It generally starts out the same: I get up. I check my e-mail & facebook. I read a few headlines on WaPo. I shower, shave, and get dressed. I toss some leftovers in my satchel. I kiss my wife goodbye. I walk out the door to the bus stop on South Courthouse to wait for the ART Bus. I get on. It’s a pretty smooth ride. I see familiar faces and say hi to a few of my fellow riders I’ve gotten to know over the years. I enjoy the ride through my old neighborhood of Lyon Park & Clarendon. I get off the bus. I’m greeted by the Post Express and Examiner vendors. I grab an Express.

Then, my march down the escalator is met by a sight of a train sitting in the station. I remain optimistic. “It could just have arrived,” I tell myself.

I maintain my dignity and do not rush to grab it. There will surely be another one soon. I’m not some Hill staffer who thinks their life will end if they don’t sprint and knock people over to catch the next train.

My optimism is quashed as I pay my fare and descend down the next escalator to find the train still sitting there.

Sometimes it’s cramped, full of people, ugly & pretty just trying to get to their jobs. The expression on their faces say that they are not pleased. Today, there was an advisory message on the boards that said McPherson Square Station was closed.

I peered down the tunnel in both directions and other trains waiting. Today, I decide that it’s not even worth my time to attempt to board and wait it out.

At least they told us it was going to suck.

I caught another ART bus home and got my car. I sat for a short time in traffic and parked right across the street from my building. The days where I choose to ride it out have been much much worse. Other days, we’ve sat in the tunnel for up to 25 minutes. What makes it just peaches & cream are the jerky motions the train makes when the operator tries to move it forward. Ever since operators have been driving the train manually, the stops in the stations themselves are far less gradual. Eventually, it literally hurts to hang onto a bar or pole to make sure you don’t crush the person in front of you while standing. My left arm is starting to feel like it has some muscle and/or nerve damage and I will be visiting a doctor very soon as a result.

I doubt Metro will cover my $50 co-pay.

I’m not the first to complain about Metro, so I recognize the redundancy of this rant. But if you read Unsuck DC Metro every day like I do, then you’re fully aware that there needs to be something done about this agency. Every morning, I and all my co-workers who commute on the same trains are all angry and frustrated. We feel helpless. I haven’t had a smooth Metro ride in over 2 weeks. I’m not sure about the other lines, but I can’t imagine the Orange and Blue are alone in their recent problems.

So write your Metro Board Representative. Tell them to get this crap under control.

Though I wasn’t looking hard for mistakes, I found at least two that were so unbelievably glaring, I had to point them out.

The first had to do with Presidential History. Discussing the accomplishments of various presidents, someone at the Smithsonian loved Reagan so much, and since they couldn’t fellate a corpse without breaking several laws, they decided to give him the next best thing: attribute one of the biggest accomplishments in spacecraft history to his presidency.

Don't mess with a Trek fan on Space Travel history. I didn't spend all of high school not getting laid for nothing.

Unfortunately for the Smithsonian, the Enterprise was launched in 1977. Though it never flew in space, it was the beginning of the ability to reuse spacecraft, and another step closer to a manned mission outside of Earth’s orbit. Though that mission to Mars hasn’t happened yet (Hopefully, it will occur Ice Cube-free.), it’s a proud moment in our country’s history nonetheless. The only problem is that it happened during the presidency of an ineffectual and unpopular president.

We still haven't gotten over how much you suck, no matter how bankrupt Dubya made us.

The other mistake might not be ideological. Or maybe it can. You see, we as Americans love to claim defense on a lot of things. We were only “defending ourselves” when we preemptively invaded Iraq. When World War II was over and the Cold War began, instead of a Secretary of War, we had a Secretary of Defense. It makes us feel better about ourselves. In fact, last night the Secretary of Defense came over to my apartment to check for monsters under the bed. I love that guy.

He added, "You did the right thing. Those monsters are a threat to national security!"

The 2nd mistake came in the form of a statement indicating that the Empire of Britain declared war on the American Colonies at the outset of hostilities, in this case, the Battles of Lexington & Concord.

Declaring war against a nation you don't even recognize? Even the U.S. didn't do that - and we declare war a lot.

As far as I know (and I’ve checked sources other than Wikipedia), the British never actually declared war on the American Colonies. Formally declaring war means they’d have to recognize us as a sovereign nation a year prior to even the Declaration being signed. According to all my sources (okay, I lied, it was Wikipedia), the Brits viewed the Revolution as an uprising against the Crown.

I wasn’t actually looking for mistakes so I didn’t actually find any more that day. I’m considering going back at some point as my wife works Saturdays and usually my day consists of watching clips of dogs singing on YouTube. If enough interest forms, I think I will arm myself with a crappy digital camera and make use of the free museums. I only wonder, as a native Washingtonian, I don’t go to many museums that one has to pay for. I could say that I get what I pay for except that tax dollars go to these places. While I’m sure some Reagan fanatics (and believe me, they’re crazier than Twilight fans) would appreciate the bias of the first mistake, I wonder if there’s someone out there within the Smithsonian who actually gives a crap that they’re making mistakes about historical fact.

As far as oversight goes, there ain’t a whole lot of it. The worst part is, it’s happened before. In 2008, The Smithsonian was proven to be dumber than a 5th grader. Bravo, Smithsonian. Not only did you completely dumb down the experience of the museum for infotainment purposes, but you also  proved that all those fancy degrees in history and museum science that somehow prevents me from getting a job there really count for something.

