Cellphone Misadventure - They Track You Anyway

Wikipedia photo

I go to the “slug” line, a little busier than usual. I fumble for my iPhone and drop it carelessly in my pocket as a white non-descript SUV pulls up. The driver indicates that I sit behind her, a move against safety protocol. It is a very crowded back bench with a child’s seat and assorted junk stacked high, obviously a rushed attempt at cleaning this morning.  I listen to my usual podcast with my head-set on.

“Slugging” is an organic ride-share around the D.C. suburbs to commute back and forth to the Pentagon and the neighboring office buildings via high-occupancy vehicle lanes without a toll.

As we arrive, she pulls up to the barrier, instead of pulling up to the normal “slug” drop off area, an indicator that she is going to D.C. not inside the Pentagon. As I hurry to get out, the chord gets wrapped around the seatbelt and my podcast stops. I move over to the barrier and put my stuff down to get organized, I grab the chord and the iPhone is gone. In a panic I check my pockets. I turn around to see how far the SUV has gone, can I stop it, but it’s gone.

I call my iPhone several times from my work phone hoping the driver would hear it and answer. I google “lost iPhone” and check the process to locate my phone. I sign into iCloud, access the “lost phone app” and, to my dismay, it says, you must have GPS enabled.  For privacy I normally leave it off.  

After finding the link to the “lost phone mode,” I follow prompts to leave a message on my iPhone and to lock the iPhone screen with a password. I leave an alternate phone number for the finder to call us.

Through my cell phone carrier I attempt to suspend my account via a “lost phone” automated telephone system. However I fail because I do not have a telephone passcode for my carrier.  I next log onto my account on the carrier’s website and suspend my iPhone account to protect my iPhone data. 

Initially I panicked because I do not have a recommended password to prevent unauthorized access to my iPhone. I am particularly upset that I had lost irreplaceable pictures and videos of my mom who had passed away this year and of our grandchildren. I am concerned about potential access to banking.

I decide to unsuspend the iPhone later in the day. As part of the “lost phone mode,” you can press a button that activates a sound on your device so that it can be heard. The sound is very annoying and loud.  I check several times during the day to see if the phone was located by the “lost mode” and I also press the detection sound but no luck.

As the day wears on, I contemplate how I would replace it. It is very hard to concentrate, knowing that so much of my life data is out there for anybody to grab. By nightfall, as I check my email, I am notified by Apple that my phone had been found and it is on the move from D.C. to Alexandria, to Annandale.

If the person was a “slugger,” it would not make sense that she lived in Annandale and picked others in Dumfries, ten miles south. I go to sleep discouraged but hopeful.

I wake up the next morning early, after a night of fitful sleep. I imagine finding my bank account wiped out. I check my laptop and the newest message from Apple says that the phone had been in Dumfries most of the night.

I check the Google satellite image map and find the address located in a cul-de-sac of townhouses. I decide to go to the address, try to locate the vehicle, and to find the person who had my phone.

The Google map townhouse number given by the GPS locator does not exist on that street so I get out and look inside a white SUV for a baby seat - nothing. I go up and down the cul-de-sac.

The Google map insists that this is where my phone is. I see kids’ toys scattered in a yard and I presume that it must be it. I ring the doorbell; a bearded man comes out, I tell him my story, and apologize for waking him and his dog up. He assures me that his wife does not ride-share.  

I next walk around parked cars in the cul-de-sac, pressing the button on the “lost mode app,” hoping that I would hear the annoying radar ping sound inside the parked cars. No success.

I arrive in my office after “slugging” again in a convertible Mercedes. I log into iCloud and see my phone traveling on I-395 speeding towards the Pentagon. I quickly grab my work-cell and head for the slug line drop, continuously tracking my pinging phone. It is getting closer and I watch cars as they come and go.

A white SUV approaches, I recognize the Jamaican flag which floods back into memory, and I approach the driver; she rolls down the window and says, “Are you looking for this?” handing me my iPhone. I am overjoyed.

