Another goal met--a hundred miles run in our nation's capitol city.

I want to die.

OK, maybe not really, but I sure feel like it right now.

I just finished another run in Washington, DC. 7.5 miles. It was too hot and too humid today, and I ran too long. But I had a goal of running more than 100 miles in Washington DC and this run put me over the top.

Don’t ask me why I set such a stupid, pointless goal. I don’t know. I just do stuff like that.

And no, this hundred miles does not count the other miles run in West Virginia and Maryland. I’m up in the triple-digits with my runs in those places, too. Maybe someday I’ll be able to say that I’ve run more than a hundred miles in each of the 50 states.

Oh hell no. That’s over 5000 miles. Just shoot me now.

Anyway, my runs in our nation’s capitol city have taken me over the 14th Street Bridge nine times. I’ve circled Hains Point three times. I’ve run to the White House once, and the Capitol twice. I’ve circled the Washington Monument countless times and have become a virtual fixture around the Lincoln Memorial. I’ve run across Memorial Bridge a dozen times, and the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge four times. I’ve also crossed Key Bridge three times, each time running the length of Georgetown, either along the C&O Canal or up on M street. I’ve been to the Iwo Jima Memorial once, run the Pentagon’s parking lots once, and run to the visitor center at Arlington National Cemetery at least four times. Yeah, I know that these last three are technically in Virginia. I just don’t feel like quibbling that point since the runs originated and concluded back in the District.

Oh, and I also ran in Anacostia one day. Bonus points to me for not getting mugged or getting involved in any scandal having something to do with Marion Barry. I’ve run on the National Mall half a dozen times, including two full-length runs from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol Reflecting Pool and back.

I’ve also run Embassy Row in Northwest, and the campus of George Washington University, where I collided with a small tourist who wasn’t paying attention.

I’ve had some fun while boosting my fitness, and I’ve covered 102.5 miles in DC or on National Park Service land immediately adjoining it since beginning to run here in mid-April.

Today’s run was one of the toughest ones though. Like I said—it was too hot and humid to push as hard as I did, but I was so close to the hundred-mile mark that I just decided to go for it. And I didn’t want any punk run—I wanted a good one. So I started out on Hains Point and crossed the 14th Street Bridge to head north along the George Washington Parkway bike path. I ran up to the ramp to Arlington and took Key Bridge across to Georgetown. I was actually carrying a water bottle on this run because I tend to dehydrate quickly and when I do, my leg loses mass and then the running foot starts to give me problems. It only takes a little bit of shrinkage to cause big problems with it so I made it a point to drink as much as I could and refilled the bottle at every opportunity.

I also had some new music on my MP3 player, and that’s always a big help; when I tire, I just stop looking down the road and instead just concentrate on putting my feet (foot?) down in time with the music. I have some eclectic musical tastes and usually run to a mixture of older rock, blues and country, with a few TV and movie themes tossed in for fun. Sometimes these tunes give me that last bit of motivation that I need when I’m tiring, like today after I’d climbed up the ramp to Arlington. I was wearing out, but Eye of the Tiger from that Rocky movie came on, and it was enough to push me over the Potomac across Key Bridge. Then it was sing along with the Beatles as I ran down Georgetown’s M Street, loudly singing along with “You Never Give me Your Money”. Hey—I got a few smiles from a few pretty ladies, so it’s all good. Then I ran down Wisconsin Avenue, past that particular little shop that I know Nicki likes, and onto to C&O Canal Towpath, now joining Meatloaf in a rousing rendition of “Hot Patootie”. Then it was the long run back along the river, which was made a bit easier by Hoyt Axton’s “Della and the Dealer”—always a fun song. Finally I made it back to the Lincoln Memorial, just a mile from the run’s end-point. And I was spent.

