if on a summer's night a blogger

Guess who's back?

2009-04-15T00:10:00.001-04:00

Guess who's back?
Originally uploaded by yonas1.

That's right. New rear derailleur. Shimano Tiagra is a slightly better upgrade to the Shimano Sora derailleur I had on there before. After picking my bike up at City Bikes in Adams Morgan yesterday, I really wanted to go for a long ride because I've been going through withdrawal. As soon as I walked out of the store, it began raining. Go figure. I still rode home and switched gears up and down the whole way, just to test things out. Waaaaayyyyy smoother than the Sora. I couldn't believe that I could tell that much of a difference with only one minor upgarde. Makes me wonder how nice Dura Ace would be.....

At any rate, I'm ready to hit the road again pretty hard. As soon as this damn weather clears up. And gets warmer. Terror on the Tarmac is BACK. Ha...

Dead Sora

2009-02-21T16:31:00.001-05:00

Dead Sora
Originally uploaded by yonas1.

The other evening I was cycling back to my apartment from Adams Morgan when a paper bag in the street got caught on my right foot. I looked down and tried to kick it off, eventually managing to get it off my foot. The bag then got caught onto my rear derailleur and I looked down and kept on cycling, thinking it wasn't a big deal. Well, it was a big deal. The bag ended up getting sucked into the two small gears attached to the derailleur and jammed up the entire thing. It was so bad that it ripped the rear derailleur completely off of my bike and made a very horrible, loud sound in the process.

I caught the attention of a few people on the sidewalk from all the noise it was making. At this point the bike wasn't even pushable, so I had to carry it home on my shoulders. It's a good thing I was only a block and a half away. Better yet, it's a good thing I didn't tip over and fall into the way of a moving vehicle.

Cyclists: beware of paper and plastic bags in the middle of the road! Avoid them at all costs if you can.

Typical. Shitty. Monday.

2008-10-27T21:25:00.006-04:00

Today is one of the worst Mondays I've had in a long while. I wake up this morning (running really late, of course) only to realize that I had forgotten my wallet in my car last night. Being that my car is currently parked in the opposite direction of the Metro (with respect to the location of my apartment), I decided that the only way to retrieve my wallet from my car and show up to work at a semi-respectable time would be to cycle. Fine.

Realizing that it may be colder than what I'm usually comfortable riding in, I scurry around my apartment searching for my gloves. My apartment is currently a complete mess, so naturally....I only find one of my gloves. Time was ticking, so I quickly ditched it and darted out of my apartment.

Yes: it was butt-ass cold outside (by my standards). I cycled over to my car and was relieved to see that none of the windows were bashed in by a crackhead trying to retrieve my wallet from dashboard inlet under the stereo. I grabbed it and continued to hustle fast to work....the entire time my dry, ashy hands were suffering from the cold ass autumn air. Not cool.

I get to work and ALL DAY I had the pleasure of figuring out how to hack my code in order to get a stupid .png image to appear correctly in IE6. That's right. I was at work for 9.5 hours today and I finally one stupid effing image to appear correctly in one stupid effing browser. Why do we still support IE6 at work you say? Or maybe you're asking, why is it that we developers are required to create new things that are not only inconsistent with the rest of our site, but are known to explode in IE6? Beats the hell out of me. That's a question better suited for the ~~web professionals~~ people that run the ship.

Oh, and it doesn't end there. By the time I left the office, a light rain had begun to fall. And it was still butt-ass cold. I grab my bike and walk to the Metro. I get down to the platform and hop on the next green line train to pull through....I realize two stops later -- at L'Enfant Plaza -- that I'm heading in the wrong direction. I didn't go apeshit, though, because hey -- it was the cherry on top of the crappy sundae that is Monday.

Well, I think I've reached my bitch and moan quota for the rest of the year*. I'm at home now, trying to relax, and waiting for my sushi to be delivered. Let's hope the sushi man actually shows up. I'd like for at least something to go right today.

*said bitching will exceed all of everyone's wildest dreams if McCain gets the presidency.

