There are few sweeter words than “Pitchers and Catchers Report Today.” As Andy Ihnatko said the other day, seeing the team’s gear come off the plane in Florida is like the joy of a three year old espoused by a big, bright floating red ballon. This is the Lent of baseball. We wait in patient hope for the return of the game that brings us summertime joy and no shortage of rollercoaster moments.

The Nationals face an uphill battle this season, but with their off-season moves to pick up some additional power in the outfield, and starting pitcher Odalis Perez has just now accepted the Nats minor-league offer and will join the club for spring training shortly. In addition, Hill and Patterson look good on the mound according to early reports from Viera, Florida where the Nats make their springtime home. Nick Johnson’s back from that nearly-career-ending leg break in 2006, and put on a batting display for press down at Space Coast Stadium the other day. There are reasons to be please with the Nats right now, and hopeful in the long-term.

So, the big questions:

Are Hill and Patterson really healthy? If so, they’ve got three fifths of a decent starting rotation, but no real ace to guarantee a win once every five days. Who’ll start opening day? No telling.

Who’s On First? Dmitri Young or Nick Johnson? Both have incredible power and good average, but neither has the speed or the reflexes to play elsewhere in the infield. The outfield is pretty full, as well, with Lastings Milledge (Thank you, NY Mets!) and Elijah Dukes (Thank you, Free Agency!) and Austin Kearns and Wily Mo Pena splitting three positions across four bodies. In addition, they’ve got a solid fifth outfielder and late replacement in Rob Mackowiak. So, what happens to Young and Johnson? Do they select one and trade the other? Platoon? Pray for a transfer to the AL so Young can be DH?

Who’s behind the plate? The Nats picked up both Johnny Estrada and Paul Lo Duca this off-season, which bumps Jesus Flores back to the #3 spot on the depth chart. I was really looking forward to see more of Flores this season, but I expect that Lo Duca and Estrada will split time behind the plate and we won’t see much of Flores unless either is injured, or, in Lo Duca’s case suspended for buying HGH a few years back.

Can we best .500 this year? Vegas says no. Vegas says we’ll win just 72 games, losing the other 90. But I take the bull position on this one and say the Nats will turn the tables on Vegas, and will come out 85-77 and finish in the middle of the pack in the NL East. The new park will be a significant improvement for the club, and while it’ll be new for everyone, I suspect home field advantage will be quickly conferred to the Nationals.

Position Players report to Viera tomorrow, and games for the Nats start in 8 days. The Lent of Baseball is here. Embrace it.

image courtesy of DC Board of Elections

What? You don’t care about how Virginia or Maryland voters can make a selection in the Tuesday primary? You want to know how DC folks can do it? Well, fine.

Your options are simple: get yourself physically down to the DC BoE office at 441 4th St., NW #250, Washington DC between the hours of 8:30 am to 4:45 pm today through Monday. The office is closed on Sunday the 10th, so that leaves you the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th.

If you need more numbers, or information on options like curbside or large print voting assistance, you can check the DC Board of Elections and Ethics page on absentee voting here.

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Okay, so Virginia voters have an option if they can’t make it to the polls on Tuesday. What about Maryland? In some ways your options are more flexible. Maryland opened the option of absentee voting to everyone, in no small part a reaction to the debacle of Liebold touch-screen machines. So now you can request an absentee ballot right up until 8pm the day of the election itself.

Someone’s got to go in person to the appropriate local Maryland elections board office but it doesn’t necessarily have to be you - you can send an ‘agent’ if you’re housebound or not free the times they’re open. Grab the late absentee form here and fill it out, then get it to that local office.

Do that and you get the ballot, which has to go right back to the same spot. So you can do the same thing as Virginia voters and just submit it right then or send it US mail postmarked on or before election day, the 12th.

If you can’t find some way to make that work out then, quite frankly, I thank the stars you won’t be having a part in deciding the direction of our country. And you should probably keep the cork on the fork lest you hurt yourself.

Unless you’ve been fortunate enough to be living under a rock these last 94 months, you know we’re in the middle of the Presidential Primaries and that the chaos is coming to our area this next Tuesday the 12th. If you’re a Virginia registered voter and interested in casting your vote but won’t be available on Tuesday you’ve got an option, at least until around 5p on Saturday.

Cast an in-person absentee ballot.

If you do so you won’t be alone; a radio report this morning said that our area was seeing about 600 people a day coming in to do just that, an increase of about ten-fold over usual. Theoretically you need a particular reason, but the list is so long that it’s hard to believe anything other than “I plan on being in the nudie bar from dawn till dusk” wouldn’t quality.

You can either look at your voter’s registration card for the section that says “Voter Registration Office” or you can go to this web link to look up your polling place. You don’t GO to your polling place, but the results will also include the accompanying Locality Electoral Board Contact Information.

Here’s two quick links here for Arlington folks and Fairfax folks. The rest of you can use the form.

When I first heard reports of this, I swore I was having a bad nightmare and mishearing the radio news. But, it turns out that it’s quite real. Virginia holds open primaries. You can self-select as Republican or Democrat and vote in the proper primary that you identify with. In fact, courtesy of Wikipedia: the Virginia Open Primary Law states that “[a]ll persons qualified to vote…may vote at the primary. No person shall vote for the candidates of more than one party.