The sun had been baking me, the humidity had been sapping me, and I’d just not been running hard enough these past few weeks. I knew by then that I’d already passed the hundred-mile point and that I could have called any number of people that I knew in the area and gotten a ride back to my car. But that would be quitting, and I don’t quit. I’m Boer stock, not French, and I subscribe to the motto: “Never give up, never surrender.”
OK, I totally ripped that off from some otherwise-forgettable movie with Tim Allen in it, but I still like it. So I ignored my body’s protestations and finished the run in time with the Blues Brothers’ “Sweet Home Chicago.” And I finished strong, with 7.5 miles run in an hour, 27 minutes.

Of course now the music’s off, the adrenaline’s gone, and I’m just tired.

But it’s a good kind of tired. The kind that comes with accomplishment.

And in other good news--the new extended-wear tread on my running foot seems to be holding up quite well indeed. I've got about 25 miles on the foot since it was re-soled and it's hardly showing wear at all. The old tread would have been seriously eroded already by now.

This one may last me more than the 80 miles or so that the old ones did and if so, it'll seriously cut down on those way-too-frequent repair shop visits.

There's always gotta be an asshole...

And the latest Asshole of the Day award goes to this guy from RS Granite World who saw fit to drive slow in the left lane of Route 7 all the way from the Route 9 intersection to well past the Greenway exit yesterday morning. And he did this despite the fact that there was a vehicle right behind him—mine—that was flashing it’s headlights at him trying to get him to move to the right lane so that the line of other cars stacking up behind him could get by.

But no, this douche (thanks to Nicki for that lovely descriptor) who made eye contact with me in his mirrors several times, just continued to drive along in the left lane, making no effort to either pass traffic to his right or merge in with it. And everyone else in northern Virginia had to endure the resulting traffic backup that this clown was deliberately causing.

Let me say first of all that people like this guy truly need and deserve to be yanked out of their cars and beaten with baseball bats. Life’s too short to have to put up with assholes and this guy was going out of his way to be one.

Unfortunately we live in a society that protects assholes from the consequences of their assholery, so it’s actually illegal to administer the beating that this guy earned while smugly obstructing rush-hour traffic.

However that doesn’t mean that we can’t identify the company that he either works for or owns. This is easy, at it was on a sign on the back of his truck, literally jammed into my face and the faces of all of the other people that he was taunting. And my recommendation is, of course, that you avoid ever doing business with RS Granite World, because a guy who will screw with people in traffic just for the apparent hell of it is also quite likely to deliberately mess up a job in your home or business just because you’ve irked him or he thinks it’s funny. And if you’ve ever been pissed off by someone who drives like this guy was driving, feel free to give RS Granite World a call and let them know what’s on your mind. The number’s right on that back of that Toyota in the picture, or you can e-mail the company at rs.gworld@gmail.com. Let 'em know that you read about it here.

Deport Rebeca McKimmie today!

Ah, national pride patriotism...and the lack thereof.

OCEAN CITY – A local woman was arrested for disturbing the peace and burning an American flag early last Sunday morning, long after the embers of the last Fourth of July fireworks had smoldered and died.

Shortly after 6 a.m. last Sunday, two Ocean City police officers who had finished their Fourth of July shifts and were heading home observed a woman, later identified as Rebecca Ellen McKimmie, 18, of Ocean City, igniting an American flag with a cigarette lighter. As the officers approached, they observed McKimmie standing between two lanes of traffic leading to the Route 50 Bridge while continuing to light the flag until it was actively burning.

According to police reports, McKimmie then began to stomp on the burning American flag, causing several vehicles to swerve to avoid hitting her. When the officers asked McKimmie why she was burning the American flag the day after the celebration of the nation’s independence day, she simply told them she was “making a statement,” according to police reports.

Now I don’t know what crazy bats are flying around inside this girl’s head, but if she’s got such a problem with this great country of ours, I’m all for giving her a swift kick in the ass and punting her right out of here. Maybe she’s prefer to go live in Somalia or the Sudan for a while, at least until she realizes how good that we have it here in this country that she hates so much.

And yeah, it burns me that we’ve got proud, patriotic Americans fighting and putting up with abysmal conditions abroad on behalf of our country and freedom and democracy in general, and this spoiled little princess sits here in the comfort and safety that they provide and basically says that in her eyes, our country sucks. Well it’s too damned bad that we can’t change her point of view to one where she’s on the outside looking back in.

