Kemper Macon Ware Lodge in Falls Church will be hosting a blood drive for the Red Cross this Saturday from 8:30 a.m. until noon. Yep, it’s a Masonic Lodge but you don’t have to be a Mason to come save a life by giving of your own. Come on down and make a difference. The Lodge is located at 411 Little Falls Street in Falls Church.

Not sure about this whole blood donation thing? You can learn more about the process here and get a lot of your questions answered. Saving a life is a great reason to get up and out that early on a Saturday morning. Why not join me?

I just got the most recent newsletter (PDF) from Derek Terrell at myLHBS and was thrilled to see that this month’s recipe was a Belgian Triple. This is a type of beer I have had on rare occasions and always enjoyed. Now that I know a recipe, I can darken the doorway of my favorite homebrew shop again to get some ingredients.The newsletter came just in time. I am going to bottle my current brew tomorrow morning and will soon have empty equipment. This is another Derek Terrell recipe - a hefeweizen similar to Blue Moon, if I did it right. I wasn’t sure how much orange peel and coriander to add to the boil, so I added the minimum Derek suggested, since he had given me a range. I wanted to avoid an overpowering flavor but definitely wanted hints of these flaovrs. I can’t wait to try it tomorrow, fresh from the fermenter.Are you a homebrewer? What do you like to make? Interested in homebrewing? There’s no better way to get beer than from your own stovetop, so go see Derek to learn about it or send me an email and maybe you can come by next time I brew a batch. Beer and photography really do go together well!Here is this month’s recipe, from Derek’s newsletter:

Triple ThreatOne of the really nice things about Belgian ales is their simplicity and the degree to which they can be altered by even minor changes to basic recipes such as this one. Triple Threat is one I brew when I’m in the mood for something Belgian yet also can’t settle on exactly what I want to make. Choose Clear Candi syrup for a Strong Golden, or opt for Amber for something akin to Ommegang’s Rare Vos (and maybe even spice it lightly for a Grand Cru). Either of the Dark syrups will brew up a rich Strong Dark Ale.

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Creepy-ass Flying Monkey

For three Fridays in August, the City of Falls Church will host their 4th Annual Sunset Cinema, a free movie shown at Cherry Hill Park, located at 312 Park Avenue. This year’s series is entitled “Cutesy Shit and Flying Monkeys.” Well, maybe not, but that’s what I would call it.

Here is the lineup:
Friday, Aug. 10, 8:30 p.m. - “Happy Feet”
Friday, Aug. 17, 8:30 p.m. - “The Wizard of Oz”
Friday, Aug. 24, 8:30 p.m. - “Charlotte’s Web”

In case of inclement weather, the movies will be shown in the Falls Church Community Center at 223 Little Falls Street.

Just be sure to cover your eyes during the scenes with flying monkeys. Those things scared the mess out of me when I was a tyke!

I was driving to an appointment on Sunday when I noticed a placard attached to a phone pole advertising the web site www.nudezines.com. No wonder, I thought, since I was right by Falls Church’s premiere porn palace. Then I noticed the rest of the ad - business cards, custom printing, brochures. Talk about cognitive dissonance - here I was imagining all sorts of interesting naughty, tingly human bits and the ad was for printing.

I couldn’t quite figure out the connection so I looked it up online. Turns out the business is Nu Dezines, not Nude Zines. A tip to our fine printing friends - a simple spelling tutor or copy editor could have helped you out on this one so you could more easily reach your target market.

The City of Falls Church has a cooling assistance program to help low-income households stay cool in the heat of the summer. Thank goodness we haven’t gotten too hot yet, but the dog days of summer are right around the corner. No doubt it will get hot enough to cook the balls off many a bronze statue in DC.

Why is cooling assistance important? Because the extreme heat we feel every year causes health problems and extreme discomfort. Kudos to Falls Church for administering this program. Having seen a number of extremely low-income abodes in my time, I have to wonder how much it would cost to upgrade the wiring to handle an air conditioner, but that’s beside the point. Probably tarpaper shacks smolder instead of burn, right?

