In 2002, I abandoned my Catholic faith, after a priest of the cloth in Falls Church used the pulpit to explain that women couldn’t properly understand the suffering of Christ.

Maybe it’s my mistrust of the Catholic Church after that incident that leads me to think that the Pope’s visit today is unimportant. Growing up, I had the chance to see His Holiness John Paul II at Laguna Seca raceway, except that our bus broke down on the way to collect us from my small California hometown. We were stranded without a way to get there. I remember being incredibly disappointed, though my disappointment paled in comparison to my mother’s. We watched on TV instead as the Holy Father took bread, blessed it and broke it, and distributed it to the tens of thousands who had gathered to hear him speak.

Sure, I understand what makes people Believe. Belief is a powerful thing, it gives us will when we might not have it otherwise, it gives us strength when we are weak, it gives us comfort when we are sad.

Perhaps if it were John Paul II again, I might understand the excitement. He reached out to the world and sought to make the faith more accessible to all. This Pope, though, has been more controversial, making changes to the mass to return it more closely to the obfuscated Latin origins, as well as with no new policy for dealing with the problem of abused children by people of trust in the Church, I think I will stay away a bit longer.

So, if you are a fan of His Holiness, by all means, get excited and worship in your faith today. Me? Just another day, only with more crowds, and more closed roads.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

DC Metrocentric has an awesome preview of the new Capitol Visitors Center that’s been under construction on the East side of the Capitol since time immemorial. I love the glass ceiling that gives way to the Capitol Rotunda. You can also read more about the new facility via the Architect of the Capitol’s Weekly Construction Summaries. This week, they’re working on “millwork, wall stone, floor stone, grout lines, painted surfaces, ceiling panels, plaster work, doors, and other finish materials.”

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You can watch the Pope go by today without even leaving your office! Check out this traffic camera at 17th & Penn NW for the procession.

The traffic camera is gone, now, so please check out this video time-lapse instead

Many thanks to Brownpau for the cool video!

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So the Capitals are sliding behind the playoff 8-ball. Hammered last night in Philly by a final score of 6-3, where Brière has lit a fire somewhere and Biron’s thrown up a Berlin-esque wall, the hometown hockey heroes has looked more like the ice-capades on a road trip.

Seriously.

Where’s the fire that exploded from this team in the third period of Game One? Watching Sunday’s game was like watching the Caps back in October, when the team was terrible and looking to beat Columbus down the standings.

Last night was marginally better, but only just.

The Caps got behind early on Sunday and never recovered; Ovechkin was double-teamed and his support cast was nowhere to be found. That’s not how you win playoff hockey – it’s how you give the opposing goalie a shutout. Guess what happened?

I’ll give Washington credit, they did try to stage another late rally, closing the gap to 4-3 on Laich’s goal at 4:34 remaining. But Philly rallied quick, with Mike Richards zinging Huet on a penalty shot less than two minutes later. Nail? Meet hammer.

Biron could’ve taken naps in his goal – the Caps had a total of 16 shots on the evening. Compare that to the final games of the regular season, when Caps opponents were seeing flurries of 30 and 40 shots.

Where have the Caps disappeared to?

Now, not all is lost. The series is only 2-1 in the Flyers’ favor. But they face another rough game ahead in Philadelphia before coming back to the Verizon Center. Which could be the Caps’ swan song…or not. Honestly, it’s really up to the rest of the team.

You can’t hang all the pressure on Ovechkin – though ineffective since his game-winning goal in Game One, he’s hardly at fault. The Flyers defense has been tightly focused on shutting him down (even after losing Timonen), and they’ve done so with frightening ease. In times like this, it’s dependant upon the superstar’s supporting cast to step up and make a difference. We know they can – we saw ample evidence of it in the last month of the regular season. Semin, Kozlov, Federov, Backstrom – pretty much non-existent forces on the ice right now. I’ll give a pass to Mike Green – his sniper shots are still scary as heck, as we saw last night.

