Clean out the old stuff her mother left behind
Souvenir plates hang on the wall, some missing
Rings of dust reveal outlines of past relics
Photos from another era abandoned to decay
The overgrown backyard is ruled by lizards and weeds
Flowers bloom and plantains dangle from the trees
Casa Sierra is alive once again, if only for the moment
A snapshot of when the past meets the present
Clean it out, flip it soon.
Sell it quick so doesn’t end up empty and alone.
“Man down, man down”
I was doing so well
A handful of brake is all it takes
To slide out
Crashing to the concrete floor
Jarred back to life
Bikes whizzing by
A dizzying blur
Wrap the chain back on the crank
Grease-stained fingers
Gotta keep going
Do not give up
Get back on and finish
10th place
Not what I hoped
Disappointment sets in
Blood flows
Adrenaline wears off
Pain takes hold
No skin to protect me
Exposed to the hurt
Exposed to the world
Truly vulnerable
Lessons learned
When you fall
Get up
Keep going
Wounds are superficial
Comfort in healing,
In time
Scars are but a reminder
Of what we endured,
Of how strong we are.
Washington, D.C. was shut down on January 21, 2014 after getting between 5-8 inches of snow. I went out into my neighborhood of LeDroit Park and snapped a few photos.
Words and Photos by M.L. Huisman —
On Friday, Dec. 20, my friends Ian Buchanan and Ryan Reid roasted an 80-pound pig. It was their third time roasting a whole pig but their first using the caja china method, an aboveground roasting box. Ian and Ryan engineered a box out of cinder blocks, lined it with aluminum foil and capped the structure with an ⅛-inch steel sheet.
The day before Ian and I picked up the pig from a butcher near Manchaca, Texas. Back at Ft. Lott, the pig was rinsed, dried and had its spine split to allow it to be placed on a rack. It was then injected with mojo a mixture of cumin, oregano and other spices with orange and lemon juice. The liquid flavor is injected on the meat side so as not to pierce the skin.
On Friday afternoon, the pig was put on a rack built with 2x4s and chicken wire. A fire built on the metal roof serves as the heat source for the caja china. After five hours Ryan and Ian flipped the pig, scored the skin and cooked it an additional hour and a half. Once free from the rack, it didn’t take long for the hungry crowd to descend on the pig.
In mid April, I wrote the District of Columbia Transportation Department about concerns I had regarding a section of the Pennsylvania Avenue bridge that crosses the Rock Creek Parkway. I cross the bridge two times a day as part of my bike commute to and from work. During the first few months of this year, I noticed that the height difference between the eastern-most section of the bridge where it meets the road was growing. Given the news of a bridge collapse in Washington state, I figured it would be timely to publish DDOT’s letter in full.
Dear Mr. Huisman,
We at the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) have received your message regarding the stability of the bridge along Pennsylvania Avenue.
The bridge is safe. The reason the bridge is appearing to sag is due to the support bearings having settled slightly. This condition will be addressed in a forthcoming rehabilitation project which will replace the aging bearings. In the interim a temporary asphalt transition will be placed to soften the bump by the end of June 2013, until permanent repairs are made.
Regarding the gap you mentioned. All bridges are built in this manner there is a rubber joint which separates one concrete slab from another on bridges. It’s an expansion Joint between the bridge deck and the hard street approach.
For further questions regarding this matter, please contact DDOT at 202-673-6813. Thank you for contacting DDOT.
d. Clearinghouse
stm
Updated 6/15/13
I love pinball. It has been a hobby of mine since I was a boy. I grew up playing Space Mission and have always sought out machines wherever I lived.
However, I was disappointed to find that once I moved to Washington, D.C. there seemed to be an absence of pinball culture. The “pinball museum” was even forced to move to Baltimore. That leaves only a sporadic gathering of games across town. With this in mind, I decided to create an unofficial database of pinball machine locations so that others like myself might be able to enjoy this game of skill. I will update locations and machines as they are brought to my attention.
