Valentino-Smith Proposes School Funding Disclosure Legislation

The following is a press release from  Maryland District 23A Delegate Geraldine Valentino-Smith:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                            CONTACT: GERALDINE VALENTINO-SMITH        

JANUARY 26, 2012                                                           PHONE:  301-858-3101

                                                                                                E-MAIL:  geraldine.valentino@house.state.md.us

VALENTINO-SMITH SEEKS TO STRENGTHEN PUBLIC’S

PARTNERSHIP WITH PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD

In keeping her pledge to strengthen the public’s partnership with the Prince George’s County Public School System, Delegate Geraldine Valentino-Smith has authored and introduced legislation requiring the Prince George’s County School Board to develop and operate a searchable web site which would allow the public to search school funding by individual school. 

Currently it is difficult to determine the funding for individual schools and how the funds are spent at each school.  The budget books are so voluminous that it is extremely difficult to extract information from them for each individual school.  Through ongoing communications with her constituents, the Delegate realizes that most parents don’t have time to attend lengthy School Board meetings and comb through the complex data in the budget reports. 

With the passage of PG 410-12 Education-Prince George’s County School Board Budgets-Transparency, the public would be given access to important school board spending data in a clear, easy to read format.

Says Valentino-Smith, “Enactment of this bill will enable parents, students, teachers and our county citizens to readily and easily access information regarding how education funding is spent at the local school level.  This kind of web-based information will demonstrate a full commitment to making the public partners in our important mission to ensure clarity and understanding for education investment and spending.”

The bill has garnered enthusiastic support from a wide range of organizations including SEIU 400, ASASP, AFSCME 2250, the Prince George’s County NAACP, the African American Democratic Club of Prince George’s County, People for Change of Prince George’s County and PGCMA.

The bill is currently up for discussion in the Prince George’s County Delegation and will be voted on in the coming weeks.

Remembering Pete O'Malley

Peter F. O'Malley passed away last Saturday. In earlier times, his death would have received the attention of the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun and many of the local papers, but there may be few people left at those papers that recall the inner-workings of Prince George's County politics in the 70s and 80s.

Washington Post sportswriter John Feinstein did write about O’Malley in a blog post this week. Feinstein covered politics in the county before he switched to sports. Sports coverage, not politics, is where Feinstein belonged, according to O’Malley.

Feinstein covered two stories in his blog post, so you’ll have to scroll down to see Feinstein’s comments about the passing of O’Malley.


Related Links

• John Feinstein's Blog Post
• Former Maryland House of Delegates member Tim Maloney pays tribute to O'Malley
• Maryland State House columnist Barry Rascovar remembers O'Malley
  
• Death Notice in the Washington Post
• Washington Business Journal article
  
• Listing and Guestbook at Kalas Funeral Homes
  

Shukoor Ahmed Wins Bowie Living Award

Bowie Living is happy to announce that Shukoor Ahmed has won the 2010 Bowie Living Sign Waving Award for best political sign waver.

Ahmed's waving should be trademarked as a choreographed dance. Shukoor performs the following moves all at once in a quick three second number.

• Crouches down to make sure drivers can see his face as they drive by.
• Wide smile
• Violently waves right hand
• Holds up sign with left hand
• Shuffles his feet as he quickly runs backwards to try to keep up with the cars driving by
  

Bobby Henry came in second place with his more casual style of sign waving. Henry has a cool smile and an easy wave, but he stands still rather than attempting to run backward with traffic. Henry will point at the driver in every 5th car with an expression on his face that seems to say, "hey, I know you!"

I interrupted Shukoor Ahmed's waving routine for a quick photo at the intersection of Routes 450 and 197 in Bowie on August 30, 2010.

If that is Shukoor Ahmed in the near corner, who is the mystery man on the other corner waving an Ahmed sign?