So don’t despair quite yet, Caps fans. If the Flyers dominate to another win on Thursday, however…

Maybe the Pope could swing by the Verizon Center on his out-and-about birthday tour and toss out a few blessings…

IMG_5190 copy, courtesy of island_explorer

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When you’re out walking to lunch today, in the glorious spring sunshine, take a moment to think about what you’re having. Is it trucked in by Sysco after being canned somewhere in the midwest? Or is it hauled in from area farms?

I’ve fallen in love with the area farmers markets, which are about to start their season again. The Post sent over a very neat Google Maps Mashup with a bunch of local farmers markets. Be sure to play with the days of the week on the map, as that made me miss my two favorite farmers markets initially.

If you’re interested in Farm Shares, please check out the VABF’s listing of CSA farms in the northern virginia area, most of whom will have dropoff points in the District. It’s not too late!

Strawberries — Originally uploaded by tbridge

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This is it, the moment that Vatican Sign Man has been waiting for. Finally, a chance to show the Holy Father himself the homemade sign that he’s been carrying across town and waving at traffic on Mass Ave for years now. You’ve seen him on the Metro with his five foot sign, standing there amidst the crowd as if everything is perfectly normal. He seems like a nice old man but deep inside that brain of his there are probably a few synapses that aren’t quite firing. As the train doors open at the Dupont Circle station, he heads towards the exit at a pace that isn’t quite a sprint but definitely isn’t a walk, on his way to his spot on Mass Ave to let the world know that according to him, the Vatican hides pedophiles. I would love to do an interview with him and find out just where they’re hiding them. In the Holy Basement?

What do you think the chances are that Vatican Sign Man “disappears” over the next few days seeing as how:

“Following a meeting with President Bush at the White House on April 16, the Holy Father will leave the White House in the popemobile at approximately noon via East Executive Avenue, travel west on Pennsylvania Avenue past Washington Circle, and then north on Rock Creek Parkway before exiting at Massachusetts Avenue. He will conclude his trip at the papal nunciature located at Observatory Circle where he will enjoy a lunch with the United States cardinals and others in honor of his 81st birthday.”

Um, happy birthday your Holy Popeness.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

So, D.C.’s in a tizzy with the Papal visit this week, and all the supposed traffic tie-ups it’s supposed to bring. This afternoon, a cadre of D.C. police and crowd control specialists (aka “barricade men”) lined Pennsylvania Avenue with aluminum corrals. Supposedly tomorrow will pale in snarly comparison with Thursday for the 10am Papal mass at the new National’s Stadium (are we ever gonna really name this correctly?). I’ve luckily got a nice vantage point for the procession, but I’m really in it to see which Popemobile he’ll be riding in (there are several variations, including several variations of Fiat’s…). I caught this peloton of D.C. police burning 1 inch rubber down the street this afternoon. If only all law enforcement was this eco-friendly… but I’d like to see them take the place of the USPS team some day in the Tour de France (which is also coming up soon too)

D.C. Police Police Peloton

Originally uploaded by webjedi

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Warning. This video contains some coarse language.

But they’re right, this is total bullshit. A bunch of Libertarians got together, with their iPods, and headed over to the Jefferson Memorial to have a silent dance party for Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, as it was his birthday this weekend. One of the dancers was then arrested by the Park Police for dancing in the monument amongst a bunch of other dancers around midnight, as not to disturb tourists.

I’m still not clear on what she was arrested for, or exactly what the whole deal was with the Police who decided she needed to get hauled off because she wanted to get her groove on with Thomas Jefferson. You can read a personal account of the event, or another personal response about the event, and as Mike Licht points out, Jefferson himself said “Dancing is a healthy and elegant exercise, a specific against social awkwardness…”

But apparently, it will get you a bullshit arrest by a bunch of rentacops gone rogue. I understand that The Jefferson 1 was released, but I am not sure if charges are pending or not.

So much for Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness…

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Though it’s a bit too chilly today, by midweek, we’ll be into perfect sidewalk cafe weather. I remember many a night spent on the patio either at Boulevard Woodgrill in Clarendon, or at Four Courts in Courthouse, or down on I St at the Bottom Line after work.

