March Summer Madness -OR- Still Seeking a New Found (Weather) Land

Overlooking Bonne Bay with Gros Morne National Park in the distance on the western coast of Newfoundland along the Gulf of St. Lawrence on a summer day, Aug. 20, 2009. Looming up in the distance on the right is an area of the park called The Tablelands.

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Happy Ides of March ...

This is my planned Wednesday night update posted not until Thursday, except I really don't have much to say tonight. 

It reached a daily record of 84F at Dulles and at daily record of 82F at DCA while BWI -- closer to a marine influence -- reached 73F, not a record. (Meanwhile, Atlantic City, N.J., only reached 52F for a high with fog and mist today. It was a real San Francisco sort of pattern.) And it needs to frickin' rain, but it won't -- endless Sterling LWX bullshit discussions notwithstanding about, well, nothing.  

(Updated 2AM, 3/16/2012: I went out tonight to Larry's Lounge and met J. and kW. The night had turned overcast, slightly foggy, and cool as a chilly maritime air mass rolled in from the east off the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean can still affect our weather in D.C. on occasion.) 

Why does it ALWAYS have to be frickin' way above normal?? It's the weather equivalent of the way the GOP and the corporate oligarchical overclass ALWAYS win every contest, election ruling, rigged outcome. 

Why can't our ever-more (anthro- pogenically) screwed up climate system break down in a good way with a partial oceanic thermo - haline shutoff, giving us more of a Newfoundland climate here?

Left: NASA Terra MODIS image of Newfoundland, July 29, 2002

That is, what we need in the mid latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere is a new, smaller Younger Dryas event, cooling the climate by about 8C.

Granted, Newfoundland's climate would be more like the misnamed Greenland's, which wouldn't be good for the folks in Newfoundland. Or Labrador.

Norris Point overlooking Bonne Bay, western coast of Newfoundland, Aug. 20, 2009.

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Anyway, I'm not going to go off on a tangent about that right now. I'm just very annoyed that -- after being screwed out of winter this year and being utterly robbed of a blizzard in Dec. 2010 that EVEN THE LOWER DELMARVA got and an overall favorable pattern -- it is likely going to be such an ugly hot, hideously humid, likely drought-plagued summer. And dumb folks everywhere will be thrilled, not to mention as ever (to borrow that great line by José Ortega y Gasset) "delighted with themselves."

Another view of the Tablelands shrouded in summer cumulus clouds as seen from Norris Point in western Newfoundland.

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St. John's, Newfoundland

St. John's is the provincial capital of Newfoundland and Labrador -- the official name of this province of Canada -- and it is probably the only place I could reside if I lived in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is a city with a population of 106,172 (as of the 2011 Census) and a metro area population of 196,966 (also as of the 2011 Census) and there is some modicum of gay life there. 

Not that this has helped me in any way here Washington, D.C., although this place has a special kind of vicious overall gay life.

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OK, that's all for now. I'm so wiped out exhausted ... I think I'm suffering from some sort of exhaustion lately. I'm home right now watching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond on TV Land.

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Colorful (colourful?) houses on a street in St. John's, Newfoundland.

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OK, and just because it was head ... specifically, the 1981 ballad by Champaign entitled "How bout us?" 

Excerpt:

"Some people can hold it together
Last through all kinds of weather
Can we ...?

"Now don't you get me wrong
(What you sayin' to me, baby?)
'Cos I'm not tryin' now
To end it all
(Let's start something new)
It's just that I have seen
(What have you seen ...?)

"Too many lover's hearts lose their dream
(We won't lose it)
Some people are made for each other
Some people can love one another for life
How 'bout us?
Some people can hold it together
Last through all kinds of weather
Can we ...?

"Some people are made for each other
Some people can love one another for life
How bout us ...?"

