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Today I pretty much kicked around the house and went through all my email from the past week (613 junk mail messages, and 15 personal ones). Martha took me on a bit of a tour around the northwest section of D.C. and gave me some history and told a number of funny stories about the area. Among other sites, we drove by the place in Rock Creek Park where Shaundra Levy's body had been found, the embassies of Tunisia, C'ote di Ivoire, Spain, Russia, and a few others, not to mention the $10 million German ambassadors home in the middle of Rock Creek Park... How do you build a mansion in a federal park??? We also went by the National Cathedral, which interestingly enough has an all girls school on one side and an all boys school on the other. It's safe to say that conjugal visits in the middle, specifically the bell tower of the National Cathedral, have been documented on a number of occasions. It also became readily apparent that D.C. police do absolutely to protect and serve. Speed limits? Nope. Everyone flies by the parked cops doing 50 mph in a 25 mph zone. Do they solve murders? Nope. Not only does the D.C. police chief make more money than any other police chief in the country, but the D.C. area police haven't solved a single murder in something like 3 years. And the list goes on. Other points of interest: I came to find out that D.C. was originally diamond shaped, but now the lower southeastern portion is part of Virginia, Alexandria and Arlington specifically. I guess in the early 1800s D.C. authorities decided they didn't need that section of land so they gave everything south of the Potomac to Virginia. In doing so they gave the Potomac to Marlyand. Soooo, to make a long story short Maryland won't let Virginia use the Potomac as a water supply or for shipping traffic, making a rift in Virginia and Maryland politics. Another thing, citizens of D.C. can't own guns, nor can they vote as they don't have any electoral votes because they have no elected officials. That's two, count 'em two, constitutional rights that D.C. citizens don't have. So as Clinton was leaving office he changed the D.C. license plates to read "Washington D.C. - Taxation Without Representation". Brilliant I tell you. Of course when Bush got into office he was pissed off about it and changed the plates back so that they didn't say anything. To top it all off, unless you are a D.C. policeman you can't possess a gun within the city limits and if you do it's a felony. I've heard that some Virginia policeman have strayed into D.C. with their firearms have been arrested and issued felonies and have had their careers ruined because of it. Hence, Virginian police hate the D.C. police and don't communicate with them. And to top it all off, this week is "Police Week" in D.C. where policeman from all over the country show up to showboat in their vintage police cars at illegal speeds around the city, blocking traffic for their impromptu parades, and all carrying their sidearms. Insane I tell you. And finally, after a bit of riding around with Martha, who has lived in D.C. for quite a few years, and watching her get momentarily lost a number of times it has become very clear to me that D.C. is indeed one of the most screwed up cities in the United States. I guess the city was designed by some frenchman, doesn't that explain it all. So the story goes that the city designer and some government official didn't like each other very much. The officials name started with a J so the french designer left out all street names that started with J in his city plans. Hence in D.C. there is no J St., no Jefferson Ave., no Jackson Ave., etc... What a riot. In D.C. there are 4 different precincts or boros. Each has number streets 1 through 30 or so, each has historically named streets such as Constitution, Mac Arthur Blvd, etc. and each has state named streets like Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, etc. To top it all off the names of the parallel streets don't go sequentially A-Z they randomly jump around the alphabet but the further away from the Capitol they are, the more syllables they have. Are you confused yet? I sure am! Oh yeah, and to throw you off more, there are no J Streets... did I mention that already? Shoot me now. That afternoon Martha chaufeurred me to a police uniform outfitting company to get some new boots that I could ride with, would be waterproof, and that I could comfortably walk around it. The ones I bought are called Magnum Storm's and are made by Hi-Tec. They are tactical all purpose boots as used by SWAT, policeman, and other paramilitary organizations. They were only $85 too! If you want good, comfortable boots, definitely check them out. They even had non-waterproof ones that were only $65. Good construction, quality, appearance, and comfort.
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©2003 John Meloy <jam@nas.com>