The storm that soaked us all last weekend, brought down limbs all over town, and gave us a good 6″ of much-needed rain and some very wet English Basement apartments in the District also gave us some amazing pictures out at Bethany Beach just over in Delaware.

Check out the May 2008 set, which seems to show a survey ship absolutely wrecked by some very unstable seas and caused some major erosion out at the shore. Yikes!

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Although there’s a number of people in this town who could do with a good case of lockjaw, I personally think the frothing at the mouth could get distracting, not to mention a little worrisome for the tourists. So you should keep that in mind when you interact with our wildlife and when you ponder if you should keep Fido and Fluffy’s vaccinations up-to-date.

Just over the river in Arlington, a woman was bitten by a fox which turned out to be rabid. Apparently the shots you have to get now are less horrific than the traditional dozen in the belly, but personally I’d just as soon not experiment. The location where she got the bite is pretty densely populated and close enough to the District that we can be pretty confident that if there’s rabies in one place it’s also in the other.

The linked press release has some good information, though some of the advice strikes me funny.

Prevent bats from entering living quarters or occupied spaces in homes, churches, schools and other similar areas where they might come in contact with people or pets.

Personally bats don’t scare me and I’m glad to have them around eating insects, but still - nobody had to remind me to keep them out of my house.

Red fox pup ( wild ), courtesy of ericbegin2000

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While I’m not really a proponent of fast food intake on a regular basis (and am all for a fast food tax), I do love me some Taco Bell.

It’s been a huge part of my life since I was, oh I dunno, 10 years old? My best friend and I would ride our bikes to the Border after a long day of fishing for Bluegill in Denver. He always got the pintos and cheese which I thought was a disgusting choice. I much preferred the Taco Bell Grande, minus the tomatoes. In high school my friends and I would hit up the Bell after a crazy night on the town and laugh hysterically about the gas that ensued. One friend purposely tried to maximize the amount of refried beans he consumed, purely for the fire power. As a poor college student, my friends and I would walk across campus in our pajamas to feast on a twelve pack of tacos. I guess you could say that it’s been a staple part of my diet for a long time now.

But now living in DC I am deprived of the grade F meaty goodness. Please don’t tell me to eat at the Taco Bell/KFC combo at 14th & U. That place is a disgrace to the Taco Bell establishment. “Yes, I’d like a burrito supreme with a side order of hepatitis. Oh, and a Mountain Dew with extra mildew in my ice cubes.” Luckily we are fortunate to have a nearby state called Virginia that is full of strip malls and fast food restaurants, enabling me to treat myself to a Mexican Pizza now and then, and for that I thank you*. My stomach thanks you.

If you’re listening, Taco Bell, hear my plea. We have McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, and entirely too many Subways. All I’m asking for is one good Taco Bell. Trust me, my friends and I will keep you in business.

* - I also thank Virginia for the hot women who seem to migrate into the city during the night and vanish when the sun comes up.

Photo by Porky Jupp.

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If you’re looking for an eating treat this weekend, The Brewers Association has an option for you tonight or in one of two time-slots tomorrow: “SAVOR: An American craft beer & food experience.” They have a lot of verbiage to describe and promote it, but I’d boil it down to this: Why should the wine drinkers have all the fun?

This is an event for people, like me, who think that beer & food go together every bit as well and with just as much potential subtlety as wine & food. To that end, there’s sub-sessions - which they call their salons - that will examine beer & cheese pairings, beer & dips, beer & the offerings of the Chesapeake bay (seeing a trend here?). You might want to check the schedule of salons before you commit to a certain session, since they’re different and not repeated. I’ll be there tonight and hope I can fit into the beer & cheese session. Dips interests me less - I get enough of them in my professional life. [insert high-hat ba-dum-DUM here]

Even if you don’t join the salons the selection of food and beer that is promised to be on hand to sample is prodigious. The participating brewery list is mouth-watering, with a range from locals Starr Hill Brewing Company and Williamsburg AleWerks to semi-locals like Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and crossing all the way to California with stops along the way. Excitingly I don’t recognize about a third of the names, meaning new beer to try.

At $85 it’s not the cheapest food and beverage event ever, but with close to 100 beers to sample it compares very favorably with the kind of wine events I’ve told you about from the Giramondo company, for example, where you sample 4-9 wines at a cost of around $60, and is well in line with the tasting menus at a lot of restaurants.

Photo by Souders Studios as seen in The Best of American Beer and Food

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My First Rose of the Year! We’re usually 7-10 days behind the beautiful exploding vine of roses that my neighbors, two doors down, have planted along their walkway. The aphids stayed away this year, mostly distracted by the wild rose vine that sprung up last summer. There’s something about this year, I think I’m in for a good garden.

