Updated Forecast: In Excess of 8" of Snow, Plus Wind
And Now, 10-20 Inches
Federal Govt. Closed Tuesday
Snowmaggedon 1.0 in Time Lapse
In case you missed it over the weekend, yesterday City Desk reported the bizarre news that D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin went to the Nats game and subsequently shut down the ballpark's long-running fireworks display for the foreseeable future. The ballpark reportedly has the correct permits and nothing unusual happened at Sunday's game, so what's the deal? Apparently, some bits of debris fell on the chief himself:
Fire Department spokesperson Alan Etter confirmed the basic account via e-mail.
“[Rubin] said debris did fall on him - he was not hurt,” Etter wrote. “He did have a safety concern, that’s why the decision was made - so the process can be examined and adjusted, if necessary.”
The story also notes that Rubin would have had to overrule his own on-scene fire inspector to make such a call, and that the chief apparently made a fuss while he was doing it: 'Rubin at one point told authorities: "Do you know who I am?"'
We've got a call into the Nationals to find out how they're dealing with the situation. Stay tuned!
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
I think we all know how I'd deal with the situation.
Not to mention, don't they usually skip the fireworks if the game runs after 10:30? I was home on Friday and could hear them around 11, maybe they got some complaints from the 3 people that live near the stadium.
There's a lot more than three of us who can hear the fireworks - all of the SW Waterfront gets a nice boom from them. I can't say personally as I mind it, as I imagine it's the sound of my property values attempting to stay steady.
They're pretty cool. We can see and hear them from our apartment in SW. And I have to say in all honesty the Friday Night Fireworks are a nice way to end the week! Oh, wait. Are we talking about the stadium??
That's pretty much the only thing I miss about SW, the totally righteous fireworks over at Greenleaf Gardens...
And the glory holes.
Those were in SE, not SW. Though Secrets/Ziegfields is back in SW now...
I live near the stadium and like 'em.
Living directly across South Capitol in SW from the stadium, there are certainly more people who live in the surrounding neighborhood than you credit. Unless, of course, you don't consider the people who live in the project housing here (as real people)...
Update 7:35 p.m.: According to a source, Rubin was hit with paper debris.
The Fire Chief is a tool!
Who knew that ash was a by-product of burning paper and metallic elements!?!
Just return the damn team to Montreal already.
"Do you know who I am?" Ummm, some bureaucratic, pencil-pushing dick with no PR skills who's simply looking to cover his own ass? Just a guess.
Regardless of whether it's warranted, there's no phrase that makes you sound like a bigger jackass than "Do you know who I am?"
And it helps if you have a self-serving Web Site, spoken in the third person.
appropriately called "FireRube", coincidence?
Attention! Attention fans! We have a man in section 113 who apparently does NOT know who he is! He has a large cheesy mustache. If you are missing such a person, he may be retrieved from guest services immediately. Thank you.
After spending a couple grand on a Hair Weave from Mr. Ray, the last thing you want is a repeat of the Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial.
Is this the same dude who shut down Artomatic. Quite the busy weekend.
Why isn't this guy fired today? Have you ever heard the chief speak in public? The leader of an emergency service agency should inspire confidence, Rubin is a national joke.
Hey Rubin, how about instead of going to Nats games, you head down to the testing center in La Plata where fire department candidates openly cheat on the entrance exam?
Or perhaps spend some time talking to the ATF agents and your own fire inspectors (now on hydrant duty) who found evidence of arson in the Eastern Market fire?
Or maybe head on up to the fire training center in College Park where the majority of your EMTs recently failed a basic skills test, but are still on the job?
Or perhaps just make the rounds of the people murdered (yes, that is the word) by your department's incompetence. People who would be alive today had you exercised even the slightest bit of leadership over the worst big city fire department in America. Yes, the worst.
They should fire him for the cheesy moustache alone!
The whole Freddy Mercury look has got to go.
Wasn't he in the Village People?
I hear it's fun to stay at the Y - M - C - A...
Or perhaps spend some time talking to the ATF agents and your own fire inspectors (now on hydrant duty) who found evidence of arson in the Eastern Market fire?
Y'know, I was about to write you off as a trolling crank before I read this $h!t and this $h!t. WTF? Can someone explain why this "do you know who I am?" dildo is still drawing a paycheck?
It would not surprise me that the Eastern Market dumpster "fire" included a couple of dead hookers strangled with lycra shorts.
[rampant speculation]Of course it was arson. The city wanted to renovate Eastern Market, but the Capitol Hill busybodies would have never allowed it and the city wouldn't have been able to get funding for the project absent some great groundswell of emotion following a tragedy.[/rampant speculation]
It's like Cherkis was reading these comments when he decided to post this piece.
“It’s quite an effort that these two guys are making, giving TV interviews, filing complaints,” Nickles told told Milloy. “We dispute almost everything they claim, including that they are individuals of distinction.”
Wow. The dildos really are circling the wagons. Nickles is one to talk about "distinction," seeing as he himself "resides" in a fire extinguisher alcove in Penn Quarter. At least they haven't found any hookers strangled with lycra bike shorts in his little red sex dungeon. Yet.
Newsflash: harmless paper debris falls on fireworks spectators all over the world. Rubin is such a frickin' knob.
I can't believe those commercials are up online. Now all we need are a couple of Jhoon Rhee commercials and it will be like wrestling on Saturday morning.
Call USA-1000! Nobody bothers me, either.
I have not seen that commercial in 20 years. Yet remember the lyrics
When you take Jhoon Rhee self defence
You too can say....
Nobody bothers me
Nobody bothers me
Nobody bothers me
Call USA-1000
Jhoon Rhee means might for right!!
(cue winking korean kid)
Scuze me while I take a hammer and try to beat that song out of my head.
I think anyone who pulls the "do you know who I am?" card deserves to be fired -- and if he is the douche who closed Artomatic early this weekend, he should be publicly pelted with rocks and garbage.
Well, looks like it's time to dust off old Wanda the Sewage Trebuchet. Haven't had an old-timey douche tossin' since the Defenestration of the Crow Bar in '97.
Seriously, what is so hard about saying "I am the Fire Chief, do what I say!" when pulling rank?
I'd be happy if he'd just wave his perfumed hankie from his hooker-drawn sedan chair.
Somebody really needs to send the ninjas that killed David Carradine after this guy. But I'd settle for the Jhoon Rhee kid. Nobody bother him.
Oh Lawdy Lawd! Do what he say! Do what he say!
Was Randy Johnson on the mound??