After having the photo enhanced at the Bowie Living field office in Omaha, Nebraska, I believe that the other sign waver is the man who calls himself the Bowie City Activist, Richard Dahms. If this is the Bowie City Activist, I personally think that Shukoor Ahmed would be better off letting a stick of wood hold up his sign. On the other hand, this may be a good place for the Bowie City Activist as he is out in the open where he can easily be seen and no one will hear his name calling over the noise of the speeding cars. Comparing Bowie city officials to Nazis? Get real Bowie City Activist! Nazi comparisons are so overused and misused. Who cares? Bowie Living cares!

Rushern Baker Robo Call

Today must be the day for robo calls by 2010 Prince George's County Executive candidates. After receiving a Gerron Levi robo call this morning, I received two recorded calls from Rushern Baker this afternoon (I assume one was for me and one was for my wife). Here are some of the differences between the phone calls:

• The caller ID displayed "UNAVAILABLE" on the first call and "RUSHERN BAKER" for the second call.
• The area code for the Levi call was 202, and the area code for the Baker call was 301.
• The first recorded caller did not identify herself. The second call featured the voice of Rushern Baker.
• The Levi message was an attack on Michael Jackson's performance, and the Baker call described some of Baker's ideas for making "a good county great."
  

Rushern Baker included the following in his call.

• Baker said that he has "real solutions," and he mentions that you might be hearing negative calls from others. I wonder who he has in mind.
  
• Baker invited me to attend a small business owners forum on June 23 at 8:30 at the FOP lodge in Upper Marlboro. I missed whether that was 8:30am or 8:30pm, and there is no mention of it on his Web site or his Facebook page that I could find.
• Baker said that he is the only candidate with a plan to protect our tax dollars from corruption.
  
• Baker said something about creating duty free zones. I found the following when I searched the Internet. I wonder if he already ran this by the Annapolis crowd.
  

Seek legislation at the state level to create duty-free zones within targeted neighborhoods. This legislation would seek a sales tax exemption as well as local tax exemption for a 36- to 48-month period for companies located and willing to locate in communities facing the greatest difficulty attracting quality jobs and vendors. The goal would be to give these companies within communities a 3- to 5-year waiver on sales taxes, which would give them a competitive edge, encourage consumers to shop in these communities. Larger companies would have to achieve certain goals on hiring and use of local vendors to apply. This will help Prince George’s County. Additional incentives would be added for companies that have a certain percentage of their employees become homeowners in Prince George’s County or pay income taxes in Prince George's.

Gerron Levi Robo Call

I just received a robo call promoting Gerron Levi for Prince George's County Executive, but the call was more about Sheriff Michael Jackson than Levi. The "caller" suggests that Jackson's focus on his campaign for County Executive is to blame for the high number of warrants that have not been served by the Sheriff's office. I didn't hear how many warrants the caller claimed were unserved. "Don't be fooled by the large signs, " the caller also warned. It's clear who Gerron Levi views as the competition in this race.

The robo call came from area code 202 - not from gorgeous Prince George's.

Jim Hubbard: Delegate to the Gas Stations

The 2010 primary election in Maryland is three months away, and campaign signs have been popping up all over Bowie. It seems like the signs are up earlier than in years past, and there is an overabundance of large signs. Jim Hubbard and Michael Jackson have the most large signs, but mini billboards for Rafael Hylton, Shukoor Ahmed and Rushern Baker have been seen around Bowie as well.

Jim Hubbard appears to be the Maryland House of Delegates candidate that District 23A gas station owners are supporting almost exclusively. If an area gas station has a large political sign on display, chances are that it's a sign for Delegate Jim Hubbard.

The gas station on the corner of Laurel Bowie Road and Old Chapel Road historically displayed campaign signs for conservative candidates. Signs stood in this gas station in 2002 supporting Audrey Scott for County Executive and Paul Ellington for Mayor. Today there is an eight foot wide sign supporting Democratic candidate Jim Hubbard.