The moral of my misadventure:

-          With or without GPS turned on, they can still track you

-          Password-protect your phone to guard your data

-          Buy phone-loss insurance

-          Keep your iPhone in a deep pocket or in a purse

-          Be careful when you ride-share and never give up

-          Back up precious photos with iCloud or a removable drive.

 

A Visit to the Trump International Hotel in D.C.

The Old Post Office and the Clock Tower
Photo: Ileana Johnson, December 2017

I had made mental plans to visit Trump International Hotel in D.C. for months. I was curious to see the Christmas decorations and especially the remodeling which kept the uber-lib D.C. residents up in arms – they hated the idea of a President who loved America and especially hated President Trump.

Located at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, in the Old Post Office building, the stately structure with its Clock Tower is now a five-star hotel, ranked number 8 out of 141 hotels in Washington.

The Old Post Office building was built in 1899 and had been used as the city’s main post office until 1914. Functioning as an office building afterwards, it was nearly torn down in the 1920s to make room for the Federal Triangle construction and again in the 1970s for the completion of this complex.

Flag in the atrium and Clock Tower

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Romanesque Revival 19^th century U.S. architecture building, the third tallest building in Washington, was renovated in 1976 and again in 1983 when a food court and retail spaces were added.

The U.S. General Services Administration leased the property in 2013 for 60 years to a consortium headed by DJT Holdings LLC, a holding company that President Donald Trump owns through a revocable trust. After extensive renovations, the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. opened in September 2016.

After a car ride, a metro ride, and a short walk from the metro station around the IRS building, we found the actual hotel entrance. The façade entrance towards Pennsylvania Avenue was blocked and so was the side entrance facing the metro station. The one entrance open towards the metro was actually the entrance to the Clock Tower. The Trump Hotel does not rent this historical part of the building.

Trump International Hotel atrium

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Taking the longer route to the entrance, around the IRS building adjacent to the hotel, we ran into a share-ride bike with several tourists. The biker was trying to explain that we have to go back when one young pedestrian passing by interrupted and said that we have to go down, down, until we reach the flames of Hades. Not passing up this golden opportunity to put an uber-lib in his proper snowflake place, I interjected, you must have been there, and that is how you know so well.

The Clock Tower seen from the atrium

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2017

 

The Clock Tower, 315 ft. tall, houses the Bells of Congress and rewards the visitors with panoramic views of the District of Columbia and its surroundings, albeit it restricted by dirty plastic windows and vertical wires.

After the thorough check of the contents of my purse, we took two elevators to the Clock Tower and I heard Romanian spoken by an older couple dressed entirely in black. Engaging in a brief conversation with them, I found out that they had escaped communist Romania 50 years ago and had settled in Ontario. I was disgusted hearing this couple praise Canada and its European style socialist nanny government.

I welcomed the frigid winds at the top and the spectacular circular view of D.C. I could breathe freely away from the two ignorant elevator passengers I had struck up a conversation with. The top was heavily guarded by uniformed young men.

With 263 luxurious guest rooms and suites, Trump Hotel had done a spectacular job of renovating the Old Post Office building and turning it into a classy destination.

Christmas Tree in the atrium

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Crystal chandelier

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

The atrium was adorned with beautiful crystal chandeliers, a huge Christmas tree, cozy chairs and couches, a bar adorned with empty crystal decanters, a reception desk with its decorative collection of Swarovski crystal obelisks, the bathrooms fitted with gold-plated fixtures, The Spa by Ivanka, and BLT Prime by David Burke restaurant with a balcony seated area overlooking the atrium.

Above Benjamin’s Bar & Lounge was a huge American flag, visible from the Tower elevator, and a glass ceiling which reflected the Clock Tower in the golden waning sun.

Collection Box by Christmas Tree to benefit a children's charity

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Brioni boutique in the atrium

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2017

 

An elegant metal box by the Christmas tree was collecting donations for a local children’s charity, the company’s commitment to help those in need. A Brioni couture boutique in the corner of the atrium offered elegant Italian tailored menswear.

