fauxklore

I took the Metro today for the first time in a little over 9 months, because I had a doctor's appointment and I can't deal with driving in the city. The train was really empty, so social distancing was not an issue at all.


I need to get some additional lab work (iron and vitamin B tests) because of mild anemia. But everything else is stable. I do have some other things to catch up on - eye exam and mammogram - but those are not urgent.


On the way home, WMATA proved that they can continue to annoy me. I got to the Foggy Bottom station and saw the Vienna train was scheduled to come in 2 minutes. Except that right then there was a cable failure in Rosslyn and they started single tracking, so I ended up having a 20 or so minute wait.


It's only going to get worse if they don't get a bailout. They're threatening to end weekday service at 9 p.m. and stop all weekend service. That would complete screw with my social life once I can have one again.

Elections: Most of the election in my district was uninteresting, since I live in an area that is so blue that it is practically indigo. The Republicans no longer bother running candidates for Delegate or State Senator here. But we did have an interesting race for our representative to the County Board of Supervisors, with a Republican candidate whose platform included restoring female modesty to schools and rec centers. I actually approve of many school dress codes, but I believe they should apply to boys, as well as girls. And rec centers? How do you apply female modesty to swimming pools and gyms and still allow girls and women enough freedom of movement to exercise?

Fortunately, the rightest of right wingers lost (not surprisingly). But where does the Virginia Republican Party find these people?


Condo Association Annual Meeting: Wednesday night was our annual condo association meeting. There were only as many candidates for the board as there were openings, so it should have been short and sweet. Except, there is the matter of this lawsuit. We share our clubhouse with another condo association (representing the building next door) and they don’t like how much they have to pay to use the facilities. So there was a whole big presentation on that. The only thing we can really do is wait while the lawyers fight it out.


A Chorus Line: I went to see A Chorus Line at Signature Theatre on Friday night. The big deal with this production is that it is the first time Michael Bennett’s estate has given permission to use new choreography (in this case, by Denis Jones). I saw the show during its original run, but that was long enough ago that I remember little of the original choreography.

The main thing to keep in mind is that this was always intended to be an ensemble show, based on real stories of real dancers. Despite which, a few of the stories are always going to end up dominating the evening. The most obvious one is the history between Cassie, who failed at her attempt at stardom and is willing to be back in the chorus, and Zach, the director. Paul doesn’t get a solo song, but his monologue is the longest in the show. It’s hard to remember how revolutionary his story of coming to terms with his sexuality – and his parents’ eventual acceptance of who he was – seemed in the late 1970’s. The most dated line is the one about "what do Puerto Ricans know about musical theatre?" but Lin-Manuel Miranda wasn’t even born when the show was first produced. But I still think the line in "I Hope I Get It" which runs "What am I anyway? Am I my resume?" (not, of course, unique to dancers) captures the experience of people in their 20’s. And "At the Ballet" remains one of the saddest songs ever in a musical, with its contrast between the emotional abuse of childhood and the beauty of the ballet. Throw in the humor of "Sing!" and "Dance Ten, Looks Three" and the spectacle of "One” and the score remains memorable. Despite all of that, the song which sticks in my head afterwards is one that isn’t even from this show. It’s Kander and Ebb’s "Why Don’t They Mention the Pain"” which was apparently written for Chita Rivera and is sometimes included in And the World Goes ‘Round under the title "Pain." Let’s just say that my strongest sensory memory of many years of dance classes of various sorts has to do with the smell of ben-gay.

As for the performances, I’ll particularly note Jeff Gorti as Paul and Signature regular Maria Rizzo as Sheila. But it is unfair to single people out in what is, after all, an ensemble show. It’s a good show. Go see it if you can.


Metro Whine: Because I had gone from work, I took the bus to/from Shirlington (where Signature Theatre is) on Friday night. Taking the bus back to connect with the metro, I was really annoyed when the driver made racist comments about "Spanish" immigrants. Oy.


One Day University: The metro was also annoying on Sunday, when they were doing track work that made what should be a 45 minute trip take nearly twice that. Still, it isn’t as though I had any desire to drive into the city and I definitely have no desire to ever park anywhere near Lisner Auditorium, where One Day University was being held.