Large Hubbard campaign signs can be seen at Whitehall Shell, the Sunoco on Route 197, the former Citgo on Old Chapel Road and the Chevron at the corner of Route 450 and Route 3. There appears to be widespread support for Hubbard among independent gas station owners.

Maryland House Bill 736 (2001rs) may be the reason area station owners support Hubbard. Jim Hubbard co-sponsored HB736 in 2001 to create price controls on the sale of gasoline in Maryland. Independent gas station owners claimed that large convenience store chains like Sheetz, Wawa and Royal Farms were selling gasoline at or below cost in an effort to drive the independent stations out of business. Once HB736 was signed into law by then Governor Parris Glendening, the State of Maryland began forcing some stores to raise gasoline prices when the prices became too low.

Supporters of the bill claim that without price protections, the large convenience stores and other discount chains would offer gasoline at or below cost to attract customers, the independent gas stations would be driven out of business, and the large chains would then raise gas prices once the competition is eliminated. The net effect would be less competition and higher gas prices for Maryland residents.

Detractors of the bill point out that some retailers want to offer lower gas prices today, but they're not allowed to because of HB736. They claim that the net effect is higher gas prices for Maryland residents.

Supporters and detractors of HB736 do agree on one thing: the bill is good for the independent gas station owners, and that may translate into real estate for Hubbard campaign signs in 2010.

It's also possible that the willingness to host Hubbard campaign signs is more about the future than the past. Independent gas station owners have lobbied for a law to eliminate "zone pricing" by gasoline wholesalers. Zone pricing is the method used by the wholesalers to vary the price of gasoline by area in order to get the highest price that consumers in that area will pay. For example, gasoline in zones with fewer stations will be more expensive because there is less competition. Consumers in Bethesda will pay more for gasoline because they have more disposable income. If wholesaler zone pricing is eliminated, drivers in Bethesda will continue to pay more for gas than drivers in Bowie, but more profit would go to the station owner and not the wholesaler.

A bill was sponsored in 2008 to establish a task force to study the elimination of zone pricing by gasoline wholesaler, but the legislation did not pass, and Hubbard was not one of the sponsors. Time will tell if the Maryland legislature picks up the issue again.

See pictures of Hubbard campaign signs at area gas stations below.

Click on the following links for related information.

• Why gas cost so much in Maryland
• Maryland Hits Brakes on Fleeting Gasoline Price War
• Law to protect consumers at the pump has contrary effect
• More Pain at the Pump
• House Bill 736 (2001rs): price control bill
  
• House Bill 1138 (2008rs): attempt to establish task force to study zone pricing
  

Sunoco at the corner of Old Chapel Road and Laurel Bowie Road

Whitehall Shell on Route 197

Former Citgo near the intersection of Old Chapel Road and Race Track Road

Chevron at the Corner of Route 450 and Route 3

Sunoco at the intersection of Annapolis Road and Whitfield Chapel Road in Lanham/Seabrook near the Capital Beltway

Enterprise Shell on Annapolis Road in Lanham/Seabrook

Forbes BP Amoco at the corner of Annapolis Road and Forbes Blvd in Lanham/Seabrook

Seabrook BP Amoco on Lanham Severn Road in Seabrook

Bowie Briefs - v4

Audrey Scott
The Maryland Republican Party overwhelmingly selected former Bowie Mayor Audrey Scott as their new party chairwoman at a convention held Saturday in Bowie at the Comfort Inn Conference Center. Rumor has it that party faithfuls were impressed by the many elephant trinkets that Scott has on display in the Republican safe haven that she calls home. The elephants were featured in an Audrey Scott promotional video on YouTube. Scott's colorful opponent, Daniel "the Whig Man" Vovak, posted his own promotional video featuring inspirational music from the movie Rocky. An unidentified source claims that after the loss, Vovak was seen on the steps of the conference center yelling, "Adrian!"

Despite big party financial problems and claims by some that the Republicans are having trouble finding talented candidates for 2010, the Maryland GOP displayed optimism at Saturday's event.