You're doing it wrong, Karl.

In reality, we live in uncertain times. There are those of us that live in high-risk areas for large catastrophes whether it be terrorist attack or natural disaster. I hope the day never comes where our Nation’s capital city gets attacked and it turns out to be an incident far worse than driving a plane into a section of the Pentagon. If a full-level, area-wide emergency occurs, people tend to panic, become irrational, and dangerous. There is also a tendency, as we saw during the Katrina disaster, that even law enforcement officials can become nothing more than bullying gatekeepers. I’m not advocating firing at police, but we have a tendency to rely on the cohesion of infrastructure and we need to have realistic expectations of such in a crisis.

Of course, there are the standard reasons for owning a handgun: home protection, defense against predatory wildlife while camping and general self-defense (comment if you can think of other rational and practical reasons). I find those valid reasons for owning a gun, but I’ve always been apprehensive about buying one nonetheless.

Let me make one thing abundantly clear: Gun-Control Laws have never deterred me from actually pursuing gun ownership.

See? We even let Tiger Woods own a gun.

What I find incredulous by some elements of right-wing America is the idea that stringent gun-control laws are limiting of civil liberties. This is generally the same crowd that considers abortion murder.

What if gun-control laws have prevented accidental deaths? It’s hard to prove, but if it prevents people with serious mental problems like Seung-Hui Cho from getting their hands on a gun legally, I don’t understand the resistance to restriction. Of course, there are numerous ways to illegally obtain guns, but that generally takes more funds and is riskier on the purchaser. If that deters even one person from acquiring a gun and taking an innocent life, I am willing to jump through whatever hoops the government has imposed to prevent re-occurrences of things like the Virginia Tech Massacre. We can all agree, however, that government is rarely perfect and that some laws don’t actually prevent these types of tragedies, but it doesn’t mean that said laws can’t be modified accordingly. Government isn’t some superfluous entity or building – it’s people, and people tend to learn by trial and error.

There seems to be an undercurrent of thought within conservative circles that liberals are out to take their guns in an effort to make the entire country a bunch of tree-hugging hippie douchebags. Sure, there’s a few lawmakers out there with that agenda just as there are, conversely, a few lawmakers out there who would love to disregard the separation of church & state and make us a Christian nation. While certainly it seems like there are a lot of conservative Christian lawmakers, most are not realistically interested in making the U.S. a Christian nation just as most liberal lawmakers aren’t expecting the 2nd amendment to disappear.

Speaking of which, The 2nd Amendment dictates you have the right to bear arms (based on maintaining a civillian militia), but there are also other laws in the Constitution and Bill of Rights about public safety. So does one contradict the other? Not necessarily and there’s always a good middle ground compromise to be had which is why some gun restrictions have been shot down in the Supreme Court, and some haven’t.

Ideologically, if you’re a law-abiding citizen, what’s to prevent you from owning a gun otherwise? Can you not write out an application? While there’s no conclusive proof, doesn’t the idea of preventing unnecessary injury or death convince a person that the inconvenience of having to take a gun safety course or go through a background check make it worthwhile?

(Please don’t give me any business about Big Brother, Big Government, etc. You had your chance when Bush was president and wiretapping our phones. Stop whining because your guy isn’t in office.)

What other reason would you have to buy a gun unless you intend to shoot someone right away?

I feel more comfortable knowing some states require that gun owners take safety courses to lessen the chances of someone putting a bullet in their toddler by accident. Based on general behavior (and the fact that our country ranks behind most other first-world nations in education rankings), I have little faith in the competance and intelligence of average Americans to handle guns properly. Even though many kids come from a gun-owning household and are taught in proper gun usage, you can’t form policy around that concept, as it is a non-definitive assurance.

So, as long as lawmakers make sensible gun laws that don’t tread on the right to own a gun even if it means dealing with red tape, paperwork or government bureaucrats, I don’t mind one bit – and if the time comes that I decide to own a gun, I’ll be happy to fill out the proper paperwork and go through the background checks. Even if our government’s system for gun ownership isn’t perfect, at least there’s a system there in the first place.

People complain about the government interfering with their lives until something horrible happens and they wonder why the government didn’t protect them.

One final note: If you own a gun and don’t keep it in a safe, don’t tell people in your community that you own a gun. Public knowledge of gun ownership has led some to attempt stealing it when the owner isn’t home. Something of this nature  should be kept private especially if it’s solely for protection. I wish there was a way to mandate that guns be kept in safes when not in use, but that’s a perfect example of an unrealistic gun restriction law.

I’m not particularly interested in being a focused blog, though I know that would garner me more readership in the process. There’s already too many local blogs about DC or Arlington. There’s too many focused on politics, music or even monkey poo.

MonkeyPoo would make an excellent band name.

Should give up hockey and become a rock star.

One thing that will always be the focus is sense, humor and the occasional hate-filled rant against the dregs of society, focusing mostly on parents who take their children to R-rated movies, people who use the word “per se,” circus clowns in law school, French maids moonlighting as extras on Entourage and hamburgers cooked too well done.

I take that back: humor will definitely not be a part of this blog if that last paragraph is any indicator.