Anyway, I made it before the talks started. The first speaker was Stephanie Yuhl of College of the Holy Cross on The Shifting Lens of History: How We Reimagine the Past. Her key point was that there is a distinction between history, which allows for multiple perspectives, and heritage, which she defined as a particular social groups claims about their past. She talked about the role language plays in this (e.g. whether we refer to "slaves" or "enslaved persons"), what stories we tell (e.g. lack of discussion of the domestic slave trade), and what monuments we have. One interesting bit of trivia was that a statue of King George III was melted down and the lead which most of it was made of was used to make bullets during the Revolutionary War. Re: monuments, she spent a lot of time on World War II and on the American War in Vietnam. I think that the fate of monuments to Lenin in Russia would probably be an even better example, as there are still statues of him in places that most Russians would think of as the hinterlands (not just parts of Siberia, but also in places like Belarus). Overall, it was an interesting and thought-provoking talk.


The second speaker was David Helfand of Columbia University on What We Know About the Universe (and What We Don’t Know). He emphasized the centrality of light to the study of cosmology and how our ability to perceive only visible light limits our perception. He showed a lot of photos from the Hubble Space Telescope and mentioned things like dark matter and dark energy. Because One Day University was being chintzy and didn’t serve coffee and I refuse to pay four bucks for a cup of the swill the Lisner Auditorium sells, my blood caffeine level was too low to stay awake for much of this.


The third and final talk was by Sean Hartley of Kaufman Music Center on Four Memorable Musicals That Changed Broadway. For a theatre geek like me, it was pretty easy to predict which musicals he would talk about. Pretty much everybody acknowledges Showboat as the turning point of the American musical, using songs to tell a story, versus just interjecting popular music that doesn’t advance the plot. In addition, it dealt with the serious subject of miscegenation and it had a sort of integrated cast. Only sort of because the white characters and black characters interact only in the context of master and servant, not as equals.

The next obvious choice is Oklahoma! which advanced the idea of the book musical and triggered a whole era of that genre. I think he missed a key point by not mentioning choreography at all. Oklahoma! is generally credited with introducing the dream ballet, an instrumental piece in which dance moves the plot along and reflects character. On the plus side, he had an audience sing-along (to "Oh What a Beautiful Morning") which is always a fun thing.

His third choice was Company, which was the first successful concept musical, as well as the first Stephen Sondheim musical that Hal Prince produced. He was a bit mocking of Sondheim’s concepts, however, which he described primarily as people regretting what they’ve done in their loves.

Finally, he talked about Hamilton. While I can’t argue with its success, I think it’s too early to tell how much long-term influence it will have on Broadway. Also, Hartley got several things wrong there. For one, Lin-Manuel Miranda was born in New York and was not an immigrant. (I’d argue that even had he been born in Puerto Rico, he wouldn’t be an immigrant as he would still be a natural-born U.S. citizen.) I also think it’s unfair not to mention his earlier success with In the Heights, which did win the Best Musical Tony (and three others).

On the plus side, he did also talk about the role of regional theatres in keeping musicals a viable art form. That’s precisely why I support Signature Theatre and Creative Cauldron (among others). Still, I wish he’d said something I didn’t already know.


Veteran’s Day: I did not get off from work yesterday. Alas, neither did the people doing extremely noisy construction work inches from my office. Sigh.


Weather Whine: It should not be this cold until December. I need to fast forward to April or so.






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I went out to dinner with flyertalk friends last night. The metro was majorly screwed up - a cracked rail outside Foggy Bottom, leading to single tracking. It took me 45 minutes to get to Rosslyn, at which point I bailed and got a Lyft to the restaurant.

Mussel Bar is sort of lost on me, as I don’t do mollusks. The people who got mussels enjoyed them, though. I got onion soup, which was a bit too salty, and tuna tartare. The conversation was good and that’s more the point of these things.

I was luckier with metro going home. They were still single tracking, but I got to Ballston Station just a couple of minutes before my train.

Celebrity Death Watch: Bill Fischer held the Major League Baseball record of pitching 84 1/3 consecutive innings without giving up a walk while playing for the Kansas City Athletics in 1962. He was later a pitching coach, including 6 years for the Red Sox. Roy Bailey was a British folk singer, known for celebrating his working class roots. Olivia Hooker was the last survivor of the 1921 Tulsa race riot and went on to become the first African-American woman in the Coast Guard. Nicholas Roeg was a film director, best known for The Man Who Fell to Earth. Betty Bumpers was a pro-vaccination activist. Ricky Jay was a magician. Stephen Hillenburg created SpongeBob SquarePants. Bernardo Bertolucci was a film director whowon an Oscar for The Last Emperor and also directed Last Tango in Paris.