Read more details about the convention in this Baltimore Sun article. The Sun describes Chairwoman Scott as "spunky."

Maryland Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Turnbull issued a "bring it on" style congratulations to Scott shortly after the convention. Turnbull's statement can be read here on Maryland Politics Watch.



Bowie Police Department Plans Icy Water Dip for Charity
Members of the Bowie Police Department plan on participating in the 14th annual Polar Bear Plunge to raise money for Maryland Special Olympics. The department's team will be dipping into the icy Chesapeake Bay waters at Sandy Point State Park on January 30, 2010. Click here to make a donation or to track the team's fund raising progress. They are still looking for donations and additional team members. According to the team's page, Bowie Councilwoman Diane Polangin will also be taking the plunge.

Lt. Richard Wohkittle, Chief Katherine Perez and Deputy Chief John Nesky pose in the water for a promotional picture for the fundraiser.

Arrest of Chief Perez Imminent
Bowie Police Chief Katherine Perez will be locked up as part of the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual Lock Up Event on Tuesday, November 17. Click here to make a donation or track the Chief's progress. She still has $2,000 to raise by Tuesday!



Bowie Health Center Temporarily Open Around the Clock
The Bowie Health Center is temporarily open 24 hours a day to accommodate a spike in the number of patients seeking treatment. The average number of patients has jumped 74%, and most patients are reporting flu like symptoms. Read more details in this Gazette article.



Schools to Continue use of SchoolMax
The Prince George's County Public Schools have decided to stick with the troubled SchoolMax computer system despite well publicized scheduling problems at the beginning of the school year. Many of the problems with the software have been resolved, and switching to a new software package would be very costly. Read more details in this Washington Post article.

Bowie Briefs - v3

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Bowie Residents in the News.
First - the bad and the ugly. The Prince George's States Attorney's Office announced that Jerome Engle of Bowie, a former Riverdale Volunteer Firefighter, was indicted on arson charges for his part in setting fire to a vacant home in Riverdale in March, 2008. Rumor has it that Engle was still wearing his Halloween costume when arrested.

On the good side of things, David Ramadhani, a Bowie resident and FedEx driver, is one of two people credited with saving the life of an accident victim in Oxon Hill after her vehicle became engulfed in flames from a gasoline fueled fire. According to a Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department press release, Ramadhani used the first extinguisher from his FedEx truck to slow the fire enough to allow him and another good Samaritan to free the occupant from the car. One of the rescuers used a utility knife to cut the victim's seat belt. Fed Ex: when you absolutely, positively have to get out of your burning car. Great job David Ramadhani!

There was also a report last week of two unnamed Bowie residents helping to rescue their neighbor when he became trapped under his van.

By my calculations, that's three good Bowie residents for each bad one. Go Bowie!


Audrey Scott
I previously posted here and here about former Bowie Mayor Audrey Scott's run for the Maryland GOP chair. Scott is one step closer to the position now that one of her opponents, Chris Cavey, has dropped out of the running. However, some Republicans are finding irony in Scott's pledge to bring unity to the Maryland GOP because her son, former Bowie resident Lawrence Scott, has divided the party with the strategies he deployed while working on several Republican primary contests. See this post on the Red Maryland blog for more juicy details. The Maryland GOP Chairperson will be selected later this month.


Gerron Levi
Gerron Levi, one of two Maryland House of Delegate members representing most of Bowie in legislative district 23A, has announced that she is running for Prince George's County Executive in 2010. Adam Pagnucco at Maryland Politics Watch sees one scenario where this freshman Delegate could win the election.

Tales from Election Day

The City of Bowie elections were held yesterday, and all incumbents kept their seats. Full results can be seen here on the City of Bowie web site.







Supporters for Geraldine Valentino-Smith and Pete Mellits greet motorists on Kenhill Drive near Bowie City Hall.


