so the other day i'm on my way home, right? now, i live in the Highlands area, which is just west of Cherokee park. there are always people out and about; walking dogs, riding bikes, jogging, stalking women, coughing up bits of phlegm, whatever. i'm driving home, come up to the stop sign at cherokee triangle, on cherokee parkway–where it, willow, and alexander meet. i turn left onto willow, and as i'm doing this, i see a biker in the other lane on willow, putting up his arm in a "left-turn" sign. as i'm driving towards him, i see him kind of act as though he's about to pull across my lane, but stop himself nearly immediately. as i continue, i see him give me some kind of "look"–an expression of contempt, or disdain, or something–and, as i drive past, i hear a very distinct, very obviously-directed-at-me "thanks." i was already too far away for him to hear me, but i replied with "hey no problem… fucking dick."

why is it that people using alternate modes of transportation always feel like they have some special rights or something. pedestrians have special rights (on the roadways) but if you're riding a bike in traffic, you're a fucking car. you have the same rights and right-of-ways as cars, and you're expected to follow the same traffic rules as cars. you don't just get to cross traffic when and where you feel like it, unless you can do so without disrupting everybody else.

i have no problem with people riding their bikes wherever and whenever they want to, but don't expect special treatment. and especially don't be a dick if you don't get it.

Day Three: today, we decided to visit the other monuments in the Mall, and to spend some time at the Air & Space Museum (this was really my only mandatory activity for the whole trip–i wasn't about to visit D.C. without going to the Air & Space Museum).

we set out from the probably somewhere in the range of 10:30 to 11:00, and proceeded to the Mall. we made it back to the Washington Monument, then made our way towards the construction zone, avoiding touring school-children, gaggles of the elderly, and middle-aged couples walking hand in hand discussing whatever it is that middle-aged hand-in-hand type couples discuss.

one end of the lawn was boarded, roped, fenced, and otherwise closed off, but there were gateways through the fencing at the crosswalks to let onto the sidewalks that lead along the reflecting pool at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. now, if you've not been to D.C., or if you've been but have never seen the reflecting pool, let me just prepare you… it is a green festering dirty filthy mess. not nearly so "beautiful" as we may've been led to believe by the movies, photographs, and other images. that shit looks nasty, and, while i didn't walk directly along the edge of the pool, i imagine it probably stunk. it looked like it would stink. much like our society and especially our government, it looks pretty nice from far away, but once you get right up close, you can see that it's unkempt, rundown, dirty, and ugly. "reflecting" indeed.

anyway… before we made it to the Lincoln Memorial, i noticed the Korean War Veterans Memorial off to the side as we approached, so i detoured our contingent to go get a peek. i remembered ben and geoff talking about it at some point in the past, and remembered the images i'd seen from it, so i wanted to go get a real look at it. it was pretty cool, but i think this was really the point in the trip where i started wishing that i could visit these places without hundreds of other people. i couldn't "connect" with the memorial, or any of the memorials we visited, because i couldn't "disconnect" from all the people milling about.

next we went on to the Lincoln Memorial. it is huge. it was cool.

after that, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. my companions were all visibly moved by it, once we reached the other side, but once again, somehow i managed not to take it in or be effected by it. i have no immediate personal connection to that conflict, at least not through a familial loss, because though most of the male members of my extended family (who were of age) did serve in that war, they all returned.

after the Vietnam Memorial, we left the Mall and headed for the nearest Metro stop (10 blocks away or some crazy shit like that) and headed back around to the Air & Space Museum.

you've doubtless heard the old analogy of the kid in the candy store, right? well, that certainly could've been applied to me. rockets and manned space capsules and jets and… just all kinds of really cool shit.

probably my favorite of the exhibits was the Apollo moon shot exhibit, followed closely by the history of aviation exhibit. they also had the crazy ass space flight simulators or airplane simulators or whatever they were–the ones with the pneumatic chambers that shake, move, twist, and turn the little cabin that you're sitting in. i really wanted to do that, but the wait was over an hour, and we were only planning on spending 4 or so there.

the freakiest thing of the whole trip though, was when we decided to get some lunch after walking through a couple exhibits. there was a food court area in a sectioned off area of the building, and the restaurant was a combined McDonald's (ick), Boston Market, and Donato's Pizzeria. i can hardly describe the level of freakishness that this fast-food place has managed to achieve… think of a drive-through restaurant for race-car drivers, only there're no cars… think of cattle lining up to be slaughtered, and each being able to pick which particular shape of knife gets to be drawn across its throat… think of being shoved in a bright, metal & glass elevator car, going up at ridiculous speeds and having grease, meat, bread and french fries squeezed through a strainer in the ceiling above you.