Ken Berry was an actor. I will always associate him with the TV show F Troop, but he had a broad career, including Broadway, films, and television. An interesting bit of trivia is that he served in the Army and ended up in Special Services, where his Sergeant was Leonard Nimoy.

George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States. He had a lengthy career of public service, including as a Navy aviator, a congressman, Ambassador to the United Nations, and Director of Central Intelligence before becoming Vice President under Ronald Reagan. While I disagree with much of what he did politically (e.g., I think the war on drugs was a disaster for American cities), I think he did show a certain amount of pragmatism (e.g. agreeing to needed tax increases) and, unlike the current administration, he did respect our system of government. I should also note he earned me 18 ghoul pool points. (I have reloaded with Doris Day.)


Puzzle People Death Watch: Barbara Selfridge (Banterweight) died of a sudden heart attack the last week of November. I remember having a discussion with her once re: our similar tastes in pocketbooks. Rebecca Kornbluh (Arachne) also died recently. She was a crossword puzzle champion and a constructor of cryptograms and cryptic crosswords. I remember having a pleasant breakfast conversation with her at the Milwaukee NPL con this past summer.

Leftovers, Part 1 -Elections: A few weeks ago, I had a list of things to write about. One of them was the elections. I am reasonably pleased with the outcome of the midterms. The most important result for me personally was Tim Kaine defeating Confederate whacko Cory Stewart in the Senate race here in Virginia. I also want to note that there were three Democratic women who defeated Republican incumbents to win Congressional seats from Virginia. Abigail Spanberger defeated David Brat, Jennifer Wexton defeated Barbara Comstock, and Elaine Luria defeated Scott Taylor.


Leftovers, Part 2 – How Jeff Bezos Will Screw Us Over: I’m sure you’ve heard that Crystal City is going to be half of Amazon’s HQ2. What you may not realize is that Crystal City is where I work. They’ve already been closing some things to put in a movie theatre and a supermarket, which are good things in things in the long run, but annoying in the short run. They’ve now fenced off the building I used to work in because it is being renovated to become part of Bezosville. This adds a minute or so to my walk from the metro to the office, which matters when it is cold out.

If this would make my condo value go up, I’d be happier about it. But I don’t think Vienna is cool enough for Amazonians. It should be, given that we have a good coffee roaster (Café Amouri), an independent bookstore (Bard’s Alley), and a great acoustic music venue (Jammin’ Java). And we have awesome transit options – the metro and the W&OD Trail, to name two. But those young’uns seem to want to live in the city instead of hearing owls nesting in the courtyard at night. (Well, I haven’t verified that it’s an owl. It’s possible that one of my neighbors has developed a disturbing vocal tic.)

All I can do is go into wait and see mode.


Leftovers,Part 3 – How the Virginia Department of Transportation is Going to Screw Us Over: I heard about this at our annual condo association meeting. They are planning to change our exit from I-66. Admittedly, it is a bit of an issue right now, because you have to move all the way to the left pretty much immediately when you get off the highway to turn onto our street. But the solution they are proposing is a traffic circle. That is horribly pedestrian (and bicycle) unfriendly. I wonder how the Amazonians feel about traffic circles?


Obligatory Metro Rant: They are doing track work on the Yellow Line bridge. Which shouldn’t affect me. Except that, instead of thinking logically and realizing that would mean a lot more people taking the Blue Line so they should run Blue Line trains more often, they are actually running them less often than normal. Grrr.


Earworm of the Day: A colleague just relocated here from Los Angeles. When I asked him how his commute is, he told me it involves a bus and two trains. My mind immediately transformed that to "two buses and a train" and this is now stuck in my head.

Celebrity Death Watch: Ed Charles played third base, including a stint with the Mets, including their 1969 World Series. Louise Slaughter was the oldest member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Sammy Wilson won a Tony for playing Paul in the original production of A Chorus Line. Frank Avruch played Bozo the Clown in Boston through the 1960’s. Charles Lazarus founded Toys R Us. Louis Kamookak discovered the wreck of HMS Erebus. Wayne Huizenga founded Blockbuster Video. Zell Miller was the Governor of Georgia for much of the 1990’s. Seo Min-woo was a K-pop singer. Linda Brown was the subject of a Supreme Court case on segregation. Stephane Audran was an actress, best known for Babette’s Feast. Peter Munk founded the largest gold mining company in the world. Anita Shreve was a novelist. Stephen Reinhardt was a liberal judge. Connie Lawn was the longest-serving White House correspondent. Ron Dunbar was a songwriter whose works include "Band of Gold" and the execrable "Patches."

