Bomb !!!

Last night I was so tired from a long day of writing SQL and waiting for some reports that needed testing, that at 6 I skipped the gym and decided to go home directly from the office. It was cold and rainy and it had snowed all day, so I figured a night of watching trasssshhyy television would do me good. I hopped on the metro and when I got to Cleveland park I called the Argentine to see if he would pick me up, he said yes, and I waited,and waited, and waited. Nothing, the minutes went by and no sign of him. I feel my phone ringing and it was him, apparently Porter was closed and there was no way for him to come get me, not that way. I told him I would walk, I mean yes it was raining and there was slosh (is that the correct spelling and word?) everywhere, but I thought ok, it will be a 10 minute walk.

For those of you who do not know Cleveland Park and Mt Pleasant, our place is at the bottom of a hill, at the top you can find the Metro and Cleveland Park proper and as you go eastward down hill and then slightly up hill, crossing Rock Creek Park, you enter Mount Pleasant.

Back to the story, so I walked down hill and start crossing the bridge that crosses the park, when I see that not only the road but the sidewalk was closed. A policeman was there, making sure no one could continue walking. There were two people there, already and they were making inquiries. The policeman told them and me, that he thought there was a bomb threat and that the entire neighborhood was being coordoned off. To which I said, hey I just called my boyfriend, and he is home, just 2 minutes that way, so are you also asking people to evacuate their houses? He had no response for this and said that he had no idea what the details were, but that he had a wife and two beautiful childrens and that he would not walk up th sidewalk for fear of his life. Hhmm, I said, and turned back, called the home, and started the climb back.

By the time I got back to Connecticut Avenue, the Argentine was at the gas station, and explained how the bomb threat was under the Porter bridge. This made me angry, because not only was the policeman not telling the full truth, but he had blocked traffic 2/3 into the bridge making the whole road block useless. If the bomb was going to go off, the first car to fall if the bridge collapsed would have been the cruiser and the silly pedestrians arguing over their right to get home.

Anyhow, it is a long story I know, but thanks to the man I got home in one piece and was able to watch Battlestar Gallactica.

The Snow in the City

This week has been brutal, work, work, work and then some more work. But I am still here, today I am in DC (downtown) instead of Ashburn, because I had to be here bright and early, and because of the snow. No one wants to be stuck in the suburbs of Northern Virginia on a snow storm. Trust me, no one. So here I am observing for the first time snow in Downtown. It is not much different than the suburbs, just more people walking around and more cars. Lots of honking, and wetness everywhere, but mostly importantly people. DC is infamous for shutting down at the possibility of 4 inches of snow (and they say there are many size queens in the city) and it is refreshing to see that nothing seems to be closed, and that people are not running to the garages to get on their Aviators (or whatever name those awful SUV's are) and then drive home for 3 hours. It is also refreshing to know that as of late the city will be ready before the burbs.

With that I have to go, because I need to continue working.

The First Snow

Today Washington woke up to its first snow “storm” – that is the name the weather people on the radio called it - for this winter season. By our standards it comes early, and as usual it threatened with chaos and school closings. As usual in DC, whenever there is the slimmest hope of having some form of snow, everyone goes into panic mode, and people went to the grocery store yesterday, got de-icing salt and milk, water and lets not forgot toilet paper. You think I am exaggerating, well last night as I was prepping up for a swim team board meeting, I was watching the local news and they had 3 stories on the snow that was coming, and had of course nice old people buying salt at Home Depot and stuff. Obviously when the snow comes, nothing happens, except empty toilet paper ails in Supermarkets.

I was lucky enough to witness the now today, and lucky in an interesting word, because I experienced it, because I had to take Manolito – for all those novices, Manolito is my car – to the dealership for the very expensive 20,000 miles tune up. I chose to do it on Wednesday because I can take the Metro to work and then take the Metro uptown to pick up the car in the afternoon. As planned the alarm clock went off at 6 am, and I woke up, hopped on the shower, cleansed, shaved and scrubbed and by 6:40 I was ready to go. As I opened the door, I see that it has started to snow, and it was breath taking. Yes it was cold, but it was so quiet and calm. The snow fell upon the cars, the streets, the trees and yards very much like confectioners sugar when it is being sifted, slowly covering all the non moving surfaces, not in clumps, but in small tiny flakes. It was quite the spectacle. I walked to my car, brushed some of the snow off, and drove to the dealership in Bethesda, in awe of it. The fact that it was 6:40 and the light was just starting to change, from dark to light, made a great difference. It took me 15 minutes to reach my destination. At 6:56 I was by the dealership’s door, waiting for it to open.

That was my morning. Obviously the ride in the metro was fine and then the walk in the city was ok, but very routine. Oh well, at least I had an amazing morning.

Snow, TV and cardio

These three words can describe my evening. Last night as I was about to leave the office for Chisel – I work in the hinder lands of Virginia, at 5 pm, a little problem arouse its ugly head, and being the anal retentive gay, I stayed to solve it. At first I thought it would be only 30 minutes or so, but that turned into a 2 hour effort, the good thing is I got a lot other stuff done. Yay! For work but bad for the figure. Once the crisis was solved, I drove to the gym and did some cardio while doing cardio; I was on the step machine to be exact I wasted 1 hour of my time by watching and listening to American Idol. I have to say this it was the first time I had ever watched said show, and I have a confession, I can see why people like it. I saw the “good” episode, where the no talents audition to go to Hollywood. OMG, there is very little talent out there, for a country of 300 million. Granted they were in San Antonio, but c’mon, they could at least have showed the better candidates, of course that would not be good television so we saw some pretty pathetic fools making asses out of themselves. My favorite line was after this sad girl, who apparently sang like an angel in her church’s choir, tried to sing a song. She was bad, had no personality, could not interpret a word she was singing, so I wander how can she sing in choir when she can barely put any emotion into it? The judges said no, and she left saying that they were all negative on her, and that they had judged her without listening to her and blah, blah, blah. But the pearl of the show was when her mother and sister received her after the failed ambition, they said that none of the people there knew anything, asked why Simon was part of American Idol when he was not even American and when the presenter said he was British, the said “well he needs to go back to British, to judge…”. Back to British, yes … I guess this goes to tell how well educateted the audience and participants of the show are. Of course this is a gross generalization, I know, but anyway just my observation.

The funny thing is that last week two of my co-workers, of conservative persuasion, were talking about Idol and said that it was the liberal’s fault that no one told people anymore that they are not good at something. I had no good retort to this, and said that it was not the fault of the liberal’s but just the fault of modern western world, that sees the chance of being famous as the only way out of poverty. After watching the show, I realized that this people that know they are bad singers, just go there to exhibit themselves. Some of them are delusional, I give you that, and most of them are told by their friends they are good, but how in his or her right mind just listens to ones friends. That is not part of the liberal bias that is part of the human bias. We will tell people we like that we like what they do, because they are our friends or family. I would like to think I am a liberal that does not delude himself about his talents, but I do keep a blog – and know I am no Phillip Roth. I will never aspire to be a singer or an actor, but maybe that is just because I am so overeducated that I have other incredible aspirations that will never come to bare fruit. This has nothing to do with political ideals. This all goes to show how a better educated group of people tend to look for opportunities elsewhere and the people with no other chances, with no aspiration or role models, see show business as the one way out. Are we all at some level part of the American Idol phenomena, trying to be something we are not good at?

Maybe the answer is yes.

PS. The snow refers to the craziness that ensues any winter precipitation in DC.