theparkerfamily.org

Month: February 2011

  • found: static electricity

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  • out: walter pierce park

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    ohthankgod.

    it’s a balmy 49º out today, so sparklet and i got the heck outside. neither of us do particularly well (with each other) when we’re stuck inside each and every afternoon for three months, so its a #$&*#%ing relief to get even a little bit of running and sliding in.

    sparklet must have cycled through walter pierce park’s slides two dozen times in the half hour we were there. by the end, her hair was standing on end from the accumulated static electricity from the slides.

    wow, i can’t wait for spring.

  • the talimos

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    we’ve been stinked out of our place for the next two days while the painters come through and undo the chromatic damage we did to our walls in the last four years.

    fortunately, the talimos are the most awesome people on the planet and took us in — providing us a steady stream of friends, food and wine to help assuage the pain of every bit of character being stripped from our walls.

    i’ll spare the details to protect the innocent and prevent retaliation from PETFG (people for the ethical treatment of fermented grapes) but i will say there was a bolognese sauce involved at one point that i would consider jail time in exchange for the recipe.

  • packing crate

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    it’s snowing — which isn’t particularly conducive to packing a moving crate, nor preserving the finish of the lady sparkler’s favorite chair, nor the structural integrity of cardboard boxes.

    i’ve lost track of exactly how many boxes i’ve packed, through i’m guessing it’s in the 75-80 range. that, when coupled with seven chairs, three tables, two book cases and a dresser, it’s enough to both fill up a crate and remind me why i vowed not six years ago to never move myself ever again.

    a handyman came today to fix the sink damaged three years ago when our medicine cabinet fell off the wall, the painters come tomorrow to utterly crush my self-esteem/will-to-live, and the few pieces of “staging” furniture arrived this weekend.

    and then we list on Tuesday.

  • “This is Major Tom to Ground Control …”

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    photo of the week // sixteen months

  • lynnbrook.org

    as part of the sale, i’ve created a brochure-ware site for our building — i doubt i can get it onto the first page of google results for us, but it’s worth a shot.
    The Lynnbrook
    http://www.lynnbrook.org/

  • more real estate

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    another batch of prospective houses, and another batch of prospective houses that are just waaay over priced for the market.

    back in mid-January we looked at a couple of places (3300 block of 17th Street NW, 2000 block of Klingle Road NW) and they were both just ridiculously overpriced. we like one well enough to reach out to the opposing real estate agent, but the current owners were in a financial position that they couldn’t bring the price down closer to market value.

    this past weekend we looked at two more places (both 3200 block of Walbridge Place NW) and again, both were asking for more than the value we saw in the place. again, we liked one of the places enough to enquirer about it — but we just weren’t within each others ballpark on price.

    it seems like a lot of people who bought at the peak of the market are still trying to get all their money out, even though the current market just won’t give it to them.

    and so we sit.

  • found: awesomeness

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  • twitter saves the day, again

    I’m starting to think the office tweeter is the most powerful person in any bureaucracy.

    The internet is littered with stories about regular people getting their offline problems solved after complaining to corporations online.

    Heck, we did the same thing in the aftermath of a certain automobile recall last year.

    Turns out that corporate tweeters aren’t he only ones saving the day — the District government social media teams are jumping in, too.

    Our permit application to park a mobile storage container on city street this weekend mysteriously stalled earlier this week, and all of the lady sparklers efforts ended up in voicemail-laden dead ends.

    So, late last night I tweeted to the Districts official Department of Transportation account.

    hey, @DDOTDC – we have a POD permit app that’s been stalled/ignored for a week. who can help fix tmrw before it’s delivered this weekend?

    By 11:00 pm, I had an email address for the guy behind the twitter account, asking for details on our problem.

    By 7:30 am, I was CC’ed on an email from him, forwarding our problem on to a team of people to solve.

    By 8:30 am, the lady sparkler got a call on her cell phone from someone from DDOT saying they would clear everything up for us within the hour.

    At 9:04, my wife had the permit in her hot little hands.

    I don’t know how much of this little bit of awesomeness was caused by the social media phenomenon in general, or the epic person behind @DDOTDC in particular, or about just tunneling through the bureaucracy to find the actual human beings inside.

    Either way, whatever is responsible — thank you.

  • transit is like soo 2008

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    I’m commuting by public transit today — for the first time since the Bush II administration.

    Public transit isn’t especially kind to me these days.

    I’ve got 3 bus lines and a metro stop within 10 minutes of my door, but it takes a little under 70 minutes to actually use them to get to work.

    … which does not compare favorably to the 22 minutes it takes me to get to the office by car.

    … even if that office is a major conservation organization (we’re Eco-friendly, not Eco-crazy).

    I digress.

    We’re getting a POD (portable storage container) delivered to the house on Saturday, just in time to have our M.O.H. spend the weekend helping is pack.

    Unfortunately, the District hasn’t seemed particularly interested in giving us a permit (in a timely manner, at least) to park the POD on city streets.

    … which means we can’t put up emergency no parking signs asking people not to park where we need to put the POD.

    … which means we’re using the car to block off that space.

    … which means I’m commuting by public transit, regardless of fact that it increases my daily commute time by 416%.

    If there is a silver lining, it’s that I’m actually listening to music that I bought three months ago (Sara Barellies, The Killers, Arcade Fire) that I haven’t been alone with my MP3 player long enough to listen to.

    That, and I have plenty of time to blog about things that I would have otherwise completely ignored.