Ride Home 4/11: Feather Bedlam

If this blog were a screenplay and if that screenplay were optioned by George Lucas and if that movie was made had the full weight of the Industrial Light and Magic special effects team dedicated to it, I'm not sure that it would make any money. However, if instead, George Lucas made a movie where all of the statuary in DC came to life and maybe fought aliens for reasons that are yet to elaborated, I'd very much like to see the fight scene in which Tomas Masaryk and Mahatma Gandhi (both of whom I pass on Massachusetts Avenue) team up to punch some martians in the face. All of which to say, is that was a fairly standard evening commute and nothing especially remarkable happened.
Oh, I was also going to title this post "Submariners prefer dive bars" because I think that's kind of funny, though maybe not original.
I got stuck in too high a gear at the bottom of the hill on Mass and I had to push extra hard to get myself up to speed so as to not get run over by the car behind me. Mission accomplished, though not in the Iraq sort of way. (Back to that statues come alive movie: I feel like our statue army would be really top heavy. Lots of generals, but not that many foot soldiers. I don't know if this would make our forces really tactical or create a "too many cooks" sort of situation, but that's for the screenwriters to figure out. Also, yeah, I am sort of ripping off that Simpsons halloween episode where all of Springfield's advertising mascots come alive. But plagiarism is the most popular -ism in Hollywood, except for maybe communism. Anyway, the dramatic ending to the movie would clearly be Abraham Lincoln standing up or something and giving some kind of rousing speech. But I digress.)
It's tremendously unfun to bike on Q street by the Dupont metro entrance. I only realize how unfun it is when I compare it to biking everywhere else, which is vastly better.
Did you know that the Diamond Cab was founded in 1926? I learned that from the sign on the outside of their building. That's more than more than 85 years of not driving people to Southeast. Zing.
A tour bus blocked the intersection of Mass and 11th and that apparently blocked the view of the light of a man driving a Range Rover, who proceeded across the intersection even though he had a red light. Glad I was paying attention. Tip: paying attention is a pretty good idea.
I take back ever writing anything about how useless the New York Avenue bike lanes are. They appear to be extremely useful and I see bicyclists using them all the times. This is an official Tales From The Sharrows retraction.
Tourists be trippin' (get it?)
I rode up the inferior House side of the Capitol today. I just don't like it as much as the Senate side. This is a completely asinine preference. I think there might even be fewer people on that side and the House side actually has bike racks, whereas the Senate side merely has spittoons. Ok, technically neither side has spittoons. Uncivilized.
I rode down Pennsylvania and it was sort of harrowing, but only sort of. At the intersection of Pennsylvania and Independence, I watched a police officer approach a vehicle that was blocking the intersection, perhaps to write the driver a ticket. He was a bike officer, but approached on foot. I wonder if the driver got a ticket or merely a warning.
I stopped at Hill's Kitchen to engage in charitable commerce, giving friend of the blog Kate a button in exchange for 5 US American dollars. Hand deliveries are much preferred to mailing (more money goes to WABA that way), so if you want to arrange this kind of exchange when you buy your button(s), let me know. It was a pleasure meeting her (I've never met anyone who purchased a button and thought "who is this creep!?" which I believe is a referendum on your collective niceness of not my politesse)
From there it was a pretty easy route home up South Carolina and then 15th. It's a slightly different approach from the one I normally take, but variety is the spice of life. And the trade magazine that I hope will get my statue movie green-lighted.