Hey local high school kids.....

...When you try to break into a condo, that has a fair amount of upstanding people, including atleast one person who is a federal agent, and another who works for MPD, you might run into some jail issues.

If those three kids who broke our drive in gate, and broke into one car, and came back later to try to break into a unit, and when they developer came to chase you off, you ran, and threw a rock through his window, are reading this, why don't you go be a productive member of society?  I didn't go to school, and I still am at a point where I bought a place at age 24.  You want to know how I did it?  Well it wasn't through a life of crime, attempting to steal things to get the things I wanted.  Instead, I went and got a job, I worked hard, and saved until I could afford what I wanted.  Theft, will get you no where, except where you have already been.  Crime is cyclical, so why start.

River East Walmart.....

Supporters of Walmart coming to the Anacostia area, are seriously underestimating the impact that Walmart will have on the neighborhood. Walmarts only pay their employees enough to really shop at Walmart. Thus they create an company store type situation. This also leads to the neighborhoods seeing economic decline, with less money going to smaller "mom & pop" type stores, and more money going to Walmart, thus forcing the employees of the "mom & pop" store to shop at the Walmart, until nothing is left but Walmart. While the prospect of bringing in a giant box store seems nice to a neighborhood initially, it has long lasting economic effects that are devastating.

Plus any attempt of the employees of Walmarts to unionize, for better wages, or conditions have been met with hostility, and eventual store closings, siting loss of profitability.

On top of that, Walmarts demands for lower bulk pricing, often pushes manufacturers to sell their goods for less than cost, and this in turn cripples manufacturing jobs to the point where at least one company has gone under.

Walmart should have no place in America, let alone Anacostia. Lets do our best to keep them out!

8% average increase in MPG

So I just read this article:

http://ecogeek.org/automobiles/2960-august-marked-highest-new-car-average-mpg

That's a good bit of news, even 8% increases are significant, though it would be nice to see higher averages than the 23 MPG that we have now attained. Hopefully we will see greater increases in full economy in the near future.

Hey DC government, people ride bicycles in SE too....

Based on the status of the bike paths, and routes in SE, you would think that DC government does not believe that the people of SE ride bicycles. The path along Suitland Parkway is crumbling, and covered in broken glass and overgrowth. The bike path up over the 11th Street bridge is covered in trash, is so narrow that you can barely put one bike down it, and has such a low guardrail between it and the cars whizzing by on the bridge that if you fell over, you would be roadkill shortly.

It seems like it would benefit the city to enable people to bike to work/around town, as it would reduce the number of cars on the road, plus the city should be interested in reducing their carbon footprint.

Warning, A small rant follows.

I do not understand how many of the residents of Anacostia think that it is acceptable to just toss litter into the streets. Do they not live here as well? I can not imagine the thought process of an individual, who does not have an issue with living in a neighborhood that is scattered with candy wrappers, and smashed glass. I understand that a completely litter-less society is not a realistic view of the world, but one would think that people would take an effort to not toss trash everywhere.

ARGH....