Except that this time, if you choose to vote in Republican Primary, you will forced into signing an oath of fealty to the Republican Party.

I’m going to repeat that because it bears repeating.

If you choose to vote in the Republican Primary, you will be forced into signing an oath that you will vote for the Republican candidate in the Presidential election.

It’s not enforceable by law, but it certainly is odious, and I suppose, something I’ve come to expect from the Republicans in power.

Dana Ellyn is a pretty incredible DC artist and is having a show of some of her paintings opening on Saturday. Her work is unique, expressive and shows an interesting twist on some pretty touchy subjects. I got this information from an email she sent (not that I know her personally - I’m on a “big fan of Dana Ellyn” email list):

“I Call Shenanigans”
Solo Show
Opening reception THIS Saturday, June 9th 6-8pm
Long View Gallery, Washington DC

In my solo show, “I Call Shenanigans”, I am exhibiting approximately 70 paintings which tackle the subjects of religion, politics, family and a few other touchy issues. Included in the show is my new “Star Spangled Banner” series for which I created 15 paintings - one for each stanza of the national anthem. Also on display are select pieces from the past four years of my “31 Days In July” series in anticipation of this July’s work.

The works will be shown at Long View Gallery at 1302 9th Street, NW (9th & N) and will be on display until the end of the month. Go check it out.

Thinking I might be interested, Tiff sent me a Daily Candy story about FlyLite, a new service that will pack & ship & clean a suitcase of travel gear for you.

Or as Daily Candy says:

FlyLite sends you a suitcase to fill with your usual travel kit (jeans, shampoo, golf clubs). They clean, store, and catalog everything (in a virtual closet that you can arrange to your liking).

Before your next trip, select what you want online, and let FlyLite know where and when you’ll need it. Your stuff will be there when you arrive.

While I thank Tiff for thinking of me, I’m not FlyLite’s target client base.

Yes, I travel often, be it Christmas in the Caymans to Al Gore Spring in Macedonia to Typhoon Taipei.

But when I travel, I never check my bags. No matter if I am smuggling Santa Claus Pinatas, I always have no-check baggage victories.

So while FlyLite might be just right for Eight Shoe Sue, it’s not right for me.

Would it be right for you?

One of the reasons Tysons Corner Center is one of the premier malls in the country is because it often has specialty stores before other malls. An excellent example of this the Lego Store, which I recently stopped by during my semi-annual mall trip. That place is cool and by cool, I mean totally sweet. Had it existed when I was a kid my parents might have gone broke. In addition to having lots of Lego sets and grabbags of random Legos, the store has an entire wall of Legos bins from which you can select individual pieces like brown chairs. Who knew there was such a need for brown chairs?

While the grumpy old man in me thinks that increasing the Lego specialization (i.e. spectrum beyond the classic blue-red-yellow-white-gray-black facial expressions other than smiles, ornamental grass?!) that started with Blacktron is a bit much, I make an exeption for coolest toy team-up ever — Lego Star Wars.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Ritz Camera seems to be a haven for people who don’t really know anything about photography? I have been to stores in at least three states and am consistently disappointed. Maybe it’s their hiring practices but they seem to select for the choice combination of lack of knowledge and determination to belittle customers.

My most recent incident came this past week at the Ballston location, where a clerk told me I wanted something other than what I came in for.

“Trust me,” he said after a few minutes of going back and forth, “what you need is an IR transmitter.”

“Trust me,” I replied, “I know what I need and it’s nothing like an IR transmitter.” I suspect the guy just learned about IR transmitters and wanted to impress someone with his new vocabulary. I don’t claim to know everything, but I am a professional photographer, know what I need, know IR and the differences between the two.

After a few more minutes of being talked down to by someone who didn’t know much, I finally left, saying that I would rather go out to Penn Camera at Tyson’s than continue the conversation.

To any Ritz Camera representatives who might read this: hiring people who can dust shelves is not enough. You have to train people as well or else select for existing knowledge. It’s expensive but a good investment that can pay back quickly if you implement it the right way.

A lesson in customer service wouldn’t hurt either.

As long as I was down on the Mall for the National Book Festival, I decided to stroll over to have a look at the brand new National Garden, which is located between the Botanical Garden conservatory (map) and the National Museum of the American Indian.

A rare privately funded project, some 20 years elapsed from conception until yesterday’s ribbon cutting ceremony which was hosted by the First Lady.

The centerpiece of the three-acre site is the Rose Garden (the rose was selected by Congress as the national flower in 1986). Other featured areas include the Water Garden, a Regional Garden of native Mid-Atlantic flora, the Butterfly Garden, a canopied Lawn Terrace for special events, and an exhibit of winning children’s depictions of state flowers. Today was Family Fun Day with lots of activities for kids and live music on the Lawn Terrace. More information about the history and development of the National Garden can found at the Washington Post article National Garden Blooms at Last.

Before returning to the Book Festival, I needed some energy so I stopped across the street at the NMAI Mitsitam (Let’s eat!) Café. Although overpriced, the food there is outstanding and you can select from daily specials that represent the cuisine of native peoples from South, Central and North America.