Category Archives: News

Sprinklers

Posted by Leaf on January 13, 2012 2 comments

A little past midnight this morning, the fire alarm started blaring. I was in the middle of a nice dream so it felt like I dozed my way out of the building. I remember we briefly discussed bringing the chinchees but not seeing any sign of smoke anywhere, decided it would be too traumatic for them to be stuffed into a sack and hauled about for what appeared to be an ill-timed drill. Yes, we left them and Dirty Hairy to die in a fiery inferno. No, I didn’t bring anything of value out either. I just remember hauling my purse out with a box of tissues and for some reason, made sure to bring my metro card out. Where did I think I was going? To work?

Anyway, when we got out, we thought it was raining. But then when we looked up we saw water trickling down the building, it was the sprinklers. The fire trucks came and when they finally gave us the go ahead to go back in, we learned that our elderly neighbor’s unit had a sprinkler malfunction. Her unit totally flooded and for some reason was unable to get to her door to exit so the fire department had to break down her door and escort her out. Thank goodness no one got hurt, but the sprinklers really went crazy raining down in her unit. Water seeped out everywhere and even down to the unit below. By the time we got back to bed though I could hear people with wet-vacs already cleaning up the hallway. Our poor neighbor must have had quite a shock. She slept in another neighbor’s place for the night.

User Tax

Posted by Leaf on November 7, 2011 None comments

President Obama recently proposed an airline tax increase ($100 per airliner take off, and a TSA per-passenger increase to $5 per leg of the trip and $0.50 increases each year from 2013 to 2017) to help reduce the deficit. I think this is a great idea. As public services go, if a tax can be paid by the consumer of the good or service, it ought to be. Services like national defense benefits all, so I can see why it should be paid for by all, however, air travel is used by a subset of the population and this subset self-selects. They choose to use this service so they ought to pay for it.

Air travel is such a luxury anyway, if this precludes some people from traveling, it’s a disappointment sure, but nothing more than that. And for those who can afford to fly, yes, it’s a nuisance to have to pay more, but obviously it’s still affordable to many since the airplanes still fill up.

And frankly, I think he forgot to add another tax to flyers which the EPA ought to levy or increase – the clean air tax. Or how about a healthy lung tax, levied by NIH? There are many costs that everyone pays for the subset of travelers. This small airline ticket tax is a bargain.

Self-Help

Posted by Leaf on October 18, 2011 None comments

Recently, I got two very thoughtful books about how to interact with people. The first, The Five Love Languages. The second, How to Win Friends and Influence People. At first glance they seem like two very different books, one’s about love, and the other more general or friendship. There’s definitely a common thread though.

In short, the 5 Languages of Love are:

  1. Words of Affirmation
  2. Quality Time
  3. Receiving Gifts
  4. Acts of Service
  5. Physical Touch

The basic premise is that everyone speaks one or more of these love languages.  It is what we need to feel loved.  Under these five are more subcategories the author calls dialects.  More specific items.  Receiving gifts might be frequent notes or flowers or baubles or maybe less frequent or food or jewelry.  It all depends on the person you love.  In each of these, it just needs to be thoughful.  So if the person you want to demonstrate love to speaks “Quality Time” for example, buying gifts might be nice, but to really fill his/her “love tank” you have to spend time with that person by doing things together that s/he enjoys.  Going for a walk, seeing a show, sitting down for a conversation face-to-face.  It sounds easy but I think it takes a concerted effort to fill that tank!

In the second book, there are various principles he goes through but the first three seem to be very similar to the five love languages.  They are:

  1. Don’t criticize, complain, or condemn.
  2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
  3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

The common thread is to put yourself in the other’s shoes.

Anyway, I have a ways to go with this winning friends business.  Principle one alone is a toughie!  It’s hard not to complain.  For example today, I was on my way home and ran into someone I knew and we started talking about the DMV and of course I laid in on my experiences.  And then I felt all bad about it afterwards.  Ahh… this book is just going to give me a conniption. I’ll continue my rants and complaints but then I’ll just feel all guilty about it.  Bah.  See?  I just complained right there.  I’m going to need one of those shock collars to train me.

Nanny State

Posted by Leaf on October 11, 2011 None comments
Last week, Denmark passed a “fat tax” to curb obesity.  It’s yet another sin tax, only this time, instead of tobacco & alcohol, it’s saturated fat.  The sin is gluttony.  The argument is, it’s bad for peoples’ health so taxing it might discourage overindulgence.  Supporters go on to say that people who engage in things that are detrimental to their health ought to pay for those choices.  After all, society often winds up paying for them when they end up sick, obese.  My question is how much does it cost society to nurse 80 year olds into their death versus a 60 year old who dies of a heart attack?  People all die eventually, what makes one way more economical than another?  Have they really figured out that it’s more expensive to die from lung cancer or liver cirrhosis than say alzheimers?  People may be thinner if they ditch a bag or two of fries, but having them live longer or healthier isn’t necessarily less of a burden to society.  It sounds terribly morbid and insensitive but is it truly less costly to society to die one way versus another?  And if they want to tax things that are detrimental to health and costly to society, the first place I want to see it applied most is gas.

