Red and Blues

There are a plethora of different police forces patrolling the streets of D.C., or at least driving their cars around.

On a given day, I can see marked cars from the D.C. Metropolitan Police (the city's main police force), the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service, the U.S. Park Police, the National Park Service, the Capitol Police, the Metro Transit Police. Every so often, I see a new one to add to the list.

Today, I saw a new one I hadn't seen before. Squad cars bearing the name of Homeland Security, next to the designation Federal Protection Service.

According to this list I can look forward to spotting at least a dozen more insignia on squad cars around the city.

Kansas City, there I went

It was several years before I experienced my second baseball stadium.

One of the benefits of going to school in central Missouri was the relative proximity of two baseball teams; the Royals and the Cardinals were each about an hour and a half away.

In my first few years of school, I was more likely to make the trip to Kansas City. The Royals were never any good, but that actually worked in their favor. Kansas City had the best ticket deal - you could buy half-price upper deck seats for (I think) Tuesday and Friday games. In practice, this meant for $4.50 you could sit anywhere in Kauffman Stadium, since I never saw an usher in Kansas City. (This spring, I discovered there are some ushers restricting movement, but only to sections about halfway down the left and right field lines. Want to sit behind home plate or in the first row behind the dugout? No problem. Want to sit halfway between third base and the foul pole? No way. I don't get it.) As a Mariners fan, Kansas City also gave me a chance to see a team I cared about occasionally.

The first game I remember seeing in KC was when the Mariners came to town late in the season and Ken Griffey, Jr., was sitting around 50 home runs with an outside shot to hit 60 (in the years before Sosa, McGuire and Bonds blew past the then-sacrosanct number). A group of nearly 10 of us piled into a couple cars for the drive down I-70, picked up our cheap tickets and found seats about five rows behind the first-base dugout. (This was probably late in 1997, although I'm sure I also saw games there in the spring of 1997 as well.)

Kauffman is rarely held up as a shining example of baseball architecture. That the team has been lousy for the last 15 years doesn't help. Neither does the dated design, straight from the 70s.
But I've always thought Kauffman got a bad rap. If the stadium outlasts the new stadium building boom, in a decade or so its reputation will rise based on nostalgia. Suddenly, it's going to be one of the last remaining "old" parks and it's certainly got an unique design. Before too long, I see a backlash against the new crop of parks, all of which are based on the same Camden Yards-style new-retro aesthetic. (It's currently the ninth-oldest MLB park, according to Wikipedia, and in a few years it'll be the fifth-oldest.) And when the backlash comes, Kauffman is going to be uniquely poised to pick up admirers.

And even now, there's something to be said for the park. Unlike most of the previous generation of stadiums, it was built for baseball and it has a design unlike any other park.
The seats wrap around the field, soaring high behind home plate. The top of the stands gently curves down to the foul poles, and the seats just barely peek out above the edges of right and left field wall.
Beyond most of the outfield, instead of seats, sit landscaped grass terraces, pools and fountains which dance after home runs. The large crown-shaped scoreboard in centerfield with the lineups spelled out in lights isn't high tech anymore, but in this era of HD video screens replacing scoreboards, the older light bulb scoreboards have a fraction of the same appeal as the hand-operated boards. (A companion on a recent trip to a game expressed regret at the fact full-video boards would usurp the old clunky animations on the light bulb boards).

The best part of Kauffman's design is also its greatest weakness. Because there are no seats behind the outfield, just a walkway and some concession stands above the terraces, everyone in the park can see out, beyond the stadium itself. Such a view in a stadium gives fans a sense of place, a sense of the character of the area the stadium is set in.

Unfortunately, the area the stadium is set in is the wasteland along I-70 in the city's western suburbs, surrounded by nothing but bare concrete parking lots broken up only by Arrowhead Stadium at Kauffman's flank.

If this stadium was moved to the location of parks in San Francisco (water view), Denver (mountain view), D.C. (monument view), St. Louis (arch view) or even downtown Kansas City, where at least you'd feel like it belonged to the city and was a part of its environs, it would be hailed as one of the good places to see a ballgame. If it was in downtown K.C. it wouldn't be a must-see in the way Fenway, or Wrigley, or even the corporately-named park in San Francisco is, but it'd still have a reputation as a pleasant spot to watch baseball.

Instead, it's ignored at best. The only excitement I can remember over Kauffman was when I was in school and a fan was hit by a bullet randomly fired from a car on I-70. That's right, go to Kauffman, worry about drive-by shootings! Not even Tiger Stadium had that problem.

As my college career wore on, I was far more likely to make the trek to St. Louis and Busch Stadium than Kauffman. I knew more people from St. Louis, for one, and there were far more reasons to go see the Cardinals: better baseball, the promise of memorable moments. My best baseball memories are still in St. Louis. The only stand-out memory of Kansas City is driving all the way to the stadium to see Randy Johnson pitch for the Mariners only to have the game rained out without a pitch thrown.

