"Fireworks 2008" by Flicker user afagen

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“Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.

Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.” -Brooks Atkinson

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As we turn the page on the year 2008, we reflect on the past as much as we look forward to the future. That got me thinking about the turbulent year we’ve had here at the DC Metblog, all captured in this edition of the Year in Review.

January 1, 2008: Wayan wishes DC a happy New Year, winning sports teams, and voting rights. Oh well, maybe next year.

January 7, 2008: Tom Bridge supports Governor Tim Kahne’s push to ban smoking in Virginia bars and restaraunts. This would later be killed by the House of Delegates.

January 10, 2008: Alex Ovechkin signs with the Capitals for 13 years and $124MM, the wealthiest contract in DC sports history. Outraged commuters ride the Metro without pants to protest an increase in fares. One had a suspicious package. Hah.

January 28, 2008: Barack Obama draws 12,000 for a rally in DC. Little did he know that he was less than a year away from his Inauguration.

February 11, 2008: Anonymous brings its war against Scientology to the streets of DC. In the meantime The George Washington University finalizes its massive development plan for Square 54.

February 12, 2008: The Potomac Primary. Obama and McCain sweep races in VA, MD, and DC.

March 10, 2008: NY Governor Elliot Spitzer is disgraced by his infamous prostitution scandal. Tom Bridge views it as a good ad for the Mayflower Hotel; it could corner the “places to bring your $5,500/hour prostitute” market?

March 16, 2008: Metblogger Carl Weaver is accosted by a Secret Service officer when he attempts to photograph a free Tibet rally at the Chinese Embassy.

March 24, 2008: Tom Bridge predicts that the Nationals will finish over .500. For more information fast-forward to September 25th.

March 31, 2008: The Washington Nationals open their new stadium.

April 7, 2008: The Washington Post wins 6 Pulitzer Prizes, the best performance by any paper since The New York Times in 2002.

April 16, 2008: DC gets Popemania and hosts more than a million tourists. Some get anti-Popemania.

April 22, 2008: The Capitals are eliminated from the NHL playoffs by the Flyers.

May 6, 2008: Explosion in Falls Church, VA, scares the shit out of everyone in the DC area and rocks the internets. Turns out it was an earthquake centered in Annandale.

May 15, 2008: DC Council pisses off smokers everywhere by entering a tie for highest national cigarette tax, increasing it to $2/pack to make up for their horribly mismanaged budget.

May 31, 2008: LaSalle Partners, who run Union Station, attempt to stop photographers and implement several odd security policies. Eleanor Holmes Norton opens a can of whoop-ass.

June 26, 2008: The Supreme Court kills the DC law banning handguns.

July 4, 2008: Aside from lots of fireworks and patriotism, the entire DC Metblogs team announces out of nowhere that they are leaving to start their own blog. Tom Bridge, Don Whiteside, Tiffany Bridge, Ben H. Rome, and Wayan Vota post goodbye messages almost simultaneously, catching everyone at Metblogs HQ off guard.

September 11, 2008: 9/11 memorials held throughout DC, including speeches by Rumsfeld and Bush at The Pentagon.

Bomb Squad Investigating Abandoned Greenpeace Stuffed Bear At Columbia Heights

September 18, 2008: Greenpeace places life size polar bears throughout DC to raise awareness for global warming. Several bomb scares and shutdowns ensue.

September 25, 2008: Nationals lose the race to 100 losses. .500 would have been nice.

October 1, 2008: Live grenade found and removed in Rock Creek Park. DC collectively sighs in relief.

October 15, 2008: Patrick Pho runs a hugely successful live blog of the final Presidential debate.

October 19, 2008: Chancellor of Schools Michelle Rhee announces a program to pay middle-schoolers for good grades.

October 27, 2008: Metro police begin controversial random bag search program in stations.

November 2, 2008: Shadow Senator Paul Strauss nailed with a DUI two days before the election. Strauss would go on to take over 80% of the vote in DC.

November 15, 2008: Metbloggers go live with Inauguration Central. Emergency G20 Summit shuts down parts of DC.

December 15, 2008: The George Washington University enters the Inaugural Parade for the first time since 1949. They are the only university in the country with a float in the parade.

December 31, 2008: So as we turn the page on 2008, I just want to wish everyone the best. In the words of Oprah Winfrey, “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” Thanks for being loyal readers through thick and thin, and all of us here at Metblogs look forward to giving you a great 2009!

