A Quarter Million in Debt in 2009; A Total Solar Eclipse in 2017

A stunning contrast between stratocumlus / nimbostratus clouds with rain showers falling from the, illuminated by the low-angled Sun in the southwest as seen at the corner of U and 16th Streets, NW, and New Hampshire Ave., NW, Washington, D.C., 4:09PM, Nov. 5, 2009.

That is my apt. building (the larger brick one).

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So I'm in the process of trying to consolidate my Citibank Stafford student loans, which I ran up during my public policy school, into my existing Direct Loans consolidated loan with the Dept. of Education. My current Direct Loans one represents the combined consolidated total of all my schooling (undergrad and grad) prior to policy school all the way back to 1988.

I prefer Direct Loans both operationally (they're easier to deal with in terms of deferments and forbearances) and ideologically (for-profit banks should not be involved in the publicly-backed student loan racket, making billions on it when the money is really coming from and backed by the Federal Government).

Another stunning contrast of stratocumulus / nimbostratus clouds and low-angled sunlight, U and 16th Street and New Hampshire Avenue, NW, 4:09PM, Nov. 5, 2009. The building across the street from me is the Brittany (the rounded one). I'd love to have that top apt. looking SW toward Dupont Circle.

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Anyway, I SEVERELY underestimated how much debt I had with Citibank (why I didn't go online to look, I'm not sure, maybe I just didn't want to know) when I was doing the online consolidation last month. I thought it was $34,000 but it was really $98,000 ... This is on top of my $108,000 in Direct Loans. However, I should be able to wrap everything into it.

My Citibank student loans ...

That's $98,001.20

My Direct Loans loan ...

That's $108,477.18

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So the grand total is $206,478.38 (and still rising on interest galore). This is all non-dischargeable unless I become permanently disabled or in some other way this becomes an "undue burden" on me.

Add onto that the $14,000 or so in credit card debt on which I have to declare bankruptcy as soon as I can (next August and not a frickin' second sooner), and I'm in arrears to the American Corporate Capitalist Hydra by just about $220,500.

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The row houses on the north side of the 1900 block of S Street, NW, Washington, D.C., sunlit in the mid-afternoon, Nov. 5, 2009.

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SO! That's nearly a quarter of a million dollars I owe, mostly in student loan debt. Something's not right with that picture. It's like a mortgage.

Oh, wait, then there's the $3160 or so I owe my friends, primarily from LP, which is where I may be borrowing the $150, but paying back $240 next month. That I probably should (will eventually) pay that back.

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The corner of 19th and S Streets, NW, Washington, D.C., 3:33PM, Nov. 5, 2009

Didn't you know someone on 19th Street, NW? I remember seeing you one sultry night with some guy as I walked by in the shadows (coincidentally, not intentionally), and I didn't want to be seen because I looked like a wet dish rag in the oppressive August gunk while you looked all perfect and lovely.

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Concerning that quarter of a million dollars I owe, needless to say, there isn't the SLIGHTEST chance (no matter how many consolidations and recombinations it goes through) that I'll ever pay it all (or even a third of it) back. I'm be comfy dead long before that.

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About my life's duration ...

My (tentative) goal is to live long enuf for the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse, and beyond that, I don't really care.

Left: map of the path of totality with the dashed lines showing limits of partiality. The little Sun symbol represents location of maximum duration totality. It's about 15 miles south of Dawson Springs, Kentucky.

The reason I am interested in it is that I recall reading an article about in in 1979 at the age of 9 in New Jersey in National Geographic and thinking what an eternity away that was. I couldn't even comprehend being 47 years old (as I will be at that time).

Now that eclipse is just under 8 years away -- I've actually known you about as longer (circa summer 2000).

By the way, the next total solar eclipse in (or at least very near) D.C. isn't until April 14, 2200. There is an annual one on Aug. 4, 2111.

Left: The path of totality of the solar eclipse of April 14, 2200. Eclipses follow "Saros series" and there are multiple Saros underway at any given time.

I saw the total solar eclipse that crossed the Caribbean on Feb. 26, 1998 from the island of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, from a place called Pointe de la Grande Vigie on the north tip of the island where the turquoise Caribbean meets the Atlantic with waves heaving themselves explosively onto the rocks that rise up in a sheer cliff beauty. It was a very powerful experience, both primal and spiritual at once.

You should see a total solar eclipse at least once in your life. (Yes, you can look at the Sun during totality.)

The elm tree that grows outside my building (as which I see at tree top level from my apartment), the 2000 block, New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 3:16PM, Nov. 5, 2009.

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I think that's all for now. I have a ton o' work to do that I'm already behind on. It's all due by next Friday, so I probably won't be updating this blog for the time being. It's worth about $2,000 to me (but not til December).

I'm going (need) to be continually busy until then, although I'm meeting my mom for lunch in College Park on Sunday, and prior to that on Saturday night is the usual dinner party event at Chris T's place.

--Arcturus

American Political Gothic

Pierce Park in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, D.C., 4:04PM, Nov. 1, 2009

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Concerning those Halloween costumes, they looked ridiculous but in a good way, appropriate for the holiday occasion.

While you looked like some red-headed vamp version of Cindy Williams, your boyfriend sort of reminded me of Tim Conway's character of a drag queen horse jockey in The Carol Burnett Show skit "Natural Velvet" (possibly from 1976), itself a parody of the 1944 movie National Velvet.

Here is a YouTube screen shot.

And here is another YouTube screen shot.

You may watch (but won't) the whole You Tube-aired skit here.

Oh, yes, sweetie, what's a loose "canon"? A flying camera? A slippery law book?

