It was a bit of a unusual day. Shortly after lunch....we had a earthquake. I sit in the bowels of the Pentagon....about as deep down as you can go....in the basement. I was sitting in an easy-chair....when I felt this swaying. I didn't way much...but five seconds later....it was doubling in nature and my associate had picked up on the movement. Around the ten second point...it finally peaked out. It took the emergency folks in the pentagon about sixty seconds then....to call for an evacuation.
We calmly walked out. I noticed some folks really peppy and very worried....almost running. When we finally got to their designated place in the parking lot.....we just stood there. It took another ten minutes for the emergency folks to announce that this was a 5.8 quake and that we needed to stand there for a while.
I kinda looked over at the Pentagon structure. Nothing was cracked and we kinda knew that the building was made in 1943 and pretty much able to withstand a quake of 8 on the quake scale. They sent us back in and we then began assessing things.
DC is always a curious place. Across the river....they were sending folks home. Us? Standing in the Pentagon. Our headquarters folks over fifty miles away....further away from the epic center.....they were told to go home. We just sat there.
So around normal quitting time....I finally head to the Pentagon's Metro bus station. Needless to say....for my typical bus route....there 300 folks standing there. I opt'ed for another bus down the platform with six folks standing there. It typically comes every fifteen minutes. So I waited an hour, and it never came. I took the train over to the next suburb and then patiently waited almost thirty minutes for a bus to finally come and deliver me to the apartment. Luckily, no damage there.
DC is the one place on Earth where a guy could stand around for hours because of some emergency or lack of transportation.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
My Neighborhood
There is a developing story in the Bethesda area from last night. Cops on routine patrol....come up on a park area. There's a red SUV at the end of the parking lot....which draws their suspicion. They ask questions and then start to note a number of things in the back of the SUV. They get the guy out, and then they find all of these home-made fireworks. They then notice this odd contraption on the roof....like a turret.
Based on a few questions....this twenty-seven year old punk from Florida....Glen Neff.....had come to the DC region to fire off his home-made fireworks, in protest of the American banking system. The turret was supposed to be this way of quickly firing and rearming....so it had tubes ready to deploy rockets. He intended to drive around the national mall area (Washington Monument, Capital building, etc), and fire these at night.
So they've arrested the guy. Charges? I'm thinking there's at least a dozen charges lined up and he might actually have to spend three years as a minimum....in some prison. But I also suspect that the drugs that the cops found in the vehicle will convince them that he ought to have a mental eval. He might actually be spending a fair number of years in a supervised facility because of mental issues.
That's the thing about living around DC. Every single morning brings this wave of odd events. Who would have known that some doped up nut from Florida would drive all the way up....to fire off his personal fireworks. The amusing thing? Fifty guys will note this home-made turret and tube assembly that Glen attached to his SUV, and make way to Home Depot to buy all the pieces and parts to install a turret on their SUV, with tubes. Some idiot will even make an assembly that you can buy via the internet and this will become the rage of thousands of guys.
Based on a few questions....this twenty-seven year old punk from Florida....Glen Neff.....had come to the DC region to fire off his home-made fireworks, in protest of the American banking system. The turret was supposed to be this way of quickly firing and rearming....so it had tubes ready to deploy rockets. He intended to drive around the national mall area (Washington Monument, Capital building, etc), and fire these at night.
So they've arrested the guy. Charges? I'm thinking there's at least a dozen charges lined up and he might actually have to spend three years as a minimum....in some prison. But I also suspect that the drugs that the cops found in the vehicle will convince them that he ought to have a mental eval. He might actually be spending a fair number of years in a supervised facility because of mental issues.
That's the thing about living around DC. Every single morning brings this wave of odd events. Who would have known that some doped up nut from Florida would drive all the way up....to fire off his personal fireworks. The amusing thing? Fifty guys will note this home-made turret and tube assembly that Glen attached to his SUV, and make way to Home Depot to buy all the pieces and parts to install a turret on their SUV, with tubes. Some idiot will even make an assembly that you can buy via the internet and this will become the rage of thousands of guys.
My Neighborhood
So this past week, we had a couple of big thunderstorms. As one guy came back after a long day at work....he came to discover that the upper parking deck didn't drain properly (probably never has in the twenty-odd years it's existed). So enough water collected on the upper deck....to collect water inside the guy's car. Damage-wise....I'd be thinking $1k of damages.
The guy is likely peeved but our friendly Metro guys will simply say it was an act of God and claim no responsibility. A guy from Bama would examine the situation and wonder why no holes exist at various ends of the building for the water to just spill out. But Bama guys aren't allowed to intervene in the acts of Metro stupidity.
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