I'm an uncle! Again!

2008-08-28T01:06:00.012-04:00

Lene; posted by yonas1.

On August 26, 2008, 1:33pm Lene was born at a healthy 8lbs 10oz. She's considerably smaller than Nati at his birth, and will probably stay considerably smaller than him throughout their lives!

It was great to go to the hospital to see her and my sister that night. The good thing about Holy Cross is that they have 24 hour visitation. I was a little nervous when I was coming home from work that I wouldn't have the chance to visit, since most hospitals don't allow visitors past 8pm.

When I arrived, of course I didn't hesitate to bust out my camera after a few minutes to snap some shots. The nurse that was weighing Lene got a little testy with me claiming that she didn't want to be in any pictures. I got over her attitude and continued to shoot.

Lene was asleep when I arrived and remained asleep my entire visit. I didn't get to witness any action out of her, save for a few sneezes here and there and getting fussy at times. Hopefully when I go back on Thursday evening she'll liven up! But even that is wishful thinking.

In any case, welcome to the world, Lene.

Very Important

2008-07-18T00:17:00.003-04:00

Chevolution

2008-06-28T19:13:00.006-04:00

A couple of Thursdays ago, Ariele and I saw "Chevolution," a documentary about what could arguably be the most famous portrait of the 20th century. Undoubtedly you have already seen it on tee-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, billboards, coffee mugs, flags, and other paraphernalia. It is a black and white photograph of Che Guevara taken by Alberto Korda. The image shows Che standing on a stage in front of Cuban supporters following a terrorist attack at a nearby harbor. His face is expressionless, but somehow still filled with a look that has come to be interpreted as that of an uncompromising revolutionary.

Backing up a number of years, I remember first noticing the image around high school. Then, going through college, I started noticing it on tee shirts everywhere. I didn't quite understand what made this image of this man so popular. After being inundated with the image, as it was ubiquitous on college campuses, it drove me to do some research on my own. After learning as much as my interest would allow, I was actually kind of shocked at how many people -- especially young people -- idolized Guevara. Yes, he was an intelligent medical doctor. Yes, he had amazing ideals. Yes, he did everything in his power to help the poor of Latin America. But "everything in his power" included being a ruthless savage in the name of justice. The manner with which he pursued the Revolution was not only incredibly violent but also most certainly hypocritical.

What really piques my curiosity is that Che admirers of today choose to overlook his knack for guerrila combat and prisoner assassinations. The ones that don't simply absolve themselves somehow of associating with that aspect of Guevara's life. In any case, would Che be as idolized as he is without the existence of Korda's photograph? We may never really know the answer to that question, but in my personal opinion, I don't think so. Korda, without knowing it, made an immortal icon out of a man in under 5 or 6 seconds (the documentary explains that Che was standing on that stage for only the briefest moment).

The executive producer stayed after the movie for a Q & A session. She stressed the fact that this was a documentary about a photograph and not a documentary about a man's life. That helped a bit to keep peoples' questions on-topic. It was a great experience to check the movie out and I highly recommend you do the same. Although Silverdocs is over, it should be released on DVD relatively soon.

Unconscious

2008-04-06T17:47:00.002-04:00

Last night Ariele and I went to have dinner with a couple of friends at Selam Restaurant on U Street. When we got back to the apartment, around midnight, we were surprised to see my next door neighbor completely unconscious in the corridor. He was about three feet away from his front door and his motorcycle helmet was close to his body.

My first instinctual thought was, "man....he's really drunk." But as we approached his body, I didn't smell any alcohol and began to worry. Ariele kicked him a couple of times and began to yell in a loud voice, "señor! señor!!" He wasn't at all responsive. I knelt down and shook him a couple of times trying to rouse him, but to no avail. Ariele then took our bikes into my apartment and told me to call an ambulance if I couldn't find a pulse. I stuck my right index finger just beneath his nose and could tell that he was breathing. At that moment he let out a very faint grunt and began to move just a little bit. I decided to knock on his apartment door; he lives with a few other guys.