Rusty Staub played baseball as part of the original Montreal Expos. He came over to the New York Mets in 1972 and was one of the more notable players for them during my high school years. I have a bobblehead of "Le Grand Orange," acquired when I went to a game in Montreal. He was also the first Mets player to get over 100 RBIs in one season.

Steven Bochco was a television producer, most famous for ensemble shows like Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law. He also created Cop Rock, which is worth a look for the musical aspect.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She was a controversial figure, largely because of the human rights violations committed by her security detail. In addition to her praise of "necklacing," she is said to have ordered kidnappings. She also got involved in fraud related to a funeral fund.

Intern Reception: I went to a reception last week for MIT students looking for policy internships. This appeared to be the year of the economist, with nobody interested in space. I did enjoy several conversations, both with people I knew (including one from an unrelated and, hence, unexpected connection) and who I didn’t. But the most interesting moment of the evening was when a young woman leaned too close to a candle and her hair caught on fire. Nobody was injured, fortunately.

Pesach: As my father used to say to my mother, America is not as rich as they always told us. Here it is a major Jewish holiday and we don’t even have any bread in the house.

Interplanetary Addresses: I get a fair number of invitations to events, not all of which are anywhere near where I live. Not everybody remembers they are posting invitations to international websites or email lists. Therefore, it is not uncommon to get invited to something with the address being given only as, say, 2100 Main Street.

I have developed the mental habit of interpreting such things as 2100 Main Street, Mars.

Don’t Analyze This Dream, Part 1: I was taking a shared taxi to Island Park. I expected to be dropped at the train station, but the driver turned down Carolina Avenue. When we reached my house, I asked to be let out, but the driver wouldn’t stop. Instead, he continued to the corner and turned left onto Austin Boulevard – but in the oncoming traffic lane. I finally got him to stop by opening the rear right-side door, while he was still moving slowly. I threw $40 at him and left. Also, the house numbers were wrong. My house was 127, instead of 60, and the house next door was 241, instead of 66.

Don’t Analyze This Dream, Part 2: I was somewhere in China with my mother. I had arrived a day earlier, so had already taken the river cruise included in our tour package, but I went with her again. Everyone had to show their passports to be able to board the boats and an American man objected. Then we were in the apartment of a man named Anuku and his mother said he spoke such good English because he had studied at Virginia Tech. He had a tattooed Delta on his arm to prove that.

Commute Hell: There was apparently smoke in the tunnel near Virginia Square, so the Orange Line was shut down from East Falls Church to Clarendon. I was smart enough not to think that shuttle bus service would work, so I took the 29N to King Street, where I could get the Blue or Yellow Line to work. It was slow and crowded and reminded me of how much I prefer trains.

Weird Words: Some friends on facebook have been discussing words that they mispronounced because they've only read them, not heard them. I have to admit that I find myself wondering what sort of life people are living that words like "hegemony" or "antipodes" come up in conversation.

I flew to Albuquerque on Friday. Because it was a fairly last minute trip and ABQ is not exactly a well-served airport, I ended up buying a one-way flight on American via DFW and using miles for a return on United. Mostly, this reminded me how much I hate American. To be fair, I don't have status with them and I am unwilling to pay for an allegedly better seat (another $42 for a middle seat a few rows closer to the front? really?) so it isn't a fair comparison. But their seats are less comfortable than being crammed into a typical third world bus. I did manage to get an aisle seat (only middles available when I booked) but even there, the customer service was crappy. The first time I asked, the gate agent told me to ask again in a half hour. United actually knows how to keep lists and add people to them.

I also hate that they have about 37 boarding groups before they get to group 1. (Okay, group 1 is actually just the sixth group to board. But, still.)

We got to DFW about 20 minutes early and then had to wait 40 minutes for our gate. Fortunately, I had plenty of time. And my connecting flight was in the same terminal. So it wasn't too stressful to get to the onward flight.

