I guess they found the part!

Over the weekend, a large break in the DC water system ruptured causing hundreds of homes to be without water. I came back from visiting my parents to find that many of my neighbors were out in the courtyard discussing the situation with WASA and our building plumber.

Water had been partially restored at this point and while teeth brushing and dish rinsing were certainly possible, showering and water-based machine use were definitely not. It turns out that there was a part that they needed to fully repair the break for which they were doing a nationwide search. Welcome to medival Washington, DC.

The next morning, I checked to see if the shower would run. It did, however it was very much a wet-soap-rinse Navy shower experience. I didn’t shave because there just wasn’t enough pressure to get the hairs out of the blade.

Well this morning I awoke to find that they must have found their missing part! Not only was pressure restored, it was restored tenfold! I love a good hard pressure in the shower, but this was nearly too much for me! It was ridiculous. The bar of soap was stripped from my hand as I went to rinse it off!

A Community Friendly Anand?

Yesterday, I decided to attend my local Police Service Area (PSA) 304 meeting. Crime in my area has been on the rise lately, and I think that attending the meeting and becoming more aware of things going on would be a good thing.

I've been meaning to go for a long time now, but with all the things going on it was hard. Resigning from Hero has freed up about 30 hours a week and it's great! I can do the little things, like read a book, again.

After the meeting there was a community meeting mostly to discuss the development of a new multiuse facility on the 1400 block of W Street. The developer was there to let the community know about it and to take input as to what we'd like to see go into the facility. RLA Revitalization Corp is a subsidiary of National Capital Revitalization Corporation (NCRC). A quick Google search has me believing that this organization is really a solid group. A minority, and locally owned and run company, NCRC is devoted to revitalization while minimizing gentrification. For example, the building on W St will be 30% low income housing (most of their properties have some level of low income housing.) This is contrary to many of the other developers in the area who are build extreme mid to high level housing that's simply getting ridiculous. I admit that my place falls in this latter category. I also admit that I am part of the problem. I think I should at least get credit for admitting that.

Neither fortunately nor unfortunately, the meeting was dominated by a woman that was very vocal about her disdain for the gentrification of the neighborhood. She has lived in her house all her life. Her house was bought by her father in the 1920s. She was voicing the concern probably felt by many like her.

Her main point was that with all the construction of high end condominiums, property values and therefore property taxes are skyrocketing. Folks that have lived in the neighborhood for decades that own their house while earning below poverty line incomes will be driven out by the higher taxes.

Her sentiment is not lost on me, but her arguments tended to be flawed. However, the one thing I did learn from her though is a little history of the neighborhood.

Columbia Heights as we know it today extends from 16th Street in the west to Georgia Ave in the east. Florida Ave and Spring Road make up the southern and northern borders respectively. These borders are universally accepted today, but these were not always the borders. The area between 13th Street and Georgia Ave and Florida Ave and Harvard Street was once called Pleasantville. Columbia Heights, as was Adams Morgan in the 90s, has become "hot." Simply saying that a property is in Columbia Heights increases its value.

Now I haven't found any references to Pleasantville, but by the nods and "umhms" I heard around the room, it seems like many of my neighbors agreed.

I did find this historical piece on Columbia Heights. It's a little dated, (refers to a future Metro stop at 14th and Irving) but it's still relevant.

I can see clearly now...

I'm not really supposed to be staring at a computer screen now so I'll keep this short. Yesterday, I had LASIK done to both of my eyes. Coming from worse than 20/600 (not a typo) on both my eyes, it is quite exiting to wake up and not be dependent on glasses to see the clock next to my bed (or across the room for that matter.)

My vision should eventually settle in between 20/10 and 20/5 in the next few weeks. This is quite amazing considering.

I'm so excited. Must go now.

Ughhh... Me so sick.

Do you ever get that pre-sickness feeling? That feeling that, if you paid attention to, you'd know you'd be sick the next day. Usually, you don't know you've have had that feeling until after you're actually in bed sick. You think back, "I knew I'd be sick when..."