I knocked twice and for whatever reason it took one of his roommates forever to come to the damn door. None of them speak English, by the way. Not even our passed out protagonist. The man who answered the door opened it to just a sliver and peeked out with his left eye. He's blind out of the right. I told him in Spanish that his friend is unconscious and completely unresponsive in the hallway. He seemed surprisingly calm and got on the phone immediately. It's unclear as to whom exactly he was calling, but he went back into the apartment for about three minutes. At this point I'm like, "what the fuck." I'm in the corridor with this poor man and his roommates seemed preoccupied. I told myself to call the police if they didn't come back out within a minute.

Just before I reached for my phone, another one of his roommates emerges from the apartment. "What happened?" he asks me. I tell him that his friend is passed out, unresponsive, and most likely completely drunk. I ask him in an indirect manner if his buddy drinks a lot, and he avoided the question altogether. "Where did you find him?" the man asks next. Now that question caught me completely off-guard. What the hell was he implying? That I found the guy passed out somewhere and dragged him home? "I found him right here," I replied. "Just like this...he hasn't moved." The man asked again, "Just like this? Nowhere else?" How curious, I thought to myself. "Yes," I replied. "Right here."

The roommate then unzips the man's jacket and puts his palm on the drunk(?) man's chest and revealed an expression of relief across his face. The man's heart was indeed beating. He looks back at me and gives a thumbs up with a small smile. "Is he going to be ok?" I ask. "yeah, yeah," replies the roommate.

At that moment he forces the drunk(?) man up and for a moment, albeit very brief, he showed signs of waking up. He grunts a couple of times and I felt a bit more relieved.

I retreated to my apartment with still a bit of concern that I couldn't quite shed. Ariele tells me later on that she most definitely smelled alcohol and that indeed the man was drunk. And I couldn't help but wonder why people drink to the point of licking the honey off of Death's razor-sharp ax.

When it comes to getting drunk, I guess I'm lucky to know what self-control is all about.

Way to Go, MacBook "Pro": Part III

2008-03-07T21:42:00.003-05:00

*Sigh*.....how do I even begin this post? I'm quite at a loss for words. But here goes - about two weeks ago, the hard drive in my MacBook Pro died: for the third time in under the span of a year and a half. I know this is the hardest thing in the world to believe, but it's true.

This is far beyond coincidence - there is clearly something inside of the laptop that is destroying these hard drives after a period of several months. The sad part is that Apple refuses to acknowledge this. I have sent emails and have had a few conversations with their technical support, but they just see this as another coincidence. Well....it's not; and they're clearly playing stupid. Either the MLB (Main Logic Board) or power supply is corrupting these things because there's just NO WAY I can go through three hard drives in the span of a year and a half when everyone else I know that owns a MacBook Pro has not had a hard drive issue yet. The hard drives are definitely not dying from being knocked around - I hardly ever take my laptop outside of my apartment, and when I do I am extremely careful with it.

After discussing this predicament with several people, the general consensus was that Apple owed me a new laptop, even though I'm outside of my warranty. There is just absolutely no excuse for a machine to cost $2,200 if it can't keep a hard drive alive for an entire year. It's absolutely ridiculous what I've had to deal with. I fought like hell over the phone, but unfortunately the only thing Apple agreed to do was replace the laptop's hard drive free of charge. They didn't even agree to my request for a full hardware diagnostic to pinpoint the true underlying problem, nor did they agree to replace my MLB for the second time. I asked Apple what they will do for me when, not if, my fourth hard drive dies and they avoided answering the question altogether.

What is it with you Apple? Why wont you level with me? The least you can do is meet me halfway to save a little face. Am I right?

Thank Bajesus for Justin. About a week and a half ago he hooked up my dead laptop to an iMac in his office and is running Data Rescue II. After 9 days of grinding away, it appears as though 90% to 95% of my data has been successfully cloned. The entire operation should be complete by early next week.