Still, I've got a soft spot for Kauffman, and it's not just pity. I'm confident the Royals owners are too cheap to get a new park, so I believe in a years to come more people will come to see Kauffman as I do, as a pleasant place to watch a game without the too-shiny corporate conveniences of the modern parks.

Gotta say, there's something not bad about coming down to the Mall and setting up shop with a laptop outside one of the Smithsonian museums on a day like today. The sun is out but the humidity stayed away, people are out and about and there's a huge fountain to my left. I bash this city's lack of character often, but the Mall is a definite exception.

off my bike

An addition to my last post:

In the days after our jaunt by bike (up to and including today) I was sore in one place. It wasn't my legs or the part which had to endure the seat. It was, and is, my lower neck.

I was borrowing a bike with a seat not adjusted for me (and when I realized this, I didn't have the necessary tools). I knew it forced my neck at an odd angle if I wanted to look down the trail as I rode. I didn't realize it was so odd my shoulders and neck would have a dull ache for the next three days.

on yer bike

I finally got out of the city on a bike ride this past weekend, which I'd been wanting to do for some time.

There are a number of places which look close enough on a map to make me think I could bike there. Mount Vernon, for one. Great Falls, for another. That's where we decided to go Saturday.

Great Falls is a 14-mile trip up along the Potomac River (the trail follows an old canal which was briefly used to ship cargo into D.C. in the 19th century). Following the canal makes for a level ride, although the dirt and gravel path created a jarring ride which slowly worked its way to aggravation.

A relevant note: I haven't ridden a bike at all for several months for obvious reasons. Even when I first got to D.C. and actually had a bike, I did little more than bike around a mile or two of our house. I haven't ridden a bike for any extended length of time for several years.

On the way home from our jaunt it occurred to me I may never have ridden 30 miles in a day. This, perhaps, was slightly ambitious for our first day out. It wasn't a problem to make it back to Georgetown, although it would have been tougher if not for a snack stand where we could load up on extra drinks a few miles out of D.C. My legs were about done when we got off the trail and had to go uphill to get back home. My legs told me they'd actually been done some time before that once I stopped and my legs had a chance to tell me how they really felt.

I haven't been keeping to my running regimen as much as I'd like, and I'm just one for three on attendance with my Ultimate Frisbee season. The bike ride was much needed. I just might warm up with some shorter rides before I try another 30-miler.

I've read stories documenting the recovery of the airline industry, and two weekends ago I found myself in the midst of the renewed hordes of travelers.

From 2001 to 2005 I flew more domestic flights than the average American, as my job paid for me to more or less be a professional traveler. I rarely saw flights full enough to warrant a call for volunteers to give up their seats from the gate attendants.

Apparently, this year flights have started to fill up, and there's more call for the volunteers (generally in return for a free flight voucher). On our return from St. Louis to D.C. the plane was full, and both Kirsten and I volunteered in return for a free flight and the promise we'd get into D.C. a few hours late.

This did mean we'd be sitting in the St. Louis airport for six extra hours nursing hangovers (well, I was nursing a hangover) after attending a wedding the night before.

When it finally came time to board the second plane, a call for volunteers went up once again. Kirsten had to work the next day, but I was more than willing to stay in St. Louis for an extra night, on the airline, and pick up another free flight.

Alas, at the last minute I was told my service wasn't needed. So instead I was forced to fly home in the first-class seats we'd been upgraded to after being voluntarily bumped the first time. My vision of simply staying at the St. Louis airport indefinitely and professionally giving up my seat flight after flight in return for future free travel was to remain unfulfilled.

School supplies

School supplies
Originally uploaded by slack13

A few weeks ago I helped my cousin move into her dorm as she started her culinary study at Johnson and Wales in Providence, RI.

During the afternoon, I wandered into their university bookstore. The usual wares were on display: books, writing implements, electronic necessities for the college student. But a large proportion of display space was given over to something I never saw at my school's bookstore: cooking supplies. Pots, pans, utensils, items I didn't know how to use.

I also didn't have to wear a chef's uniform to all my classes. I think it worked better for me that way.

Renaissance Faire

the joust
Originally uploaded by slack13

This weekend Kirsten and I decided to head out to Maryland and take in the wonders of Maryland's Renaissance Fair.

I had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be a decent way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Kind of like a big county fair with a more interesting premise and fewer carnival rides. Also the largest collection of cleavage about to burst out of its constraints ever seen.

The jousting exhibitions held our interest for a time (it's got to hurt being hit by a stick while wearing metal armor and riding a running horse) but most of the afternoon was spent simply wandering the grounds of the festival, which are crowded with vendors.