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So you and I are both American gay men ...

I am from New Jersey in all its New Jerseyness ...

... you from that little slice of rightwing, cluttered, slapped-together exurban hell known as the northern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia ...

... long ago land of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry where today a scary mix of evangelical protestantism ... patriotic jingoism ... death penalty worship ... cluttered consumerism ... endless sprawl ... combine with certain frightening strains of run amok political correctness ("PROTECT OUR K1DZ FROM PEANUTS, P.E. CLASS, AND PREDATORS!") ... and all together find their penultimate, unhappy, unhealthy, unholy rotten American fruition ...

You just better watch yourself, Mister, if you're going to be a school teacher in the quasi-fascist Commonwealth. You never know what kind of nutty student and/or parents you could end up with.

And how I love it that our basic civil rights are decided -- and as tonight in Maine, regularly rejected -- by proletariat mob plebiscite, most of whom have multiple marriages and medications and failures galore under their underwear briefs and garter belts.

I suppose there is a touch of schadenfreude in me that since I apparently have to be alone forever, while you get everything handed to you, even you and your soul mate can't have your blissful union fully recognized by American Federal or most State law.

Oh, yes, remember how in your calendar photo you were made to look like you were sitting on a map of the United States? Sort of ironical.

Leafy fall sidewalk, 2400 block 20th Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 4:00PM, Nov. 1, 2009

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Well, I have a lot of reports to write if I want to get paid so I shall sign off, although right now I'm just going to beddy-bye and dream world.

--Arcturus

Ghostly Images Terrestrial, Celestial, and Cereal

The South Bronx, New York City, Halloween Day, 1991

This photo was at the height of the urban ghetto crack wars of the early 1990s such as in New York's South Bronx. Read here for the story about this picture taken by New York Times photographer Ángel Franco and what this young lady, Guissette Muniz, now 24, is up to today. That location, by the way, is much improved today.

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The Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118) strongly reflecting the light of blue super-duper giant star Rigel in Orion. The Witch Head Nebula is about 1000 light years away and spans about 50 light years. This was the APOD picture of the day for last Halloween, link here.

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Here my very good plush hippo eats a cracker ...

... what a sweet and delightful little hippo you are. I love you, Flippo.

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So, Mr. Sirius, are you going to wear your slutty football jersey Halloween costume for the 3rd (or 4th) year in a row? And what's Mrs. Sirius going to wear? For him I suggest a costume as a big, chesty, high-maintenance woman, although nobody might notice the difference. (Was that bitchy?)

Happy Halloween, Mr. Boo Berry

Mr. Boo Berry talks like Peter Lorre, except the voice over was by Paul Frees, who was quite an interesting person in his own right.

Here is one of the first Boo Berry commercials from 1973 or thereabouts ...

I had forgotten about the weird Franken Berry -- Count Chocula rivalry. These are all part of the General Mills "monster-themed cereals."

--Arcturus

In the Soft City, Then and Now -OR - Up and Down that Great Big Hill of Life

Red light ...

Green light ...

... on a "soft city" rainy night in Washington, D.C., 9:27PM, October 27, 2009

Sigh.

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I found a way to pay my rent for November on time, but now I'm flat broke (as in $350 in all) to last me until about Nov. 20th. That's just 6 days shy of my 40th birthday -- on Thanksgiving this year (proving that GOD has a Sense of Humor, I guess).

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So I was going to make this blog "by invitation only" but I can't bring myself to do it. That aside, I think -- barring some catastrophic or rapturous event(s) in my life - I think this may be the last entry for this blog for the time being.

Please just forget I exist (oh, wait, you already did).

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Oh, yes, apropos of nothing ... except I posted this on my Regulus blog in my current entry and because I have a strong memory of bright, cold Sunday mornings in winter 1977, 1978, and 1979 when I lived in Long Branch with my (Italian ethnic side) dad and paternal grandparents but I would visit the VERY DIFFERENT maternal side of my family.

I refer to my (Polish ethnic side) maternal grandma and her house at 5xx Henry Street in South Amboy where my maternal grandma.

From her porch you could see part of Tottenville, Staten Island that included a distant big steeple that so intrigued me (as all big objects in the distance did). I now believe it is in fact the steeple of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin (MIV) -- Mount Loretto, which is located just about where it should be if it is in fact that church.

From her main level (another two flights up) you could see what I believe was part of Brooklyn and off to the ESE on clear days, you could also see part of Sandy Hook Bay and Raritan Bay in the direction of Sandy Hook, which is about 8 miles north of Long Branch, where I lived with my dad and paternal grandparents.

South Amboy and Long Branch are about 26 miles apart. My dad and I walked it once on April 15, 1979 (I remember the day). I was 9 years old. It was a Sunday.

From my Aunt Martha's place on Lefferts Street a few blocks over (Aunt Martha was my grandmother's younger sister), you could actually see the top of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center poking above the "forested" rise of Staten Island in the far distance, about 20 miles away,

Oooh, the hatred, anger, and eternal sense of victimization and grievance on the Polish side. Until I met my sweetie Kristof (now in England for the next year or so), I DIDN'T KNOW that Polish people actually be happy. (But it was from my grandma I learned about the Nazis and the pure evil of what they did.)

Anyway, my grandma would have this High Church choral music radio station playing.

Here is a picture that is a scanned image of a photograph that, yes, I have posted before on my previous Arcturus blog. It is the Polish side of my family, including my mom and maternal grandmother, and myself when I was about 3 years old. I estimate this was taken in 1973. It was at my grandma's house (the one circled in the above image) on Henry Street in South Amboy, N.J.