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Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland on Aug. 12, 2005. The mist of what is unofficially called P-ssing Mare Falls -- the highest in North America at 1,148 feet -- is visible in the distance (the missing letter is "i" -- which I have omitted lest Google safe mode not pick up my own blog).

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Oh, and of course here is another type of Newfoundland.

OK, that's all for now. My next planned update will be over the weekend.

--Regulus

First 80F Day of the Year -OR- The Unofficial Start of a Long, Ghastly D.C. Summer

This entry was revised / updated at 830AM 3/14/2012

Sue "Snake Eyes" Palka and the Sterling crew's favorite weather, climate, and environmental / ecological conditions. This is also GOP Water World.

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It was a grossly warm March day this past Tuesday (the 13th) in the D.C. area with highs reaching 80F+ including 81F at National Airport (DCA) and 80F at both BWI Airport and Dulles Airport (IAD). It was the hottest day at DCA since Oct. 10, 2011 (83F).

Say, look, it's Wall-P's physical and moral "Master of the Universe" look-a-like.

However, these highs were  not daily records at any of the three climate stations because of an OBSCENELY hot day (part of an equally disgusting hot several days) in 1990, which NOT coincidentally was the year when the Yoshino Japanese cherry blossoms had their earliest "official" opening ever (March 15th). The daily records on March 13, 1990 were 87F at DCA and IAD and 85F at BWI.

Well do I remember that heat wave.

The Yoshinos are not yet out ... while the saucer magnolias are at full floral peak.

The saucer magnolias of the Enid Haupt Garden at the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., 6:32PM, March 12, 2012. This was yesterday and I was taking a circuitous way from work to the Metro (Smithsonian station). The tourists are starting to descend on the city in large numbers as well.

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My favorite blossom in the D.C. area is the double-flowering kwanzan cherry, another type of Japanese flowering cherry tree. The name "Kwanzan" is a corruption of the Japanese word "Kanzan."

Here is an image of some Kwanzan cherry blossoms I took last year at New Hampshire Ave. and S Street NW, 3:11PM, April 17, 2011.

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Yes, D.C. at floral spring peak is a truly lovely time of year -- provided it isn't too goddamn hot and the vegetative cycle is accelerated and ruined. As it is, there is no end in sight to this hot spring weather, which will thrill and delight the usual familiar and depressing suspects, though it may rain by Friday.

NWS forecast panel for Washington, D.C., valid 14 - 20 March 2012.

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The record highs for the prior day, March 12th, were also set in 1990 and were even higher including - 89F at DCA and 89F at IAD while BWI reached 86F. The IAD reading tied its all-time monthly record of 89F (also reached on the 30th in 1998).

The all-time March DCA record -- actually, a pre-DCA Washington, D.C., record -- was 93F on March 23, 1907 -- and the all-time BWI record -- actually, a pre-BWI Baltimore, Md., record -- was 90F on March 29, 1945. This alludes to the fact that the full Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md., records go back to 1871 whereas DCA and BWI have been the climate stations only since 1941 and 1950, respectively. The NWS does not differentiate but I like to because the airport spots have distinct microclimates from the earlier downtown locations. Dulles has a single location continuous record back to 1963.

Of note, in Washington, D.C., it has reached 90F or higher three times in March -- all in 1907 including the aforementioned 93F on the 23rd, 90F on the 22nd, and 92F on the 29th. Again, see here. Yet looking back at the full temperature record here, March 1907 only averaged 48.8F, which is just 2.0F above the stated March normal of 46.8F and not even in the top 10 warmest Marches. Odd.

The Baltimore record of 90F in 1945 was the only time it ever reached 90F in March.

The first 13 days of March 2012 is averaging  a whopping +8.2F above normal at BWI, +7.8F above normal at DCA and +7.3F at IAD. This follows an abnormally warm winter in the region of about +5F for the climate period Dec. 1, 2011 - Feb. 29th. Of note, these figures are taken from the preliminary monthly totals and the averages / departures are for the first 13 days, not the full month, hence they won't yet match up with the overall March average.