Personally I think that a muslim country would be a good place to send this bratty trust-fund kid. Aside from the opportunity for her to develop an appreciation for our tolerant, diverse culture and our freedoms here, quite honestly, with a face like hers, a burkha would only improve her looks.

Weird Ward Churchill does NOT get his job back.

HOT DAMN and GREAT NEWS!!!

A judge has just ruled that the University of Colorado doesn't have to give controversial former professor Ward Churchill his job back, even though a jury found he was improperly fired.

Churchill, who taught ethnic studies at CU's Boulder campus, lost his teaching position after an investigation found he had plagiarized and falsified scholarly work for years.

The university launched the investigation on the heels of controversy that erupted when an essay surfaced in which Churchill called some victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at New York's World Trade Center "little Eichmanns."
CU said he was fired for academic misconduct. Churchill sued, arguing that he was penalized for exercising his right to free speech.

"This ruling recognizes that the regents have to make important and difficult decisions. The threat of litigation should not be used to influence those decisions," CU president Bruce Benson said in a release.

All RIGHT!! Finally, one of my old alma maters catches a break! Weird Ward WON’T be back on campus, and his America-hating fake-indian ass can now just go away. Fired for “Academic Dishonesty” that included plagiarism and outright fraud, Churchill and scumbag lawyer David Lane have been tying the university up in lawsuits for three years now.

Recently, a jury determined that he was fired by CU “improperly” after he wrote a paper in which he referred to those killed in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11 as “Little Eichmanns”—a paper which caused so much attention that his plagiarisms and false claims in other works came to light. That jury also decided to award him all of one dollar in damages though.

With that “win” in his pocket, Churchill went after the University again, demanding his job back, back pay, and the payment of Lane’s legal charges, which Lane set at over a million dollars.

However all of that was dashed yesterday when Judge Naves handed down his decision.

In a 42-page decision, Naves agreed with the university that Churchill's presence on the Boulder campus would suggest that the university tolerated academic misconduct.

"The evidence was credible that professor Churchill will not only be the most visible member of the department of ethnic studies if reinstated, but that reinstatement will create the perception in the broader academic community that the department of ethnic studies tolerates research misconduct," Naves wrote.
"In addition, this negative perception has great potential to hinder students graduating from the department of ethnic studies in their efforts to obtain placement in graduate programs," he wrote.

Naves also refused to order CU to provide front pay, saying there were no actual damages that the money would remedy. And he said that Churchill didn't seek to mitigate his losses by getting another job.

"Professor Churchill's own statements during the trial established that he has not seriously pursued any efforts to gain comparable employment but has, instead, chosen to give lectures and other presentations as a means of supplementing his income. Reportedly, he even 'received a few job offers' that he declined to pursue. Under these circumstances, I do not believe an award of front pay is appropriate," Naves wrote.

But after Judge Naves’ ruling, Churchill—and Lane—get nothing.
Nada. Zilch. Zip.

Not even cab fare home.

So justice has been served. The saga—less any appeal—is finally over. And the sun is shining brightly on a permanently discredited and disgraced pony-tailed loser who shall be known forevermore as “Weird Ward” Churchill—fake Indian, deflated bully and all-around fraud. It's a beautiful day, indeed.

Neener, neener, Ward... and hey, hey...good-bye.

On running...and pushing too hard.

So I'm out for my usual morning run today, and after a few miles in the hot sun, I come upon this neat little decorative chain fence that's blocking part of the sidewalk in my path. Now back in the old days, I'd have just jumped over that chain just because it was there, even though I could easily walk around it. And of course the temptation to do just that quickly becomes overpowering. But being older and wise now, I stop and think about it.

If I do this wrong and hook a foot on the top of it, I'm going to take a nasty fall.

On the other hand, if I do this right, I'm going to look GOOD. And there's people watching.

I weigh the costs, benefits and risk. Hell, I've fallen before. It won't be the end of the world. I go for it.