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For comparison of my emotional state around my mother and father, here is a picture of my dad and paternal grandparents (the Italian side of my family) and myself taken on July 2, 1972 when I was two years old (about a year before the above image). It is from a scanned photograph that I have posted before on my previous Arcturus blog.

I once had a dream of being in some big city on a rainy night looking at a row of distance street lights extending toward a watery infinity and thinking my grandparents and dad were at the end of that road but I couldn't reach them. The two top images in this blog of the rainy night street kind of remind me of that dream.

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On Friday and Saturday nights, when my (estranged gay) uncle (who still lives in that house) was home and watching Star Trek ("The Original Series") and I'd watch the lights come on in the distance across South Amboy and pretend they were stars.

My favorite episode has to be the one with a very young Joan Collins, "The City on the Edge of Forever".

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From my current Regulus blog entry ...

Speaking of New York City (in whose New Jersey suburban shadow I grew up in the 1970s), I found an interesting Web site on "Forgotten New York" with pictures and write ups about little semi-forgotten corners of New York City. I found a particularly interesting page on Staten Island's Todt Hill. The name "Todt" is a Dutch one for "death," I think because of the Moravian cemetery up there.

Yes, there is a transmission tower atop it. Here is an image from that Web page showing the transmission tower as seen from the corner of Todt Hill Road and Fine Blvd.

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Todt Hill has an elevation of approx. 410 feet above sea level, making it the highest point in NYC and on the East Coast south of Maine (except I thought the nearby closed Fresh Kills Landfill had a higher elevation). Staten Island does not connect well to the rest of NYC or to New Jersey except by a maze of 75+ year old overcrowded, high-speed, dangerous highways.

Interestingly, the highest land spot in the District of Columbia is 410 feet above sea level. It's Fort Reno (and the very top is fenced off for a VORTAC). However, D.C. is not considered "along the East Coast" -- maybe in 500 years with about 30 feet of sea level rise.

Here is another image from the "Forgotten New York" Web site on the page devoted to Todt Hill on Staten Island with a distant transmission tower in New Jersey visible.

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This is the (summertime) view looking through a telescopic lens toward -- I believe -- the south (or SSW), which would make that the northern edge of Monmouth County along Raritan Bay / Sandy Hook Bay near Keansburg/ Middletown Township (not labeled in the image below) located midway between South Amboy, where my mom was raised and my grandmother lived until she died (and my estranged uncle still lives) on Henry Street, and Sandy Hook / Sea Bright (on the upper end of the Jersey Atlantic seashore where I spent my summers, and just north of my home town of Long Branch).

Here I have tried to show what I estimate to be the field of view from the image above. The vantage point is from the top vertex of this triangle -- that's where Todt Hill is located.

The transmission tower in that above image is somewhere between the two bottom vertexes, I'm estimating midway (though it may be a bit more toward the right side one). The circled places are South Amboy, Sea Bright, and Long Branch, respectively.

The above image is especially evocative because I recall that particular transmission tower visible in the above image, or at least an earlier version of it. I say earlier version because the big microwave receivers were removed, as they were on the one on Stone Hill in New Jersey (Upper Freehold Township) where my dad lived in the 1980s.

I could see the above tower from the now-vanished Tradewinds Beach Club in Sea Bright. It was kind of a weather observation reference, too, since weather often came in from the northwest and if it wasn't visible, it meant rain was approaching.

More generally, you could also see NYC on the northern horizon on sunny summer days and sublime balmy nights.

Isn't your weird boyfriend from Staten Island?

OK, enough of that.

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Screen shot from Three's Company episode "A Night Not to Remember." There was a season or two where the late John Ritter got all buff (in the early 1980s) and was showing off his body.

What exactly does Joyce DeWitt do these days??

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I think that's all for now.

The intersection of R and 17 Streets, NW, Washington, D.C., was taken at 1:41AM, Oct. 28, 2009.

I missed the high heel race earlier as I was in College Park. I imagine a number of race participants fell on the wet pavement.

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I think that's all for now. Barring a disaster or something great, I am not going to update this blog for a while, maybe ever.

If you ever want to know what has happened to me or in my life, you can read about it on my Regulus blog. Or else you know where to find me.

--Arcturus

More than One Wish ...

Thanks for not caring enough to not look at my Regulus blog. I don't really care.

Listening to an old energy-inefficient but soothing dish washer swooosh and whirl away in LP's apt. in Rockville, Md., 5:43PM, Oct. 25, 2009.

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I have so much to do this week and the following week -- or at least I do if I want to be able to pay my November rent before about Nov. 15th, which is still late enough that it could cause trouble for me.

My financial - career - life crisis is still in full agonizing bore. I don't know what I'm going to do. I just don't have enough talent, connections, charisma, youth, personality, or other preferred and desired characteristics to get ahead in a place as mean as D.C. One thing that I believe would really help me get a job in my chosen field of climate change policy analysis is if Congress (i.e. the Senate) would pass one of the climate change and clean energy bills it is considering.

Grosvenor Park II, Rockville, Md., at cool fall sunset, 5:53PM, Oct. 25, 2009

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I refer to some combination of H.R. 2454*, the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act of 2009 (i.e. Waxman-Markey); S. 1733**, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act of 2009, (i.e. Kerry - Boxer), and the third one, S. 1462, the American Clean Energy Leadership Act, (i.e. Sen. Bingaman's bill).

*This is the version that narrowly passed the House 219-212 on June 26th; it takes a bit of time to load.**This is the first draft of the bill that came out Sept. 30th without the emission allowance allocations specified. The second draft (Chairman's Mark) is linked below.

The entrance Brighton Gardens Assisted Living as LP and I took a walk onto the Bethesda Trolley Trail, 6:01PM, Oct. 25, 2009.

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EPA just came out with its favorable analysis of S. 1733 yesterday in a remarkably short time, although the bill practically mimics H.R. 2454, which EPA analyzed last summer and found it would be on balance a good thing with very modest cost to the average family (and even zero cost for the working poor after adjusting the tax code).

Looking toward the northwest over I-270 on the Bethesda Trolley Trail overpass, Rockville - Bethesda, Md., 6:10PM, Oct. 25, 2009.

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Of note, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee timed its release of a second draft version, the Chairman's Mark, of S. 1733 with allowance allocations specified. The changes from the first draft are specified here. The EPW Committee is set to hold three days of hearings this week with 54 witnesses. I will probably go to at least one of the sessions.

Looking southeast on the same pedestrian - biker trail over I-270, 6:10PM, Oct. 25, 2009.

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The problem is getting any bill through the Senate with its cult-like GOP minority whose religious fundamentalism precludes them from believing that global climate change is anything but a Marxist hoax to destroy Christianity and the American Dream, or at least their thieving and brutal versions of each.

As for that Pew poll showing that "belief" in global climate change had fallen 20 points in recent years to 57 percent, I'm not surprised. First of all, always remember as a general rule that on average nationally 22 percent of the electorate (it's more in Alabama and less in Massachusetts) is just quasi-fascist and paranoid outright, living in an alternate Universe of beliefs, values, and reality. They really should have their own country.

The 10400 block of Snow Point Drive, Bethesda, Md., 6:15PM, Oct. 25, 2009

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Probably another 25 percent has been made to think that "global warming = no God and the death of the American dream" based on assorted pimped out right wing think tanks and oil industry-backed "Astroturf" front groups, the Fox Nazi Noise Machine, AM hinterland hate radio, the Southern Baptist and Mormon Churches, and the rest.

What part of this is there not to get? This plot above shows the global average surface air temperatures both over land the ocean from 1850 - 2008, put together by the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Change and the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, with the mean set to 1961 - 1990.

We only probably put about another 31.5 billion metric tons of CO2-equivalent into the atmosphere last year (2006 is the last year for which full numbers are now available, and it was 28.4 billion metric tons of CO2-eq for that year).

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While I have all this work to do in order to survive financially, I am worried that my lousy Dell PC laptop will be crapping out in the next few months, or else it will get struck by some virus or malware from Russia that will wipe it out once and for all.

As for going to Capitol Hill, while I enjoy it, it is also very depressing to go around people doing such important things and here I am severely under-employed, chronically broke, and struggling so badly all alone, and unable to be part of those good activities.

The intersection of New Hampshire Ave., NW, and T Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 4:01PM, Oct. 25, 2009. I used to live in that building (the Harrowgate) from Feb. 2001 - Nov. 2003 in what was probably the best period of my D.C. life.

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Oh, yes, as a follow up to my last entry, I way overestimated the amount of rainfall New York City would get in those storms. In the end, it "only" had about 1.8 inches in those storms, not 3 to 5 inches.

Gloria, myself, and Chris T. at the Dupont Circle fountain sometime last spring. Chris has since quit smoking and gotten thinner while I've gotten heavier. Gloria is living in Lima, Peru for 18 months but she is visiting again next week for work.

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It's 4:01AM and I'm listening to the smooth jazz channel on my RCN Channel 887, which is next to the jazz channel (888) and the "singers and swing") (channel 890). Hiroshima's lovely and peaceful "One Wish" is playing.

Here it is before YouTube takes it down for another copyright violation.

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I think that's all for now. I really cannot update this blog until the end of the week, and I should just take Chris T's advice and shut it down entirely, but I've already done that before (twice really) and I don't want to do it a third time.

--Arcturus

Stormy Saturday and Blog Without a Purpose

I just updated my Regulus blog with a big complicated entry that took three hours to write -- and it's all of it about you (or not) -- and as I'm supposed to go a friend's house for dinner tonight before going to Cobalt, I'm not going to bother to update this blog.

Why should I bother since you are never around this blog anyway.

I realize, sweetie, that all those gym visits and jeans shopping and generalized narcissism takes A LOT of time and energy, as does your graduate school.

Does it ever get exhausting being you?

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The weather today was lovely and we got a good deal of rain, incl. 0.90" at DCA, 0.96" at BWI, and a daily record of 1.69" at IAD. It is over now. But New Jersey and NYC are getting a lot more rain with violent storms tonight.

The Fort Dix (DIX) composite mode radar (which is a bit exaggerated but shows activity in the clouds), 7:12PM EDT, Oct. 24, 2009. This outbreak of severe weather may make the news in terms of some damage and flooding. NYC could get 3 to 5+" of rain tonight in this.

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"Crotey" my Gold Dust Croton sits in my kitchen window sill on a rainy Saturday afternoon in Washington, D.C., 3:42PM, Oct. 24, 2009.

--Arcturus

A Midweek Visit to D.C. Small Claims Court, Fall 2009

Hmmm ...

I believe these are mixed altostratus and altocumlus clouds over Bethesda, Md., and the D.C. area in general, 2:37PM, Oct. 22, 2009. These might be cirrocumlus clouds, too, which would make it a "mackerel" sky.

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Well, Blogger was down for a while but now it is back up and fully functioning. I think those of use who use Blogger sometimes expect EVERYTHING for nothing, so I'm going to send a big "THANK YOU!" to Blogger for being back up so quickly.

In the meantime, Mr. Sirius, here is an overview of my visit to small claims court here in D.C. on Wednesday, Oct. 22nd, 2009. I posted the following on my Regulus blog the other day. I am reposting it here with some extra pictures.

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As for what happened at D.C. small claims court on my Oct. 21st unwanted visit there, the highlights include:

Emerging from the Judiciary Square Metro across the street from the National Building Museum and next to the D.C. small claims court, Washington, D.C., 8:48AM, Oct. 21, 2009.

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* Of the 167 cases on the docket today with approx. 100 people in all there (remember that not all defendants actually show up, in which case summary judgment is entered in that case), the racial / demographic breakdown was roughly as follows: 85% African American, 15 percent Hispanic, and (excluding the lawyers and Judge Frederick J. Sullivan himself) two white people. These two white people would be an old man (who figures into my story below) and myself.

In between the small claims court and the National Building Museum by the entrance to one side of the Judiciary Square Metro is the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, 11:50AM, Oct. 21, 2009.

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* The roll call lasts approx. 90 minutes. I had a copy of the day's docket and was thumbing through it trying to follow and predict whose case would be announced next. It approximately follows the year and "SC2" and "SC2" case numbers. Most cases are 2009 SC2 or 2009 SC3. (As an aside, what you don't want is "LT" -- "landlord tenant" case -- as that means you are probably on the verge of eviction. Yikes.)

A Glenmont-bound Red Line train pulls into the Bethesda Metro station, Bethesda, Md., 10:22PM, Oct. 22, 2009. It only looks like this because my cellphone camera sucks so much.

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* The judge didn't give his speech before the docket roll call as he was at a meeting. And once again I did not have any formal mediation with a court-appointed mediator.

* Two of the plaintiff lawyers were the same as the last time I was there. Remember that Wednesdays are corporations-sue-individuals day. I realized that these lawyers represent multiple firms, such as in my case Arrow Financial Services.

* Early on in the roll call, this black woman suddenly shouted as she switched seats, "Git da fuck away from me you nehsty ol' man!"

One of the clerks stopped the roll call and walked out into the court room but by then she had moved to a new spot in the court room. This lady -- who may have been named Oneishya, but I'm not sure -- figures into my story latter when she explained in a sunny waiting room outside the mediation rooms that an old man had been breathing on her neck and would not stop even after she politely asked him, explaining that "Aih doan' want yo' swine flu up all ovah' me!"

Elm Street Park on the Chevy Chase -- Bethesda, Maryland border, 3:05PM, Oct. 22, 2009

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* During the roll call, a case was announced with a defendant and co-defendant. The former was present and of the latter she said flatly, "HE'S DE-CEASED!"

*An old black woman and a man who was either her son or grandson were seated directly behind me, and during the first hour. This old white guy with a shock of white hair -- the only other non-lawyer white person in the court room at that point other than me, although he may have actually been Hispanic -- seated next to her told her to shut up. "You've been talking for an hour ..." I actually didn't want to tune into that lest I missed my name called, and it was all a bit uncomfortable.

There was a lot of grumbling and back-and-forth. Among the highlights from the lady was: "WHO ARE YEW to tell me -?!" and "WELL, YEW A ASSHOLE!" The man made what may have been at least one threat to hit her companion who said something to him.

I was worried the young man would flip out, but somehow no court official heard this and in the end, the lady and her son / grandson departed (after her name had been called).

* Oneishya (if that was her name) was kind of a comedian in her own right when a subset of us were seated in the side room waiting to talk to the plaintiffs' lawyers. She sat across from me at a table where I was seated, trying to read an August edition of The Economist I got from the magazine rack.

She complained that the Spanish speaking defendants got to jump the mediation line because of the court-appointed translators. "Why do they get to go first ??" This then devolved into a some immigrant bashing about how Hispanics get things handed to them, African Americans second, and whites last -- and she laughed and I snickered at her comment, and EVERYONE around us laughed. She started explaining how she wasn't racist, well, "maybe just a little," but changed the topic. She explained to me how her Rush debit card works, about a nice restaurant / market in Georgetown where she once worked, and how there is at least one shooting a week in Anacostia where she lives. She even pointed out a recipe from a magazine she was thumbing through.

The intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Wyoming Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 11:02PM, Oct. 22, 2009. I got off the Metro at Woodley Park instead of Dupont Circle tonight and walked home.

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Oh, and when one of the attorneys was meeting with a defendant in a side room with the door open, and we could hear this loud-voiced woman saying, "SO YOU'RE UNEMPLOYED?", Oneishya got up in a big show to shut the door, saying, "I DOAN WANT E'ER'BUDY KNOWIN' MY DAMN BIDNESS, I AIN'T GOT NO JOB!"

*When it was my turn to talk to the attorney, it literally only lasted a few minutes and was quite a pleasant denouement.

One of the lion statues (the "northwest side") at the edge of the Taft Bridge, Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 10:53PM, Oct. 22, 2009

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I returned home and took a nap because I had only gotten 5 hours of sleep each of the previous two nights. I actually have not been feeling well today. I've had a persistent moderate headache. I hope something isn't severely amiss with my health.

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I will save for my next entry either an update about my day today, or perhaps about why it means that so many Americans don't "believe" in global climate change -- and what that says about this country.

In the meantime, that's all for now.

G'night, darling.

--Arcturus

The Grippe Now and Then; Debtors' Prison, Part 2 (or 3)

Fall colors begin appearing in the trees outside of Butt Van Munching Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, 4:12PM, Oct. 20, 2009

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I'm sorry to hear you're sick, sweetie.

It may very well be H1N1 flu -- a.k.a. "swine flu" -- which has been ricocheting around the United States and the globe for much of this year.

Get better -- both you AND your Staten Island-o-gram boyfriend. You and he (well, especially you) are too pretty to be sick.

Now keep it all in perspective: if you want to see how bad a flu epidemic can be, visit abandoned, dilapidated Holy Rood cemetery off Wisconsin Avenue -- I've written about it before -- and find the big gravestone marker with the names of seven children all under the age of 12 from the same family who died in six to nine month period between 1918 and 1919 in the Spanish Influenza global pandemic.

Here is the view of Holy Rood Cemetery along the 2000 and 2100 blocks of Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 5:45PM, Oct. 7, 2009.

I need to go to bed. I took a third of a Percocet to relax myself. I need to get up by 715AM in order to YET AGAIN make it to small claims court here in D.C. for the second case against me. I have already talked about this and won't do so now. I don't know if I'm going to agree to a settlement or not, but if so, it cannot be for more than $50 per month. And that assumes the bottom doesn't drop out of my world in the next few months.

OK, that's all for now. Goodnight, Cap'n Marvel.

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Golden Girls Quote:

Rose: Dorothy, why do people die??
Dorothy: Oh, please, Rose, I don't even know why fools fall in love!

--Arcturus

On the Rainy Late Night Avenue in the City Beautiful

I started this entry around 4AM but didn't finish / post it until early afternoon.

A rainy Connecticut Avenue, 1800 block NW, Washington, D.C., 11:56PM, Oct. 17, 2009

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The pictures in this entry were mostly taken last night along the 1800 block of Connecticut Avenue, NW, as I walked back by myself from Chris T's Saturday night dinner party.

I once had a powerful dream that I was walking -- and then sliding -- down the sidewalk in this spot on a very rainy night. It was more of a flood I was riding, and somehow I knew my mom was at the bottom of the hill waiting for me.

I tried to call her to tell her that last night but she didn't answer the phone. She goes to bed early.

Again a rainy Connecticut Avenue, 1800 block NW, Washington, D.C., five minutes later, 12:01AM, Oct. 18, 2009, farther down the hill.

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That "hill" is actually part of the East Coast fall line that divides the geological "provinces" of the coastal plain and the Appalachian piedmont. It runs just above Florida Ave. to 16th Street along Meridian Hill (not Malcolm X) Park eastward to 11th Street in the lower two-syllable alphabet area of east-west running streets, before curving northeastward toward Fort Totten and Brookland.

The view from my 5th floor apt. kitchen window looking up into Meridian Hill Park, 5:51PM, Oct. 17, 2009 on a gloomy, wet day. The land rises quickly here as this is the fall line itself.

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It's not a coincidence that this is where D.C. is and where the old "City of Washington" ended at Florida Avenue, which was once called Boundary Street, and beyond which was "Washington County," District of Columbia, before the weirdly named District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 (70 years after the original D.C. Organic Act of 1801) unified all municipal entities within the boundaries of the District of Columbia into a single entity, Washington, D.C., that (I believe but could not find straightaway) was affirmed by a Supreme Court ruling in the early 20th Century.

(The Virginia part, Alexandria County, later Arlington County, and part of the city of Alexandria, had been retroceded back to Virginia in 1847.)

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The LWX base reflectivity mode radar in Sterling, Virginia at 355AM EDT, Oct. 18, 2009

All those yellows and reds suggest sleet / ice is falling out of the clouds at about 2000 to 3000 feet, although it is probably mostly melting and reaching the ground as rain. In fact, it is probably snowing at elevations above 1500 feet -- both west of D.C. tonight and overhead, which would be less than 500 feet above the tops of the tallest of the city's transmission towers. That's rather unusual for October. Indeed, the last snow in October in our area was in 1979, though two days later it had warmed up to 80F.

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The wet intersection of 17th and R Streets, NW, Washington, D.C., 1:29AM, Oct. 17, 2009, as seen from the open window in the upstairs part of Dupont Italian Kitchen adjoining Windows. This is at the table that Kristof and I used to sit.

Why are there so many randomly scattered manhole covers at this intersection and the adjoining sidewalks??

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I'm probably not going to update this blog again until later in the week -- certainly after my NEXT small claims court date that is set for Wednesday. I don't know whether to offer an settlement because I really can't afford to do so. I cannot file my next bankruptcy until Aug. 1, 2010, and so as a practical matter I have to hold the collection agencies off until at least April/May.

Yours Truly under an umbrella, 1800 block, Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 11:50PM, Oct. 17, 2009

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My non-dischargable student loans are also a big mess, but those I can take care of by wrapping everything (even defaulted ones) into a giant ($127,000) consolidated Dept. of Education Direct Loan that is then put into a hardship deferment.

Here Flippo peers out of one of my apt. windows overlooking the 2000 block of New Hampshire Avenue, NW, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, 2:59PM, Oct. 17, 2009. Oh, Flippo, what a very good hippo you are. You are the hippopotamostus.

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Oh, yes, Mr. Sirius, until I read your two recent entries, I didn't realize we had those things in common about preferring cool weather and almost never using the heat. I've always assumed we have zero in common.

--Arcturus

Rainy Autumn Friday Afternoon Thoughts

Oh, sweetie, you're looking lovely today ...

You are THE PRETTIEST hippo in the 17th Street swamp.

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I love the weather pattern we are in ... chilly and wet as fall descends upon the world in its colorful and cool autumnal displays. How lovely. Usually, it's just flat, dull, humid, too warm, and blah here in D.C. and environs.

The rainfall enhanced Paint Branch creek as it gurgles and burbles its way through a far corner of the Univ. of Maryland, College Park campus, 4:46PM, Oct. 15, 2009

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Speaking of weather stuff, I love LWX - Sterling Web site's new climate plots histograms, such as linked here and shown here:

The combined annual climate plot for temp., precip., and snowfall with 2009 data through Oct. 15, 2009 at Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)

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It is an added benefit to me that the showery - rainy - rather chilly weather bothers others so much, in particular those who otherwise are screaming (along with our whore media) about how "DOW 10,000!" is helping their retirement plans, and why "DOW 10,000!" means once again America is Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, even if it is all based on brazen public multi-trillion dollar theft, speculation, war profiteering, and Ponzi scheming -- and all with a "THAT'S A-OK BY US!" of the U.S. Government, which itself is a wholly owned subsidiary of 21st Century Financial Services Final Solutions and Omni-Corp War Machine MegaDeath, Inc.

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I think that's all for now. You don't read this damn blog so I'm not going to kill myself posting entries that are unread.

I know you, Mr. Sirius, are too busy being you with all that this implies, including an ego that if we could harness it could supply more power than all the Tennessee Valley Authority and Bonneville Power Administration generation facilities combined.

Indeed, I update this blog not for your sake but my own and the blog's sakes. So there.

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Well, not exactly a Monet impressionistic painting ...

... but still a nice rainy night image of 16th and U Streets and New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 8:56PM, Oct. 15, 2009

--Arcturus

Canopus Starry Reflections; Haupt Garden Late Season Flowers; Endless American Debtors' Woes

One of the haunting moai giant stone megaliths carved into human form on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) beneath a vast Southern Hemisphere starry sky with Sirius, Canopus, and the Large Magellanic Cloud (the largest of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies) prominently visible. This was the Oct. 11, 2009 Astronomy Picture of the Day, link here.

Ah, Sirius and Canopus.

I call you Mr. Sirius since your namesake star, Sirius, is the brightest star in the night sky of Earth although Canopus is actually a far larger and more luminous star. It is an unusual F0 Ia spectral class whitish (rather than red or red-orange) supergiant star.

Canopus is now known to be approximately 310 light years away from Earth versus 8.6 light years for Sirius (A), and thus it is 15,000 times more luminous than the Sun and the intrinsically brightest star within 700 light years of Earth.

For many years it was difficult to ascertain this distance because of its unusual spectral class properties.

In the Frank - Brian Herbert Dune ("far future, sprawling, feudal") universe, Arrakis orbits the star Canopus.

Alas, we are just too far north in D.C. to ever see Canopus, but you can see it easily enough at certain times of the year in South Florida, blazing fiercely low in the southern sky beneath the breezy Tropic of Cancer.

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So I'm surprised your most recent entry did not go on and on (and on) about how much money you earned over the "gay pride" celebratory weekend and political rally, or why you are actually a demi-god. That is what yet another gay pride weekend is all about. And it's not even June when the regular one happens in its vacuous infinity.

Two typical scenes outside Cobalt in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

Outside Cobalt, Washington, D.C., 2:42AM Oct. 11, 2009

Outside Cobalt, Washington, D.C., 2:45AM, Oct. 11, 2009

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Your entry about the Harris Teeter shopping list was kind of funny in its yuppie - guppie existentially empty way. I was there just last Saturday, too, though Chris T. was shopping, not me.

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Some pictures I took earlier this evening while at the Smithsonian and on the National Mall ...

A Hibiscus rosa-sinensis dubbed "Charles Schmidt" growing in the Smithsonian Institution's Enid A. Haupt Garden, Washington, D.C., 5:52PM, Oct. 12, 2009

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Tonight will be the second night in a row in which I have to stay up all night working on yet more intellectual "piece work" in the form of the biweekly climate change news compendium I produce for that consulting company.

Last night, I wrote what ended up being a 15 page summary and comparison -- based on existing EPA and CRS analyses and a few primary source interviews I was lucky to get, including with the senior legal counsel on the House Commerce and Energy Committee -- of the two main climate bills before the Congress.

A scene from the annual and totally impractical solar house exhibit on the National Mall, Washington, D.C., 5:26PM, Oct. 12, 2009

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The two bills are H.R. 2454 (it takes a bit of time to load), the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act of 2009, a.k.a. "Waxman-Markey", and S. 1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act of 2009, a.k.a. "Kerry-Boxer."

My focus for H.R. 2454 was on the fractional allocation (versus auctioning) of greenhouse gas emission allowances and the legal treatment of those allowances.

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Another scene from the annual and totally impractical solar house exhibit on the National Mall, Washington, D.C., 5:38PM, Oct. 12, 2009

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Changing subjects, I have decided to undertake (if I can) a consolidation of my $34,000 worth of Citibank student loan debt with the Department of Education's Direct Loan program, which holds my $93,000 debt. That's a cool $127,000, none of which I can remotely pay back at this time.

Yours truly standing in front of the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall, 5:43PM, Oct. 12, 2009. The statue to the left me is of Joseph Henry, the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

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Although this consolidation if successful would put my account into immediate repayment (which they should have been as I graduated last May), I can avoid that by taking out a hardship deferment and I can also (eventually) get Citibank out of my fucking life. As it is, Citibank will be suing me (probably in small claims court within a few months) for my defaulted Macy's (credit card) debt.

My total credit card debts for four credit cards and Macy's is about $14,000. My next small claims court visit is for Oct. 21st, but I cannot settle a third time.

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Enid A. Haupt Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 5:43PM, Oct. 12, 2009. It was an interesting contrast as autumn rapidly descends onto the natural world yet the Haupt Garden has so many tropical plants in it.

You should check it out in the next two weeks or so while this contrast is still in place.

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Student loans are almost always non-dischargable in chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings, but they can be wrapped into chapter 13 proceedings. However, under the new student loan law, and with all my debts under a Direct Loan, I can eventually qualify for the plan that limits repayments to 15 percent of gross monthly income.

A secluded spot in the Enid A. Haupt Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 5:57PM, Oct. 12, 2009

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Citibank is demanding $650 a month, which of course is absurd. What I don't know is if I can consolidate while in a forbearance / economic hardship and my loans way past due. As I've said before, the goal of the crazed American corporate kleptocracy is to enslave the idiot, doped up population in a kind of happy-faced dystopia of corporate capitalist death.

OK, that's enough of that.

A peaceful scene outside the Smithsonian castle in the Enid A. Haupt Garden, Washington, D.C., 4:49PM, Oct. 12, 2009

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My next planned entry is for later this week.

--Arcturus

On the Sunny Side of the Street and of the Old Cemetery

Screen shot of Louis Armstrong on my RCN channel 888, the jazz music channel, during his rendition of "On the Sunny Side of the Street."

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At first I thought this was you shopping at Harris Teeter in Adams Morgan here in D.C. about two hours ago this afternoon ... I was even going to say, "Hi, Mr. Sirius ..."

Then I thought might have been your boyfriend, since you two sort of look alike, but I wasn't going to say anything, lest he was Twittering on his iPhone, drinking a post-workout protein shake, or buying a new spiked glue hair Pomade.

But then I got even closer and realized it wasn't either of you -- this man was much fairer complexioned than ya'll.

Ha ha

I had gone Harris Teeter (whose name I don't like) with Chris T. I can't afford to shop there -- or pretty much anywhere. I just paid my October rent for my flat (apartment) and for the next week I'm flat broke. That was supposed to be a pun.

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Speaking of being broke and a charity case ...

I went to La Fourchette in Adams Morgan here in D.C. last night with my friends where we had a really nice dinner that came to $453. I was a complete charity case as usual since I'm broke.

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What follows is an excerpt from my current Regulus blog entry just features some pictures I took walking down 44th Street, NW, through the Friendship Heights section of D.C. on Wednesday, across the Wesley Theological Seminary and American University campus, and back down 44th Street, NW, to Garfield Street and thence into Burleith and Georgetown on a 7 mile walk, including through the dilapidated and spooky hilltop Holy Rood cemetery off Wisconsin Avenue at brisk, forlorn dusk.

Excerpted ...

The house at 4611 44th Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 4:09PM, October 7, 2009.

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The intersection of the 4300 block of Forest Lane and the 2800 block of 44th Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 5:13PM, Oct. 7, 2009. Until this walk, I didn't know there was a Forest Lane in D.C.

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The house at 2909 44th Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 5:11PM, Oct. 7, 2009.

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The McKinley Building on the AU campus, Washington, D.C., 4:51PM, Oct. 7, 2009. Apparently, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the building and it houses several university departments.

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Here is the view of Holy Rood Cemetery along the 2000 and 2100 blocks of Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 5:45PM, Oct. 7, 2009.

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This cemetery dates back to the 1830s and used regularly for the next 100 years, although there were burials there (based on the tombstone dates) as late as the 1990s. The cemetery is on a hilltop and has some lovely views, including of the Washington Monument a few miles away, and the distant hilly rise of Prince George's County in the direction of Suitland about 10 to 15 miles away.

The Wikipedia article on this cemetery is informative. I didn't know Georgetown University owns it and wants to dig up all the old graves and build on the site. That's a little a lot disturbing.

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The gravestones in Holy Rood Cemetery are old and sometimes especially poignant, such as the one with the names of basically an entire family of young children who died during 1918, almost certainly as a result of the global Spanish Influenza pandemic.

This particular cross-shaped gravestone marks the tomb of a lady and her young son: Annie M. Dorsey, who died July 19, 1930 at age 72 and her very young son she far outlived, Thomas S. Dorsey (no relation to Big Band figure Tommy Dorsey), who died some 37 years earlier on Nov. 8, 1893 at age 7. There was no mention of a husband / father or other children. I wonder what their story was. It's a pretty vile thing to want to disrupt their rest place.

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This particular marble gravestone from the 19th Century is about two feet high and in the shape of the Washington Monument. If my cell phone camera were any better, you would be able to see that the object on horizon to the right of the red-brown rectangular building (which, I believe, is a Holiday Inn) is the actual Washington Monument, making for an intentional and strange juxtaposition.

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Yours Truly at the Holy Rood Cemetery, Washington, D.C., 5:58PM, Oct. 7, 2009 on an uncharacteristically cool, blustery October day (since our crappy, torpid summers here usually last well into fall).

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This was the view peering into Oak Hill Cemetery -- yes, my second cemetery of the day -- through the tall wrought iron fence along R Street, NW, in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., 6:21PM, Oct. 7, 2009.

This cemetery, unlike Holy Rood, is still very much in use. Because the cemetery is fenced off, I don't know to what family that Washington Monument-like obelisk tombstone belongs, but at 30 feet high, it dwarfs the small, forgotten, 19th Century on in Holy Rood Cemetery. Ultimately, though, its fate and destiny will be the same.

That's all for now. My next update to this blog won't be until Tuesday - Wednesday.

--Arcturus