I can't even sit here and tell you, the reader, not to buy an Apple computer because every other option out there sucks major cojones. In the true fashion of luck a-la-Yonas, I managed to land the biggest piece of crap Apple managed to roll out of their factory. The sad reality is that computers will always be somewhat problematic and with our increasing dependency on technology, it only gets worse from here.

Flickr is funny sometimes...

2008-02-10T14:45:00.001-05:00

I'm voting for Obama.

2008-02-10T11:54:00.001-05:00

That's right, I said it. Hillary voted for the Iraq war, and quite honestly, despite your political affiliation, that is unforgivable.

Interesting side note: I'm registered as an independent voter, which means I do not belong to a political party. So unfortunately, I can't vote in Tuesday's primaries. BUT, I don't feel as though I'm not represented here in DC where there are tons of Obama supporters, so I'm banking on the hope that he'll win.

Coming Down to the Wire!

2008-02-02T12:03:00.000-05:00

how to get struck by lightning

2008-01-21T16:51:00.000-05:00

The following is a creative writing piece by Barbara L. Walker that I truly admire and wanted to share with the rest of the world. Remarkably, this piece has never been published on the internet, for reasons unbeknownst, ergo I share it this evening with you. Enjoy....

how to get struck by lightning

simply going for a walk in the rain won't do it
even if you are in the woods, surrounded by trees
all the times I disobeyed my father by talking on the phone
during a storm didn't do it either but I never did defy him
by taking a bath with thunder so I don't know if that would work
there have been times I have felt strangely electrified
without even a storm brewing I fell into singing with a fiddler
but that odd electrochemistry of lust, broken strings and whiskey
doesn't really count unless it leads to a dark wet cave
where two voices harmonize to bring about a third, an echo
with the terrifying beautiful potential to grow into a real being
then, there is a god-like decision to be made
then, there is the tower of Babel between you
which you both know will crumble
someday without warning

howl at the moon when it is just a sliver
being courted by one vast cloud looking to be a mountain
throw that angel in wood to the fire keep burning
tell the story of the worst thing you ever did
to someone who has never done it
walk along the top of a dam with the magician
who is married beyond the no trespassing sign

or visit the place of your very beginning
way before your conception, the place your parents first kissed
where you can really get a grasp: there was no way
for them to know where that kiss would lead, and no way to stop it
wear every metal thing you own and go barefoot
let your feet dangle in the water
stay in the pool while you count onethousandone onethousandtwo
keep your secret until it is the completely wrong time to let it go

climb a tree when you are drunk in the dark
or worse yet, climb up after your drunk friend who is falling
in love with a musician, again, try to convince her
to come down, to quit dreaming of flight
to forget the poetry of his fingers on strings
she may flash her stubborn brown eyes in your direction
the heavens may split wide open and pour down on you

or some bright busy afternoon, without meaning to,
lie in the bed you have made
hold in your hand all your old poems written in the midst
of post-divorce traumatic stress syndrome
with your credit card bills in the other hand
this in itself will define the word forever
longer than love ever lasts, somehow shorter than debt
unsecured, pray for redemption

go camping in the wilderness
without a tent sleep and wake sleep and wake
under stars turning the sky sweeping heaven
let their dust fall in your eyes
climb up on the roof without a ladder
ignore all red flags and decide to savor a man
who will never go out of his way to love you
throw spoons in the air and kiss them
you can disobey your father and all your good intuition
you can ignore what you learned from your wise woman
you can fight with God
daily, but none of this will get you struck dead
I have wrestled for the holy answer, relentlessly
I am still standing here
wishing for thunder, waiting for rain
praying for that flash of brilliance that will save me