Campaign signs cover the lawn in front of Bowie City Hall. City Hall hosted one of two District 2 polling locations. The most contentious race this year was between incumbent Diane Polangin and Pete Mellits for the District 2 council seat.



District 2 Councilwoman Diane Polangin, At-Large Councilman Dennis Brady and Bowie Mayor G. Fred Robinson greet voters outside Bowie City Hall on election day.


My wife campaigned for Mayor Robinson and Councilman Brady at one of the polling locations, and she came home with a few interesting stories.

At some point in the afternoon, a man wearing a Berwyn Rod & Gun Club hat walked toward my wife. My wife said something like, "Fred Robinson and Dennis Brady have done a great job for the City of Bowie, and they would sure appreciate your support." A Geraldine Valentino-Smith supporter made a similar remark. The man turned to the group of people and said, "how do your candidates feel about the second amendment?" The Valentino-Smith supporters said, "which one is the second amendment?" The man made a sound like a buzzer on a game show, and he said, "wrong answer!"

At this point, my wife should have said, "as a matter of fact, Mayor Robinson's nickname is Sniper, and Dennis Brady likes to show off his AK-47 at city council meetings." But honesty got the best of her, and she instead tried to explain that second amendment matters aren't addressed at the city level because all of the time is spent allocating funds to fix pot holes and improve lacrosse fields.

"Well, I think that they should at least teach gun safety in the schools," the man replied. The conversation was over before my wife could explain that the schools were controlled by the county.

Later in the day, a car parked near my wife, and an older woman got out. Several dogs were in the car, and they were all barking. My wife greeted the woman with her standard Robinson and Brady promotion, but then she added, "Dennis Brady loves dogs too!" And she handed the woman a brochure like the following.



The woman took a moment to look at the picture, and she said, "Awwwww, are these sheep dogs? So beautiful!" Perhaps quick thinking on my wife's part helped earn Councilman Brady an extra vote.

Dennis Brady is a known dog lover, and he considers the Bowie Dog Park to be one of his important accomplishments while serving on the Bowie City Council. Dennis and his wife Kathy have two Old English Sheep Dogs that are their "kids," and the dogs accompanied the Bradys in this year's Bowie Memorial Day Parade.

Bowie Briefs - v2

Audrey Scott
I recently wrote about former Bowie Mayor Audrey Scott vying to be the chairwoman of the Maryland Republican Party. She posted the following campaign video last week to tout her credentials for the job. This is definitely an interesting use of the Internet for an old school politician like Audrey. I love the intro music and the description of her house full of elephant trinkets as a "Republican safe haven." No donkeys in that house!

Northview Fire Station
The Northview Fire Station recently opened in Bowie on the corner of Northview Drive and Health Center Drive. According to a Gazette article, this station will be staffed better than most area fire stations.



I snapped the following picture a couple of weeks before the station was operational. An electrician was working on the lights for the station's stained glass tile and mirror mosaic depicting a very happy and diverse workforce.

The mosaic was designed by local artist Cheryl Foster. Right on, Cheryl! Cheryl assembled the mural with help from several volunteers, including a group of elderly assistants from the nearby Bowie Senior Center.

This photo doesn't do the piece justice. The blue circles in the background contain symbols associated with Bowie and Prince George's County. I'll have to go back to the station for a close-up.

The girl featured in the mosaic is a young Rockledge Elementary School student and artist who inspires Cheryl Foster.

You can read more about the Northview Fire Station stained glass tile and mirror mosaic in a recent article published in The Sentinel.





Seven New Police Officers for Bowie
It's a good thing that the new Bowie City Hall project has been kicked off. The Gazette recently reported that seven new police officers were sworn in during a recent City Council meeting. It would be a crime to force these new officers to work out of double-wides indefinitely. Plus the new digs for the city may give us the opportunity to have our very own call center to improve Bowie Police response times. Good times. Good times.



BGE Customers to Participate in Obama's Smart Grid Plan
Baltimore Gas & Electric will be getting $200 million in federal stimulus money to install new "smart meters" in two million customer homes as a stepping stone to having a more advanced electrical grid. BGE will be kicking in $251 million of its own money for the project.

