Climate Rally on the Mall

Josh and I went to the big Earth Day event on the Mall yesterday afternoon. To be honest, I probably would have gone even if it was a Tea Party rally, because Sting was performing (not that he would perform for the Tea Party!), along with John Legend, The Roots, and a host of other performers, celebrities, activists, and political figures. When we emerged from the Metro station, we were greeted by this sight:
Yes, even the Na'vi people from the movie Avatar had come to see Sting!

While The Roots were performing, we checked out some of the tents. We were both intrigued by this electric motorcycle. I said it looked like something from American Chopper. Then I read the sign and discovered it WAS from American Chopper!
To see how they built it, check out Planet Green's Chopper site.

We got there rather late in the day, so we spread our little picnic mat out on the lawn about a block away from the stage -- there were about 150,000 people there -- and settled in to watch the concert on one of the big screens they had positioned along the Mall. We were surprised to see a familiar face pop up on the screen -- Cerphe! He was the emcee for the event. We even caught a glimpse of his wife, Susan, in the background.

It kept threatening to rain, but thankfully we got to enjoy the rest of the concert, including Sting, and made it home on the Metro before there was any real precipitation. A very happy Earth Day, indeed!

1.5 Inches of Fame

Happy (day after) Earth Day! I got another interesting piece of news yesterday. Our architect, Marta, sent us an email asking for a copy of our Energy Star report so she could submit our house for the 2010 EcoHome Design Awards.

She also sent an attachment from the December 2009 issue of Green Builder Magazine. Apparently, she had also entered our house in their 2009 Green Builder Home of the Year Awards. While we weren't one of the finalists, it looks like we were selected for one of their "Special Focus Awards" -- an Honorable Mention of sorts. Not sure why it says our house originally had 7' ceilings -- they were 9'. Maybe it was a typo. Anyway, it's kind of cool to see a picture of our house in a magazine!

Excellence in Design Awards

Wow, the last couple weeks have been so busy that I completely forgot to share this exciting piece of news. I got an email from Marta, our architect, on April 8 saying that she had submitted our home renovation to Environmental Design + Construction Magazine's 2010 Excellence in Design Awards, and she had just received notice that we are a finalist!

From what I can tell, up to five finalists are selected in each of five categories (we're in Residential), and after the judging is completed, the winners will be announced sometime in May. I'm not sure what you actually win, other than being featured in their magazine, but it would certainly be a nice feather in the cap of our architect and builders. And, of course, we'd probably scoop up every issue of that magazine we could get our hands on to show off to friends and family.

I'll certainly let you know as soon as the winners are announced. Fingers crossed...

Spring Cleaning

Spring has sprung here in the DC area, which means cherry blossoms, tourists, and a thick coat of pollen. No matter what color your car is, it will be yellow for the next several weeks -- but you'll hardly notice through your itchy, watery eyes. The first week of April was pretty crazy, which is why I'm just not getting around to telling you about it. In a nutshell, we had two sets of houseguests (successive, not concurrent, fortunately) AND a landscaping crew here for most of the week. Our friend Paige has a landscape design business, so she helped us repair parts of our yard that were damaged by the renovation and/or all the snow.

Here are some during and after photos. We had them re-sod the front lawn, which was mostly weeds and bald spots before.



They created a planting bed on the driveway side of the house and transplanted the roses back to where they were before (more or less -- we're not sure which is which yet).


They cleaned up some of the brush in the corner of the back yard, repaired the stone edging, and created a new planting bed of loriope in front of it.

After re-locating the plants that had been transplanted to the back yard, they moved an azalea that had been hidden in the back corner and gave it some friends to keep it company. We didn't want to invest in re-sodding the back yard or doing much with this part of the yard until we re-build the garage, since it will go in this spot.

Last weekend, after all our houseguests had departed, we went to the garden center and bought a few new plants to fill in some empty spots. I also cleaned off my flower boxes, filled them with impatiens, and hung them on the front porch.
We added some lavender to the roses, and Josh created another small planting bed on the other side of the window well and planted some Russian sage.
We have been talking to SAI (our builders) about rebuilding our garage, and have gotten an initial estimate from them, so hopefully we'll be able to pull the trigger on that as soon as we get our tax refund. Yes, the tax credits from building a green house will help pay for the garage!