Barbara L. Walker
© April 2004 Morgantown, WV

Tech Support

2007-11-19T11:41:00.000-05:00

Critical Mass.....and more

2007-10-06T17:45:00.000-04:00

Last night was the very first time I participated in Critical Mass and it was AWESOME. It was a fantastic turnout....I believe it was close to 75 people, and we took to the streets...well...en masse. There was a wide variety of people that showed up - everyone from stinky, dreadlocked hippies with beat-up bikes to super-serious cyclists dressed in expensive gear with pristine bikes. Most everyone got along and we really took the streets by storm. I went with Jill, who works in a different department at AARP and just happens to be way cooler than I ever thought! Anyway....I bumped into Ebony's friend Robin, who to my surprise is an avid bike commuter. I didn't know he was into cycling as well. Overall, I met some fantastic people and some not-so-fantastic people - there were definitely some people there that were taking the ride a bit too seriously. These were the people that were dead-set on blocking as much traffic as humanly possible and making sure we were all extremely tight-knit. I was just there to have a great time and let our presence be known. The ride ended on the corner of 16th and Meridian, where I bumped in to John Whittington. I was surprised to see him walking around and actually speaking coherently, as he had his wisdom teeth taken out earlier in the day.

IN OTHER NEWS.....
This morning I woke up around 11am and could barely see anything out of my right eye. I could still make out colors and shapes pretty well, but things were incredibly blurry for the most part. I started to freak out....I washed my eye out with water and then Ariele came over and helped me wash it out with contact solution. Nothing seemed to help. So I called my opthamologist and a doctor saw me out in the Chevy Chase office on an emergency basis. Ari was kind enough to drive me up there. After tons of inspection and testing, she found a small lesion on my cornea surrounded by bacteria. It's nothing too serious and can be handled with prescription eye drops and antivirals. The really, really good news is that everything is completely fine and healthy in my retina. That's in the back of the eyeball and when something happens back there is when things get really serious really fast. So it was good to hear that things were all good.

My vision is expected to return to normal within the next couple of days. If it doesn't, I will have to be placed on medication to bring it back.

It was kind of a bummer to miss Columbia Heights Day, but oh well....I've definitely had my fair share of festivals for the season. Plus, Ari is volunteering today at the Green Festival in the Convention Center, so I might go there to have a look-see.

I Heart Spam (...but not really)

2007-07-02T00:07:00.000-04:00

GMail has an absolutely fantastic spam filter. Hardly any spam ever gets through to my inbox, and on top of that things that could potentially be spam never get mistaken as such. It's awesome.

BUT — and anyone who gets newsletters or group emails should do this — occasionally I'll peruse my spam folder, just in case GMail has mistaken something as spam when in fact it's not. I must say, sometimes I thoroughly enjoy going through the spam folder because the subject line to some of the emails are just absolutely hilarious. Here is a small compiled list of some of my favorites:

brazilian big booty fuckfest

uganda weed

Tranny posing in nylon

Crazy babe gets laid by her nasty dad

impotence is not a problem with our drug$!

Mature babe n dildo

Nude babe pees on beach

Chick seduces her younger brother

Babe loves black guys working her up

Ramming slave with strapon

gorgeous busty old mature

Hey Natural and Safe way to enlarge Rochelle Jacobs?

Yes - most of them are sexually charged to entice people to click on the email in the first place. And some of them, like the last one listed, make absolutely no sense at all.

So if ever you're feeling down and you have a minute or two to kill, scroll through your spam folder - it'll definitely give you a laugh.

ZDNet.com Hires Idiots

2007-06-12T21:50:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, there is now officially a Bill O'Reilly of the computer blogging world. Not only is she embarrassingly stupid, she blatantly reports things that are the complete opposite of what the collective human race calls "reality." This woman is Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet.com.

Foley wrote a column today that nearly made smoke fume from my nose. It's titled "Leopard looks like. . .Vista." In her blog, Foley lists 10 ways in which the new Leopard operating system is very, very similar to Windows Vista, not only with operating system features, but general visual aesthetics as well. Hmm.....I really wonder why that is. Could it be that Microsoft stole every possible feature from Apple's OS X Tiger?!

Noooo, nooooo. Not in Foley's make-believe world. In her fantasy land, its the other way around! Foley's list is very blunt in its intention of stating the [extremely false] obvious: Apple stole everything from Microsoft. It's as if OS X hasn't been around since 2001. As if Apple is this new computer company that needed to model a new product off of something that was already existing.