After two days of celebrating my recent yet permanent visit over the hill, my body was trying to tell me that I was on the cusp of a very harsh cold. My back was sore and I was very tired. I went to work on Friday and was walking around in a bit of daze. That evening I came home and crashed.
I went to bed. It's Sunday afternoon and I just got out of bed. Well, I got out of bed to take some medicine, pee, and shower (today, finally.) But that's it. The only thing I've eaten since Frdiay afternoon is a bowl of chicken soup. I'm attempting to have some soup now, but it's just not going down.

The worst part about being this sick is the boredom. I try to read but it's been hard to focus with a splitting migraine. Sleep seems to be the only thing I can really do.

I finally decided that I had to do something, so I checked my e-mail and wrote this entry. Now back to bed...

Depression... In the key of C!

So my initial suspicions were true. My friends kidnapped me and took me to Atlantic City. Well kidnap is a really loose word for it. They didn't even tackle, bound and gag me. There was no shovel in the trunk. Not even a blindfold.

I even got to call my brother. As we headed north, I had deduced the possible destinations. I knew that I was probably not going to be buried under the 50-yard line at Giant Stadium. They probably weren't taking me "upstate".

I called my brother to tell him that we were on our way to New York City. (A likely guess based on the direction and timeline.) He lives just an hour away from New York (and as it turns out only 2 hours from Atlantic City). So my brother came to my rescue (or maybe he was part of the conspiracy. He did have a conversation with one of the kidnappers.)

One thing I've noticed whenever I go to a casino, is just how depressing those places really are. The biggest depressing thing is the senior citizens wasting away their social security checks at the slot machines. All the slot machines have their sounds programmed in the key of C. Studies have shown it to be the most pleasing key to the human ear.

There are no clocks in a casino and there are no windows. All to make your perception of time.

The layout of casinos is specifically designed to disorient you so it's difficult.

The obesity of America is definitely noticeable in these places. So many of the people going into these places are morbidly obese. We held the door open for one gentleman in a wheelchair. It seemed that the only thing wrong with the guy was that he was obese. His mass might have caused back or knee problems.

This reminded me of a conversation that Megan and I had once about the lack of handicap accessibility in Russia. One theory that she had was that because there wasn't such a large problem with obesity, and therefore not a lot of obesity related ailments, the need for handicap access is minimal.

I did notice handicapped people in Russia the day after we had this conversation. Prior to this we hadn't really noticed any. The times when they needed access to buildings, I noticed that their companion, and sometimes good samaritans, would have to go through great lengths to either lift the person and wheelchair over stairs or whatever obstacles.

Back to the casino. We observed, as we sat around chatting, that there are several categories of people that go to gambling towns like Atlantic City or Las Vegas. Even we were a member of a distinct category: working professional men who go to the casinos to do a little gambling with a relatively fixed, self imposed gambling limit, have a few drinks, watch a few people (okay I mean ladies), and speculate on which man will actually solicit one of the many working girls. Unfortunately, we represented a very small harmless minority of the clientele of the casinos.

Some of the various other categories of the people in the casinos:

1. The aforementioned senior citizens at the slot machines
2. The obese tourists waddling from buffet to casino and back to the buffet
3. The working girls
4. The drunk obnoxious kid making pot shots at the staff with his frat brothers in tow
5. The asians. I know it's a bad sterotype but it's mostly true. The asians are there to gamble and most of them are gambling BIG.
6. The annoyed guy that's losing big and will take it out on everyone at the table.
7. The lady at the ATM, coaxing it by yelling "come on, come on, big money!"
8. (Probably the same) 40 year-old lady (who looks sixty because of years of smoking and burning in the sun) at the tables trying to flirt with the dealer to get a good hand.
9. "Cliff and his buddy Norm." (see comercial promoting Las Vegas.)
10. Bachelor(ette) party