I run at it, leap, and clear the fence, and I look so damned good with my nice shiny running foot catching the sun. Yeah, I got this. I land on the other side, coming down squarely on my running foot, which takes the impact beautifully and bounces me another foot or so back in the air...

And then one of the worst charley horse muscle cramps that I've ever had tears through that leg. Apparently I overtaxed or overstreched something. The pain quickly ratchets up past "Damn, that hurts" and hits "Oh sweet mother of God, make it STOP!"

With no "real" foot on that leg and no distal attachment for the calf muscle, I can't just flex my leg and stretch it out. I have to drop to the ground and tear the foot off so that I can try to massage the muscle knot out.

Now I'm not looking quite so cool. And it took a few minutes to make it go away so that I could reasemble everything and commence to running again. So much for advanced athltetics. I guess that my appearance on Ninja Warrior is going to have to wait a bit longer.

Then to add insult to injury, as I ran past a family out walking, I heard their little boy ask his dad if I was a Transformer.

yeah, I got your "transformer", kid. C'mere...we'll transform you into a football and go for a field goal.

Oh cry me a river...

The shenanigans never seem to stop in the nation's capitol...

This time, we have a whole neighborhood of residents in Washington DC who are all upset because they looked out of their houses recently and saw what they thought was a real police raid. It turned out that it was just staged for a TV show filming. Nonetheless, they’re all outraged because they claim that they were frightened and inconvenienced by the action.

Montgomery County police officers staged a fake raid in Northwest D.C., complete with guns drawn and police lights blazing, sparking outrage from local residents who were not warned that the cops were acting for a TV show.

About a half dozen off-duty officers, who wore county uniforms and drove county police cars, were hired by a local production company to stage a police raid on 315 Aspen St. NW, which is about a quarter of a mile from the Montgomery-D.C. border.

"If the D.C. police had been in Montgomery County, that's all [anyone] would have talked about," said an irate Kelly Craven, who lives a few houses down from the raided house.
The filming was for a show called "Prison Wives," which is about women who fall in love with and marry prisoners, according to neighbors. The show is in development for the cable channel Investigation Discovery, according to its Web site.

Filming went on for half a day and looked like the real thing, neighbors said.

"They stormed the house like a SWAT team and they said, 'Police, search warrant, open up,'" said James Hall, who lives next door and shares a driveway with the house that was used in the filming.

D.C. Councilwoman Muriel Bowser, D-Ward 4, said in a letter to Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger that she shares the outrage of her constituents.

"The neighbors ... were never notified of this disruption to their lives, and were justifiably terrified when they saw uniformed officers swarming a neighbor's house with guns drawn," Bowser said.

I can’t help but think that if any of these people had JOBS, then they wouldn’t have even known about this because they wouldn’t have just been sitting around in their houses during the hours that most of the rest of us are at work.

But let's give 'em statehood so that they can elect Marion Barry to Congress, eh? You know that they will if we do.

Harpers Ferry's Cold War contribution

Many people visit Harpers Ferry, WV every year to take in it's rich history. They come to see where John Brown--America's first terrorist--led his ill-fated attack on the US Arsenal just prior to the War between the States. They also come to see the place that served as a Union supply depot during that war, at least when it wasn't changing hands, as it often did. They come and they learn that Thomas Jefferson spent time here, as did George Washington, who owned much land in the area and who profited greatly in his post-presidential years when he convinced the Continental Congress to build the arsenal there, arguing that it would be safe from seaborne attacks by the British or French. (Yes, there was a time when those two nations were actually good at things military...) Visitors may also learn about Storer College, the nation's first school of higher learning devoted to educating black people, which was built here just after the war.

But most people leave Harpers Ferry unaware of it's Cold War history, that of the site of the Emergency Relocation Bunker set aside for the Secretary of the Interior and high-ranking Interior Department personnel.

Yep. Right there on the grounds of Storer College (now the National Park Service's Mather Training Center) sits this rather innocuous-looking door.

