Packard Plant Bizarreness

So some wealthy woman in Texas purchased the Packard Plant at Auction. She still hasn't paid, and her statement is kind of bizarro and full of typos:

The document, full of typos and titled “The Posential Energy in Detroits Assets,” contains nonsensical passages about her group’s plans for the plant and other vacant properties in Detroit. It mentions Van Horn’s “prophecy” to “resurrect Detroit.”

■ “Dr. Van Horn has assembled the Investment Banks, Hedge Fund Lenders, Private Investors and several Foundations, who intend to merge their financial resources with the local developers in Detroit, to transform the dormant capital the lies in every real estate parcel in the city of Detroit, into a fixed value of capital that will benefit all of the cities residence.”
■ “Now is not the time for native Detroiters to bicker over the price of the Packard Plant. Now is the time to form a coalition made of past and future developers in order to make a change in Detroit.”
■ “Prior to placing the bid on the Packard plant, Dr. Van Horn’s prophecy was to resurrect Detroit by providing education, jobs, vocational training to the city’s residence, simultaneously unplugging the financial arteries of the city.”
■ “Furthermore, if the county doubts that we have the ability to perform, we challenge the county by stating at this time, Dr. Van Horn and her lenders are prepared to travel from Texas to Detroit and sit down with the county and make an offer for every vacant, abandoned and dilapidated apartment building within Detroit.”

Somehow I think she won't end up paying this...we will see.

Sebelius Hearings

These Sebelius hearings are a riot. Sebelius: "The website never crashed. It is functional at a very low speed."

Obamcare.gov right now: "The system is down at the moment."

Hmm, so technically a downed website has never crashed. It depends on the meaning of the word "never" I suppose. Or "crashed."

I guess Obamacare.gov can't be described as a trainwreck if it has never "crashed."

RIP Edna Krabappel

Sadly, Marcia Wallace, who voiced Edna Krabappel on the Simpsons for the past quarter of a century (!!!), passed away last weekend. DCIst lists some of the best episodes with Mrs. Krabappel. Personally? I do like that Halloween episode and the one with Gordie Howe.

10. "Treehouse of Horror V, Nightmare Cafeteria" 1994
The one in which the entire faculty begins feasting on children, starting with German exchange student Uter. One of Mrs. K's most memorable "Hah!" comes after Skinner admits the burger she's eating is made out of bully Jimbo Jones. She says, "it's so young and impudent." The homework assignment to the dwindling class: "Eat a stick of butter" as she gleefully croaks, "Detention" to the quaking students.

1. "Bart the Lover," 1992
Bart decides to play a prank on his teacher by sending her love letters as fictitious dreamboat "Woodrow." When he realizes how heartbroken she is after being stood up, he turns to his family to draft the ultimate farewell letter that will let her down gently.

The Buck Doesn't Stop at Obama

The officials quoted by The Wall Street Journal said it was understandable that Obama did not know about the phone tapping of Merkel and other leaders for nearly five years of his presidency because the NSA has so many eavesdropping programs, it would not have listed all of them for the president.

“Before it even launched, red flags went up about the Obamacare website. Health insurance companies complained about it, and the site crashed during a test run. But nobody told the President of any of it, the nation's health chief told CNN. Kathleen Sebelius said President Barack Obama didn't hear that there may be problems with the sign-up portal for his signature health care law until it went live on October 1. That's when the site nosedived into a technical abyss.”

President Obama insisted Thursday that he knew nothing about the internal investigation into the IRS' practice of singling out conservative groups for special scrutiny before it was made public, as he moved to name a new director for the embattled agency.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he and “the upper levels of the Justice Department” were not aware of the botched “Fast and Furious” gun program that targeted Mexican drug cartels but ended up supplying them with firearms.

New to New to New

I spent the last week on plains and trains and airports...New Mexico to New York to New Hampshire. It was a bit busy. Crazy even. And I need to catch up. But it's always amazing to go to new places, and do things like run along the Rio Grande and explore Old Town and see the charm of Autumn colors in Concord. I see why New England is so adorable.

But there's something to be said for making the quick trip to Dulles after an already delayed return flight to pick up your husband. And to go home and to Big Board and to do the regular things I like to do tomorrow, like go to the gym and grocery store. And next week it's Charlottesville and November!

Well, a few more hours to go, right?

Shutdown Stymied

Well, our long pseudo national nightmare of a government shutdown is nearly over, just as I predicted, around the elusive date of October 17. Furloughed workers will get their two week vacation paid, just as they desired. The barricades will at long last be removed by the memorials, and Vince Gray will go back to being despised as a corrupt mayor. But what have we gained?

The big joke going around now is that "Just heard the Washington Redskins are relenting & changing their name -- dropping "Washington" b/c it just got too embarrassing." So there's that. Both parties should be ashamed, really. Though some are attempting to absolve "real" Washington of our sins, because it's not our fault that our elected leaders do these things. Yeah, right. Maybe we have taxation without representation, but we work for these individuals. VA and MD voters helped put them into office. We've donated to their campaigns and we've supported their pork to help pad our bank accounts.

And we're going to suffer when the so-called fiscal cliff grows so steep that we can't throw more inflated dollar bills at it. We're all to blame, ultimately, because we created this. And with the possible exception of Paul Ryan, I'm not sure we have any adults who would share that responsibility with us.

