wonder if this means the millions of people that will descend upon D.C. this year will try and hit up Baltimore on their way down. They could use the support.

Whether or not you decide to follow Obama on tour before the Inauguration, the only place you can’t be before Inauguration is The Mall. Several Federal officials have announced that overnight camping will not be allowed on The Mall. Also if you are going to try and stake out a spot for the Parade you will not be allowed to do so until 7 AM that morning.

While we are talking about things we can’t do- I just found this Washington Post article that discusses transportation options around Inauguration. It’s a good guide to refer to for anyone thinking about coming out for the swearing in. I’m very disappointed to hear that bicycles will not be allowed within the security cordon that has yet to be determined. That was going to be my strategy for avoiding the Metro. It seems as if walking is the best way to get anywhere- even in and out of the city. I can see it now, a scene straight out of Cloverfield, thousands of people trying to find an open bridge to walk across to escape DC.

Maybe it was the freezing temperatures that kept people at home that night. When I walked into Mackey’s Public House this past Saturday the crowds were light but cheery.

I was out on the town after watching the Wizards come so close but not close enough against the Lakers. At least they pulled off a comeback but I have a bad feeling when it comes to the future outlook of the home basketball team.

So I was at a table with my date when I see a server walk over and strike up a conversation with a table of women. He wasn’t getting drink order or phone numbers- but inquiring about the mess they appeared to have made on their table.

I glanced over and noticed that these ladies were drinking on a table covered in Post-It notes.

The small white company branded notes told me that the display wasn’t part of the bar decor. Laughter was the only understandable behavior as the women scribbled down notes on new post-it notes and stuck them on the table, their friends, and their own body parts. Was this some drinking game I’ve never heard of? Was it the result of a long happy hour that’s evolved to behavior too drunken to really understand? After the server left I had to do the same and I leaned over to find out.

I walked over and introduced myself, asking what was on these notes that were being exchanged. A blonde probably the size of my pinky told me that each note represented a different ex-boy friend and the night was spent exchanging stories while creating paper representations of old flames.

And just like that I was sucked into a scene fit for any romantic chick flick or episode of Sex and the City.

After the explanation I was handed a blank pad and a pen and asked to contribute. Any combination of words, sentences, or diagrams were permitted. As I write this I have thought of five better stories I could have recalled but I scribbled down the first thing that came to my mind that night.

I won’t disclose what I wrote but it was one word and it required no explanation once I slammed it down on the table.

The ladies hooted and hollered and stuck the note on my pants.

I didn’t get any of their names but found out that they all knew each other through a combination of roommates and classmates at various graduate and undergraduate studies. I’m actually glad I didn’t get a name for fear that I may become a post-it note, an inside joke scribbled on a piece of paper on a night of drinking.

The owner of the pad and originator of the spontaneous activity had two post-it notes stuck on her shirt. One read “Leggy”, which is apparently her nick name, and the other read “Emotionally Uninterested.”

She explained, “I dated this guy who told me that he wasn’t emotionally unavailable to women- he was just emotionally uninterested.”

Other stories that were told me that night included trickery to land a date in the Bethesda Metro, a proposal in the middle of the ocean, and a Marine who hasn’t made a move after three dates.

“We’ve been dating for a month and after three dates he hasn’t even kissed me- isn’t that weird?”

After looking at the owner of the note I wondered myself and it sparked debate and further stories between me, my date, and her.

The conversation between the ladies soon turned to dancing so my date and I returned to our table to enjoy our drinks and watched four ladies and a pad of post-it notes out in Washington DC.

As I finished my drink the DJ puts on Beyonce’s latest track, a catchy dance beat called “Single Ladies.”

I laughed as it was an appropriate theme song of the night, as the ladies sang, danced, and displayed their bare ring fingers.

Nat'l Tree 2000, by flickr user wallyg (CC License)

There are a lot things that I love about winter in DC:  ice-skating on the Mall, the Downtown Holiday Market, watching panic-buying of bread and milk each time snow is forecast…  And one of my favorites happened this week:  Tree-Lighting Time.

I’ve got friends who have lived here for decades, but don’t believe that the “National Christmas Tree” is a live blue spruce that was actually planted at the Ellipse on October 20, 1978.  It happens that I know this because before Executive Avenues East and West were closed after 9/11, I used to walk up the Ellipse and past the White House from Constitution Avenue to my job at Farragut North on a fairly regular basis.  (If’n I were President, I’d totally relax the restrictions around the WH.  I really, really, really miss that short-cut.  But I digress.)  I walked right by it, and stopped to read the marker at the base of the tree.   It was lit lastnight amid “Pageant of Peace” festivities and mad-crazy traffic jams.

In contrast, the Capitol Christmas Tree (lit by the Speaker and Majority Leader on Tuesday of this week in a Pageant-less lighting ceremony) is a cut tree.  It’s part of a collection provided by the US Forest Service, from a different state each year.  They’re used to decorate government offices in DC.  This year’s Sub Alpine Fir hails from out in Big Sky country…it’s from the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana.

This year both trees are lit (at least partially) using energy-efficient LEDs rather than incandescents, to cut down on costs and electricity usage.

No word yet on what sort of bulbs will be used when the National Menorah is lit.  The Festival of Lights begins at sundown on  December 21, and there will be a celebration to light the Menorah at 4 PM that day. And of course, each night another bulb will be added!

So get on out there, DC, and take in the holiday sights!

In three days the National Museum of American History reopens to the general public. I was fortunate to tour the renovated building yesterday.

The first thing I notice as I step through the Mall entrance of the American History Museum is how light it is. A skylight brightens the three story atrium and the artifacts, like a home computer circa 1985, that line the walls in 10 ft. cases. A grand staircase constructed of metal and glass connects the first and second floors.

As I walk into the Selin Welcome Center, videos preview some of the events and special exhibits on the four flat screens as helpful volunteers provide maps and membership information.

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preserve, protect, and defend

UPDATE:  In comments, I was reminded that Tom Davis is leaving the House due to retirement, not electoral defeat.  I stand corrected!

The election is over, the winner has finally been announced (within the hour!  boy, that was a relief…but I digress).  But the plans for Inauguration 2009 have been in the works for some time.  You may have noticed the platform going up on the South Side of the Capitol building.  You may have noticed the nice, fresh, even pavement on Pennsylvania Avenue.  You may even have noticed the repainted bricks on Penna. Ave.’s many crosswalks, so that they will be nicely bright red when the parade is broadcast (now in HD!).    State societies will be just some of the myriad groups to put on their best at inaugural balls galore.  The whole city will party down!  If you haven’t been here for an Inauguration yet, you’re in for a treat (as long as you’re ready to be patient for extra security and traffic).

If you want to be a part of the festivities, you can contact your Senator(s) or House Representative to request a ticket to the swearing-in ceremony which will take place on the Capitol’s south side, at noon on January 20, 2009.  This year’s theme is “A New Birth of Freedom”, and will begin celebrations of the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, our 16th President.  The folks in charge of the ceremony (the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies) have a website up, where you can learn about past inaugurations and look at photos and artifacts from ceremonies past.  The Inaugural Parade, organized by the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee, is a show in itself.  Will the Obamas walk as many recent presidents have done?  Or will they ride in bulletproof luxury, a la Bush 2005?  (Open cars seem to be out.)

And don’t forget, whether you’ll be partying the days and nights away in celebration, or drowning your sorrows, it will be a four-day weekend for most of us!  (January 19 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.)

Check your representative or senator’s website for details!

DC:  Eleanor Holmes Norton

MD:

Sen. Barbara Mikulksi
Sen. Benjamin Cardin

Gilchrest, Wayne T.; Maryland, 1st
Ruppersberger, C. A. Dutch; Maryland, 2nd
Sarbanes, John P.; Maryland, 3rd
Edwards, Donna F.; Maryland, 4th
Hoyer, Steny H.; Maryland, 5th
Bartlett, Roscoe G.; Maryland, 6th
Cummings, Elijah E.; Maryland, 7th
Van Hollen, Chris; Maryland, 8th

Metro’s new Red and White Signs indicating you are in a “we can look in your bags” zone.

According to The Washington Post, Metro announced it intends to conduct random bag inspections of passengers using the system.  Five to eight Metro Police officers (along with a bomb sniffing dog) are now fully trained and ready to show up and start looking in the bags of Metro Rail and Bus users.  The checks won’t happen at all stations or happen all the time but only “when transit police determine that circumstances- such as an elevated threat level- warrant heightened vigilance.”

I, for one, have some serious concerns about this program.  Truthfully, my thoughts on all security check-points can be mostly summed up by George Carlin’s discussion of “Airport Security” (Lots of foul language by the way)-but I’m not a complete idiot.  I realize that we live in a post-9/11 world and that there are people who would like to do some serious damage to our Nation’s Capitol.  But:

• There are only eight officers ready to go.   Even assuming one officer can handle a station on their own (which is doubtful) that’s 8 rail stations/Bus stops out of…well… a whole lot more than eight (there are a 12,216 bus stops and 86 stations.  You do the math.  I can’t).  How effective could this possibly be?

• Let’s pretend someone wanted to blow something up and they were going to use Metro to deliver their explosive device.  Let’s even pretend that Metro knows what this person wants to blow up and where they are likely to get on the train.  The real pain about Metro for these inspections?  It’s all connected.  If the target is the Pentagon and the bomber lives near me between the Airport and Pentagon City Mall-It’s just as easy to walk to Crystal City as it is the Pentagon City Metro.  It wouldn’t be much more difficult to take a bus down to Braddock Rd. and get on the train down there.  So if you’ve got eight people at the gates of even three Metro stops-they can’t get to what is already on the Metro from a point further out.

• Inspections only concern those people who actually ride the Metro.  You can (and should be able to) refuse the bag search so long as you don’t mind not getting on the train/bus.  Well at least at that station anyway…or at least until Metro Police leave.  They won’t detain anyone who refuses a bag check either-which might come in handy if you happen to be carrying anything else that you wouldn’t want Metro to find-not necessarily just a bomb.  (You know in case you’re like me and smuggle breakfast on to the train each morning…)

• I’m not a big believer in the 5-10 second bag search by the way.  Even at baseball games (where at least they search everyone and not just every Nth person a la the Metro system) they do this kind of half assed “make sure nothing is obvious” search.  Maybe I don’t understand the mind or a terrorist/violent person but if I’m planning on perpetrating some violence on Metro I think I would take the time to hide my bomb a bit better than to stick it at the bottom of my briefcase.

• Inconvenience.  I’m willing to forgive a lot of things, including some hassle at the train station, if it will make DC safer for everyone.  I just don’t really think this will-so the idea of me getting stuck behind the tourist family taking 20 bags to Reagan to fly home for no good reason really…ugh.

This of course is just one view.  Maybe I’m missing something?  Agree?  Disagree?  What do you think about Metro’s new Bag Searching Policy?

I took a walk to Georgetown today, and here is what I found on about six street corners:

Courtesy of Lara Gori

Courtesy of Jim Goldston

Pepsi Max is very similar to Coke Zero. Both have no “sugar” and zero calories, though like the Diet lines they contain the artificial sugar aspartame.  It is definitely worth a try. I would call it superior to Coke Zero and the Diet sodas.

Fun fact from the all-knowing Wikipedia: “In the… Borat TV series, a Pepsi Max factory is… responsible for the decrease in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea.” It’s nice.

In regards to the title of this post- Gotham City was the first thing I thought of when I thought of a place with a lot of crime. Thanks to Domino’s Pizza for characterizing the city as such in those Dark Knight commercials.

Ok so any who Fritz Hahn over at the Washington Post just wrote about the rising crime in the popular night time destination. Reading the post made me connect the dots on a lot of stories I’ve heard in the local news. Fellow bloggers are also taking notice.

Hahn makes a really good point that I wanted to emphasize- it appears that a lot of the incidents are happening not on the heavily traveled 18th and Columbia streets- but the shady side streets that surround the area. It only makes sense, unless you are Pacman Jones, there probably won’t be anything happening around bouncers, secruity, and crowds of drunken people. Now I meant robberies when I write this- I’m sure lots of things are happening around drunk people, especially in Adams Morgan.

Adams Morgan has never been known for its saftey record- but I’m not saying stay away from the place as we all begin the long Columbus Day weekend. I’m just saying use your head and common sense and be safe if you do decided to walk down 18th street this weekend.