I refuse to sit here and write a diatribe on how Apple's OS X is a superior operating system to Windows. That's just a given with respect to usability, reliability, speed, and security. I generally don't like to waste my time re-enforcing facts.

Nor am I a "fanboy" of Apple so much as I am a "fanboy" of reality. In fact, I use a Windows box at work. That said, I have only one thing to proclaim: Mary Jo Foley, you're a dumbass.

LOLcode!

2007-06-09T20:08:00.000-04:00

Ok, so Lolcats are taking over the world completely. Quite possibly the universe. And I must admit, I get a kick out of the THOUSANDS of photos that people have posted to the net. I really like this one in particular.

This phenomenon has spilled over into the programming world. There is now something called Lolcode, a language that has no literal functions in the real world other than being silly and funny. Here is a snippet, courtesy of programming.linux.com (Justin and Kathy, you'll both get a particular kick out of this):

HAI

I HAS A CHEEZBURGER ITZ 1

 IM IN YR LOOP
   VISIBLE "I has dis many: " N CHEEZBURGER
     IZ CHEEZBURGER BIGGER THAN 11 O RLY?
     YA RLY
       GTFO
     NO WAI
       UP CHEEZBURGER!!1
     KTHX
 KTHX

KTHXBYE

I love it! Hilarious! And cute. And eerily serious. Someone has gone as far as building an interpreter for Lolcode, so nobody can just sit around and wing it. It has a dedicated syntax.

If you're a programmer and want to ramp up your skillz, I suggest you purchase the book.

Plzkthxbye.

Last night at Wonderland...

2007-05-26T22:43:00.000-04:00

...I was cornered in the bathroom by a true Irishman, "straight out of prison," who ranted continuously about the "rich kids of DC."

...Fitsum fell under the influence, began bleeding profusely from the right palm, and the EOS 30d took a hit on the floor.

...a humongous lesbian in a business suit was very openly fondling a skinny bookworm on the dance floor.

...I saw a friend I haven't seen in many moons.

...Funk DC spun the most amazing tunes, and I danced until the lights flashed "last call."

What a great night.

I've Been Blogged!

2007-04-15T17:36:00.000-04:00

On Friday the 13th, The dcist's Sommer Mathis wrote a piece about my recent rant about a bad experience I had in the DC Metro when taking photographs (see my most recent entry). I'm pretty excited about this, considering dcist gets a decent share of traffic and this issue is something that local photographers need to know about. We should all stick together and know our rights. According to the DC Metro's official rules:

100.8(2) Still photography that does not require a tripod, special lighting, film crews, models, impair the normal ingress/egress or operation of Authority services and can be accomplished by a hand held camera by one person is not regulated.

The over-paranoia and harassment of the WMATA police needs to stop immediately. For a copy of the Photographer's Right, click here. Print that pdf out and carry it with you wherever you go. That way, you'll have the ability and the power to whip that puppy out if an officer feels so inclined to question your photography and identity.

WTF: DC's Finest!

2007-04-11T19:28:00.000-04:00

About 30 minutes ago, I was taking photographs in the Gallery Place Metro station. I took a couple of tunnel shots and a slow-shutter train shot. Shortly thereafter, I was approached by a police officer who found my picture taking "suspicious" and she asked me for identification. She took down all of my information and put me through a brutal questioning session. I answered all of her questions truthfully, but she was so obviously skeptical. She even called in for backup! I told her several times that I was a photographer, just taking pictures. That's all. I told her I didn't know it was illegal to take pictures in the metro. She then said, "it's not illegal, but you weren't taking pictures of anything special. And that's suspicious."

At this point, I'm fuming inside. I wanted to say, "listen you imbecile: a photographer never has to explain herself or himself when taking a photo. There is a certain inexplicable beauty in symmetry and how it mixes with light, and what's more symmetric than a Metro tunnel in the perfect mood lighting?" But instead I just said, "uh....ok."

