I was reading this movie review, and had no idea who Harold Faltermeyer was. So, I did what any normal person would do, and Googled him. His wikipedia page offers up a serving of the English language that just made my day.
[The theme from Top Gun and the theme from Beverly Hills Cop are] both often imitated, highly influential instrumental hits that to some extent practically redefined action film scoring in the ’80s
Read that fragment a few times and just bask in its glory.
Here is a story of a man who beat the DC parking enforcement machine.
“Even when there were shootings on my block last year, I wasn’t this disappointed in my city,” he wrote in one protest email. “D.C. effectively stole my automobile.”
After the city gave him a “courtesy tow” to an illegal parking spot, lost his ticket contestation documents, and booted and towed his car, he actually got them to return the car to a spot near his house. Then he had them do it again, because the first time they brought him the wrong car. I talk a lot about my small victories over DC parking enforcement, but this puts me to shame. I had lunch with his wife on Friday – she works with my wife, and a group was going out to watch some basketball, so I joined them. Had I known her husband was a giant among those of us who joust at the windmills of parking enforcement, I would have bought her a beer.
A friend once told me that, when considering two more or less equal candidates for a job opening, you should choose the one with a better commute. Wait, where was I? Oh, right. Today my commute involved tiptoeing past my daughter’s room, hoping not to wake her, and sitting down at the table to get to work. There’s, like, a blizzard, or something, going on out there. I have no meetings, and no one is really expecting me in the office, so I’m staying put. Daycare is opening three hours late, and since the snow is still coming down hard, they may not open at all. So I may have to watch her this afternoon anyway. If you’re going in to work today, or going out anywhere, be careful.
We’re always looking for new places to stop for coffee during the kid’s morning nap – about two hours after she gets up in the morning, she’ll usually sleep for an hour and a half or two if you stick her in her stroller and walk her around for a while. This weekend, we tried two new places. Saturday morning we went to Locolat Cafe at 18th and Florida NW. I guess this is considered Adams Morgan, but I’m not entirely sure. We had brunch – the wife tried the savory waffles, which were great, and I had a turkey and cheese on croissant, which was also very good. The coffee was good, if expensive. And because they forgot to charge us for an item and had to run the credit card twice, they gave us a little chocolate-covered meringue. As an aside, it is almost always good business to give away something small when you’ve inconvenienced your customer. It was barely an inconvenience at all, but when the cashier (I believe she’s actually the manager and wife of the chef) says, in effect, “I messed up, let me make it up to you”, I will be back. Sunday, we went to Cafe 1612. We were planning to go to Love Cafe, but they don’t open until ten, and the kid needed her nap before that. 1612 was good, but it shares a building (but not any walls, apparently) with a gym. It’s a little strange to eat brunch while watching the girl fold towels at the counter. But the service was good, the food was good, and the coffee was not only good but reasonably priced. The music there was a little funny – it was an oldies station that didn’t really fit the decor of the place. We’ve now got quite a list of places to go and get coffee. Heller’s is probably my favorite because of their egg and cheese bagels, but it’s always nice to have variety.
I got a call a few minutes ago from my credit card company, which at one time was First USA. I think it still is. Anyway, the CSR told me that someone had tried to make a charge on my card, and it looked like fraud. Sure enough, I didn’t recognize the charge. I finished with her without giving any information – never give out information, even your home address, to someone who calls you. You have no idea who they really are, even if your caller ID tells you it’s the person you think it is. I called the number on the back of my card, and sure enough, the first call was legitimate. I suspected it was – she knew about two real charges I made yesterday and one this morning – but I’m glad I checked. A few more minutes and the card is on hold and my new card is on the way. It’s a bit of a nuisance, but I’m really impressed with the service. It is mildly annoying that my online account access is disabled until the new card is activated, so I can’t check to make sure there weren’t other bad charges, and I can’t go back and make sure I remember any regular bills that get paid on the card, but in a few days I’ll have my new card and I’ll be able to get back in. It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised by your credit card company. Too bad it doesn’t happen more often.
Wednesday’s post got into The Express. For those not familiar, The Express is a free paper that gets handed out all over the city, most importantly on Metro – I’d guess that anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of all Metro riders as least browse The Express a couple times a week. I won’t complain about being in the Express – I think it’s awesome. I’ve occasionally seen blogs I know in there, but never mine. Anyway, it figures that they’d notice me on a day when I’m being a bit of a jerk. I was in a bad mood because of my meeting later in the day (1:30 to 4! That’s too long for any meeting) and, as I am prone to do, I mouthed off about something that wasn’t really what was bothering me, but was sort of related and was handy at the time. So that’s my complaint. Noticing me on a bad day. Why couldn’t they have noticed on a better day? Like January 24th, 2007? My mom and I agree that this is one of my best posts. Or maybe on July 8th, 2008, when I got hit by a friggin’ truck? In any event, they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and my hits were up yesterday. So, those of you who came to see that post, hang out and read a few more and realize that Wednesday was not an accurate reflection of me as a human being. I may be a complainer, but I’m not a jerk.