Swarovski crystal obelisks

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

We sat in comfortable chairs. It was tea time and many customers appeared to have made tea reservations as they were drinking tea and eating bite-size confections from elegant silver trays. Other sipped on their favorite wines.

We were famished so we ordered food. My salad was passable, the lettuce was fresh and crisp but the chicken was on the dry side. His hamburger was good but certainly overpriced which was to be expected in a five-star hotel. My second cup of chamomile tea with lemon was awful as he used the same tea bag and the water smelled like bleach. The small dessert we shared was European delicious and very light.

Service was very poor. Our waiter practically abandoned us for the next table – the women ordered glasses of wine and my husband and I don’t drink. I found the staff rather dismissive and rude. But it was worth spending $100 on marginal food and service in order to experience the beautifully renovated historic building.

National Christmas Tree

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2017

 

We left the hotel for the next destination of our day trip – the White House Christmas tree. I was surprised to see how barricaded the area surrounding the White House was. I remember years ago, when Bush was president, we were allowed on the sidewalk beside the fence and take pictures.

The National Christmas Tree was lit by wires of light. The fifty smaller fir trees from each state circled the area.  A miniature train set with Victorian houses was running on tracks at the foot of the tree. I took pictures and we started back on the slow trek to the metro, the car, and the drive home to far away suburbia.

 

 

Dining on 14th Street in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. is a very strange city. We were on 14th street today, dining; there are many cafes and eateries frequented mostly by locals. The French restaurant we ate in was packed at 3 p.m. We were able to people-watch while we dined but the diversity of characters Democrats pride on was quite unsettling.

There was a "community day" one street over - no community I would ever want to be a part of;  the people milling at that event were young and old, dressed in 60s flower power outfits, with bongo drums, dreadlocks, and other bizarre outfits and hats.

Young women in the street were dressed in skimpy outfits like hookers; others wore rompers like toddlers, showing too much buttocks and most of their fake breasts. Some women were pretending to be clothed in dresses that were split to their private parts, or just-kidding skimpy skirts and tops showing their underwear and bras. 

Metrosexual-looking men were wearing pants and shirts two sizes too small or wife-beater black shirts with strange-looking shorts that appeared to have been shrunk in the wash. Most of them were latching their bikes to poles in the street like the good environmental commies that they are.

There was a strong presence of millennials with their heavily tattooed and pierced bodies. When the occasional, normally dressed Americans strolled by with their children, you knew they were out-of-towners visiting the big metropolis.

At the other extreme were women clad in 7th century black tents, covered to their eyeballs, running in packs of four with one husband herding them ahead, lest they got lost.

These people are helping run our country? God have mercy on us!

National Security Action Summit

The Center for Security Policy, Breitbart News, and the EMPAct America hosted on September 29, 2014, The National Security Action Summit II. The Washington, D.C. Marriott Wardman Park Hotel venue headlined former Vice President Dick Cheney, Dinesh D’Souza, and Dr. Ben Carson.

LTC Allen West, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (OK-1), and Andrew McCarthy spoke about the ever increasing threats to our national security made possible by the administration’s foreign and defense policies.

The threat of ISIS which has already landed on our American shores with the first beheading of an Oklahoma woman by a convert to Islam, our porous borders, lack of enforcement of immigration laws, lack vetting of illegal immigrants carrying various communicable diseases that have spread among the U.S. population at large and in our schools, and the insurmountable national debt are issues important to the American people.

Senator Ted Cruz, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rep. Louise Gohmert, Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, and Rep. Trent Franks addressed the audience in person or by video link.

The topics discussed included the worldwide threat and instability, the hollowing out of the U.S. military and its replacement with illegal aliens, the ideology and menace of the global jihad, Benghazi, the border insecurity, and the importance of Israel to American security interests.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy said, “Americans are increasingly aware that the world is becoming an ever-more-dangerous place.  They expect their leaders to protect them and our vital interests around the world.  The National Security Action Summit is a place where the best minds convene to lay out the best ideas for doing that.”