I mean, I know our police have to be cautious and all, but what the fuck! It angered me to an immense level, but I did a pretty good job of controlling my temper. I was so humiliated to have a cop on either side of me while everyone walked by, wondering what was going on.

I want to put this out there -- if you like taking pictures in the Metro, please be careful of paranoid cops. They were apathetic and useless when my car got broken into three different times and were apathetic and useless when my friend had a gun pointed at her by a raging lunatic in broad daylight, but when it comes to photographers in the Metro, their instinct calls upon them to act swiftly to save the world.

Please beware.

Dear President Bush

2007-04-06T21:28:00.000-04:00

Shut the fuck up. Nobody likes you.

Way to Go, MacBook "Pro": Part Deux

2007-03-07T20:01:00.000-05:00

The day before yesterday, at around 9:15am, the hard drive in my MacBook Pro died. Again. That's right - again. Again. I really can't believe this crap. This is the second time in less than a year that this has happened to my computer. I'm at a complete loss for words.

Yesterday morning I managed to boot off of my portable hard drive to get on the internet to set an appointment to see a Mac "Genius." I set an appointment for 7:40pm and get to the Apple Store in Bethesda on time. As if my bad luck couldn't get any worse, it turned out that there was only one Genius on staff - the other one must have called in sick. Wonderful. So in reality, my 7:40pm appointment became an 8:30 appointment. I was furious. I explained to the guy that I'm in serious need of serious compensation from Apple for this ridiculous inconvenience....and so he broke out the line that I was so expecting..."Sir, although it is extremely unlikely for two hard drives to fail on you within 8 months, it can happen. Apple is only responsible for replacing or repairing these things upon failure." Great. At this point I was too tired and too hungry to argue with the guy. He did, however, agree to do an in-store replacement when he receives a new hard drive. This will save loads of time. Last time when they sent my computer out for repair I had to wait three weeks to see it again.

The [semi]good news here is that I backed all my stuff up on December 29, 2006. So I only lose two months' worth of activity. I know it's not ideal and I should have backed things up at some point this year, but it's better than losing everything and starting from scratch.

By the way, for those of you that may think that I'm bumping my laptop around too much, I'm not. It either sits on my desk here in my apartment or on my desk at home. I'm always really careful around it, especially when it's in my bag. I'd also like to mention that Kathy dropped her MacBook Pro off her desk, while it was doing something, and the computer managed to survive with only a big dent on the CD slot.

So here I am, back on the ol' HP laptop that has been collecting a healthy amount of dust in the past eight or nine months. Crankin' this puppy up is like pulling teeth - it takes about 10 minutes to load. So now I'm thinking of formatting it completely and installing Ubuntu.....hmmm.

Let's just hope I get my MBP before I go to Cali.

Yet More Crappy Weather

2007-02-25T19:23:00.001-05:00

Hobart Street, Mt. Pleasant
Originally uploaded by yonas1.

And the crappy weather just keeps on comin'. I know it's technically still winter, but this has got to stop. I'm ready for summer already. Oh - I still have yet to move my car off of 16th Street....ugh.

Oh well. I just ordered sushi from a place called Banana Leaves on Florida Avenue. The woman said it's going to take about an hour, but I don't want to risk going out and moving my car. I'd hate for the delivery guy to come right when I'm out. Then it would be no delicious sushi for me.

An Unexpected Eventful Evening

2007-02-18T23:43:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I haven't quite squared away my DMV vehicle registration even though I've been a DC resident for over a year now. I still have Maryland plates, which means I have to leave my car on Adams Mill Road - quite possibly the last unzoned street in the District. I hardly ever drive my car, so it doesn't really bother or inconvenience me.