There are a ton of great places in DC for drinks on the patio when the weather’s nice and the sun is shining, and everyone’s got a favorite. I know Wayan is addicted to Fox & Hounds, and that I’ve certainly enjoyed a long happy hour after work at Elephant & Castle, and of course there’s the roof deck of pretty much every place in Adams Morgan, or the places in Georgetown that have the pull-back walls to let the air flow in when it’s nice.

Do your friends a solid, though, and tell us where to be this week when it’s nice here below in the comments.

Street in San Juan, Puerto Rico (LOC) — Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

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One down, three more wins to go.

In case you missed it, your Washington Capitals came from behind and stole Game 1 from the Philadelphia Flyers. They stole it like Ovechkin stole the puck in the waning minutes for his first playoff goal. Seriously – it’s a gorgeous move and great goal. You’ve got to see it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

It’s not going to be a cakewalk, though. The Flyers came out gunning, hopping up to a 4-2 lead before the Caps finally got their jitters behind them and surged to a tie. Mike Green netted two, and Ovie had 43 hits – 43! – on the night. Think he’s a tad excited?

Now that they’ve got the return-to-playoff jitters behind them, they’d better settle into a groove on Sunday for the rematch and not fall behind often. It’s not a good pattern to get into.

So hit the Verizon Center on Sunday and wear your red. I won’t be there, though – my preferred team has some more Senator-smacking to do, so I’ll be watching that demolition from the comfort of my living room.

Go Caps! (because I hate the Flyers!)

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

There are just three weeks to go until the deadline for metered cabs, and the Examiner is reporting that most cabs haven’t received the new meters yet. Most are waiting on the ruling of the DC Superior Court as to whether or not Mayor Fenty had the authority to pass the law mandating time and distance meters. The suing parties insist that the authority regarding the billing methods of the taxi cabs in the District belongs to the Taxi Commission and not the Mayor and the City Council.

Strikes me as a good chance that DC might be very short on taxicabs if the court doesn’t rule soon. Even if the court does rule soon, what are the odds that the taxi shops around town have enough time to work their way through the backlog of procrastinating drivers?

I’m betting they’re fairly long. Which means we’ll either have a near total lack of cabs, or we’ll see more lawsuits and tickets and fights between cabbies and the police. And all because one Senator had some constituents taken for a ride by the DC cabbies…

I’d be sympathetic, except that I’ve been taken for a ride before, myself…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Well, if you’re in the mood for a 7am block party – and not at Dulles airport on your way to the left coast – then hie on over to the Newseum. Not only is today opening day, during which admission is free, but they’re kicking off the last two hours up to the opener with a big shindig with music, beverages, caricatures, and other brouhaha. I’m sure the area commuters are thrilled.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

I love this story. It’s just so perfectly kleptocratic DC. Guy has his car stolen, the thieves get a parking ticket, which gets billed back to the owner. Meanwhile, the car amasses tickets, and finally gets towed.

This is where the story should end. They should run the plates on the car, find out it’s been stolen awhile back, and call the rightful owner. They should void the tickets as occurring while the car was stolen, and then go after the thief.

Here’s what actually happened: Because it’s DC, they release the car to the thief, and send the owner to collections for the amount of the tickets.

Now that’s some efficient government right there.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Marc Fisher took one for the team recently and tried out Greyhound’s new discount offerings designed to compete with the various Chinatown in name only bus services.

Now, I have complained to people in the past when Ticketmaster’s insane surcharges took up a sizable percentage of the face price of the ticket, but never once have they managed to match the 50% booking fee that Fisher was charged…. at $0.50.

Yep, a $1 ticket to NYC. Only one-way, but some time spent looking around the sidewalks in the big apple will likely yield you enough nickels for the $1.50 (with booking charge) to come back to our fair city. The promotional fares will probably peter out at some point, but with a at-the-door price of $20 it’s hard to complain. I suspect that in the near future you’re going to get molested by advertising, given that Fisher comments that there were three flat-screen tvs not currently in use, but if you tack $4 on to the price for earplugs even that can be a good deal.