ok, now think of something just a touch less freakish.

yeah. fucking packed… PACKED with people—scads, scores, gobs of people—in long lines where you first place your order with a disinterested person sitting in a bright metal chair, and then are told to go to the next person who will collect your money. then, after paying, you have to step up to the "counter" to pick up your "meal." each successive person looking like they give even less of a shit than the last, and the food you're handed, if hot, is only just barely so. hell, i'm freaking out right now just thinking about it.

so anyway, we ate the crappy food at the freaky food court, then went on back out to get some more exhibits under our belts before meeting ben & mary (who'd been sitting on a bench or in the planet-arium for most of the day).

after the Museum, we were dog tired (and still freaked out about the food court), so we went back to the hotel and crashed for a few hours, before going back out on the town for dinner.

this evening we kind of jazzed it up a bit. we walked out to this place that ben had found (we tended to leave the dining decisions to ben & mary it seemed, so we ended up eating at much more high-class establishments than i can imagine i would've picked) and checked in at the front table. there were actually two separate restaurants in the same… er… restaurant–one for the lower upper middle class, the other for the lower upper class. ben picked the one he thought was the former, and we proceeded downstairs to a nice big round table with all the accoutrements including the cloth napkins all folded and placed decoratively on the plate. we opened the fancy menus in the nice leather-bound folders, and stared aghast at the $15 asking price for a house salad. needless to say, we stared even more aghast at the $40 – $60 dollar entrees, then promptly told the waiter that there'd been a mistake and we needed to go back upstairs to the "cheap seats".

somehow, at this point, $5 for a Beam & Coke, and $15 for an entree didn't seem all that bad.

the food was good (thank god, or someone would've lost an eye or limb) and we were satisfied with our last day & night in D.C.

well, almost. sara & i decided to go back to the White House, as there was some issue of film not advancing properly in her camera the night before, and she wanted to make sure she got some night shots of the White House. we did, and we had a nice leisurely stroll through the streets of D.C., just the two of us hand-in-hand, talking about whatever it is that young hand-in-hand type couples talk about on their last night on their first vacation together.

we went back to the hotel and prepared for our early morning departure, and a day of potential chaos.

this isn't a comment card, it's a direct pipeline to my ass.

we've just gotten back from the single worst steak 'n shake experience we've ever had. our server (also the store's general manager) was either extremely stoned, or he hadn't slept in 5 days. he couldn't seem to grasp the fact that there were three of us sitting at the table, as he only brought us two straws and two glasses of water, then ended up putting my and paul's orders under the same "seat". we had to keep reminding him of the things we hadn't gotten yet. To his credit, he did realize that he was giving us shitty service, and offered to give us free deserts.

after the meal, when we went up to the register, the old biddy up there–already embroiled in some issue with the previous customers–essentially flatly refused to split our check up any further than the two seats already listed. now, at this point, paul was pretty pissed of and not willing to prolong it, so he just picked up the tab. walking out, we decided we really should have told we weren't paying, and left.

neil picked up a comment card, and great hilarity ensued as we imagined the following sequence of events:

we imagined that their response might be similar to the following:

when neil mentioned M'Butu, i think paul nearly crashed the car.

mom's has finally sent out the performance list for the big festival thingy. we've got that Saturday (Jul. 26th) at 4:30PM.

this thing is really going to be crazy–45 minutes total to get on stage and play. not to mention the fact that it's going to be a bunch of bands who're nothing like us–All Access has the stage before us, and i'm not entirely sure, but it seems quite probable that they're a "christian" band… perhaps not in the fullest sense of the word, but they do mention "faith" in their bio, and their "agent" is a full-out God peddler. I may be making shit up, but their website if sufficiently vague to make me wonder.

it is kind of funny that, of the maybe two or three band names i recognized on that list, one–The Pine Club, who is made up of some friends, one of whom used to live in my very house–will be playing on the same stage we'll be on, only on Sunday, instead of Saturday.

then, there's the fact that we'll be playing outside in the broad daylight, and damn, this is going to be fucked up. hopefully we won't freak out, we'll be able to pare our set-up time down from 45 to 15 minutes (or less), and we'll have some fun for the 30 minutes we're up there. that's all we're hoping for, anyway.

we'll see.