Long story short, it promises to be a ghastly torrid summer -- the sort that gets WOODY! the Woodcock; the Sterling pet Palka - cabra creature; and the ridiculous Doug Hill thrilled. Ditto the region's clueless population, which in binary style prefers hotter and drier to cooler and wetter.

Even better, I suspect the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy (VRWC) will manage to delude the corporate-whoring media punditry that it is actually "proof" of global cooling and why we need to DRILL, BABY, DRILL! in ANWR. What a crude, silly, and vulgar political culture.

Maybe even AIPAC, Wolf Blitzer, the WaHoPo editorial and op-ed brothel, and the farrago of neocons imperialists, fundie evangelicals dying for Armageddon, and the mega-billion dollar military-industrial-media war profiteers can use this fact to whip up the country into a WAR WITH IRAN NOW! frenzy.

Rick Santorum Wins Mississippi and Alabama GOP Primaries, Western Civilization Takes Giant Leap Forward

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Anyway, long story short, I hate summer in Washington, D.C.

Ha ha

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OK, that's all. I apologize that I didn't have any genuinely new images for this entry. I may post a new update tomorrow night.

Oh, yes, don't forget that the closet conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in the western evening sky in 2012 in North America is tonight (March 14th).

--Regulus

Barking Dogs and Singing Robots -OR- Marching from Sun Time

A German Shepherd dog (also called an Alsatian) looks out from on a mountain overlook somewhere in the Bavarian Alps. This captivating picture came from the Wikipedia article on German Shepherd dogs.

The same article includes this adorable yet slightly disturbing picture of a cute little boy and a German Shepherd dog along with just off camera someone who is probably the baby's father. That part of the article and accompanying picture was trying to make the point that "GSDs" are extremely loyal (and territorial) to their (human family) pack.

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Not much to say today. My work week ended up being OK except I wasn't as productive on one of my two main tasks involving grant management support and compliance. Last night I did what I usually do and went to Nellie's.

The NWS forecast panel -- icons and text -- for Washington, D.C., for the upcoming week.

The weather pattern here sucks -- nothing but endless frickin' early March sunshine, somewhat on the coolish side (high around 48F), and dry, dry, dry when we need abundant rainfall going into spring and the hellish overheated swamp that is Washington, D.C., in summer time.

I blame WOODY! the Woodcock and the Sue Palka-cabra creature for our malignant weather pattern.

The elm tree located across the street from my building is starting to bud in earnest. Trees in the city bloom a few weeks earlier than their suburban / exurban counterparts, I assume because of the heat island effect. This is in front of the backside of the Brittany and is the 2000 block of New Hampshire Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., 2:37PM, March 10, 2012.

It's supposed to warm up to near 75F by midweek. That will propel the Yoshino cherry blossoms into floral peak by the first day of astronomical spring. The saucer magnolias are already in bloom.

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Continuing with the bitchy theme ...

Here is a photo of Mr. Sirius waking up in a foul mood after a night earning LESS THAN $500 in tips. He was SUCH a bitch.

Ha ha

Actually, this is beautiful male bull mastiff with fawn coat named "Ferguson" whose picture I found on line (in another Wikipedia article, specifically, one about the bull mastiff).

Speaking of bull mastiffs, here is a scanned image of a photograph I have posted before of my dad and me when I was 7 years old with our bull mastiff dog "Borky" in the dinning room of the house at 368 Kirby Avenue in Long Branch, N.J., where we lived. This picture was taken in 1977.

She was a good dog.

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As for Mr. Sirius, the Consigliere of the D.C. gay cosa nostra, and his "business associate" (and Caporegime of same mafia)  Ooooza the Unloved crow creature, I never see them. 

More noteworthy, the former's visits to this blog have stopped (conveniently, if not suspiciously, just BEFORE my March 4th entry). I suspect he has gone back to his other untraceable way of viewing this blog and my other one that was set up by a family member. That's fine with me.