Personally, I think there should be more of a socialized ceiling fan program than air conditioning program, but that’s just me. I like our home to feel like Big Daddy and Brick’s home, except for all that tension and the no-neck monsters.

Until I get my own socially provided ceiling fan, I will be cooling off the only way I know how - either sitting in the yard in a tub of ice water, sipping a beer, or else making every day like pants-optional Friday. Who knows? Maybe both, if the neighbors don’t mind too much.

Wayan, my humble fellow writer and colleague, recently took a trip to Cairo, where he encountered sand storms and almost died while trying to cross traffic. As lovely as that sounds, wouldn’t it be nice to have a little taste of Egypt right here in the Capital Region, where you can get run over by our own cars or Metrobuses?

Well now you can!

I took a back road recently on my way to Alexandria, in anticipation of the major roads being backed up due to rush hour hoo-ha and passed the Khan El-Khalili Warehouse. What was this, I wondered. A store with an Egyptian name and tinted windows. Any store with tinted windows is an immediate draw for me, like shiny things are for crows.

Khan El-Khalili Warehouse is a treasure trove of goods imported from Egypt and for sale to anyone with a few bucks in their pocket. The first thing I noticed was the sweet smell of incense and spices, along with intricate artwork on the walls. The store seems to be overflowing with gifts, art, clothes, home decor, furniture and a giant clot of hookahs in the back of the shop.

Mind you, these are tobacco water pipes, not bongs. This is no head shop but the real McCoy in terms of African imports. Or the real El-Khalili. The manager of the store told me all his imports are from Egypt and that the store carries a range of items for folks from various countries, such as Ethiopia and Somalia, on top of Egypt.

Go check this place out. It is at 5826-A Seminary Road in Falls Church. Tell them Carl from DC Metblogs sent you. It won’t get you a discount and they will look at you confused, but it’s always good to tell folks how you heard about them. And there’s a parking lot right there, so you don’t have to act like Wayan and almost get hit.

The Edwin Albert Mroz Chapter of the Order of DeMolay is having a car wash fundraiser on Saturday, April 21st from 8am-12pm. The car wash will be at the Kemper-Macon Ware Masonic Lodge at 411 Little Falls St. in Falls Church.

All donations will be accepted.

I am not sure of the weather forecast for that day but am sure the young people out there will be using lots of elbow grease to get the job done. I know one of the advisors and have every confidence that he will ensure a good job from his kids he leads!

Here is some information on what DeMolay is, for those of you who are curious:

DeMolay is an organization dedicated to preparing young men to lead successful, happy, and productive lives. Basing its approach on timeless principles and practical, hands-on experience, DeMolay opens doors for young men aged 12 to 21 by developing the civic awareness, personal responsibility and leadership skills so vitally needed in society today. DeMolay combines this serious mission with a fun approach that builds important bonds of friendship among members in more than 1,000 chapters worldwide.

Come check it out, help the young folks there with their organization and get your car sudsied up. Everyone is a winner!

As we enter our first spring like week of the year I am starting a series of profiles of area bike trails. I begin with my personal favorite, the Washington & Old Dominion Regional Park trail. In 2005 I rode the length of the trail from west to east in one afternoon.

An early example of the “rail-to-trail” phenomenon, W&OD was simply known as the “bike trail” to me and my friends when I was growing up. Now forty-five miles long, the flat, straight trail starts in Arlington, near Shirlington, and extends all the way past Leesburg to Purcellville. In actuality, the trail is part of W&OD Regional Park, which is the old railroad and current Virginia Power right-of-way (hence the high tension power lines), giving it dimensions of about 45 miles by 100 feet. Those 100 feet provide a buffer of nature through the most populated region of the commonwealth. Much of the Arlington portion traverses Four Mile Run Park while it parallels the windier Four Mile Run trail. Think of W&OD as I-95 to Four Mile’s US 1 and you get the idea of how the two trails exist together.
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You may have heard it yesterday but it’s in all the print media today: Almost a year overdue, Art Buchwald has finally succumbed to his cancer kidney failure. He may not have been the only person ever booted out of a hospice for failure to die in a timely fashion but he’s certainly the first one I ever heard of it happening to. Okay, they didn’t ask him to leave but I think that’s the kind of hyperbole he’d be okay with. After all, he said “Since I hadn’t had any practice dying, I had to learn the hard way.”

