Joseph Doyle volunteers most days at the Scott Library at the Armed Forces Retirement Home, where he lives.
He loves the quality of life there, in no small part because of the library.
"I bet it's the only library in Washington, DC, that's open 24 hours a day and 365 days a year," says Doyle, 76. "I [...]
The average day at Dupont Circle's Leather Rack (1723 Cionnecticut Avenue NW) is becoming less leathery these days. "Fetish wear has really taken a downturn in the last year," says Chaz, the store's general manager. The bad times have steered customers away from higher end items—$334 leather chaps, for example—and toward cheaper stuff. "Let's say [...]
It is 12:30 p.m. and Officer Harris is sitting outside the courtroom with a fellow cop. Harris is reading an Examiner. The other cop is tearing through James Patterson's Violets Are Blue. Both just testified in the case of the dipper man who fell asleep at the wheel. But there's been one snag.
A prosecution witness—the [...]
As a construction consultant, Carlos Iglesias spends a lot of time checking things. He started working at sites as a 12-year-old, assisting his dad with carpentry work. At 16, he apprenticed with an architect, and began reading D.C.'s building code books like they were old testament scrolls.
"I'm a believer in the code," he says today. [...]
Robert Stone runs the wood shop at the Armed Forces Retirement Home with his pal, fellow tenant and fellow Navy man Jim Webster.
"This place keeps me going," says Stone, who's lived at AFRH for two years. "I'm not well. I've been through the cancer."
I tell him he looks fine and fit, and mean it.
"My insides [...]
Venerable WRC-TV correspondent Tom Sherwood, the dean of the D.C. local politics reportocracy, is working on a piece about fire hydrants, and how they don't work. So he's skulking around in the John A. Wilson Building and has managed to collar a couple of residents who live near dysfunctional fire hydrants. Next step is to [...]
Shirley Buzzard, 67, arrived early for her volunteer shift at the National Zoo's reptile house. She likes to grab a coffee and check out the Great Ape House, or maybe the pandas, before her three-hour stint with snakes. The snakes are her favorite—the retired anthropologist has loved them since she was 10.
She also likes feeding [...]
Sitting behind the defense table are a pair of brothers, Gerald and Richard Arnold. Richard is in braids. Gerald is in a light blue shirt that's too big for his frame. They look bored. Almost sleepy. They came into courtroom 320 clutching legal file folders. But the proceedings are slow and tedious. A juror is [...]
Professor Holger Zaborowski, Dr. Z for short, leans up against the chalkboard. Wearing a navy blue sportsjacket over a green v-neck sweater, he starts up a discussion in his Tues-Thurs 9:35 a.m. Philosophy of Religion, a familiar topic to students at Catholic University.
Today, the focus is on the concept of God – Dr. Z. plays [...]
This is Carlos Iglesias. After spending a few hours together, I would deem him an above-average District citizen. He's a diligent 24-year-old, who lives with this wife and two young children in Ward 4, where he was born and raised. Besides the Ward 4 connection, he has some Adrian Fenty-esque tendencies: By the time he's [...]
For those looking for nonaverage activity at the National Zoo today, there is one can't-miss destination: the Great Ape House. First, there's the newest adorable zoo baby, the tiny gorilla born Jan. 11 and recently discovered to be female. (She is yet unnamed while the zoo works up the requisite lather among the faithful, who [...]
The D.C. Council's right there, too!
It's busy times in the office of council budget director Eric Goulet, who has the requisite amount of paperwork in his office—tons!—to prove he's worthy of his title. It's a messy office, but an organized messy. "I'll show you my folders," he exclaims.
And indeed he does. There's the folder [...]
Leslie Liberato, who's working closely with Maryrose Flanigan to organize the NEA's Poetry Out Loud competition, claims she's "a manager more than a subject expert"–a charmingly arresting sentiment coming from a federal employee.
Liberato's preparation for Poetry Out Loud included administering Great American Voices, a program that brought opera to 41 military bases, and which Liberato [...]
