Federal budget impasse, day 3 ; suspicious package
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2013 23:19:08 +0000
The U.S. Congress have not passed a continuing resolution, the Federal budget impasse continues, many workers are still furloughed, the National Parks are still closed (with the apparent exception of the WWII Memorial), and the C&O Towpath and the CCT (both part of the C&O National Park, i.e. "closed") were both busier than usual again this morning. (I didn't bike yesterday because I had to go to our data center.)
When I got to Union Station there was yellow police tape up all over the place. From the south, my normal approach, I could not get to my office. A detour around the next block over got me to the east side of the building, where the entrances were still open, but that didn't help me get my bike to the parking in the garage. Our building is actually 3 connected buildings, with the agency in buildings 1 and 2, and several other organizations in most of building 3. There is another garage entrance on the east side of the building(s), but it turns out that garage is under building 3 and does not connect to the other garage space. And it has a bike cage, but my badge does not open it. (The people working in that garage do not even know that there's 3 related buildings.) Eventually I found someone who told me about an entrance from the north, and I was able to get in and park my bike. This all took about 30 minutes, and my rovings above and below ground added 2 miles (3.2km) to my ride. There was a "suspicious package" somewhere, but I don't know whether it was in Union Station, our lobby, or somewhere else close by.
Wow, searching on suspicious package union station now gets a lot of hits - none of them for today. (And there's a lot of other Union Stations.)
Shortly after all that there was another incident, a shooting on Capitol Hill.The U.S. Capitol was put on lockdown Thursday after a woman with a small child in her car tried to ram a White House barricade. The woman was fatally shot, police say, after the ensuing police chase. The suspect's vehicle ... "tried to ram a security barricade at the White House," according to a law enforcement official.
Why not let her ram a barracade, and disable the car - instead of shooting her dead? (Yes, hitting a barricade could injure the child, but so could whatever the car might do when the driver is shot. Or the child might get shot by accident.)
Rush-hour ridership is down 22% on the subway. (My only recent METRO trip anywhere near rush hour was against the flow.) That sounds rather pleasant to me. And parking is probably a lot easier this week. Traffic must be better for people driving in - something I haven't done since the office relocated.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/632085.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
The U.S. Congress have not passed a continuing resolution, the Federal budget impasse continues, many workers are still furloughed, the National Parks are still closed (with the apparent exception of the WWII Memorial), and the C&O Towpath and the CCT (both part of the C&O National Park, i.e. "closed") were both busier than usual again this morning. (I didn't bike yesterday because I had to go to our data center.)
When I got to Union Station there was yellow police tape up all over the place. From the south, my normal approach, I could not get to my office. A detour around the next block over got me to the east side of the building, where the entrances were still open, but that didn't help me get my bike to the parking in the garage. Our building is actually 3 connected buildings, with the agency in buildings 1 and 2, and several other organizations in most of building 3. There is another garage entrance on the east side of the building(s), but it turns out that garage is under building 3 and does not connect to the other garage space. And it has a bike cage, but my badge does not open it. (The people working in that garage do not even know that there's 3 related buildings.) Eventually I found someone who told me about an entrance from the north, and I was able to get in and park my bike. This all took about 30 minutes, and my rovings above and below ground added 2 miles (3.2km) to my ride. There was a "suspicious package" somewhere, but I don't know whether it was in Union Station, our lobby, or somewhere else close by.
Wow, searching on suspicious package union station now gets a lot of hits - none of them for today. (And there's a lot of other Union Stations.)
Shortly after all that there was another incident, a shooting on Capitol Hill.The U.S. Capitol was put on lockdown Thursday after a woman with a small child in her car tried to ram a White House barricade. The woman was fatally shot, police say, after the ensuing police chase. The suspect's vehicle ... "tried to ram a security barricade at the White House," according to a law enforcement official.
Why not let her ram a barracade, and disable the car - instead of shooting her dead? (Yes, hitting a barricade could injure the child, but so could whatever the car might do when the driver is shot. Or the child might get shot by accident.)
Rush-hour ridership is down 22% on the subway. (My only recent METRO trip anywhere near rush hour was against the flow.) That sounds rather pleasant to me. And parking is probably a lot easier this week. Traffic must be better for people driving in - something I haven't done since the office relocated.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/632085.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]