Machine : Location
Big Buck Hunter Pro : Solly’s Tavern – 1942 11th St N.W. – At $1 a play, this is a pricey, but clean machine.
Medieval Madness : Board Room – 1737 Connecticut Ave. N.W. – Machine is in excellent condition. Machine was removed for repair.
The Lord of the Rings : Penn Social – 801 E Street N.W.
The Getaway : Black Cat – 1811 14th Street N.W.
The Sopranos : Iron Horse Tap Room – 507 7th Street N.W. – Weak left flipper that freezes on you occasionally.
Rollercoaster Tycoon Pirates of the Caribbean: Rocket Bar – 714 7th Street N.W. – New machine, but $1 a play makes it pricey.
Family Guy : Kelly’s Irish Times – 14 F Street N.W.
The Sopranos: MIG Bar – 2226 18th St NW
I will provide updates as needed.
I am a harbinger of the weather anomalies. This week’s double-whammy earthquake and Hurricane Irene invoked memories of past weather instances. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that dramatic changes in my life have been exemplified by dramatic weather.
The earliest coincidence dates back to 2008 when I took my first full-time reporting job with The Observer Newspaper, a group of weekly papers in northeast Harris County. No more than two weeks after I start at the paper, then Houston is hammered by Hurricane Ike. The category 4 hurricane made landfall at Galveston Island where a friend of mine was studying at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He evacuated the island and headed up to my casa in suburbia to weather out the storm. At about 2 a.m. the hurricane knocked out the power and it wouldn’t be restored until 12 days later. It’s the only time I’ve ever grilled a frozen pizza barbecue style and finished a game of Risk.
In 2009, I left Texas to pursue a master’s degree at Columbia University School of Journalism. The day I landed in New York City was the hottest day of the summer. And while I balked at the New York definition of “hot” I could not deny the thunderstorm that rocked the city a week later, downing hundred-year-old trees in Central Park and sending New Yorkers scrambling for cover.
I left New York City in August 2010 on a road trip to the west coast, with layovers in Austin and Tucson. Our arrival in Tucson was coincidentally the coolest day of the summer. It even rained on us as we were hiking among the Saguaro cacti, a rarity in a city referred to as the Sunshine Factory.
The one recent exception could my brief stint with the Local News Service, a defunct operation of the Star-Ledger. Although, when I left the state in December after I was laid-off, a massive snow storm proceeded to bury New Jersey. The garden state got off light.
I landed an internship with the Dallas Morning News in early January. Naturally, Snowpocalypse v2.0 shut down the city for a day. Fastfoward to the end of June when I visited my home in Austin. The day I arrived was the only day of measurable rain during what is set to be the hottest summer on record.
Lastly – and I realize this whole post has been grasping straws – is my arrival at my latest job, which I hope to have for at least a year or two, at The National Law Journal / Legal Times. Although I started almost two months ago, the hurricane/earthquake combo will hopefully be the last phenomenon for a while. Although, since things come in threes, I wonder what will complete the trifecta of natural disaster.
I got a call from the AP on Thursday, confirming the dateline on my story about Bart Forbes, the Plano artist who designed the Ronald Reagan centennial stamp for the U.S. Postal Service. The story ran again that weekend on the AP’s weekend wire. You can read it at the Dallas Morning News’ website.
When Bart Forbes got a call from the U.S. Postal Service asking him to design the commemorative stamp honoring President Ronald Reagan’s centennial birthday, the Plano artist couldn’t say no.
The request was simple but the task complex: show the casual side of the 40th president in just a square inch. But with about 20 such stamp designs under his belt, Forbes, 70, was prepared. Read more…
ROCKAWAY TOWNSHIP — Perched thousands of feet above Wildcat Ridge, Fred Vanderburgh and Kevin McCarthy scan the skies for hawks during the birds’ fall migration south, calling out different species and recording the counts on a small clipboard. Read more…
Less than three weeks after starting with the Star-Ledger’s Local News Service, I had one of my stories featured as the main story on the front page. I was quite surprised to arrive at the office and find my story printed with such prominent play.