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2/2/21 – Dog!

I held off on my ride until late afternoon for two reasons. First, I wanted to hit the trail at dog walking time, and second, there was a telecon that I needed to dial into, but just to listen. Nothing like getting paid to ride! Anyway, I was just a few blocks from home, traversing the Aronson-Claeys Bikeway, when I spotted a doggo. I whipped out my phone and just as I snapped the picture the dog “struck a pose”. The money shot on the first try!

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1/30/21 – Skate Park or Skateboard (found in the wild)

Another one I could satisfy close to home, as the Powhatan Springs skate park is just a mile from home. It was mostly kids at the park – no one in the deep bowls doing anything really exciting. Plus, I didn’t want to be a creepy old guy loitering and taking pictures of the kids skating. The closest I got to capturing any air was this kid jumping up out of a bowl.

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Was this picture taken on a bike ride? _X_ Yes ___ No

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@Steve O 206609 wrote:

So you did not ride your bike to take this picture?

SteveO, I assume drevil has asked you for help, since it would be rather peculiar of you to assign yourself the role of rule enforcer for someone else’s game. I also assume that your Strava access is broken; otherwise you could have easily verified that I did indeed go out for a short Mercedes spotting ride. Have a great evening.

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1/29/21 – Mercedes Benz

I really wasn’t in the mood to go out riding on yet another cold, windy day, so thank you for choosing something I could find right on my block (Benz on the right, BMW on the left). I know it looks kinda black in the picture, but it’s a navy blue (I believe the Mercedes name for it is “Lunar Blue Metallic”). This is Ann’s third Mercedes in the time we’ve lived on the same block, and they’ve all been blue sedans. I rode around the block to see if I could photograph one of the other Mercedes I know of in the neighborhood, but the blue one two blocks over has been replaced by a grey one, and the classic red 450SL convertible had a car cover over it.

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1/28/2021: Rum

I was RUMinating this morning while out on a rum … I mean run … trying to think of “rum” words, when suddenly it dawned on me that the word “rum” is all around us thanks to the recent presidential election. I knew just where to find it, on a truck I see all the time parked near Westover. This afternoon I needed to make a trip to the local hardware store (quaxing at Ayers, a local business) and stopped along the way to grab this photo. I mean. he’s got to be useful for something, right?

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@sszibler 206482 wrote:

Is this where I ask questions about 2021Â’s Loopy for a Arlington Pointless Prize? IÂ’m not finding a specific thread for some reason. Probably IÂ’m just not looking in the right place. I found 2020 . . .

The sponsor doesn’t seem to have started a thread for this year. His instructions on the prize are on this page. Beyond that, yes, ask here or PM bentbike33.

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1/27/21 – Tunnel

When I was growing up, Manhattanites would derisively refer to those of us in the outer boroughs as “bridge and tunnel people”, since we had to cross a body of water to get to the Edenic island where “real New Yorkers” lived. We outer borough people, in turn, looked down upon those who lived in the faceless suburbs beyond the city line. As to the rest of America, pretty much everyone in the New York metropolitan area knew it to be a pizza-less wasteland made up of sparsely populated prairies and “cities” that wished they were New York, populated by bumpkins of various ilk. All that notwithstanding, New York City, which is a collection of land masses separated by significant bodies of water, did contain a lot of bridges and tunnels.

I no longer consider myself a “bridge and tunnel person”. For one thing, the outer boroughs – parts of Brooklyn in particular – have become some of the hippest hot spots in the city, and it is the Manhattanites who have to cross a bridge or tunnel to get to the coolest parts of the city. For another, I now live in Arlington, where the topography does not call for nearly as many bridges and tunnels. Which leads to a conundrum of where to find a tunnel on my morning ride.

Fortunately, there is a tunnel-rich network hidden in plain sight all around us. Not transportation, but storm water management. Over the years I’ve poked into various storm water tunnels and they really can be impressive. Some are, in fact, big enough to drive a truck through. The one I photographed today is not – but a person with a reasonable BMI could crawl through it.