Here he is standing like Janus, the Roman god of gates and doors, comings and goings, and beginnings and endings -- albeit looking oddly thin, but it was immediately post-break up -- outside his inner sanctum and bar domain during last year's (2011) D.C. Gay High Holy Day, the day of the stupid annual pride march. (Yes, he knew I was there.) 

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A Wall-P Musical and Poetry Reading Interlude

No entry would be complete without a Wall-P interlude. Therefore, I give you Wall-P's Music and Poetry in Motion in which Wall-P sings some great musical standards and reads a poem and the vows from his upcoming wedding ceremony marital contractual agreement. 

We begin with Wall-P singing in his Judy Garland style her unforgettable ballad, Somewhere Over the Rainbow:

"Eh. Eh. Eheh. Eheheh. Eh. Eh. EhEh .... Eh."

Moves you to tears, doesn't it? 

Next up, Wall-P will sing Anita Baker's enchanting Caught Up in the Rapture, performing it to his June bride:

"Eh. Eh. Eh. Eh. Eheheh. Eheh. Eh. Eheh. Eh. Eh."

Wall-P will now sing the great Big Band era standard Chattanooga Choo Choo in his best Tex Beneke style:

"Eh. Eh. Eh. Eheh. Eh. Eh. Gimme a shine. Eheh. Eh. Eh. Eh. Eheh."

We now move on to the poetry reading part of the concert. We begin with Wall-P reciting a Javanese (or is it a Navajo??) love poem for same betrothed:

"Eh. Eh. Eh. Eh. Eheheheheheh. Dow was up for the week. Eh. Positive asset flow. Eh."

And we wrap up this concert with Wall-P reciting his wedding vows:

"Eh. Eh. Eh. Prenuptial agreement. Eh. Eh. Party of the first party. Eh. Enters into agreement with party of the second party. Eh. Eh. Indemnification. Eh. Eh --"

I'm sorry, Wall-P, to cut you off, but we're out of time. Speaking of that prenuptial agreement, below is an early draft copy:

This does not yet include the appendices containing legal citations, terms of use, ten years' worth of tax documents, and the past five years' worth of Consumer Reports.

Oh, Wall-P, when will people start recognizing their failures and your successes??

"Eh. Eh. Iswhatitis."

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Update from the Department of Money Talks & Bullshit Walks

I just paid my rent ($1,054) and I'm low on money, as I will be the next pay period when I make (along with my cable, internet, and cellphone bills) the final (5th) installment of the legal agreement that gets rid of the 3rd of the 5 outstanding / defaulted credit card debts. I'm slowly paying off a fourth one slowly and the fifth one for $3,000 (an old Macy's account) is still in limbo.

As for my $220,000 worth of student loans, that is in a forbearance with the Direct Loan program and I intend to take another year-long forbearance. Next pay period has an 18 day span until -- I get paid twice a month on the 10th and 25th, unless those dates fall on a weekend or holiday and then it is moved forward.

Assuming my Federal and D.C. tax refunds arrive, I will actually have an extra $1,300 -- which I was going to use to pay my rent a month early and then take the "savings" the following month to FINALLY rejoin the gym. At least that's the plan.

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Time for Daylight Scamming

Lastly, it's that annual time for frickin' "Daylight Savings Time" with the clocks "springing ahead" one hour at 2AM Sunday, thus shortening the weekend by an hour.

Daylight savings time was designed for an American (and British) hybrid of moralistic and commercial reasons that -- whatever else you may say about it -- has NOTHING to do with "saving energy."

Long story short, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH STANDARD OR "SUN" TIME.

We DO NOT need to "jump ahead" a stupid hour for now 8 months of the year, and be given a bullshit reason.

Pretty soon we will be on daylight savings time year-round and then there will be the need for another hour adjustment for part of the year as a "super daylight savings" time and we will be given some bullshit reason for that.