Yet the biggest threat to our national security, the escalating and impossible-to-ever-repay national debt, was not part of the discussion.

Home Sweet Home in Freight Shipping Containers

Photo: containerhomes.net

While the world is sizzling and percolating in conflicts and wars, and U.S. is roiling in manufactured crisis after crisis, real or imagined emergencies, overwhelmed by the constant invasion of illegal immigrants, The Washington Post writes on the front page, “Thinking inside the box on D.C. housing costs,” living in repurposed dinged freight shipping containers. Two days before, Deborah K. Dietsch featured “Thinking big in a small way.” (Michael Laris, July 21, 2014)

It is understandable how a damaged shipping container may be an appealing substitute for shelter to a broke student, a homeless person, or a third world shanty-town dweller, but Americans have plenty of housing space and resources to shelter its citizens.

We are so well-off that we even house generously people who break our laws every day when crossing our no-longer-enforced border. Why force Americans into tight and ridiculous spaces when we have so much land? Environmentalists are afraid that we are destroying the planet with our very existence. If they crowd all humanity into as tight and dense urban areas as possible, animals can roam free and land can be rewilded and reclaimed for the creatures we displaced with our civilization, roads, and undeserved mobility.

These tiny spaces are expensive but they give the occupants a false sense of saving money and the planet by not using a car, walking or biking everywhere, just like the zoning environmentalists have been pushing for a while now, high density, and high rise living, five minutes from work, school, shopping, and play while the metro is nearby. Absolute heaven if you want to live like a rat in an 8-by-40-foot box! Who would not enjoy living in “lovingly repurposed steel husks” that have been previously “sloshing across oceans on mammoth container ships?”

A demolished student house will be the location in D.C. of 18 shipping containers to make “eye catching” rentals. Citing Ayn Rand’s novel, “The Fountainhead,” the owners are compared to the rebellious architect in the novel who fights against “evil” conformists.

After container doors are replaced by windows and mirrored wardrobe in each container/bedroom, the residents no longer feel confined and claustrophobic. Cut steel panels will make room for the kitchen and living room when the containers are joined. The containers cost $2,000 but the rent price is not divulged. The project is slated to be completed by August.

The builders dream to “float hundreds of sea container apartments on a barge in the Potomac and creating a homeless village on the river to serve Georgetown.” The zoning officials are skeptical, they must see if “code will allow them.” But zoning codes can be changed to accommodate environmentalist agenda.

Renting micro-dwellings in the 144-unit building called Harper for $2,500 a month for a one-bedroom, 400 square foot apartment and a parking space enticed many. Because it is so small, residents would want to go out, to get rid of claustrophobia. “This location couldn’t be more perfect for the socializing lifestyle,” says Leah Wald. Renting the average 375 square foot hotel room by the day can cost you about the same and the maid is free.

The micro-units are advertised under different euphemisms, one-bedroom unit, junior one-bedroom apartment, compact living space, efficiency units, but the square footage is anywhere from 350-400 square feet.  A 600 square ft. studio rents for $3,350 a month.

The nine-story, 218-unit called the Drake, will open in September. Lots of glass and amenities such as oak floors, stainless steel kitchens, and Bosch appliances are supposed to compensate for the lack of space.

The Wharf apartments which are slated to open in 2017 will have 501 micro-units, 171 will be 325-354 sq. ft., highlighting a Murphy bed, with a “built-in shelf for storage when the bed is stored vertically against the wall.” The kitchen on wheels can be used as table or as a desk. “The units are designed like the inside of a boat.”  It seems perfect for anybody who hates cleaning and does not mind living in a glamorized jail cell.

More micro-dwelling units are going up in D.C., Latham Hotel (2016), Patterson Mansion (2016), Blagden Alley building (2016), and WeWork apartments in Crystal City (2015).

