The newest member of the family is Seeger the Cockapoo. Seeger was named by my mom after Pete Seeger. Pretty much the whole family wanted my mom to get another beagle but its hard to complain about that after seeing little Seeger.
Archive for the 'Personal' Category
If all goes according to plan, this post will publish itself right as my plane to the Dominican Republic is taking off, sending me on my way to a sweet, sweet vacation. Mel and I are going to this place, near Punta Cana, which hopefully is pretty nice (I picked it out). I’ve never been to the DR before, but as the place we are going to is an all-inclusive resort type deal we probably won’t be seeing much of the “real” country. Anyway, fingers crossed everything goes smoothly, we’ll be back Sunday night.
Photo by Flickr user shashchatter used under a Creative Commons license
This morning I biked to work for the first time. For the past few months, ever since I sold my car, I’ve usually taken the Metro to work, hoping on at Judiciary Square and getting off at Farragut North. But with Mel out of town for the week I’m sleeping up in Chevy Chase. I figured I’d bike down Connecticut Ave., stop at my Dad’s in Dupont to shower and change and then walk the couple blocks to work.
The plan worked to a T; I got up at 7am and was cruising down 18th by 7:40. As I got to 18th and R though a police car pulled up and blocked the street. I told the officer I lived on that block and asked if it was alright to continue, thinking their might have been a suspicious package or something like that. He said it was fine and I headed up the block. As I neared 19th St. I saw another police car blocking the street at 19th and R so you couldn’t continue down R to Connecticut. Further up the street, at R and Connecticut were a bunch of police cars and a garbage truck pulled over on the side of the street.
When I got to my Dad’s Lesley was out in the front gardening and I asked her if she knew what was going on. She said a woman had come by and said a cyclist had been hit by a garbage truck, hence the police and the pulled-over garbage truck. Though there’s a clear biker’s lane running all the way down R St., as Lesley pointed out cars often drive in it, especially when turning from R right onto 19th or Connecticut Ave.
Anyway I parked my bike in the downstairs apartment, showered and then walked to work. The first thing I did when I got in was search the internets for news reports. Nothing came up at first but then a couple hours ago NBC 4 put up a brief item saying the woman who had been hit by the garbage truck died. An hour ago the Post put up a longer item:
A 22-year-old bicyclist was struck by a garbage truck and killed just north of Dupont Circle today, authorities said. Police and fire vehicles converged on the scene at 20th and R streets NW, snarling Connecticut Avenue traffic during the morning rush.
The victim was struck at 7:37 a.m., D.C. police spokesman Kenny Bryson said. An officer in the uniformed division of the Secret Service was nearby and pulled the woman from under the truck to administer CPR, said Alan Etter, a spokesman for the D.C. Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services.
She could not be revived.
“The truck just ran completely over her,” Etter said.
The truck was owned by KMG Hauling Inc., a Sterling-based company. In a telephone interview, KMG Hauling owner Hugo Garcia said his company is investigating details of the accident.
“We’re looking at everything, trying to figure out what happened,” Garcia said. “It looks like an unfortunate accident. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the deceased.”
…
Some two hours after the accident, the mangled bicycle was still visible under the truck’s right front tire. A helmet and a backpack could be seen on the street a few feet away.
Parts of Connecticut Avenue were closed for more than two hours, along with portions of 20th and R streets just east of Connecticut.
Just totally sucks. And there’s no real reason why it couldn’t have been me instead of this poor woman.
Today is my sister Becca’s birthday. She is 22 years old. That’s her in the photo above, bungee jumping over the Victoria River in Zimbabwe last August. I took the picture. And added the words part.
The Cooler, in gchat conversation yesterday:
i think im getting a tuxedo t-shirt before the real thing
tuxedo t-shirt says, hey i like to look good and have a good timeits the whole package
Son of a…my glorious tax rebate check was supposed to arrive today in the mail. Sadly for me, it didn’t. So being a curious sort, I investigated on the internets and found that the IRS has a website where you can check the status of your check. And, despite the fact that I was told it was to be mailed last week, it turns out now mine won’t be mailed for another two weeks, with an ETA of the end of June. I guess I shouldn’t have already spent that 600 bones. If you’d like to check the status of your check go here and fill out the requested info. Hope you get better news then I.
For the ninth year in a row “Jacob” was the most popular baby name among boys (Emily was #1 for girls for the 12th year in a row). As my name happens to be Jacob, I welcome all the new additions to our ranks. Having “Jacob” as a name is quite enjoyable, I’ve found, even though I go by Jake. I’ve always been intrigued by those who spelled it “Jakob”, to the point of if I did actually go by Jacob I’d want my name spelled that way.
Incidentally, no one in the whole wide world calls me Jacob, everyone calls me Jake, parents, teachers, friends, etc.. At no point have I ever gone by Jacob. Once, in college, a teacher called me Jacob for a whole semester, using the name off the roll call sheet but thats it. I never corrected her because it was too awkward; I just suffered in silence the whole time. Other then that though, pretty much automatically, people have called me Jake. Jacob just sounds too formal I think.
Anyway, as “Jacob” has become such a popular name of late, it occurred to me that in 15-20 years there’s going to be a lot of us around. And all the younger Jacobs are going to need a leader to organize them. Someone a little older then them. Someone who shares their name but has a little more experience in the world. Someone who could lead an “Army of Jakes” (working title, also under consideration “Jake Army”). Someone like me.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom. Hope you have a good one, CalTor’s on me.
I’m off to California for at least a week. Posting will be uninterrupted for the most part. Enjoy my favorite California-related song, “California Love” starring Dr. Dre and Tupac.
Last September I had to sit in an airport for 10 hours. I was in Chicago, flying home from a work conference, and ATA Airlines dropped the ball. First they said the plane was at the wrong airport (I was at Midway, they said it was at O’Hare), whatever that means. Then they said the plane was at the right airport but the pilots were at the wrong one. Whatever, after many, many delays the plane took off and I had the pleasure of arriving at National at 3 in the morning. It was, all things considered, a fairly awful experience. If I had been unable to pay for wireless internet (with work picking up the bill) I’m not sure I would have made it.
The only bright side to this whole ordeal was that ATA offered everyone on the plane a voucher for a free roundtrip ticket anywhere in the continental US ATA serviced. Quick side story: A co-worker and I were on the same flight and he ran into someone he knew also on the flight. Apparently his friend had been on an ATA flight a while back that had also been delayed and she had been offered the same roundtrip voucher and was using that voucher on this flight WHICH HAD ALSO BEEN DELAYED, meaning she got another voucher.
Anyway I tried to use the voucher when I went to Jacksonville, and later Lake Tahoe, but I found it fairly hard to use as ATA didn’t fly to those places and weren’t very helpful either way. The guy I talked to on the phone suggested I pay to fly myself to Dallas where I could then fly for free to Jacksonville. I pointed out that if I was going to pay to fly to Dallas, why not just pay to fly straight to Jacksonville in the first place. He had no comeback. Since it was proving so hard to use and I’m not planning on going anywhere in the near future, I had kind of forgotten about the voucher. Until today.
As I was driving in to work I heard a news story that ATA Airlines had declared bankruptcy and discontinued all operations. The company website confirms this, as does this Bloomberg story. The FAQ’s on the company website helpful point out that all vouchers are no longer valid.
I don’t know what the moral of this story is, if there is one, but I do know that I hate ATA Airlines now more then ever. Unfortunately for me, there doesn’t seem to be anything left to hate. You win ATA. You win.