Bargain, courtesy of sgrace

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

It was late last night as we got off the Metro at Courthouse after the Nats loss. The Vicodin I’d taken to dull the pain after my wisdom teeth came out was wearing off, and frankly, in that situation I get might grumpy. Having only had a yogurt, I pulled into the Wendy’s at Courthouse & Wilson for a Frosty.

Now, the Wendy’s closes its dining room at 10 or so, but their drive-thru is open until 2 in the morning. Which is great, if you have a car. But as the picture here demonstrates, about a half dozen people last night took it upon themselves to just walk up to the window. Sure, two of them waited in “line” between a few cars, but the rest showed up unbidden, and the wait while they placed their orders was 10 or so minutes, holding up the rest of the line.

Folks. It’s a drive-thru window. It’s not a walk-up.

Drive thru walkups — Originally uploaded by tbridge

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I went through my huge tax planner this past week, delinquent as I always am about getting these things done on time. There’s a page toward the end with about a million different causes that I could choose to support with extra money on top of my taxes. Usually, I give during the year, not at tax time, so I just run my pen down the No column. However, if you live in the District, think about giving a buck or two to the DC Vote folks who got their name on the tax forms in DC this year:

Especially when Heroes star (and Save the Whales spokeswoman) Hayden Panettiere’s part of the pitch…

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

His Pointy-hattedness is coming to town in a couple weeks, and Metro, seeking to repeat the godawfulness that was that insipid peeps video telling people to Metro to Nationals Park, decided to promote Metro for the Mass day. They did it with a Bobblehead version of the Pontiff, but the Archdiocese of Washington asked that they pull it down.

Because the Pope’s cape was the wrong color.

And because the Pope’s hat was wrong.

Now, it sounds like that they did this one right, complete with Car & Pontiff Magazine, and with good Latin chanting, but they got coerced by the protocol nazis.

Oh well.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

So they did it – with some help from a faltering Carolina team – and here the Caps are, at the brink of what looks to be a very exciting NHL playoff season in the run to Lord Stanley’s Cup.

The Caps haven’t faced the Flyers in the playoffs since 1989, and have split this season with them: Caps went 2-2-0, with 14 goals scored; the Flyers pulled a 2-1-1 record while scoring 15 goals. So does either team have an edge going into Friday’s Game One here at the Verizon Center?

Possibly.

Don’t look to the special teams to win it, though. The bruising Flyers have the second-highest power play success rate – but you have to counter that with wunderkind Ovechkin’s whopping 22 PP goals. And both penalty-killing lines enter the dance on a roll.

So what about offense?

Even. The Flyers bring to the ice a balanced but gritty line of experienced players that, at times, can be an oppressive force, wearing down opponents in the corners. The Caps’ offense is largely inexperienced in playoff hockey, but they’ve got some dynamic players in Ovechkin, Semin, and Koslov. More importantly, however, the Caps can score goals when needed during crunch time – provided Biron’s not standing tall in net for the Flyers.

Defense is also a push. Both sides of the blue line have some big bodies to bruise with, but the Flyer’s experience can be negated with solid two-way play from Mike Green.

Goaltending? About equal. Biron’s inexperience in the playoffs is balanced by his current hot streak – he pulled out two amazing shutouts in a row and seems to have hit his stride just in time to keep the Flyers from sinking. Huet’s posted solid numbers for the Caps and has a GAA under two in his last thirteen.

Coaching? John Stevens and Bruce Boudreau are both NHL playoff rookies that have done astonishing things with their teams this year.

Emotional quotient? Definitely in the Capital’s favor. They’ve pulled out a stunning drive after the trade deadline, stealing the Southeast Division title from the Hurricanes and riding some stellar play from Ovechikin, Laich and Huet. The Flyers all but managed to keep their free-fall from kicking them out of the playoffs, so the edge really goes to the high-flying Caps. Add in Ovechkin’s first run in the playoffs, and you’re looking at one supercharged emotional team right now.