I stayed at the Hyatt Place near ABQ because 1) the friends I was carpooling with the next day were staying there and 2) it was cheap. I'd been there before and it is, er, adequate. My major complaint is their lack of thermostats with numbers on them. I know exactly what temperature I like a room to be. With a slider that just says "warmer" or "colder," I can't get it right. And, yes, I am a pea princess when it comes to this.
But they are friendly, their airport shuttle works, and did I mention that it was cheap?

The reason for the trip was Groot's memorial service. This was at Bosque del Apache, a National wildlife refuge outside Socorro. It's sad that it takes funerals and such to see various old friends, but I am glad I was able to make it. And I was, frankly, inspired by hearing how many lives he had touched. There isn't a much better thing to say about someone's life than knowing they made a difference to others.

There was also music and good food (awesome posole) and a herd of cranes flew over, which was most appropriate. (By the way, I googled what the collective noun for cranes is. And, really, herd seems way too unpoetic, but who am I to argue?)

Later, back in Albuquerque, we went to dinner at Scalo. The food was good, but I really shouldn't have gotten the insalata caprese to start, as that made the meal just too much food. The veal picatta was very tender, but I had to ignore most of the pasta that came with it. I did still get dessert - a hazelnut semifreddo. And they have good coffee, which is something all too rare at restaurants.

Flying home on United was much more comfortable. Though the flight from ABQ arrived at some extreme corner of terminal B, from which it was more than half a mile to the train that connects things to the real airport. And getting home from IAD was annoying as I could see an Orange Line train across the platform at East Falls Church when the Silver Line train arrived there. And I could see it close its doors and depart about 6 seconds before the Silver Line train doors opened to let me out. That meant standing out in the cold for 18 minutes for the next train.

Celebrity Death Watch: Janet Waldo was the voice of Judy Jetson and Penelope Pitstop, among a large number of acting roles. George Voinovich was the governor of Ohio through pretty much all of the 1980's, after which he became a U.S. Senator.

Metro: Surge #1 is over and was not too annoying, thanks to the temporary bus service from Fairfax Connector. Except that last night I was coming from the city and had the usual lengthy wait for a train at Foggy Bottom, complete with inadequate information. It didn't really affect tme, but they were announcing a train as being a Blue Line one, when it was actually Silver. The exact same thing happened this morning at Rosslyn, which was more irritating as I was already in a bad mood and running late due to multiple Orange Line screw-ups. To wit: 1) despite there allegedly being no track work, there was still single tracking between East Falls Church and Ballston, 2) the announcements only were addressing a different (and supposedly resolved) track issue, 3) none of this info was on the rail alerts, and 4) the two trains before mine skipped Ballston, so my train ended up with Tokyo-level crowding.

The next surge includes two weeks of no service between Rosslyn and Arlington Cemetery. They are suggesting people stay on the Orange (or Silver) Line to L'Enfant Plaza and then take the Yellow Line south. Which only adds about 35-40 minutes to the trip. There are a couple of alternatives I know of, but the most useful one is that I am actually going to have to deal with that mess for two days, due to a mixture of travel and a conference.

Kinky Boots: I went to see Kinky Boots at the Kennedy Center last night (which is why I was waiting for the metro at Foggy Bottom in the first place). Anyway, the show has a book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. It tells the story of a young man, Charlie Price, who inherits his family's shoe factory and decides to save the livelihoods of the long-term factory workers by entering a niche market. And what niche market is that? High heeled boots for drag queens. See, he had met Lola, whose footwear needs inspire ideas that will be just the thing for this upcoming show in Milan. Winning over the workers, who aren't necessarily comfortable with Lola, is only part of the problem. See, Charlie has to convince himself, too.

You know that everything is going to work out just fine, including Lola's father issues, Charlie's love life, and, of course, the factory. This is pretty much your average feel-good, everything works if you just accept everyone musical, with some gorgeous shoes thrown in. And I say that as a devotee of flats. The score is also fairly predictable. Lola gets some big, showy numbers, while there's a little more thoughtful material about what being a man is ("Not My Father's Son"). The music was pleasant enough for the most part (though the production numbers weren't really my style), but not really memorable.

