Last Times

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I am sunburned and a bit woozy from the hours in the sun at College Park for the opening game of the season that pitted the Terps against the Richmond Spiders. The fact that it is the first serious burn indicates I have been better than usual in the struggle against melanoma, but the duration of the tailgating and dehydration from the burn are a wicked one-two punch.

I was going to write again this morning about some continuing developments in the big data breach at the Office of Personnel Management- the OPM. There have been some new developments, and the department that I served has put out a nice summary of the two shocking events of data theft, who is affected, and more importantly, what you can do about it.

I was going to share attachment “D” with you, since it provides an actual course of action the one that compromised the personal information of millions of us who have foolishly trusted the Federal Government with the most intimate details of our private lives.

Oh, hell, I am just going to attach the document to this article. It is a portable document file (pdf), and I have opened it without apparent damage to my hard drive. There are 28 pages of depressing information, but also some useful steps we can take to minimize some of the damage.

I have been ticking off adventures in the District as part of the bucket list of things and places in Washington that have been such a big part of my professional life in the Imperial City, now that I have decided to get the hell out of here. There was a vigorous back-and-forth this morning among the usual suspects about the spike in crime that DC and Baltimore have experienced since the War on the Cops started with the Freddie Gray riots back when the summer was just an idea.

Yesterday, we transited some of the gritty DC neighborhoods on the drive over- my host knows all of the shortcuts from his days as a student. He takes a somewhat convoluted route to College Park that winds from I-395 North onto New York Ave, north Capital Street and points northeast to college park and the Byrd football stadium. We have been doing the route for years- and the improvement in the nieghborhoods we traverse has been marked.

Still demographically solid, but there are some white faces where none were observed before, and a ton of new construction apartments and condos. It is definitely not Anacostia, which is as rugged as ever, even if there is some new building going on around the Green Line Metro hub. I have been fascinated to watch it happen, particularly in light of the fact that there are many “last times” I am noting as I roll around the area.

I think my last time in the Pentagon is now years ago. I worked there, on and off, for eight years, and the first time I visited the building there was public access to the Concourse, and the guard posts were on the ramps leading up to the upper floors.

The times are changing with the seasons. always wonder whether the current trip to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling is going to be my last visit to the big campus where my long-time customer and sometime employer is located. I think I have an appointment there next week; could that be the last time? I am quite serious about divesting myself of the badges and the rest of the baggage, even if OPM has seen fit to give it all away for free.

The game was great; and might be the last one I see. it was an early kick-off, as things go these days, and thus we were drinking early and shamelessly ogling the coeds, whose uniforms these days are jean shorts with the legs hacked off so high that the fabric of the pockets peeks out te bottom. The tops generally consisted of some kind of Terps logo shirts, many strategically torn to show some midriff in a modest but suggestive manner. And socks in the pattern of the Maryland State Flag.

It was impressive, and with the early kick-off, we still got back to town in time for me to get a full hour’s swim in the Big Pink pool. I think the Terps won, though I am not completely sure.

The swim was a slightly bittersweet bit of exercise, since there are only two days left in the daily schedule.

Sure, there are the two weeks to come, but the daily afternoon swims will end on Monday. The change of the season means a big change in the routine- and I will have to start my planning to be the last in the water on Monday, and the official closing for the year on Sunday the 20th.

There is something else looming for the “last time,” something more profound than the closing of the pool, since it will open again next Memorial Day, on the other side of the grim gray months of winter.

As you know, Old Jim and Chanteuse Mary will decamp from Arlington as soon as they sell their condo up the street from Willow. They have already purchased a place in Vegas, for family reasons. Jim is one of the primary the primary reasons I go to the bar each day, and I have been contemplating what I am going to do about it all once they are out of town.

There is much more to this litany of “last times” but I checked with the cognizant authorities, and the information is embargoed until this coming Tuesday, so I will have to leave it at that.

It is a bombshell, though. Wait till I can tell you.

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