Dear Metro,

Please stop trying to shift us all over to SmarTrip cards if you admit that using one to ride the bus leaves you wide open to get screwed up.

Thanks,
urban bohemian

A few months back our office told us that they were finally entering the modern era and giving us transit benefits. There was a little dog & pony show and lots of incorrect and redacted information, etc. but overall it seemed like a good plan. I signed up for it in March, which meant my benefits would be available in April. In one of the group meetings the representative insisted that we wouldn’t have to do anything and the funds would be applied to our account. This is incorrect, however even going through the appropriate procedure, I wasn’t getting the funds downloaded to my SmarTrip card. So I decided to poke around and find out what was going on. I left an e-mail to my HR reps to ask for a POC for our benefits company and then contacted WMATA themselves. Here’s where it gets interesting.

Sandy, a genuinely nice customer service agent, confirmed that my card was registered and I told her my problem and she asked me when was the last time I used it. I told her just this morning and she said that nooooo, they showed my last use in Feb 2006. Wha-huh?! I told her that my current card was a replacement for a non-functioning card and that I’ve had it for quite a while. I rattled off my past 3 addresses and eventually she confirmed that I got it when I lived on Hobart St, which means I’ve had a SmarTrip for ages. There was a lot of time on hold and a lot of keyboard tapping and lot of “Hm..” on both sides of the call, but she was able to give me detailed directions on what to do next. I had to go to a station manager and get an internal code from my card.

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I really love my new dishes! When I was living in Logan Circle and had a roommate, I bought a really nice double set of Mikasa settings for 4. He didn’t contribute anything to the kitchen and between our cooking and take-out habits, we went through dishes pretty quickly. We also had a large dishwasher, so it was able to take a lot of dirties before we had to run it. When I moved out, I still had 8 place settings and over time I found that they were just too much for me, in addition to my having gotten bored with them. They were lovely, and more importantly on sale, when I bought them so it wasn’t a bad thing, but they were very plain-jane.

On my trip over to the new Target, I saw a lot of dish sets that I liked, but of course the one I most fancied wasn’t all in one set. If I shopped online, when it was in stock, I could have bought sets of 4 of each, bowls, plates and mugs. Oddly though, in the store, the mugs and bowls were sold in sets of 2 while the dinner and salad plates were in sets of 4. What’s up with that? Plus they had horrible stocking those first few weeks, so it took me a while plus Gregory making a trip to another Target for me to get the full set. But I just had to have that blue stoneware. Also in the past where I felt the need to fill up the “white space” on a plate, the color keeps me from adding another spoonful of side dish. Besides, I also made some dessert to go with!

Anyway, it’s Spring which means its time to grill. Mainly because I can keep the windows open and the smoke alarm doesn’t go off as often. Next experiment will be grilled salmon a la Ina.

Good ol’ Jonesville Church of God. It looks like Pastor Roger Byrd realized that just maybe people might take some offense to linking a presidential candidates last name to that of a terrorist’s first name. Especially as a religiously endorsed effort to “stir people’s minds,” which sounds more like a scene in a bad horror flick.

The WYFF4.com story about the sign was viewed more than a quarter million times by users across the country. Hundreds of negative comments regarding the sign were posted online. On Tuesday, Byrd apparently decided the wording on the sign should be replaced.

The sign is now back to the very typical threatening you with eternal damnation, but in a lighthearted way slogan you’d normally expect from the Southern church. Nice decision, dumb-ass.

Shrimp and Grits made a good point that never even occurred to me. I wonder how many people saw this story and thought that it was made with an online church sign generator, since many people most likely saw it on other blogs and not the original NBC affiliate site. I admit I didn’t watch the video since I still prefer to read the news, not watch it, during my work day.