The question really comes down to this: can the rest of the Capital’s bench step up and score when Ovechkin’s buried under orange and black sweaters? Because the key to a Flyer’s victory here is going to be stifling the Cap’s superstar every way they can.

If the rest of the team can step it up and crack Biron’s wall (and avoid multiple Flyer bruises), look for the Caps to take it in six.

FlyersCapsPr2 102, FlyersCapsPr2 060 courtesy of Cruel Britannia

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Don may be nigh on relentless with his critique of the Washington Post, but they certainly do get things right from time to time, and today they take home six Pulitzer awards for National Reporting (to Jo Becker and Barton Gellman for their exploration of Vice President Cheney), International Reporting (to Steve Fainaru for his coverage of private security firms in Iraq), Feature Writing (to Gene Weingarten for his piece on Joshua Bell busking in the Metro), Commentary (to Steven Pearlstein for his columns on economic ills in the US), Public Service (Dana Priest, Anne Hull and Michel du Cille for their coverage of Walter Reed) and Breaking News Reporting (for reporting on Virginia Tech)

Wow. When you look at those six awards, it’s hard to see how anyone else could have come home with the award. The Cheney piece, the Walter Reed piece and the Gene Weingarten piece on Joshua Bell were all heavily featured and reprinted throughout the rest of the US, and the Post’s unique work on the VT shootings was pretty much incredible.

Congrats, Post, for your excellent work in 2007. You guys are giving the winners all big raises, right? Right?

The last time one paper swept up so many of the awards in one year was 2002, when the New York Times picked up 7 awards, most of them for coverage of 9-11 and the aftermath. I’m sure their news department will find appropriate other parallels in the history of the award, but going back twenty years, I can find no other paper with as distinguished a record in a single year as the Post has in the 2008 awards.

[Update] The Post has put all the award-winning articles together for easy reading.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Here they are.

That’s the inside of what our friends call our “Chester the child molester van,” but what we simply call “big red.” Receding into the distance is the Hyattsville Pepsi bottling plant, where these 4 food-grade barrels came from. Two are 55 gallons, two are 30 gallons. All are intended to go around the edge of my house to be used as rain barrels, though we may end up not making use of them all.

Pepsi charges a nominal $5 per barrel fee to sell them to you, which is a steal compared to what you’d pay a commercial outfit. In fairness, I’m going to have to put on the necessary attachments myself before they can be used, to say nothing about washing out some leftover syrup sludge. Unless you can tell me for sure that tomato plants and daffodils are fans of lemon-lime, that is.

If you’re not quite as cheap & handy as I am (in that order) you can pick up barrels from the Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center. $60 is more than the $5 plus parts and time I’ll spend, but you won’t have to show up in Hyattsville at 6:30am to be assured of getting one either.

If you like to walk the path less traveled sensible as I do, instructions for making a barrel are provided here by the Maryland Environmental Design Program or you can use the contact link and ask the Fairfax Country Conservation District program to contact you the next time they run a rain barrel construction workshop.

If you’re thinking this sounds a little too hippie-dippy for you, I had some initial qualms about that as well. However I pretty much made up my mind to do it because of two things. One of them is probably unique to me: the previous tenants in our house left behind a number of soaker hoses, so we’d like to make use of them. The other factor I am sure applies to you as well: water is expensive. Since Arlington – and many regions -  base our sewer bill on our water consumption, we don’t just pay the $3.34 for each 1,000 gallons we pour out onto our lawn and garden – we also pay an additional $5.86 to cover the cost of spiriting it away down the drain and off to the stinky water  treatment plant… even though there’s no drain in our vegetable garden.

So if I put all 4 of my barrels to use, that’ll be a combined 170 gallons of water on hand to use rather than the $1.56 worth that comes out of the tap. Not a money saver right out the door, but combined with the lazyness factor of letting the soaker hoses do the work without any accompanying worry about them rupturing and costing me money, I think it’ll be worth it.

Besides, it’s yet another do it yourself project I can add to my overstocked pile. What more could I ask for?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs