The last job I ever had (working for someone other than myself) was at a call center in Herndon.  It was initially run by a guy named Joe but he kind of fell out with his partners and was replaced by a guy named Andy.  Andy was a serial entrepenuer – my understanding was that he had started and sold at least 2 other businesses.  Andy was a great guy who mostly ran the company from his house on the eastern shore.  He and I were both into woodworking, we got on pretty well and talked quite a bit.

Andy might quibble with my characterization but, from my enlightened perch, it is my estimation that he was a product of the 60’s.  He was in college when all of that “stuff” happened and he also participated in some anti-war demonstrattions.  At lunch one day over at the Mongolian Grill ( loved that place – best food ever – don’t know if it’s still there tho) He recounted one demonstration he was part of where a bunch of people locked arms and blocked the Key bridge.  It was, naturally, part of a war protest.

According to Andy: “We met up on the VA side of the bridge, made our way out to the middle and then just formed a human chain accross the bridge.”  I asked him: “what about the cars?”  He indicated that there were sufficient police around (they knew this was coming) and that the road had been closed.  He then told me “the thing that I’ll always remember about that day, the thing that will always stick in my brain wasn’t so much the anti-war slogans and complaining about the cops trying to stifle our freedom of speech.  That was de rigeuer.  It is my memory of a particluar police officer who, as part of a police line, walked directly up to me and held up a can of mace.  The police were on bullhorns telling everyone to disperse – that the bridge is a major highway, etc etc.  So, I at some level, I knew that we were causing a lot of trouble and that there would be consequences.  However, I don’t think I was ever more surpised in my life than when that cop pushed the button on that can of mace and discharged it into my face.  I don’t know why I was surprised.  I shoudln’t have been but I was….”  Andy then kinda trailed off there and looked off into space.  I asked him “what happened then?”  What happened?  Well, we ran like hell or at least as fast as you can run with a face full of mace…

Our constitution clearly protects what Andy and others were doing so they could do it.  Should they have done it?  Well, it seemed like a good idea right up until that police officer’s finger pressed the spray nozzle. 

The folks that are considering building that community center are probably well within their rights to do it.  Should they build it there?  Our way of life, our constitution and our ideals demand quite a lot of us as Americans in situations like this.  I can tell you from my experience at the sharp end of the stick that defending someone’s right to do something wildly unpopular (like put up signs of a certain size or conduct marches and demonstrations) is very difficult.  People don’t like it and they aren’t interested in the details.  Those folks in New York should consider carefully.  The amount of forebearance demanded in this case might just be too much to ask.  Sometimes even we lousy Americans deserve a modicum of consideration.

My family has always had a garden.  When I was a kid in the 70’s, we had a big garden in the backyard which I was press-ganged into tending.  In return, I would setup a table on Grant avenue and sell the produce for extra money.  Back in them days, there was no bypass so there was tons of traffic and a reliable traffic jam during rush hour.  It didn’t last long but it was enough.

After Sarah and I moved back to Manassas from our brief stay in Ashburn/Leesburg, we started a garden in the back yard.  That was nice.  We moved the garden to the back yard of the office when we moved the business so we could free up the back yard.

We still have that garden up there but this year I was walking through Southern States and noticed that they had Topsy-Turvy planters on sale.  I had seen some of these in the past and I decided to pick up a couple.  I also picked up a couple of bags of soil.

The first thing to know about the Topsy turvy is that is a bag of dirt: no more, no less.  That bag of dirt is heavy.  I started off with a decorative garden post to hold my plants but that was a laugh-riot.  That fancy girlie-man pole had no chance.  I ended up digging a post hole and putting a 4×4 post in and 2 steel brackets on opposite sides of the post in order to hold it up.  I briefly considered a steel guy-wire but decided that might be a shade over the top.  I’m not trying to contain rampaging elephants, I’m trying to hang a couple of plants….

So, on to results:

Pro:  No weeds to pull and very little space consumed.

Con:  You have to water the things every day.  That’s a pain but not too bad.  The plants grow vertically up at first but when the weight gets to be too much they kind of twist and hang down.  At this point, they seem to lose water then and wilt so I watered the hell out of them and they seemed to recover.  I haven’t been too impressed with the yields.  The few tomatoes we have picked so far are picture perfect but there just aren’t very many of them.  I’ve heard that you are supposed to prune the leaves but the box didn’t say anything about that.  I haven’t drawn iron-clad conclusions but based on what I’ve seen so far I just don’t think it’s worth the hassle.  The main garden has a sprinkler pre-rigged.  All I have to do is turn it on for a couple of minutes if it’s dry….and I don’t have to do it every day.

Like I said, I’m not writing it in stone, but I suspect I’ll be re-purposing the 4×4 next year….

I’m into music that is passionate and honest.  Always have been.  I love and admire classical music – played the viola for 10 yeas in school and I still listen to it regularly – but metal/punk/new wave are also part of my passion.  When I was in college (no this is not some sort of tell-all confession) I had some number of friends who were in every band available.  One of these friends, Mark, traveled with some regularity to ground zero of the (then fledgling) metal movement – the Sunset Strip on LA.  Upon his return from one of his trips he had a hand-labled tape (it was written in sharpie) of a band that none of us had heard of – something called “Guns N’ Roses”.  It would be at least a year before Guns enjoyed any sort of mainstream appeal.

There’s no denying that, for a kid from (what was then) rural Manassas, Guns took quite a bit of warming up to but it resonated with me.  It was unflinchingly honest.  Regardless of the genre, I am always open to stuff that’s honest and, lets’ face it, —  Mozart and Beethoven were the Van Halen and Guns N’ Roses of their era.  Beethoven didn’t spend much time on lyrics but the music makes me think the same way Metallica or Guns does…

So – on to the root of it – , it was with some interest that I saw that Steven Adler, the drummer for G n’ R, had written a book about his life (some  might call that an autobiography) that seemed kind of interesting: Guns burned sooo hot, flamed out so fast and it was such a big part of the scene then that I was kind of interested in seeing what somebody who was behind the curtain had to say….

The short synopsis of the book is that Adler’s story is no different than those that earlier titans of rock (Clapton, Page, Jagger, etc) had to tell.  Incredible talent, luck and drive combine to generate a meteoric rise to fame that is fueled and sustained by rampant substance abuse and what might be generously described as an overall lowering of societal expectations…:)

Overall, the book spends about 25% of it’s time covering stuff that is pretty interesting to Guns fans that were involved in the scene then and 75% of it’s time covering his 15 year misadventure with substance abuse (which is titanic).  So, if you are into the metal scene in the late 80’s and early 90’s, buy this book, rip it in half and read what’s left.  Otherwise, forget it.

Dude, it’s a great day in Manassas.  There is a bike store over on Liberia Avenue that is IN THE CITY.  It’s run by a dude named Danny who seems to be pretty good at what he does and is easy to work with.

He’s still getting started so he’s busy building bikes and hanging rims but he is open for business.  He’s currently selling Haro and KHS bikes and has a pretty complete inventory.  I’ve talked to him at some length and he’s trying to get access to other manufacturers but he’s got a lot of balls in the air.

In the wake of my hybrid bike getting ripped off I was starting to look for a new one.  I was eyeing a Trek but when I was tipped off (thanks moonie!) that there was a bike store in Manassas I resolved to find it (he’s in the same center as Noodles) and buy my bike there.  It was difficult for me as I had my heart set on a Specialized but Danny made it pretty easy to buy a Haro.  He had a 17″ and a 19″ model of the bike I liked but neither frame fit right: the 17 was too short and the 19 too tall.  Danny dragged a different model 18″ out of the back and put it together for me.

I liked that bike, cool paint job and it had the features I wanted but it needed a fair amount of modification.  See, buying a bike when you don’t know anything about it is a lot easier than after you have some experience.  I wanted the handlebars higher and wider, different tires (it had knobbies) and a couple of other changes.  Danny put some different handlebars on, cut them down and put different grips on.  He made it happen in pretty short order….

Overall, I’m a happy customer and hope that Bullrun Bicycles makes it.

As mentioned in this article in the MJM, bike thefts are on the increase.  My mountain bike was stolen!  I rode it over to a friends house and it was around the side of the house next to his car.  We were in the front room shooting the breeze and drinking a glass of wine.  His wife was working in the back yard right next to where it was parked and someone still stole it!

Don’t make the mistake that I stupidly made….lock your stuff up…