My time with Metblogs has been far shorter and less-prolific than most of the great people on the team. Still, I have enjoyed having this opportunity to talk to you and write about this lovely place.

In keeping with my minimal presence on the site, my sign-off here will be brief. I wish all our MBDC readers and friends well, and hope we will see some of you over at We Love DC.

When DC Metblogs launched in late July 2004, I felt like a fraud. I had moved to DC two years before, and had spent a lot of that time getting lost due to my legendarily poor sense of direction, defining my world based on its relationship to 395 or a Metro station, and coping with the sense that my grand quarterlife crisis plan of moving to DC was not turning out the way I expected, but suddenly I was writing about life here as if I had any idea what I was doing.

Four years later, I’ve grown into DC pretty well, and I think writing for DC Metblogs has been a huge part of that. With my fellow bloggers, I’ve explored corners of the city I would never have thought to see on my own and made friends I wouldn’t have met otherwise.

Thanks, everybody. It’s time for Metblogs and me to part ways, but I’ll still be writing about the city I love at the appropriately named We Love DC.

Goodbye Mr. Sun See You Tomorrow

Originally uploaded by moonjazz

February is rearing her ugly side again, and may leave an inch of snow on us today, starting in about an hour or so. So, because DC can’t handle more than a single flake without some sort of traffic casuality, get ready for a crappy evening rush.

DC Loses $250,000 in Emergency Radios

Apparently, the DC Government can only account for 73 of its 151 emergency radios, and given that some of the radios have turned up for sale in DC, it’s probably not a bad assumption that the other 78 (valued at over $3,000 apiece) are pretty much gone. So, next time there’s an emergency, look out for those other 78 people fucking with the EMT and Police crowd. That’ll just be awesome.

Goodbye Awakening

The Awakening is leaving DC today, being dug up from its home at Hains Point and moved to the National Harbor project (Warning, Annoying Music) in Prince George’s County. We’ve known this was coming, but it’s still jarring to think that it’s finally going. Thanks much to Christopher Dale for the use of his amazing long-exposure shot.

No More French in 9th Grade in DC

I know in my educational path, foreign language was an option as young as 7th grade. Apparently not in DC, where it’s not until 10th grade that you can take a foreign language. I’m no pedagogue, but I’m fairly sure that kinda screws over the students, no?

give yourself a no-prize if you get the reference

WAMU’s excellent Metro Connection show is bidding goodbye to one contributor and hello to a new one, all without a staff change. Peter Fay has done his last broadcast, at least as Peter, and will be on tomorrow’s show at 1pm to talk about his new identity as Colleen Fay. She’ll talk about her new life and the impending changes, which I think is pretty amazingly gutsy and open.

I suppose you have little choice when your job requires you be a public presence, but it’s still pretty impressive.

What’s also amazing is how goddamned hard it is to come up with the correct pronouns to discuss events on either side of a change like this. “He’ll continue to be a part of the show he was a part of creating fifteen years ago” doesn’t work since it won’t be he who continues. She wasn’t a part of creating the show, he was. I can’t say “she’ll continue” either. English is clearly not a language cut out for discussing time travel or gender-switching radio hosts.

To give credit where credit is due, I found this story on FishbowlDC

It was a sad day for me when the Washington Post reported that the AMC Loews Dupont 5 Theater would be closing its doors for good on January 13, 2008. You see that’s my neighborhood theater and it takes me less than 10 minutes to walk there, so despite the uncomfortable seats, small screening rooms, and unfriendly staff, I’m truly going to miss it.

The trend in theaters has been moving from smaller venues to giant megaplexes - places where big groups of noisy people can go and see the latest blockbuster movies and sit in luxurious stadium style seating. With the Dupont Theater leaving, the only other choice (that I know of) for seeing whacky foreign films will be at the E Street Cinema, which is a great theater but not the easiest to get to.

When I asked my friends if they’d heard about the theater closing their reaction was either, “What?! No way! That sucks and is so not fair,” to “Eh, who cares. That place was a dump.”

What’s your reaction?

Photo by cyaneyed

Centerfield

Originally uploaded by philliefan_99.