Designed to help the corporate overclass amass more money through some Goldman Sachs - run asset bubble Ponzi scheme, it will be christened "American Patriots and Family Values Gathering Time" or something stupid like that.

You can sell that bullshit to Americans ALL DAY LONG.

As for the daylight savings time reminder, like clockwork we were sent an e-mail that included a comment on how we should be appreciative because it "saves energy." I am actually going to mention this to the COO -- he works in the same office as me and is a very nice guy. I doubt this will change the e-mail message next year.

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Lest we end on a bad note ...

A lovely image of snow-capped forested mountains towering above a lakeside house near the remote hamlet of Heron, Montana (is there any other kind of hamlet in Montana??).

Meet me in Montana, Chris?

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OK, that's all for now. My next planned update will be on Monday or Tuesday.

--Regulus

Under the March Moon Evening Sky

A very nearly Full (Worm) Moon rising in the east at dusk as seen from a back alley between 19th and 18th Streets NW next to California Street NW, Washington, D.C., 6:24PM, March 7, 2012.

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This is the entry that I started last night but it simply got too late and I couldn't finish it. I'm home on this Wednesday night* watching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond (and later new episodes of Hot in Cleveland and Happily Divorced) on TV Land.

*I posted the entry after midnight on Thursday, March 8th.

I was doing the same thing last night -- I'm in one of my Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday night periods when I (try to) stay in totally (this week I have been successful). Last night, though, I was also occasionally flipping over to MSNBC watching the "Super Tuesday" election night returns.

I noted how close the race was between Sanatorium and Willard Mitt Romney Thurston Howell III, with Crazy Newt huffing and puffing crazy things in his "home" state of Jaw-juh that he won easily. In the end, Thurston Willard won by about 1 percent or just over 10,000 votes of the 1.2 million cast (37.9% to 37.1%) over Santorum.

Here is an image showing the results of the March 6,2012 Ohio Republican primary:

Click on image for larger version. 

It was noted on MSNBC that the Romney campaign and its post-Citizens United "Super-PACs" -- the kind that titillate George F. Will as the penultimate expression of freedom -- outspent Romney by 12 to 1 in the state, plus he wasn't even on the ballot in all parts of the state.

I then noted in my entry last night (when it was still too close to call) that maybe this will be one of those things where this or that county official "finds" 8,500 extra votes from inside the Diebold machine. Only this time, it's pitting GOP'er versus GOP'er.

This is just the modern day American equivalent of ballot box stuffing.

Most importantly, I commented on the idea -- embraced by two of the heavy hitters on the MSNBC panel including Lawrence O'Donnell and Chris Matthews -- that it would be a good thing if Santorum is the Republican nominee -- something that is exceedingly unlikely -- because it would lead to a GOP wipe out in November and force the Republican Party, which now resembles more of a Koch Brothers-funded cult, to do "soul searching" and (eventually) return to a more moderate position.

I disagree.

Having Santorum that close to the presidency and all that this would entail if he won ...

... as opposed to a garden variety socially moderate, politically ineffectual corporate billionaire oligarch such as Willard Mitt Romney ...

... is something to which I am risk averse. Rachel Maddow, taking a break from the abortion wars, disagreed as well. She said that instead, the Republican "rump" would be more radicalized. I agree with her. That's exactly what happened after 2006 and 2008.

Furthermore, America is a half-baked nutty country when it comes to this hysterical religiosity -- whether the fundie Protestant or rightwing kooky Catholic sort -- and concomitant "family values" gibbering talk (or at least half of it is). Add to that the severe economic stress of the past 4 years, it is simply too dangerous to risk putting a Santorum whack-job this close to the actual presidency.