Each new smart meter will contain a component that is mounted on the inside of a house, and a light signal will help alert customers to upcoming peak energy usage times. BGE will implement a new energy pricing model, and customers will be able to save money by reducing their energy usage during the peak usage periods.

The program is not expected to be completed until 2014.

Read this BGE press release and related Baltimore Sun article for more information.


Aggressive Tree Trimming Continues
Aggressive tree trimming continues along Maryland Route 197 in Bowie. I'm sure that there will be more unhappy residents.





Bowie City Elections Next Tuesday
Don't forget to vote. Click here for election day information from the City of Bowie web site. I pretty much want the existing team to stay in place.





Lock Up Fundraiser for Muscular Dystrophy
The Bowie Baysox are hosting an event to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Donations will benefit Bowie and Crofton families. The event is described as follows on the Bowie Baysox web site.

Community and business leaders agree to be locked up "for good" and are asked to
raise bail by reaching out to family, friends, colleagues, and vendors are
asking for help raising funds for MDA. The Lock-Up will celebrate the Jailbirds’
success in raising money to help send local children to MDA Summer Camp at Camp
Maria in Leonardtown, MD. They will receive actual mug shots and a scrumptious
lunch donated by Carrabba’s Italian Grill.

Click here for more information.

Chronicles of Inauguration Day

It's been more than seven months since President Obama was sworn into office. My wife and I attended the inauguration with nearly 2 million of our closest friends. We knew that it wasn't going to be exactly fun. We knew it wouldn't be easy to get to the Mall and back. We knew that it was going to be very cold and crowded. But we wanted to go anyway.

I chronicled our inauguration day experiences in my first ever blog post, but I did it on a personal web page. Now I've transferred it here.

In a speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial two days before the inauguration, then President-Elect Obama said the following:

Along the way there will be setbacks and false starts and days that test our
resolve as a nation.

The health care reform initiative appears to be one of those false starts. I don't think anyone could have predicted the events of the last two months, but in hindsight, the approach that was taken clearly didn't work. President Obama appears to be attempting a "do over" of sorts starting with a speech to a joint session of Congress next week. I hope that he can salvage the debate, and that much needed health care reform will become a reality.

Below is a reminder of a day when a lot of the country had great hope that Barrack Obama could help bring about real change. The hope is still there, but it's tempered with the reality that it won't be easy.



My brother in-law calls at 2:00 Monday afternoon - the day before the inauguration. Two tickets are available, but I have to find Charles in Tenleytown by 4:00.




Silver tickets. Good news (so we think). Looks like we'll only be three to four blocks from the Capitol.




I expect the lines at the Metro will be long on Tuesday, so I head to the New Carrollton station Monday night to get fare cards. Too bad everyone else thought the same thing, and I am stuck waiting in line for 35 minutes. I stop by CVS on the way home, and I discover that Metro SmartTrip Cards are available at CVS with no lines and no waiting - and I can get a flu shot at the same time.




News reports at 6:30am on inauguration day indicate that parking lots at the New Carrollton and Greenbelt Metro stops are full. So much for plans A and B. Plan C is to park in Greenbelt Center, and catch a bus to the Greenbelt Metro. When a bus for New Carrollton Metro comes first, we switch to plan D, not realizing that it goes to New Carrollton via Montreal. The good news: we got a commemorative bus pass.



The waiting line to get into the New Carrollton Metro station. We're thinking that by the time we get through this line, the government will be back in the stem cell research business and Gitmo will be closed. The line moves quickly, and we are on a train in 15 minutes.

Metro workers did a great job loading the trains fast. We were expecting standing room only with plenty of pushing and shoving, but everything was well organized. We have no complaints for Metro, even though they did hit the old lady in the Gallery Place - China Town station (she lived). As the train passes through other stations, we discover that there is still plenty of parking at the stops that aren't at the end of the lines. We'll keep that in mind for 2013.
By the end of the day, Metro records over 1.5 million trips, breaking the previous record that was set just the day before.