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@drevil 206341 wrote:

1/26/21 – “Wayne Gretzky” Subanagram: the word, 5-letters or more

Here’s a photo of Greenway Boulevard in Falls Church. At this intersection there’s a store with a sign advertising “Parrots, Parrots, Parrots, just Parrot’s”. In the show Modern Family, one of the characters owned a custom closet business. His biggest competitor was called “Closets, Closets, Closets, Closets”. Whenever they mentioned “Closets, Closets, Closets, Closets” on the show, it would make me think of “Parrots, Parrots, Parrots, just Parrot’s”. The “Parrots, Parrots, Parrots, just Parrot’s” sign also bugs me because of the stray apostrophe in the final “Parrot’s”.

If the rules allowed, I would post a picture of the “Parrots, Parrots, Parrots, just Parrot’s” sign. You can see it in the photo below, but from a very oblique angle so you can’t read it.

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1/24/21 – Apple Logo (but not on electronic device)

This morning I was faced with a choice – Apple Credit Union 3 miles to the west, or the Apple Store 4 miles to the east. Despite the cold, I chose the more distant of the two possibilities. On a warmer morning I might have gone for something yet more distant (Apple Store Bethesda?), but at 25 degrees, this was enough of a ride for me.

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1/23/21 – Pie

Well, it’s been a tough couple of days for Scavenger Hunting. Two days ago I went looking for an Adidas logo at Soccer Kick but didn’t spot one – only to later see someone else post an Adidas logo from that very same store. Yesterday I was about to head out for polka dots, but my wife distracted me and I never made it out to hunt dots (I consoled myself by playing a few polkas on the accordion). Today I figured I could easily kill two birds with one stone and do some pie spotting on while on a ride to pick up bagels, but pie was harder to come by than I had anticipated. Leaving the bagel store (no pie there) I looked in the window of Corner Bakery – but again, no pie, so I headed for Living the Pie Life, where I knew there’d be pie – but it turns out they don’t open until 10, and had no pies visible through the window. No worries. I had a backup plan to go to Metro 29 Diner across the street, which is always chockablock with delicious pies – but it turns out they are closed due to COVID. I finally had to settle for supermarket quality pie at the Harris Teeter.

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1/20/21 – The name of any U.S. president starting from FDR or after, but it can’t be on a yard sign or a car.

I got a president’s name twice in a single photo. Or maybe one of them is his cousin Teddy, and so doesn’t qualify. Who knows.

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@drevil 205719 wrote:

1/19/21 – Beetle

Yes, I’m a cyclist, but I’m not a car hater as many cyclists are. In fact, I like cars – enough to notice interesting or unusual ones when I see them. That’s how I already knew where to find a Bug (two, actually – there’s another one in front of the yellow one) right in my neighborhood.

I don’t know if AWitt is participating in the photo scavenger hunt, but she could get this one easily!

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1/17/2021 Key, Kite, or Lightning

The special Metro maps for the inauguration are confusing. Good thing they include a “key“. Note that some sources equate the Legend and the Key, while others say the Key is a part of the Legend that defines symbols and scale

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Photo taken at East Falls Church.

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1/16/21 – the word “Brewing”, “Winery”, “Mead”, or “Distillery” on a sign.

@bikesnick 205471 wrote:

Drevil, I know, I know, the word should be Distillery. I went inside and asked if they had anything with ‘distillery’ on it. She searched for several minutes and found nothing. I tried.

I know the feeling. I left my photo outing until this evening, figuring I’d pick up a picture on the way to see my friends FFME perform at The State Theater (outdoors socially distanced show), but all the signs in the area turned out to be wrong. FCD is a “Distillers”, Audacious Aleworks is a “Brewery”, Solace Outpost doesn’t have any “Brew” words in their signage at all, and The State’s drink menu didn’t contain any of the right words. The Audacious Aleworks sign is simple white letters on a black background … would be so easy to “correct” … but I decided to be honest. Unfortunately, I know drevil to be a stickler for his many rules, so I don’t expect any leniency.

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@drevil 205300 wrote:

1/15/21 – Bagel

I certainly wouldn’t call Einstein bagels the “good stuff”, but they were close to where I was headed to pick up groceries. For the record, this Brooklyn boy’s favorite bagel shop in the area is Brooklyn Bagels in Courthouse. Their bagels are good, and the people behind the counter have an impatience that feels authentically New York-like.

The shop next door to Einstein, “Jess Haircuts”, always gives me a smile, since this Jess’ haircut days are long gone.

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