The 200 square ft. aPodments in Sammamish, Washington rent for $600-900 per month. There are no elevators and no parking spaces. Resident Judi Green, who rents a 10 by 10 ft. loft cubicle, must climb six flights of stairs, and “shares the kitchen with seven other tenants on the second floor.” The micro-housing units increase the population density of the area greatly. http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020845443_apodmentscitycouncilxml.html

In countries like Japan, where land is very scarce and expensive, tiny dwellings are popular. It is not the case in the United States where land is plentiful. Unfortunately, millions of acres of our land have been locked to human habitation and set aside for conservation.

Across the country, Sustainable Urbanism, Sustainable Development, Equitable Communities are government plans to change the counties’ desired low density character and scale to high-density crime-ridden slums. Social engineering is being imposed on entire neighborhoods.

Alley pods are placed between townhouses and in suburbs micro-residential units are built between single family homes, destroying their property values. These people have worked their entire lives to buy a single family home.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will dismantle local zoning and force people to move into certain areas in order to achieve what they consider “racial, economic, and ethnic diversity.” Multiple illegal immigrant families purchase or rent one single home creating a third world nightmare for the single family neighbors who must live next door.

“Nationalizing neighborhoods” on a grand scale is done for “our own good and to achieve utopia.” By obliterating zoning regulations, we will have neighborhoods by government fiat quota. (Rush Limbaugh monologue, September 12, 2013)

Rush Limbaugh pointed out that “HUD’s power grab is based on the mistaken belief that zoning and discrimination are the same, zoning is disguised discrimination.” Introducing 200 square ft. pods between single family homes is “social justice.”

The progressives’ social engineering projects implemented around the world are not aimed at just destroying national sovereignty, language, and cultural identity. They are now engaged in a massive replacement of rural areas and “suburban sprawl” with high density, high rise urban dwellings in the name of green environmentalism, saving the planet from the destruction of manufactured man-made global warming/climate change.

 

 

District of Columbia, The Seat of Power and Corruption

Washington, D.C. and its surrounding suburbs are interesting places to visit. Populated by over two hundred different nationalities, legal and illegal, it is a hodge-podge of humanity stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on most days and nights.

One of the most densely policed places in the world, it is easy to lose yourself in the many purposefully narrowed streets to make them difficult to vehicular traffic, the roads with double names, one name before it crosses a major highway and another name on the other side, the barricaded buildings, the check points, and the unmarked police cars and menacingly-looking plain-clothed police armed for urban assault.

On the best of days, the District of Columbia is a lovely place to visit if you are a museum lover, an admirer of the many monuments and memorials on the National Mall, the Reflecting Pool, the botanical gardens, the art galleries of the Smithsonian, the green parks with creative and intricate statues, the Natural History Museum, the Spy Museum, Madam Tussauds Wax Museum, and the Ford Theatre where President Lincoln was assassinated.

On the worst of recent days, D.C. was a dangerous place for an unarmed young mother with a toddler in the back seat of her car who got so lost and frightened, trying to escape from so many men and women pointing guns at her, she did not stop in time and was shot. Did she deserve to die? Should they have shot her tires first or used road spikes? Life used to be precious to our Western culture, not death.

On the worst of days in September, a crazed gunman with employment credentials and revenge on his clouded mind shot a lot of innocent people in the office building in which he had easy access and clearance to enter.

On the best of days of spring, D.C. is a fragrant symphony in pink cherry blossoms, surrounding the Tidal Basin and dotting the landscape of the surrounding buildings. The 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo becomes a joy every year during the month of April, snowing flowers everywhere.

On the worst of government shutdown days, overzealous and petulant D.C. bureaucrats who claimed to serve the people turned away WWII veterans from their own memorial for which they’ve paid dearly in blood and treasure. Politicians wanted to make life as miserable as possible for American citizens during the unnecessary government shutdown. The government was too broke, they said, to stay open but found money to hire armed police and personnel to man barricades in an open-air monument that otherwise does not require much maintenance or guarding.