A sea of tour buses is visible as we pass RFK Stadium.

The train goes pretty slow after this point as there are still many trains downtown unloading. Someone on the train receives a text message from "Michelle" telling people not to try going anyplace on the Mall East of 14th Street. Despite the fact that she is the First Lady elect, we don't take her advice.. We have tickets!

The view as we leave the Federal Center Metro and head North toward the Mall. We start walking toward the gates for the Silver ticket area, only to discover that the Silver ticket line is on the sidewalk to the left. We head back to find the end of the line. The line goes four blocks South of the Mall, then three blocks West, and then turns South again. The inauguration is supposed to be an hour away, and the line isn't moving at all. We give up hope of using the Silver tickets, and we head for the "open" areas West of 4th Street.

The ticket areas end up being the feel bad story of the day for many. It turns out that the line was blocked in the front by non-ticket holders, and nobody in this line made it in. Some people with purple tickets were directed to wait in the 3rd Street tunnel, and they were still waiting there at inauguration time.. By the end of the day, a new group forms on Facebook called Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom. The Silver and Purple areas on the mall never fill up. Bad stories galore of people who flew in from out of town, waited in line starting at 7:00am, and didn't make it into the ticket area.

Walking West near 7th Street. The story of the day: AREA FULL. We keep heading West toward the Washington Monument.

Foot traffic comes to a stop. Authorities want all of these people to move off the road, and walk on a six foot wide section of sidewalk to the right of the bus under the right side of the arch. They then make us recite the alphabet backwards before they let us move on. There is no turning back because there are thousands of people behind us, so we work our way through.

The base of the Washington Monument is almost in view.

Yes, the people standing higher than everyone else at the top-center of the picture are standing on port-a-potties.

The first of many tree sitters.

And pole sitters...

PODIUM + CAPTIVE AUDIENCE = COMEDIAN

"I don't know where they're going, but keep following the people in front of you. That's it, people. Keep moving. Why couldn't you stay home and watch this on TV?!?!" (repeat)

Getting closer. More tree sitters.

And closer...wait, I mean getting further away, further away, further away...

We finally see ground without people for the first time in several blocks.

An hour after we leave the Metro station, we finally reach the South side of the Washington Monument - 12 blocks West of the silver ticket area.

Our view for the ceremony. The rectangular shaped object at tree level in the center of the picture is a "jumbotron" - Latin for "since you didn't get tickets, you have to try to watch this little screen from four blocks away - oh you did get tickets -- too bad for you."

A sea of humanity listens to Obama's speech from 16 blocks away.

The mad post-ceremony dash near the Jefferson Memorial. We don't bother to attempt walking East along the mall to get back to the Metro. We head South toward the waterfront, and then East to the Navy Yard to avoid the crowd. It's a long walk, but it pays off with a seat on a nearly empty Green Line train.

A few stops later, Frederick Strother, an actor from our favorite HBO show (The Wire) boards our train. He's the one with the raised arm in the picture above. He is more recognizable in the picture below playing politician Odell Watkins. I consider saying "hello," but I am told not to embarrass my wife. Opportunity lost. Not sure when I'll have another chance to meet Fred.

Running into actors from The Wire appears to be a favorite family activity. My wife, daughter and family friends ran into Clarke Peters (aka, Lester Freamon) at an Obama rally in Baltimore in February, 2008. Family friend, Sandy, said, "can we get a picture with you and the kids. They love your show." And Clarke said, "are you kidding! You let them watch that?!?!?!" (we don't)

Four days after the inauguration, I ended up on the Mall again, except this time, in the silver ticket area. This would have been our view from the silver ticket area to the Capitol for the inauguration.

And the view from the silver ticket area to the Washington Monument - where we ended up during the inauguration.