It's carved into the side of the hill that the Mather Center sits on, and it draws little notice, as do these ventilation ducts above it on the lawn above it. This little Cold War survival shelter was quite literally hidden in plain site for decades. Once intended to be the refuge of last resort for Department of the Interior bigwigs, (because they'd be so needed after a nuclear war, right? We gotta make sure that someone's still around at Cabinet level to make sure that Yogi and Boo boo get fed...) it was reported to have been fully stocked with food, water, and other essential supplies.

These days, it's no longer in use as such. One can presume that the government had to abandon plans to use it when someone blabbed about it. (Did anyone check to see where Joe Biden was when that happened?) Or perhaps it became obsolete when other plans were made for those "essential" personnel. Who knows? It's not exactly something that the Park Service tour guides will or can talk about these days.

Now it reportedly serves as a storage area for important Interior Department documents. I guess we can all be relieved to know that a bunch of papers are all set to survive Armeggedon.

So here's Lagniappe, sitting in front of the door. He figures that if the Secretary of the Interior ever does really show up when the sirens sound, the Secretary'll have to negotiate for entrance with the German Shepherd if we can get there first.

Ironically, his plotting to be the first one to this door was cut short as it opened from the inside and a young woman attempted to exit. of course Lagniappe had to turn around and stick his nose in as the door began to open, causing her to issue a scream worthy of any vintage horror film and slam the door shut again.








After a moment, however, Nicki managed to convince her that it was indeed safe to come out, and as Lagniappe sighed and sauntered away, she told us that she was the sole employee now working within and that she was herself unaware of the facility's once-classified history.

Liberal blogger resists police, hurls anti-semetic slurs

Ah yes, those tolerant Liberals...

This post deals with Huffington Post blogger Chrissie Brodigan, who got herself arrested in New York City on Monday when she:
1. Took her dog into the subway in a tote bag instead of a carrier required by law.
2. Argued with a police officer who told her to put the dog in a carrier.
3. Hurled anti-semetic slurs at the officer, who was wearing a yarmulke.
4. Resisted arrest when the officer finally got tired of her crap and locked her up.
5. Tried to falsely claim that the officer beat and fondled her.

The city's first Hasidic cop was excoriated in a anti-Semitic rant by a dog-loving subway passenger who allegedly refused to place her sick pet in an animal carrier, sources and a witness said yesterday.

Brooklyn blogger Chrissie Brodigan claimed Officer Joel Witriol went ballistic when he saw her take her pug, Dempsey, out of her purse in violation of subway regulations at around 5:30 p.m. Monday. She said he cuffed her, insulted her and roughed her up.

Of course like a true liberal, she refuses to acknowledge that she did anything wrong, and instead starts playing the "female victim" card, claiming that the officer was inexplicably disrespectful and violent with her for no reason and was only picking on her because he's a man and she's a woman.

According to her account, Witriol "said he needed to talk to me" as she was ascending a staircase at the L-line Bedford Avenue station.

"He pushed me against the wall and said, 'I need your name and ID.' "

Brodigan, 32, said that when she told Witriol she had left her wallet at work, things turned ugly.

"He pushed me against the wall and said, 'If you're gonna act like a woman, I'm gonna treat you like a woman,' " said Brodigan.

The blogger denied she had a carrying case with her and said her dog suffers from a health condition that causes it to overheat.

"I don't remember saying anything anti-Semitic," she said. "I do remember saying, 'Clearly, you have trouble with women.' I probably called him an a--hole."

She claims that when she started to walk away, "he handcuffed my wrist, pushed me against the wall, punched me in the back and kicked me in the shin."

She also claimed Witriol at one point put his hands on her breasts.

So she openly admits being a disrespectful and immature bitch. That I believe. However the rest of her story doesn't pass the smell test at all. If the officer actually did all of that stuff in public, there'd be no end of witnesses to confirm it, especially with her screaming and carrying on. But there aren't a ton of witnesses--there's just Melissa Randazzo, and she doesn't say anything about Brodigan being punched or fondled.

"His tone was really alarming," Randazzo said of Witriol. "The girl looked scared. She didn't look like someone who would get into trouble. Something didn't seem right about this situation."