On the worst of days this week in D.C., the vets, who were arrested for crossing over the barricades at the Vietnam Memorial, were shocked when illegal aliens who broke our laws and crossed our borders illegally were allowed to rally on the National Mall, demanding amnesty. The illegal aliens and their progressive activists and lobbyists have more power and rights under this administration than American citizens do.

Breitbart News reported that an elaborate set of “four Jumbotrons, port-a-potties, special event fencing, tents, and raised and lighted stages” were set up across the National Mall for illegal aliens who invaded the U.S. in violation of our law.  Meanwhile, veterans who fought in Normandy, Europe, Iowa Jima, North Africa, and freed Europe of the scourge of Nazism were told by gun-carrying park police to back off and move along from the monuments they paid for with their blood and treasure.

On the best of days, D.C. witnessed millions of peaceful tea party marchers who were taxed enough already, yet most of the MSM ignored them and wrote them off as a few thousand radical right wingers with extreme views, an “AstroTurf movement” as Nancy Pelosi so derisively called them.

On the worst of days, D.C. is a place to fear and the seat of power, corruption, and pettiness. Big rigs drivers understood that. Unlike the past when truckers caused gridlock in Washington with their demonstrations, few American truckers showed up this time to protest their bloated government that does not seem willing to stop spending, taxing its citizens, and devaluing the American dollar. Truckers were afraid – the implied threat of the National Guard was promoted on Social websites and many retreated in fear of their government. Those who did show up and had to obey the closed roads signs spent upwards of $1,500 one way in fuel alone to make a stand against the tyrannical government.

The District of Columbia is the seat of government for the select few, the globalists with money, the lawyers, progressive education policy deciders, and the powerful lobbies that determine the fate of 307 million Americans and indirectly the economic fate of the rest of the world.

Washington, D.C. is our nation’s capital but it appears more like the capital of everyone-who-hates America and its culture, where deals are made secretively in the dead of night, where the American stellar health care enjoyed by generations has been destroyed in the name of progressive Marxist fairness, social justice, and community organizing, replaced by rationing and death panels.

D.C. is now a place where extreme leftists reign, undermining the rule of law. Michael Reagan said, the “law is applied through a filter of how the application affects a group, instead of being applied impartially regardless of the group or individual circumstances.” (reaganreports.com)

On a cloudy day, when the District of Columbia was cloaked in a gray mantle of drizzling rain, I went to the mall to walk. One of the chain store windows displayed 3 oversized, bright red signs with the unfortunate words, “SALE! Thank Congress; Thank Mr. Obama, Government Shut Down SALE!!! Extra 20% off, up to 70% off.”

Commerce is good for the country, we are a consumer-oriented economy, and two-thirds of our GDP is consumption. Some might even say there is too much conspicuous consumption.

Should we thank Congress for not doing its job and passing a budget in four years? Should we thank Mr. Obama and Congress for passing the unaffordable Affordable Care Act in the middle of the night with only Democrat votes? Should we thank Nancy Pelosi for telling us that we must pass the bill in order to find out what’s in it? We did find out, Rep. Pelosi, and we don’t like it one bit.

Should we thank our president for taking a wrecking ball to our stellar healthcare? Health insurance did need revamping, several  million Americans did not have insurance, could not afford it or were dropped because of preexisting conditions, but why replace it with one-payer government-run ineptitude which turns out to be much more expensive? How are those exchanges that cost taxpayers over $693 million working out so far? After all, they were quite pricier than originally quoted ($93 million).

On sunny days D.C. is a place of green parks, paved streets, and heavily shuttered and protected glass and concrete buildings occupied by faceless bureaucrats in grey suits, carrying heavy briefcases stuffed with new regulations, rules, laws, and taxes that the American proletariat must follow and obey.

 

 

 

 

 

Butler on Business WAFS 1190 Atlanta - 9-19-12

My 10 minute weekly segment on Butler on Business WAFS 1190 Atlanta's Premier Radio station. Topic: The Green Festival in D.C., an orgy of green environuts. I come on at the 30 minute mark.
http://www.cyberears.com/cybrss/16928.mp3