Last night at around 8:30pm I walked down to my car and noticed something strange on the roof. Upon closer observation, I could clearly make out that somebody had left an in-dash Sony CD car stereo there. On the roof of my car. I also noticed that it was missing the faceplate, thus rendering the car stereo completely useless. So the situation is quite clear - despite the fact that the owner had removed the faceplate for security reasons, somebody still had the audacity to break into that person's car and steal the core stereo, just because they could. Somewhere along the way, the shithead-at-large decides to place the stolen stereo on top of my car. I was extra agitated because the same exact thing happened to me a number of months ago and I have yet to replace my own stereo. So it was as if the thief were taunting me in some sick way.

At that moment Luc calls me. I tell him everything and he advises me to call the police immediately. So I called DC's non-emergency 311 line and they dispatched a squad car to the scene. Minutes later, a cop car shows up and two officers get out and I fill them in on what's going on. One officer stayed by me and called the dispatcher to see if anyone had reported a stolen car stereo while the other officer walked around the block looking for a car that had been broken into. No dice on both ends, so the cops took the Sony stereo off my roof and were on their way.

Pulling out of the parking spot was hell considering my car was plowed-in with snow. After several minutes I somehow managed to get out of there. I was on my way to Kyra's house, as she was throwing a Wii party. I was headed south on 16th street and slammed just a little too hard on my brakes at one point - that sent the sheet of ice on my roof sliding down to my windshield. Between a small crack in the ice, I was able to tell that there was no oncoming traffic, so I quickly busted a left on U Street and was able to gather enough momentum to send the ice flying off. Bad news? The extremely sharp front-end of the sheet of ice destroyed my wipers as it came crashing down the windshield.

Oh, but the night gets even more interesting. A few hours later, as I was leaving Kyra's house, I was driving towards Florida Avenue and right in the middle of the street was what appeared to be a four-on-four brawl. Great. Just great. As soon as the streetfighters cleared to the sidewalk, I called ol' trusty 311 again (twice in one evening - that's crazy rare) and reported the mini riot. "Did you see any weapons?" asked the dispatcher. "No," I replied, "I just wanted to get the hell outta there." The dispatcher chuckled and said, "I don't blame you....I'll send a squad car right away."

On my way home I was halfway expecting something extraordinarily silly to happen, just to top the night off. But nothing doing. So I just got home, went to bed, and dreamt weird dreams.

Metro Action

2007-01-24T16:36:00.000-05:00

Last night the strangest thing happened on the Metro. I went down into the Gallery Place stop around 8:15pm after a late night in the office and the gym. I was waiting on the lower platform as usual when I noticed an empty "No Passengers" train slowly rolling by. This is a fairly common occurrence in the Metro and I wouldn't have paid any special attention at all if it wasn't for the fact that there was something weird about this particular train: the lights in the front were very bright and peculiar, and the windows of the train were tinted almost completely black. The first half of the train disappeared into the tunnel that leads to the next stop and then all of a sudden it came to a complete halt. It stopped in such a manner that a set of doors were directly in front of me. It was then that I had the opportunity to get a little closer and peer into the dark windows. I noticed that there were no seats on this train. Instead, it was stacked full of 4-foot-high rectangular metal containers. At that moment, the doors in front of me opened and out stepped a special officer that looked almost exactly like Agent 355 from Y: The Last Man. She was holding an assault rifle, the likes of which are extremely hard to describe - I have never seen anything like it before in my life. There were very large red bullets mounted on both sides of the barrel. She looked me right in the eye and said, "back up." At that moment, everyone within a 50 yard radius backed away from the train and couldn't help but stare at this woman who was ready to cap anyone who did anything funny. She stood there on the platform like a statue, with her rifle locked and loaded, for about a minute. After receiving some kind of signal from another part of the platform, she slowly slinked back onto the train and the doors closed, once again concealing everything. The train pulled off and disappeared.

I can't help but wonder what the hell was in those metal containers. The only thing that comes to mind that requires that level of security is....money. Millions upon millions of dollars being transported in an efficient manner: the underground. Although, I could be totally wrong. Nothing else comes to mind, though.

If someone has an inkling as to what it was that I experienced last night, please enlighten me. It was very mysterious.