In other news, I had a celebrity sighting on the Metro Thursday morning as I was riding in to work. I was on the Orange line heading to Metro Center when I saw the Indian-American actor Kal Penn get on the train. You may know him as Kumar from the Harold and Kumar movies, or the main character in The Namesake. He was also in the TV series House but had his character written off the show so he could work in the Obama administration. I hear he now goes by his real name, Kalpen Modi, and works in the White House -- although I think I also heard that he will be going back to Hollywood soon. Anyway, he was definitely dressed like a White House staffer -- navy suit, American flag lapel pin, ID badge on a lanyard around his neck, Blackberry in hand. I'm not sure if anyone else on the train even recognized him. I discreetly tried to take a photo with my iPhone, but it didn't come out very well.
OK, that's all for now. I've got to get ready for a sleepover at our friends Scott & Paige's house. Josh and Scott are taking their son, Conrad, on his first camping trip tonight -- in their back yard. Meanwhile, Paige and I are planning a girls' night in with their two daughters. Should be quite a night! If all goes well, the boys can plan a more adventurous camping excursion next time. Maybe in OUR back yard... ;-)

Sign of the Times

Sorry, no April Fools joke this year! I was going to post a photo of the house covered in snow from one of our big winter storms and claim that we had a freak, late-season storm that froze all the cherry blossoms, but I just didn't have time -- it was a crazy day at work. And, as you can see from the photo below, which I took earlier today, the weather here is absolutely gorgeous.
You'll notice that in addition to our spring bulbs, a couple political signs have sprouted up in our front yard. I won't go into all the gory details, but ever since we moved into our house 6 years ago, we've been fighting the county over a huge construction project that's just a block away. Essentially, the county is giving our taxpayer dollars to the aging church at the end of our street so they can tear it down and rebuild it with an 8-story apartment building on top. There are a lot of issues that have upset the people who live in the surrounding residential neighborhood, including the height of the building -- which is nearly double what the original zoning allowed -- and the seeming lack of church/state separation. But because the church has agreed to make some of the apartments available at an "affordable housing" rate, the county has bent over backwards to make it happen.

If you want to see what the finished project is supposed to look like, they have some drawings and renderings on their web site. Construction has already begun, and they project it will take TWO YEARS to complete.

For more details about our neighborhood's lawsuit against the county, you can visit AskTheCounty.com

Anyway, when I got home from work yesterday, I found this letter in my mailbox:Note that while it was dated March 26, it was postmarked March 31, so rather than having 10 days to respond, I really only had 2 business days. Also, it was NOT sent by certified mail, despite the 'receipt number' under our address.

Now, as you may recall, we had half a dozen different yard signs from all our subcontractors in front of our house during our renovation, not to mention an Obama sign prior to the 2008 presidential election, but that didn't seem to raise any concerns with the zoning dept.
Since I couldn't call them back until the next morning, I looked up the county zoning ordinance online, and found this:

7. The following signs may be displayed with out a permit on private property in any district.
b. Unlighted temporary political signs are permitted on private property in residential zoning districts.

And here is their own definition:
Political sign. A temporary sign relating to the election of one or more persons to public office, or a political party, or a matter to be voted upon at an election called by a duly constituted public body, or an issue of public interest.

I'm pretty sure the county's questionable funding of the church project qualifies as "an issue of public interest." I showed the letter to Josh and discussed it with several neighbors -- some of whom had received the same letter. They were all in agreement that there was no basis for the county to be sending out this letter -- and that it seemed suspicious that that they were targeting people with anti-county yard signs.

I called the number on the letter this morning and got the voice mail of the person who sent it, Kenneth Wright, so I left a message asking him to call me back. Around 11 am, I just happened to notice a county Prius parked in front of my house, and saw a guy standing across the street taking a photo of our yard signs. I went outside, introduced myself, and had a nice, friendly chat with Kenneth Wright himself. He happened to have a copy of the county zoning ordinance in his car, so I pointed out the specific passages I cited above, and he agreed that my yard signs were NOT, in fact, in violation.

Mr. Wright said he would go back to the office to confirm this with the Zoning Administrator, but he personally didn't see any issue with the signs. He was also very apologetic when I pointed out that his 'courtesy' letter just arrived yesterday -- and was postmarked March 31. He claimed it must have been an issue with the mailroom, and that he'd look into it.

I asked him why the sudden interest in yard signs, and he claimed that the county has been doing battle against illegal yard signs for years. He made it sound like someone just happened to be canvassing our area recently and noted several potential violations. I couldn't get a sense of whether that was true or if someone had actually complained -- or if the county had specifically targeted our neighborhood. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Even if this WAS an orchestrated attempt by the county to get us to take down our signs, they had clearly lost that particular battle.

Shortly after noon, an email was sent out by the Zoning Administrator in which she stated:

"I am about to write in capital letters – not to shout but to emphasize –

NO ZONING ENFORCEMENT ACTION WITH REGARD TO THE SIGNS REFERENCED IN THE MARCH 26, 2010 LETTER FROM KENNETH WRIGHT WILL BE PURSUED."

And thus ended Yard-Sign-Gate 2010. (I hope!)