I wasn’t a huge fan of his columns but I appreciated his wit and self-deprication. His NYT obit is filled with little gems, like his reaction to having one of his columns called “Unadulterated rot” by Eisenhower press secretary James C. Hagerty: He said that he had “been known to write adulterated rot” but never “unadulterated rot.” Wayan would probably appreciate his comments about bicycling. “Americans are broad-minded people. They’ll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater, and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn’t drive, there is something wrong with him.”

As far as why I feel compelled to add my voice to the thousands talking about his passing, it’s not because he was a real Washingtonian: someone who wasn’t born here, but came and found it difficult to leave. Art Buchwald really came onto my radar for the simple reason that he talked openly and calmly about death, without prevarication. I think he’d be tickled to know that there was at least one person who he had to get a terminal disease to attract as a fan.

Death eventually comes to us all, at least so far, but we are mostly reluctant to talk about it or face it. It’s as sure as sundown, but without the certainty of that sunrise coming afterwards we’re not as willing to accept it. When a Buchwald or a Tim Leary or a Warren Zevon comes along and speaks plainly about the unknown I think they enrich us all. Buchwald took an hour out to talk to Diane Rehm on WAMU almost a year ago when he decided to enter hospice care, another hour from the hospice when he was about 3 months overdue on his projected three weeks to live and most recently in November after he’d finished another book. I heard the November show and I’ll go back and give the other two a listen. He’s not someone who will drive you to side-splitting laughter but I don’t think I’ve ever read his column without cracking at least one smile. Thanks, Art, for bringing some smiles to us while heading for the undiscovered country - it makes me a little calmer about my eventual departure as well, and reminds us all that we’ve got no control over that eventual destination but we can choose the route we take along the way.

Avedon Carol said it well: So thanks, Art - for that, and for refusing to go glumly into that good night.

With Metro’s giant budget gap looming, and the budget meeting to discuss new fare and service options this evening, commuters and other Metro riders ought to get ready for some pain in the wallet. Metro’s fares have remained constaint since 2003, and are now facing a significant increase.

What’s good? SmarTrip users won’t pay quite as much an increase as those who use paper tickets, with paper ticket fares going up by $0.65 to $1.75, while SmarTrip fares will go up only $0.15 to $0.45.

What’s a little weird? That the downtown core stations will get an extra $0.35 tacked on to the fare. From Courthouse to L’Enfant Plaza on the Orange Line, Pentagon to L’Enfant Plaza on the Blue Line, Pentagon to Mt. Vernon Square on the Yellow, Mt. Vernon Square to Waterfront on the Green Line and from Dupont Circle to Union Station, is the new zone (see also the graphic here) that will receive an additional $0.35 congestion charge.

The new “max fares” under the new fare regime would be $4.75 for SmarTrip customers and $6 for paper ticket customers. Also on the block are some of the weekend and holiday services, so you may end up waiting longer and longer for trains on the weekends and on certain holidays. Metro won’t be changing service for holidays like Independence Day because they’re not completely mental. As many as twelve bus-lines may also face service cutbacks or outright route cancellations. Fares for the bus may go up by $0.05 if WMATA’s plan goes into effect.

So, fares are on the rise, and services are going to be cutback. Is this too much of a fare hike? Too much of a service cutback for too much a service cut? What say you?

graphic shamelessly cropped and borrowed from this Washington Post Story, with kudos to the graphics team there and apologies because any graphic I’d have done would’ve involved stick figures or badly drawn metro maps.