Dental Update

Posted by Leaf on September 22, 2011 None comments

So you remember back in February, I went to the Virginia Center for Cosmetic & General Dentistry right by the Clarendon Metro station and they were total quacks, trying to tell me I had like 8 cavities or something? Well 6 months later, in August, I went back to my old dentist and had him check my teeth, specifically asking him to check carefully for cavities. He checked using the pokey metal prod thing and also looking at x-rays and concluded that I had none. Confirmation that this Scott B. Dudley practice is totally a bunch of scammers! My dentist for that visit wasn’t Dudley (talk about an aptonym) but another female dentist working at this shady practice. At any rate, I would steer clear of this sketchball establishment. Oh and I told my dentist they were going to fill my 8 cavities for $2,000 and he said oh yeah? I’ll do it for $1,200. So there you go. They’re sleazebuckets through and through. I can’t say enough bad things about them, I really ought to just report them to the state licensing board. And I can’t believe they had the nerve to call me to make a 6 month appointment! When I said no thanks they asked me why. Hahaha. I haven’t the time to enumerate the whys.

How to unclog a toilet

Posted by Leaf on September 13, 2011 None comments

Pour kettles and kettles of boiling water into the toilet until it clears. This one took three kettles to clear. No need for plungers or any equipment.

The Great Earthquake of 2011

Posted by Leaf on August 27, 2011 None comments

On Tuesday, we were preparing for this big meeting. I was standing in the hallway with my coworker chatting about our weekend plans with the secretary before going into the meeting room. Yes we think about the weekend on Tuesdays.

Coworker: Oh weird, did you feel that?
Secretary: Uh…no, feel what?
Me: What, you mean this? *jump up and down as hard as I can*
Coworker: Hmm.. I guess it was just…
*5.9 earthquake ensues*
In my mind I was thinking ok, we don’t get strong earthquakes in the east coast, haha! This is fun. But part of me was like what the heck?! This is not that small. I was looking around for a table to duck underneath before it stopped.

Then our meeting continues like nothing happened.

That was about it. The biggest bit of impact was that it took me 2 hours to get home versus 1 because Metro slowed their trains down to chugga chugga choo choo speeds. 15 mph. Good thing I had a book.

Big Foot

Posted by Leaf on August 19, 2011 None comments

The other day I used an online carbon footprint calculator* to figure out just how big of a footprint we cast. It’s dismally large, despite the 1 car, the small residence, the organic eating (though I do that for our personal health mostly), and the turning off the heat and a/c as much as possible to just mooch off the building (thanks neighbors!). It’s not that it doesn’t help. All of those behavioral changes do make a difference but our footprint is still giganto. About 21 metric tons a year!  (The national average is 20.4 metric tons.) So where did we go wrong? Air travel.

* I tried a few different carbon footprint calculators and found this one to be the most comprehensive in the survey.  It goes down to the recreational activities you enjoy and your shopping and dietary habits.  The one area it fell short was in air travel, they only allow 3 different trips.  I added 2 trips together (mileage-wise) to add that 4th location.  For example, a trip to Florida and St. Thomas equals about a trip and a half to California.

 

OMG! OMG!!

Posted by Leaf on July 17, 2011 3 comments

We’re getting a TRADER JOE’S!!! A TRADER JOE’s! OMG!! Ever since I’ve moved here I’ve been saying “We NEED a Trader Joe’s.” Yesterday, while on our random walkabouts, where we poke into the many random retail spaces under development, we saw a construction permit sign that said the business owner was Trader Joe’s! I nearly fell down I was so excited! Yipes! You know where to find me now. When you call me, you’ll know where I am. They’ll all be getting to know me pretty soon. Heck I should probably just work there. I think TJ’s completes the grocery store trifecta that we can walk to… Giant, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s. The only thing that would make it even more awesome would be an Asian market. I don’t see that happening though. Asian markets tend to be like big box stores, more suitable for open spaces.

To-do’s this weekend

Posted by Leaf on March 13, 2011 None comments

I have a gajillion to-do’s this weekend but the one big to-do for me was to tackle my taxes. This year, and I am so embarrassed I didn’t think of this last year, instead of doing and redoing my taxes over and over looking for the same number twice, I did it twice. Then, I compared the two to see the delta between the two and caught my errors that way. It was so much faster and I’m happy to report I have done my taxes. Every year, I drag my feet about it because it’s just tedious. Not so much difficult as a pain in the ass. To the point where I feel like geez, how about I skip the filing and you can keep my return. And every year, after completing it, I wonder why I was dreading it so much, it’s not so bad and I get some money back. Anyway, this year is the same. Glad it’s done though.

And the rest of the things on my to-do’s: return VS items at the post office – check, grocery shopping – check, packing – not yet, cleaning – not yet. That’ll be another foot dragger I’m sure. At least I don’t have to work this weekend.

I feel so silly and petty talking about my mundane activities and frivolous feelings in light of the earthquake(s) and tsunami in Japan. It’s not that I’m not aware, I’m stunned, saddened and yet just carrying on with my life. It sure does put things into perspective in terms of my silly complaints about my life. I feel very fortunate. And an ebonics-speaking boss has its endearing side.