My tomatoes went in on Monday, and my Tomato Ladders came via fedex this morning. The dill is starting to take root, and my lavender pot is overflowing. Excellent.

First Rose — Originally uploaded by tbridge

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So last night me and the missus went to look at a couple of townhomes, one of which we’re considering purchasing. We’d both had a really long mental day at our dayjobs, so I suggested we make the trip out to the Cold Stone Creamery on US 1, near the I-495 interchange. There’s not really a good place for ice cream near our current home and we both like the taste of CSC’s ice cream. So it’s worth the drive for us.

Read the rest of our adventure after the jump. Read more

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If you didn’t read the chat I linked in yesterday’s post, you might have missed my old cow-orker Andy shamelessly attempting to shill his archive site.

D.C. Here I Come, FL: How ironic would it be if someone from South Florida placed in the Hunt, knowing what the prizes are?

Is there a Webs ite with more information?

“Not Andy the tropichunt.com guy¿”

Really.

Okay, maybe it is.

washingtonpost.com: Post Hunt

Gene Weingarten: True fact: One team has won three times. They’ll be coming in. From Seattle.

Although the chat coor-dinators did take kind of a swipe at him by reposting the Post Tropic Hunt website url rather than the link to the Tropic/Herald Hunt Archives, as he was angling for, they did not have the knowledge to point out to him that he’s never won the Hunt once. Or been close. Even a little. Maybe because he’d imply that it would be ironic for someone from South Florida to win a trip to South Florida rather than simply unfortunate.

I can’t believe I agreed to team with someone who takes his vocabulary lessons from Alanis.

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Yesterday morning bright and early, the Park Service closed the park at Fort Reno citing massive arsenic toxicity in the soil on the site. The soil samples reported to the press were between 500 and 1,100 parts per million, or roughly 10 to 25 times the legal “safe” limit.

If you’re wondering what’s to become of the awesome concert series at Fort Reno, you’re not alone. The organizing group is looking for an alternate site if the park can’t be decontaminated quickly, as well as donations to cover the sound system and stage personnel for the concert series. If you can chip in, please do so. The Fort Reno concert series is definitely one of those awesome local events that makes DC such a great place to live.

The causes of the arsenic levels is unclear, but the Post posits a theory that it may have to do with the Civil War dead buried on the Park’s grounds, as they were likely embalmed with an arsenic-based embalming method.

If you’re concerned about arsenic poisoning, please contact poison control or go to the ER, pronto.

Arsenic — Originally uploaded by Dave Ward Photography

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Just as I predicted, Smart cars are beginning to infiltrate DC. Not that I’m Nostradamus or something, I mean these cars are cheap and built for city living so it’s no surprise that they’re starting to zoom around like giant mosquitoes.

But are they safe? Yes they are. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has given it top crash scores, however their president Adrian Lund says, “All things being equal in safety, bigger and heavier is always better. But among the smallest cars, the engineers of the Smart did their homework and designed a high level of safety into a very small package.”

I’m half tempted to buy one for myself, but I’m not sure how well I’d fit into one and plus, do chicks dig them?

Photo by kazze.

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The Golden Triangle Business Improvement District (or GTBID for short) is having their kick-off in a series of “Sounds in the Square” this evening at 5pm. I’m not sure how much foot traffic of commuters it will draw away from the mass movement of people to and fro as they rush home, but at least it may be an attention getter away from the razing of the building at Connecticut and K Streets Wayan had such fond memories of.

This evening’s affair will star Justin Jones & The Driving Rain, but other concerts will follow from May 22 and June 5, 12, 19, 26 (and a reschedule from last week’s rained out performance on September 4). I’m sure it will be an interesting experiment for GTBID, who were also, if I remember, one of the first areas in downtown D.C. to offer free WiFi in the park a number of years ago. And you know they’re hip and with it, not just because they dress in gold and black, because they have a MySpace page!

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This Sunday the post is putting on an event that’s a transplant from my hometown, Miami. They can call it the “Post Hunt” if they want but they’re not putting anything past me. This is the TROPIC HUNT, baby, and all the borderline unhinged goofyness that this Dave Barry/Gene Weingarten/Tom Schroder creation always brings with it.

If you want some insight, Tom, Gene, and Dave did an online chat earlier in the week to talk about it, and here’s a snip.

Cube City: The instructions don’t say anything about tools, but answering one of the three video puzzles (almost) requires a calculator, and the final puzzle would benefit from a notepad if not a portable text editor. There’s no way anybody will be able to win without writing down and doodling/calculating/anagramming/whatever, so shouldn’t a well-equipped team bring a thermos full of vodka martinis?

Tom Shroder: No THAT is the kind of thinking that will go far in the Hunt. Keep up the good work.

If you want to read a little about the kookyness that past TROPIC HUNTs have involved and the kind of puzzles teams are faces with, an old cow-orker of mine is a little obsessed a fan and runs a website with a pretty comprehensive archive of past Tropic Hunt details.