Day Two: for the first half of the 2nd day, we were wandering about the halls of the Pentagon, knocking on the doors of the Joint Chiefs, and getting chummy with famous newsanchors. now, we're pretty proud of the fact that we got into the Pentagon… perhaps you're not aware, but the only people allowed (generally) to tour the pentagon are school groups and members of the military. the one exception to that rule would be–you gotta know somebody. as it turns out, ben had interviewed a guy a while back who offered to "take him around" if he should "ever come to Washington." good thing ben remembers stuff like that, and good thing he's not afraid to bring it up again.

we ended up getting the five hour personalized tour, and after it was over, we were all ready to call it quits. but, rather than doing that, we decided we might as well head on over to Arlington (practically just next door, by Metro) and enjoy that while we were already out and about. We did, it was nice, it was hilly, our feet were killing us, we were tired, we went back to the hotel & took naps after.

after napping not quite sufficiently, we got up for our night-time walk through the Mall and to the White House. and walk we did.

now, i haven't mentioned yet, but our hotel was in a fairly favorable position in the greater scheme of things. two blocks from a Metro stop, four or five blocks from the white house, five or six blocks from the washington monument. nevertheless, after the pentagon and arlington visits earlier in the day, our feet weren't much more than little gobs of goo we'd stuffed in our shoes before going out again.

we found and photographed the White House (seemed smaller than i was expecting), trekked over to the washington monument, then we were going to go to the Lincoln Memorial, but decided we'd rather see Jefferson at night.

oops.

the Jefferson Memorial is a hellaciously long way from the Mall on gobs of goo.

still, we did finally make it there, and enjoyed several minutes resting on the handy benches. our day was done—it was now back towards the hotel and to bed.

well, the washington trip was a huge success, despite the fact that we were all really insanely tired most of the time. it seemed like we did so much walking… i'm not sure if the distances we covered were all that great, but we were on our feet and moving for what had to have been 15 or 16 hours a day.

yeah, so maybe that's an exaggeration.

anyway, we all had a great time, and we got to see a large portion of the things we'd set out to.

Day One: we get up bright and early, but not as bright or early as ben & mary, who got to the airport before six (i think) in order to check in two hours before our flight. any way you slice it, six something is way too early to be up and moving in the morning.

we did manage to get to the plane on time, and had no trouble on the flight over. we also managed to figure out how and where to catch the Amtrack that was going to take us from Baltimore to D.C.

then, trouble.

as it turns out, it's fairly easy to get distracted at 10 something in the morning, especially when you only got 3 hours sleep the night before and have a new toy in your hands. so easy, in fact, that one might be susceptible to such an unlikely thing as losing one's luggage.

once i explained the situation to the conductor (or whatever he was) he told me that it'd already been picked up and would be on its way with one of the next trains.

after waiting for a few "next trains", and with the help of several friendly Amtrack employees, we managed to track down the guy i'd spoken to, and through him, the woman who'd picked up my bag at the train station… of course, my bag had never made it onto that "next train."

more arrangements were made, and this time enough to my satisfaction that we felt comfortable leaving the glorious confines of Union Station. we proceeded on to the hotel but couldn't check in yet as we were still early, so we checked our baggage with the concierge, and started walking towards the Capitol and our scheduled appointment with a Congressman's intern.

our tour of the capitol was conducted by a two-week-old intern, who seemed to have a pretty good grasp of things anyway. after the tour, we got to go with another intern to a subcommittee hearing.

after the capitol, sara & I parted from ben & mary, and proceeded back to Union Station to retrieve my newly arrived bag. considering the events of the day, and our still fresh "vacation legs", about all we did after that was have a little dinner at the restaurant/bar off our hotel's lobby. There was some kind of company party going on, and at some point, and extremely inebriated woman comes over to ask us for a light, then proceeds to tell us all about how she likes to fuck young men, but not get involved with them. she also took it upon herself to recommend mary ditching ben and finding herself someone "better." … a here i thought we'd find no-one with any class in D.C.

alright, well, i was gonna throw this all into one big post, but it was becoming a really big post, so i'm gonna break it up. don't worry it was only a four day trip, and only three of those were really spent in D.C…. so there's only two more to go. whiny little bastards.

my major project the last several days has been getting my php based gallery scripts that i've been using on lucifigousprick.com and old-man.net adapted for ye olde bipolar. eventually i'll have these scripts worked to such a fine polish, that only minor modifications will be necessary for moving them to new digs… if i do it right, anyway.

well, without further ado, i give you the Washington D.C. photo gallery.