Farragut

Occasionally, I try to remember places I loved to shop and eat at in the Farragut area. So many places have closed in the nearly 15 years I've worked down here.

Borders.
Filene's.
The Gap at 2000 Penn.
The Ann Taylor on K Street, which relocated to Connecticut
The pizza places where Vapiano's is and in the alley around 20th and M
The Bagel shop near Vapiano's.
Fuddruckers
Wendy's.
Vie de France
Dean and Deluca's
The CVS at Connecticut and I
The predecessor to Jack's Fresh
Lawson's at Dupont Circle
The old Mad Hatter's on M Street
Burger King at 16th and K
The old Food Court at Farragut North...pizza, McDonald's, etc.
Some of the vendors at the food court at Farragut West, like the presto pizza
Talbot's
Express on Connecticut
Wasabi sushi where 7/11 is on Farragut Square
That sandwich place on Connecticut & about N Street
Tower Records at 2000 Penn
Cosi at 19th & K

What am I missing?

Grandma

I would be remiss if not taking a moment to remember grandma on her 101st birthday. I hope she's up in heaven somewhere, rooting as hard for the Tigers as we all are. I cannot believe she has been gone now for almost twenty years. She was so brave and so strong, after years of being sick. And she was beautiful, and possessed a stronger faith that almost anyone I know.

It is remarkable, how 20 years go by. I am sure she is delighting in her great-grandsons, too. I see some of her in Joey. He has her features.

DC Idiocy

Reason #154,565 this shutdown is stupid: a guy can't even voluntarily mow the damn lawn.

And another? I'm siding with Vince Gray, who crashes a news conference to demand that his budget be restored. Who would have thought it? Threatens Reid: "“I’m on your side, don’t screw it up, okay? Don’t screw it up,” Reid told Gray."

Shut Down

The entire government shutdown saga is already wearing on all of us. Republicans need to compromise on some things, because Obamacare can't be shut off by them. It can only self-destruct by its own hand. The headlines right now should be the fact that reporters and Americans desperate to enroll can't get through the ineptly crafted healthcare.gov webpages. They should not be this shutdown and the imminent debt default.

But Obama and his agents prohibiting senior citizens from using restrooms at national parks or veterans from their pilgrimages to the World War II memorial make him equally guilty, if not more guilty. They are taking pride in authoritarian tactics to make this shutdown as painful as possible. Is there ANY reason to rope off tax-payer owned and supported monuments or bikepaths? And Obama's rhetoric is ridiculous: “Ransom”. “Extortion”. “Deadbeat”. “Hostage-taking”. “Blow the whole thing up”. “Insane”. 

It's just this much short of  "We don't negotiate with terrorists." Really?

Adults are needed in these conversations. I almost hope for an open rebellion of (gasp!) moderates to take the steps needed to (gasp!) compromise. Otherwise this inflexible stalemate will go on forever. And Obama (and his friendly press) will go on, setting messages that the Republicans are merely strangers with candy, ready to rip away the fabric of Americans. Ridiculous.

Germany Unity Day

I was wondering what their fascination was with Country Roads at Thursday's German Unity Day Party:

All the good things you would expect were available in plenty at the annual “Day of German Unity” party hosted by the embassy in Washington: Heaps of sauerbrauten, vats of good beer, oom-pah music, and for the first time this year, D.C. singer-songwriter Bill Danoff.

For decades, Danoff’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” — a 1971 hit for John Denver — has been a sing-along favorite at Munich’s Oktoberfest, a nostalgic touchstone bound to bring Germans to their feet whenever it’s played.

Why? “I have no idea,” Danoff, 67, told us. “I’ve never been to Germany” — though he’d never been to West Virginia either before he wrote his ode to the Mountain State.

Ask German natives why they get misty-eyed over a song about the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge, what cultural resonance they find in it, and you’ll get a quizzical stare: It’s a really good song, don’t you think?..

Danoff and his band had barely finished before an exuberant emcee rushed to rejoin him on stage.

“Mr. Danoff!” he pleaded. “Could you take us one more time to West Virginia?”

Danoff took a second to process this. They wanted him to do the song, again? He did. The crowd went wild, again. And as we drove away, we heard a familiar tune wafting up from the embassy grounds: Yes, they’d coaxed yet another “Country Roads” out of him that night.

The Fall

75% of this year is over, and yet I don't feel like I've accomplished much of anything. Sad, right? The night is creeping into the day, and the daylight is shrinking. It's still 75-80ish, so there's an air of summer out there. Not sweater weather or even pumpkin latte weather yet, really. Though in a month, the holidays will be screaming in our face, and we'll all demand Thanksgiving food and Christmas decorations immediately.

Do I do resolutions? No, not so much. There's this refrain about "begin again" that plays whenever I realize that if I did do resolutions, they would not work out so well. The song would pause, restart, and never end.

I feel like I've played out the same old tune this year. Nothing new, no family news or professional news or home news. But that's good, right? Not to lose anyone, or not to struggle with family sickness or friends facing tragedy.

I feel a little at loose ends, a little discombobulated lately. A little struggling to make sense of something I don't know/can't know how to change. So I don't think October is the greatest of months. I always prefer Spring, to reawaken, and to grow.