Adam Kaplan did well as Charlie, but was (of course) overshadowed by J. Harrison Ghee as Lola. I did find myself wondering if the casting was intended to be color-blind or whether Lola being black was supposed to add even more to the whole lack of acceptance vibe. The performer I need to especially single out is Tiffany Engen as Lauren, the factory worker with a crush on Charlie. She was a phenomenal dancer and really conveyed the emotions behind her apparently hopeless feelings.

The most interesting thing about this show is that it's touring here right now, while La Cage Aux Folles is playing at Signature Theatre. Drag queens, self-acceptance, Harvey Fierstein - do I see a pattern here? And that apparent coincidence is why I found myself wondering whether Kinky Boots is anything more than a rehashing of the same old same old. It's not a bad show, but why bother when Jerry Herman's music gives you something to inflict an ear worm on yourself with? (To be fair, I've never really seen the point of drag shows and I've been accused of being the straightest person on the planet. Stilettos don't make me feel good - they make my feet hurt.)

Saturday was our local (Washington, D.C.) puzzle tournament. It was kind of a pain getting to GWU for it, since Metro had started "SafeTrack" (for which I have much ruder names), meaning trains were scheduled to run every 18-20 minutes. Which would be fine if they were running more often than every 45 minutes. Because, in addition to the scheduled single-tracking between East Falls Church and Ballston, they were also single-tracking between Clarendon and Foggy Bottom due to flooding in the Rosslyn tunnel. I had left myself plenty of time and was still able to go over to Bourbon Coffee on L Street to get some decent coffee before things started.

The first puzzle, by Peter Broda and Lena Webb, was straightforward enough. The theme wasn’t especially interesting and, frankly, one could probably solve it without ever figuring out what the theme was. Still, I solved cleanly and felt I was off to a good start.

Puzzle 2, by Andy Kravis and Neville Fogarty, was somewhat more my speed, with a theme that invoked puns in the style of Merl Reagle. It was my favorite of the day and, again, a clean solve. I found Puzzle 3, by Sam Trabuco, a lot less enjoyable, largely because I thought several of the answers were a stretch. I did, however, solve it cleanly. Things were going quite well and, in fact, after the first three puzzles, I was 6th on the Outside Track (out of 77). Admittedly, I was probably behind almost everyone on the Inside Track (i.e. the people who can solve the easy puzzles in about the time it takes me to pick up my pencil), but I was still pleased. On another pleasant note, somewhere in there (I think it was between the second and third puzzles), there were miniature pies.

Last year, I had been unable to find the Jose Andres veggie fast food place, Beefsteak, but now that I knew where it was, it made a good lunch destination for a few of us. You can build your own combo, but for a first time visit, it made sense to try one of their predesigned bowls. The kimchi-wa is described as containing rice, corn, carrot, cabbage, edamame, bok choy, garlic yogurt sauce and is topped with scallions, sesame seeds, corn nuts, kimchi, and soy ginger dressing. This was very tasty and proved to be quite a lot of food. I will definitely eat here again.

Things had been going swimmingly, but then came Puzzle 4, by Erik Agard and Joanne Sullivan. I figured out the theme fairly quickly, so that wasn’t a problem. The issue I had was a lot of difficult fill. Maybe other people know who the President of Nigeria is offhand, but it isn't the sort of thing that comes trippingly to my fingertips. In fact, I did get that answer, more or less letter by letter. But I got hung up in the upper left corner, largely because I got too attached to a particular wrong answer. So I ended up with 4 wrong squares and, to show how big an impact one puzzle can have, dropped from 6th to 34th on the Outside Track.

Puzzle 5 was a team effort by all the constructors and, fortunately, I found it more straightforward. I solved it cleanly, which brought me up to 21st on the Outside Track and 60th overall. That put me at the 49th percentile overall, which is mediocre, but it is better than last year when I’d been 61st out of 100 competitors, i.e. at the 29th percentile.

Overall, I had a good time, even though none of the puzzles really blew me away. At the end of the day, I stopped in at Whole Foods to buy a couple of things and then waited the better part of a millennium (okay, 40 or so minutes) for a train. They were still single-tracking through the tunnel, though Metro had apparently decided during the day that actually informing people of this was too much effort. Not that it mattered all that much, but I was exhausted when I got home.

I am still jet-lagged, so that probably limits how interesting I am. Or am not.