The image below -- a screenshot of the New York Times online front page earlier Wednesday -- contains an overview of all last night's primary and caucus results:

Click on image for larger version

Santorum continues to do well in the low-population interior; Romney does well in the more thickly populated areas and among the GOP affluent; Gingrich as a bit of a Southern base; and Ron Paul is just a walking Ayn Rand-spouting muppet.

Here is map of the Republican presidential primary season 2012 results by state through Super Tuesday, March 6, 2012.

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Oh, yes, as another follow-up to the Limbaugh "women on birth control are sluts and prostitutes" affair and his rhetorical violence directed against Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke ...

The tally of advertisers who have fled his 3-hour daily rightwing fat-and-hate fest is 45. That seems like a fairly high number but I don't know how many sponsors he actually has. I think the bigger issue is getting his rightwing hate speech off of the Armed Forces Network. It simply does not belong in that particularly kind of media outlet. If you like him that much, watch his streaming crap online.

Also, all the usual rightwing suspects -- from "Bill'O the Clown" and the Faux News lesser clowns to Ralph "Casino Scam Artist" Reed -- have lined up to defend Rush, while the leading GOP candidate Willard Mitt Romney is incapable of saying anything.

But what I found most interesting is that some outfit called "We Stand With Rush" has been set up -- some online Koch Brother-funded Astroturf appendage of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy machine. Yes, "We Stand With Rush." Or was it, "We Stand With a Vulgar and Stupid Sack of Fat Shit"??

As it is, I agree with the convention wisdom in this case: I fail to see how there is national electoral gold in having the front spokesperson of the GOP attack women in such a denigrating way while the party re-fights battles settled decades ago.

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On a related note ...

Ha ha

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Cloud Rolls, Shelves, and Walls ...

The following has nothing to do with the rest of the entry but it was originally supposed to be the lead image. However, I got a bit carried away and posted additional cloud images ...

This is a picture of a particularly scary-looking but basically harmless* roll cloud (also called an "arcus cloud") taken aboard a container ship while en route from Paranagua, Brazil to Montevideo, Uruguay. This was the Feb. 29, 2012 Earth Science Picture of the Day (not to be confused with the Astronomy Picture of the Day).

*OK, you wouldn't want to be in a small plane flying into it. The arcus cloud is actually created by the powerful downdraft of a thunderstorm with the cloud having detached from the main storm itself and sort of rolling / tumbling along a horizontal axis as it moves outward. If the cloud has not completely detached, it is known as a shelf cloud.

You should not confuse the shelf or the arcus clouds with the wall cloud that is associated with a violent / tornadic thunderstorm.

A dramatic looking shelf cloud with an approaching thunderstorm over Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, Dec. 7, 2007.

A wall cloud with cloud-to-ground lightning near Miami, Texas, June 19, 1980.

That was the year of one the hottest summers-- if not to this day still THE hottest summer -- in Texas. And I came down from New Jersey to Texas to visit my mom for about a month and a half. Her husband, my step dad Ray, was stationed at Fort Hood and they were living that summer in Copperas Cove.

Then of course there is a Wall-P cloud but it just exists in a super-saturated milieu of huge income levels, nonstop client calls, and corporate legal synergies.

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The urban-residential backstreet intersection of Biltmore and 20th Streets NW in the Kalorama section of Washington, D.C., 6:13PM, March 7, 2012.

I got off the Metro at Woodley Park this evening and walked home.

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Dusk 1850 Mintwood Place NW, Washington, D.C., 6:17PM, March 7, 2012

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Another view of the Full Moon rising at deepening blue dusk -- taken with my less than outstanding cellphone camera -- looking east from the 1700 block of V Street NW, Washington, D.C., 6:29PM, March 7, 2012.

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Last picture ...

Here is a picture of my plush babies o' love including my plush hippos Flippo (the blue hippo) and Harvey (the dark gray hippo) last night. They sort of recline on my bed (unless they fly around the room).

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OK, that's all for now. My next update planned update will not be until the weekend.

--Regulus