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I’ve been having a problem with the power supply on my work laptop, a Dell Precision M2300. Rather than charging my laptop, it will frequently beep at me. This makes it difficult to get much done – I’m a software engineer, and all the code and my dev environment is on this laptop. When the battery goes, there is very little constructive work I can do. So I contacted Dell Pro Support. I believe this is different from what most people get – since my company has a contract with Dell, we get the business-level tech support. And they’re pretty amazing. I told him what my problem was and he arranged to have a new one overnighted. Can’t ask for much more than that. And his English was perfect. I don’t care if companies want to outsource tech support to other countries, but the person who speaks with me needs to speak my language well enough to understand and fix my problem. Anyway, I just had to share. I mean, if I write “good experience with Dell Tech Support”, that pretty much guarantees a good Google ranking, right? There can’t be more than a dozen results for that . . . Edit to add: Of note – banging the power supply on the floor a bunch of times makes it work again.
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A little while ago, I found out about the new 43 bus that goes underneath Dupont Circle instead of through. Today, I rode it for the first time. I almost didn’t – my usual S2 came by as I was waiting to cross I Street. I didn’t rush because I didn’t think I would make it, but then the light changed, and I still didn’t rush, and then three people made the driver open the door before the light turned green. So I would have made it with even the slightest bit of extra effort. But no matter. The 43 bus came by just a minute later. I’ve been wanting to try it, but unwilling to forgo the S2/S4. It was wonderful. But I fear it won’t last long. I got on at 3:30PM on a Monday, early rush hour, but already busy on the S2/S4. There were maybe 15 people on the bus between 15th and I and 16th and Columbia. Maybe this is normal for the route, but I can’t imagine WMATA is happy with those numbers. I did run into a problem with the stop request strings and buttons – none of them worked. I thought perhaps standing by the back door would work, or maybe that the requests were being relayed to the driver but not displayed on the big screen. But I was wrong. Luckily, a kid who wanted the stop after the one I wanted pulled on every string in the bus until one of them worked, and the bus stopped just one stop later than I wanted, and I didn’t even have to go up and ask the driver. I will definitely ride the 43 again. I won’t pass up an S2/S4, but if the 43 comes first, it’s a great alternative.
The wife and I took the kid out for her morning walk this morning and decided to stop in at Pan Lourdes, the new-ish coffee shop/bakery on 14th Street just north of Columbia Heights Target. It was great – they have a big refrigerator that makes a lot of noise and even vibrates the floor just a little bit. The kid slept like a rock in her stroller. She stirred a little bit when it cut off, but then went back to sleep. The coffee is nothing to write home about, but the baked goods are pretty awesome. I think they all come from the big bakery on 11th Street near Wonderland, but I’m not sure. It’s funny – I imagine someone from Central America would recognize most of the baked goods, but I sure didn’t. I mean, if I go into a Dunkin Donuts or something, I recognize what most of the things are without needing a sign. Maybe I can’t tell the difference between raisins and blueberries from across the counter, but at least I’d be close. At Pan Lourdes, nothing looks familiar. And they have nothing labeled. I suppose I could have asked the guy behind the counter, but that’s not as adventurous. I had something with a stripe of red frosting, and the wife had something with lemon. Both were good. We’ll definitely go back, for the fridge if nothing else. Everything is really cheap, too – four dollars and change for two pastries and two coffees.
For Christmas, the wife and I promised to bring or cook dinner for my maternal grandmother on Monday nights (In the winter, there are no parking restrictions on our street on Tuesdays, so Monday is a good night to drive somewhere). She’s very hard to shop for because she doesn’t really want or need anything, but company is always welcome, and she has a hard time cooking for herself. Tonight was the first time we went, at least as a Christmas present. We’ve visited plenty of times before, especially since her great-granddaughter was born. It was really nice. Addie behaved herself pretty well, even sitting on my lap through dinner without fussing. Quite a lot to ask of a girl the day she turns four months old. But it made me think of my paternal grandmother. She passed away almost two years ago, and there’s a part of me that wishes I’d spent more time with her, especially at the end. When I was in college, I saw her pretty often, and we had a great relationship. After I moved to the DC area, it was harder to visit, and I didn’t do it as often as I might have. We still had a good relationship, but it wasn’t quite the same as it was before. In any event, I won’t regret the time I might have spent with my maternal grandmother when she’s gone. And all of you, especially if you have elderly relatives, should think about how busy you really are, and whether you could spend a little more time with them, and with the other people you care about. Time spent with people who are important to you is almost never wasted.