dc

[img_assist|nid=293|title=2009 DC Metro Accident|desc=Originally from the AP (via Google)
District of Columbia Fire and Emergency workers remove a victim from the site of a rush-hour collision between two Metro transit trains in northeast Washington, D.C. Monday, June 22, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)|link=node|align=right|width=250|height=246]
If you're in the DC area, this news has been unavoidable the last couple of days.

If you're a commuter in the DC area who uses the Red Line of the Metro system, you're struggling through one of the worst times the system's seen. At least the worst time that's not related to tourists and security scares.

I worked from home on Tuesday so I wouldn't have to deal with the crazy problems caused by this terribly accident. Getting home Monday night, just a few hours after it happened, was a challenge. Not as much a challenge as it was for people actually on the trains involved... and far from as bad as those nine who didn't make it out alive.

That's a bunch of bad stuff right there. People dead. Transit disrupted. Expensive bit of commuter equipment destroyed.

The worst thing is that it's starting to look like this could have all been prevented.

I've held off commenting on all this until there was some small amount of actual fact coming through in the news reports. Some bit of investigation that pointed toward an actual cause. There were suppositions and insinuations of mechanical problems and driver error all over the place Monday night. People all up in arms over all sorts of things that had little basis in any facts connected with this particular DC Metro accident.

Now there are some facts and I'm rightly pissed off.

Now that I'm living down here in D.C., I figure I should make some sort of effort to go to the events that draw thousands of people here.

That means I felt obligated to go to this year's Cherry Blossom Festival when a friend invited me.

I didn't go to any of the special events--getting down there and back was enough of a challenge--but I did go, walk around a bit with the thousands of tourists, and take some pictures.

See them here.

I spent Saturday wandering around DC with a friend of mine from college. He lives down there, so he knows the place better than I do. For now, at least.

We hit a bunch of the monuments. I took some pictures. Click here to see them.

There's no fancy formatting going on, just a stock Photoshop-generated page. All the pics have been cropped and cleaned up (at least) in Photoshop.

Enjoy!