Celebrity Death Watch: Bob Ebeling was a NASA engineer whose warning prior to the Challenger disaster was, alas, ignored. Rob Ford was the mayor of Toronto and followed in the mayoral path so clearly set by Marion Barry of Washington, DC. Andy Grove was the leading force behind the dominance of Intel. (He was also, by the way, a Shoah survivor.)

Day Without Metro: Metro welcomed me home from vacation by shutting down the rail system completely for a day in order to inspect cables that should really have been inspected during the weekend shutdowns we’ve had damn near every weekend for the past decade or so. I could get to work by bus if I were willing to spend enough time at it, but I opted to drive. And, really, it didn’t seem much worse than normal, perhaps because I timed things well. My only real complaint about the shutdown is that they waited until 4:30 in the afternoon to announce it, which is well within normal rush hour. And, indeed, I heard that a number of people had not gotten the message.

By the way, the real winner on public transit that day was apparently Capital Bikeshare. Too bad there are no bike sharing stations within 10 miles of my house.

Travel Planning: I have figured out plans for short breaks over Thanksgiving and Christmas . One is a trip to Martinique, based on a ridiculously low airfare from BWI. The other is a reasonably priced trip to Key West. In both cases, I expect hotel costs will balance the air deals, but so be it.

I am also thinking that my birthday will require a national park trip, but I’ve only gotten as far as narrowing it down to four possibilities for that. (The Key West trip will include an excursion to Dry Tortugas N.P.)

Oh, and before someone asks why the short breaks? I have, um, negative 60 something hours of vacation after the South Pacific excursion. I have commitments for at least 5 more days before the end of the calendar year.

MIT Summer Interns: Monday night was the annual reception for MIT’s DC summer intern program. Unfortunately, there weren’t any candidates looking for space policy related positions this year. It’s still good to mingle with students and other alumni.

Android Question: This isn’t something really important, but it’s been bugging me. When I go to my task manager and click "end all," my tablet will sometimes tell me it is closing 20-30+ applications. Those are apps I never actually opened. The weirdest part is that clearing the memory will sometimes increase memory usage, rather than decreasing it. None of this has any big impact on functionality, beyond sometimes needing to clear memory to get mail or webpages to load. But I would still like to understand it.

I’m leaving for Recouvery tomorrow, so I wanted to get caught up before then. Here is what I’ve been up to.

Las Vegas: Vegas is a good destination for mileage running as: a) airfares are reasonable, b) the distance is enough to be worth accumulating PQM but not so far as to be punishing, and c) you can entertain yourself there easily between gambling and people watching. So I did a quick trip over the holiday weekend, flying there on Friday and back on Saturday. The down side of the trip was that this is summer and the temperature was roughly like walking on the surface of the sun. My key people-watching observation was that it is apparently a thing now for young women to forgo carrying a purse and, instead, tuck their phone into either a bra strap or their cleavage. I feel old.

Knitting: I was home on Sunday so went to knitting group. I finished another of the large afghan squares, but I am still well off the pace I had intended. There was also lots of entertaining conversation.

Metro Woes: Monday morning was a mess, since Metro does not know how to handle irrops. I don’t blame them for the selfish person who decided that being struck by a train would be a good way to end his miserable life. But if you announce you are single-tracking through a station, you should not then send one shuttle train in 40+ minutes, have that train go one station and then sit another 40 minutes, and then offload everyone to wait for a train that is then too crowded for people to get on.

Thinking suicide?
Please find some other day to
Do it – not by train.

Aside from the impact to my commute (which, let’s face it, is what really matters), it isn’t very nice to inflict that trauma on a train driver.

Also, my experience on the overcrowded train I squeezed onto suggests that the residents of Fairfax County have stopped spending money on deodorant, using it instead to buy garlicky food for breakfast.

Story Slam: Last night I went to the Storyfest Short Story Slam in Silver Spring. I’m not really crazy about the competitive aspect of story slams, but I do like to know what is going on with all storytelling in the area. The theme was "Song and Dance" so I told my ballet story. Or, more precisely, an abbreviated version of it, since the slam has a 5 minute time limit.

The event was better than I had anticipated. The stories that had problems had the usual sort of problems with personal stories, e.g. no real idea of what the story was about, leading to a lack of a real ending. But, overall, there were several satisfying stories. From the standpoint of a teller, I thought the audience was a good, highly responsive one. I should also note a particularly high level of diversity among the attendees, which is (sadly) all too rare. I will definitely go again, schedule permitting.