Yesterday’s trip to RFK was, hopefully, the last one I’ll ever make for a baseball game. The field has been deteriorating through August and September, and the threadbare grass of the outfield forced the groundskeepers to move the Nats’ curly W from dead center, where the grass is all dead, to left-center where a vestige of green remains. The symbolism of the dilapidated grass as metaphor for crumbling stadium shouldn’t be lost on anyone. RFK was a terrible place to watch a game, and judging from the players, a terrible place to play the game, too. So, it was with a great deal of joy that we wished RFK goodbye.

The house, while not as packed as on Opening Day 2005, a respectable 40,000 or so were there to wish the team into the off-season, though there are still a few more games on the road remaining. The biggest cheers of the day came with the introduction of Frank Howard of the Senators, and the biggest boos when Teddy Roosevelt was gypped in the President’s Race (despite the valorous attempts to the contrary by the Nats Bullpen), and the loudest applause came when three long banners were unveiled in left center by fans, proclaiming “Short Still Stinks,” a reference to Senators owner Bob Short who moved the team to Texas in 1971.

The Nats won, though, 5-3 in hold your breath fashion. Cordero looked rough in the 9th, not quite as lights out as he was in seasons past. I was really hoping to see more of Maxwell, as his late-season callup has been full of surprises, but I suspect we’ll see him more next season. Here’s to an off-season full of good trades and pickups.

Right there on 18th Street, just half a block off Connecticut sits Candey’s Hardware. It’s one of those almost impossibly cool places in the District, much like its neighbor, the 18th St. Lounge. A little tiny hardware story in the middle of the big city. The Post has a long elegy to Candey Hardware (with some really great photos) in its pages today. Candey’s has been in business since 1891, and has passed down through five generations of Candey’s, but now it will be no more. The building will be sold, the business packed up and finished.

Like many before me, including some of DC’s finest, that was where I went for my duplicate keys, ever since my friend Dan Glover showed me the door to Candey’s back in 2000. But no more. Much as David Candey says, “As you go through life, you’re born, you have real days when you’re thriving and productive, and then you come to an older time when it’s time to look ahead.”

Such is the way. Businesses spring up and flourish, surviving bad times and doing well in the lush times, but then there comes a point when they must be closed for good.

Goodbye Candey’s Hardware. I’ll miss you.

If you plan on visiting “The Awakening” any time soon, you’d best do it sooner rather than later. According to a recent Washington Post article:

“…the outdoor sculpture ‘The Awakening’ will be dug up from Hains Point, its home for the past 27 years, then barged and trucked to an undisclosed location where it will be cleaned and restored. Then, the 70-foot work, which depicts a giant struggling to emerge from the earth, will be planted in a new sandy beach on the other side of the Potomac River.”

The sculpture was purchased several years ago for $750,000 by a developer, Milt Peterson, who has grand plans to revitalize National Harbor:

“Sail-shaped banners line the Potomac waterfront, with moving images projected on the fabric. A retractable, 42-foot video screen stretches between two masts for outdoor movies. Stonehenge-like boulders alternate with larger-than-life bronze statues along the promenade leading to the water. In his mind’s eye, Peterson sees concerts, sailboat races, sunset cruises, fireworks, maybe even water ballet.”

Because the harbor is actually part of Maryland, you guessed it: DC is losing one of its landmarks. The Awakening will no longer be a part of DC which is kind of sad in my opinion. In its current location, it’s just within reach for most of tourists, walkable from the Mall (albeit kind of a long walk). With its new location in Prince George’s County, you can kiss that convenience goodbye. I think change can be good though, and if the harbor turns out as Peterson describes it, it may be a fun place to visit every once in a while.

So say your goodbyes, DC, and pray that no one sells the Washington Monument.

There’s a magical time of day that comes just before sunrise and just before sunset. Twilight? That may be the term to describe it. It’s when the sky turns a dark shade of blue and the gradient is just amazing. Say goodbye to the harsh, scorching light of day and paint some romance into your photograph with the subtle, fading light of dusk or dawn.

I think this time of day goes strangely neglected in photography. Maybe because it’s such a short period of time? Maybe because it’s when you’re either asleep in the morning or eating dinner at night? The fact is, it’s a perfect time to get your camera out, especially when you’re photographing things like an outdoor Christmas tree, or a quaint plaza, and you want to see a silhouette of your subject. When the sky is pure black as it is when night has fallen, there is too much contrast and it’s hard to expose just right.

Fellow Flickrian ehpien has used this lighting to perfection here with his beautiful sunset reflection of the Lincoln Memorial. I don’t know about you, but I’d love a huge print of this hanging on my wall.