So where's the physical and sexual assault that Chrissie Brodigan just accused the officer of? Even her own witness didn't see any of that happening. Additionally, her entire tale is contradicted by Manother witness, Viane Delgado, who said that Brodigan was the one out of line.

Delgado said Witriol "repeatedly" asked the woman to place the barking pug in a carrier she had. But instead, she allegedly insulted him with anti-Semitic slurs and tried to walk away.

"You f---ing Jew, you're not even human," Delgado quoted Brodigan as saying.

She repeatedly said, "Jewish people think they own everything," another source said.

So we have an officer with no reason to start a fight and lie, backed up by an independent citizen with no reason to lie versus Chrissie--who has every reason to lie as she's looking at fines and possible jail time--and a witness who says that "something didn't look right" but then stopped well short of vouching for Chrissie's wild claims of being assaulted.

In the end, higher-ups with NYPD decided that Brodigan would get the charges, and that there was no evidence that Officer Witriol did anything improper. And if you know anything about NYPD and the over-zealousness of their Internal Affairs squad, that says it all right there. And nnot only did they find no suggestion of wrongdoing by the officer, they also documented that Brodigan was belligerent and argumentative with them as well.

it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who the jackass was in this case, does it?

That's why the Donkey of the Week award goes to Chrissie Brodigan and the airheads who give her money to write vacuous tripe on Huffington Post and other liberal websites about how cops and Jews are bad, and Obama is the Messiah.

additional source

On spiders and sissies

So this morning I head into the bathroom, about to indulge in a nice, hot shower. Fortunately for me, I actually look at the shower knobs instead of just reaching out and turning them as I often do, because there is a fair-sized Nursery spider sitting right between the knobs.

By “fair-sized”, I mean that he’s from 2” to 3” long. They get bigger.

Now these spiders have been found in the lair and blogged before, notably here (with picture) and here. I’ve encountered a few others that haven’t been blogged as well, and when I find them, I capture them and release them outside. Small spiders are icky with their webs and such; these larger hunting spiders are just cool.

So silly me, I decided to share my treasure with others before putting it outside.

First I called Lagniappe in. He came bounding into the bathroom as if he was about to be the recipient of a treat, then stopped short when he saw the spider. He also has seen these before, and it shames me to report that this once-fearless police dog backed right out of the bathroom and skedaddled down the hall to parts unknown. He wasn’t having any part of that thing.

Chickenshit.

Then as I was in the kitchen trying to find a cup with a lid to catch it in, Nicki bid me a good morning so I invited her into the bathroom to show her this fascinating creature. Of course I did not tell her what was there because Nicki usually likes surprises. But judging by her scream of “Oh my GOD!!!” and her bout of hyperventilation as she ran back out of the room, I got the impression that she didn’t much care for this one.

Well if you’re not even going to look at it…

So I captured it without too much trouble, and I eventually got Nicki to open the door to the outside for me as I needed both hands to hold the cup with the spider in it and keep the lid on it. I could feel the spider scrabbling around inside the cup, and I knew that if it got away from me now, I’d have a hell of a time catching it again until it calmed down and came back out in the open. As it was, I wasn’t allowed to even bring it out into the hall until Nicki had run all the way back down to the kitchen and barricaded herself in the pantry, no doubt with Lagniappe for company.

Pair of Chickenshits.

I eventually released the spider outdoors and it scampered off. Then I went to calm Nicki.
I probably should not have told her that these spiders are fairly common around here. Now she says that she’s not coming over any more.
I also probably should not have told her that they certainly live in HER house too. She doesn’t live that far away and these creatures are indigenous to the area.

“But I’ve never EVER seen one of those,” she proclaimed. I told her that just because she hasn’t seen them, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a bunch of them lurking in the dark recesses of her garage, basement, attic, and yard. And being nocturnal creatures that only come out in the dark, odds of her never seeing one are pretty good, however that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there in abundance.

When I last saw her this morning, she was calling her realtor. Something about putting her house up for sale.

And I thought that these former Army chicks were supposed to be tough. Alvin York and Audie Murphy would surely not be impressed.