My only concern is that this town may not be up to the level of controlled insanity that the Tropic Hunt involves, not to mention the long slog through crappy weather, dangerous streets, dilapidated city buildings and newspaper insanity. Sure, we have killer bus drivers, but the Hunt was invented in Miami during the 80s - you ducked hails of gunfire to solve puzzles then. You bunch of softies? You may not be able to take it. Witness the question asked by one of our locals who clearly wouldn’t have been up for an three hour event in Miami, where Gene’s answer would have been a given.

Arlington, Va.: Dude. What if it rains?

Gene Weingarten: You get wet.

See you at the Tropic Hunt.

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The D.C. Council decided on Tuesday that in order to make up for a $35 million budget shortfall they would increase the tax on cigarettes by $1, bringing it up to $2/pack. That will put us in a tie with Arizona, Alaska, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, and Michigan for one of the highest “state” tax rates on cigarettes. Oh right, we’re not a state. We just pay an exorbitant amount of taxes. How easily I forget such silly things.

So what is the Council’s message here? My only guess is this:

People who smoke are evil. It’s a disgusting habit that’s bad for your health. Maybe if we charge you an extra dollar per pack of those devil sticks, you’ll quit smoking and live a healthy lifestyle like the rest of us. Maybe you’ll even start participating in triathlons like our super healthy mayor does. Die smokers, die!

Of course I could be missing something. I think they should also put a tax on ice cream, donuts, frappacinos with extra whipped cream, pizza, cheeseburgers, chili dogs, chili cheese fries, fettuccine alfredo, and mac ‘n cheese. If you eat enough of those things, you’ll die over time too.

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I was renewing some domain names earlier in the month and noticed that FreeOurStreets.org was coming due soon, and I pondered for a minute whether to spend the money to get another year. After all, we’d gotten what we wanted with it. After our 4th of July photo walk the city attorney made a written statement to the management company indicating that they did not have the right to restrict people’s freedom of expression on public land, even if it was managed by a private corporation under contract with the city.

Silly me, thinking we wouldn’t need it again someday.

Now the foolishness has some to DC proper. Andy Carvin writes here about his experience with being bothered by security guards in Union Station. Now, Chip Py managed to make Downtown Silver Spring look beautiful, but one of the challenges in talking about that incident was always how to respond to “why would you want to take pictures of a strip mall?” Union Station, on the other hand, is obviously beautiful architecture and photographed painlessly by a multitude of people every day. Yet for some reason the management company there has decided to harass some photographers.

She informed us that we would have to cease taking pictures immediately and leave. I asked what the problem was, and she said that this is a private space, and we didn’t have permission from management to take pictures.

Here’s hoping it stops with a single misunderstanding and this gets cleared up promptly.

The above photo of the ghost of security-ruined photos is a snipet from Carvin’s aborted 360 degree panorama. Check it out in full here or a non-aborted pano elsewhere in Union Station here. The gigapan technology is pretty neat.

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Okay, I’m going to come right out and do something I hate people doing, myself. Fire up the hypocrite comment-engine, because here I go.

WTOP points out that DC Area Drivers are 5th in the nation for road rage. All I can say is, “Guys, really, chances are, the people who are driving like major league asshats are probably doing so in Maryland and Virginia plates.” It sucks that the District gets the bad PR for all these guys who live in Reston, or Springfield, or Gaitherburg, or Laurel and drive like complete idiots.

Most of the folks I know who live in the District commute either by bus or metro, though I do on occasion see DC Plates on the major thoroughfares in rush hour, it tends to be the crazy-ass mofo from Maryland or Virginia making everyone else’s life difficult.

Not to say that DC drivers are all that great, far from it, they’re just not causing the road rage you see every day on the Beltway, 395, 270, the B-W Parkway, etc.

Entering A Road Rage Zone — Originally uploaded by garyturner

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My absolute apologies to Jared. He’s the guy pictured above, working at the new On the Fly cart located at the corner of 7th and F streets, just south of the Verizon Center. I didn’t tell him I’d put this online and I think he’d have been a bit more wary of saying yes to the photo, had he known.

But I just had to do it because I think On the Fly is very cool. The business operates a handful of carts around town—7th and F, 8th and H, Farragut North, Capitol Hill, and also the Nationals stadium, National Arboretum, and near Artomatic for the next month—that sell food cooked by local businesses such as Teaism, Rocklands BBQ, Julia’s Empanadas, and many others. The whole thing is initiated by a guy who used to work for Zipcars, and apparently his crew is a bunch of dedicated folks who’ve all known each other for a while and really believe in the endeavor.

I hope they survive. DC certainly needs more places where the price covers good food, not just pretentious surroundings.

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