There are the obligatory food and drink stands (the beer was thankfully not overpriced - $4 for a Sam Adams) where I had to purchase a large turkey leg to carry while we wandered. There were many different artisans, displaying wares from leather drinking mugs to hand-blown glass to medieval-style clothing to intricate jewelry. The people-watching, however, was the real attraction. Apparently many people see the RennFest as a convenient excuse to dress in whatever costume is close at hand.

The costumes spread across quite the chronological range. There were people dressed in the style of several different periods of the legendary English countryside, as well as some costumes that were only barely relevant: black leather goth outfits, raver fairies complete with wings and glitter makeup, even one Jedi knight complete with lightsaber (a different long, long ago and far, far away).

Females appeared to be far more likely to be costumed, and the costumes were all designed to show off the cleavage. Some of them followed up with lots of cloth the rest of the way to the ground, some followed with almost nothing. Just like Halloween, but with a more specific theme.

NYC vs DC

Before I moved here, I was no fan of D.C. Some of the neighborhoods around here have started to grow on me, but I'm still not a fan of the city's general character. Sure, the mall is great, but once you stroll out of the museums and memorials, the downtown area is just one big collection of concrete buildings.

One of my friends put it this way: D.C. is thick, not tall. And it's this I'll never be able to get past. Especially when I wander around through Manhattan for a day and return to D.C.

Sure, it's never fair to compare anywhere to Manhattan. But it's just so much nicer, for me, to wander around New York where the defining characteristic is vertical steel rather than horizontal concrete and where every block has a different shop or establishment to discover. At least here the museums are free.

out of town

I spent Labor Day weekend in the car driving through most of the Eastern Seaboard's metropolises. Friday I left D.C. for a not-quite-leisurely drive to Providence, Rhode Island, which was the first time I could use a Rhode Island address as a final destination.

The ride wasn't quite leisurely due to a deadline (my sister and I were headed to Providence to meet our younger cousin, who was flying into Providence that night and moving into her college dorm the next day), Labor Day traffic and a lack of any extra time built into our schedule to compensate for the traffic. A two-hour wait to get across the George Washington Bridge into NYC didn't help. We ended up stuck in traffic for 45 minutes just to get to the exit to drive an extra half-hour or so out of our way to avoid the bridge.

In the end, though, we made it to Providence less than an hour late, forcing cousin to wait just a few minutes (her luggage took some time to appear). We then stayed up far too late (just because) and waking up far too early (for me) to move her in.

The traffic on campus was as bad as the traffic on the roads - she ended up waiting in line to register for her key, to pick up her ID and finally to get up to her room (shared with three others). I was only 10 years out of my depth, but I did get asked if I wanted to open a student checking account, which was a nice gesture.

The moving-in and supply run to Target completed (Rhode Island, to me, consists of the one campus and a strip of big-box stores) we left cousin and headed south to New York City, where another cousin was putting us up for the night. Again, we stayed up too late (a few corner bars and one hookah bar and all of a sudden it's 3:30 a.m.). And again, we woke up too early, to meet a friend of my sister's for brunch. Then a walk through the city, including a Brazilian street fest. Fun times, including the sunburn (who goes to New York and gets a sunburn?)

The weather was perfect, a sunny, crisp late summer day. I started to think back and realized in my mind, New York has the best weather in the country. All my trips to the city have been in the spring or early fall, and every day has been sunny, upper 70s, low humidity. Perfect. Of course, the natives laughed at this slander of their city.

We left NYC late in the afternoon to head back to Baltimore, where we finally got some sleep before helping my sister's boyfriend move into his new house. Then back to D.C., where I stayed up late packing and woke up far, far too early to fly to Missouri, thus ending the tour of the East Coast.

mosquitoes

I've lived in places before where biting insects were problems.

I grew up in Montana, where the mosquitoes only thrived for a month or two, but they were big and there was a lot of them.

I lived in Mississippi, where the mosquitoes came out late in the year, when the heat dipped to tolerable levels. As the sun drooped into the horizon, swarms of the little buggers swirled about your head and arms.

I also lived for a time in New Orleans, where I woke up every morning with another bite or two from an unidentified bug, a reminder of just how well the humidity nutured a variety of insects and just how poorly my window unit air conditioner kept the nature of the place at bay.

But the character of the mosquitoes here in D.C. is entirely different from anywhere else. Unlike mosquitoes I'm familiar with, the ones here are tiny and stealthy. You don't have to swat down black swarms. In fact, you rarely see them. But every time I walk outside, I end up with a few more bites.

It doesn't feel like New Orleans, where the bugs just seemed to be an unavoidable piece of the city as a whole. Here, the bites are far more of an aggravation for seeming out of place. And the mosquitoes seem a bit more malevolent for coming in single, clandestine raids instead of frontal assaults in battalion strength.