Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: A Night on the Town

Wow, things really are different in Herndon.

On the YouTubes: Not Quite the Love Boat

Here's some exciting, and almost exhaustive, video of the ongoing dredging operations at Lake Audobon. If you have young children, be sure to gather them around the computer screen, as this is almost as exciting as that Thomas the Tank Engine show they keep prattling on about, except that the RA's boats and backhoes (thankfully) don't have human faces or bad attitudes.

Here's what the videographer has to say:

Prior to the recent stream restorations, with each heavy rain, lots of dirt would be washed into the lakes which over time would make the lakes shallower where streams enter. The restoration projects are expected to greatly reduce the erosion from run off and create a healthier water system. Consequently dredging is expected to be required much less often and so I recorded this activity for posterity.

The dredging cycle begins with empty barges being pushed down the lake by a tug boat to the dredging platform. A backhoe on the platform then fills the barge with mud while the filled barge is pushed to shore for emptying. A second backhoe on land scoops the dirt into trucks for disposal. This cycle repeats for weeks until the job is done.

Another Restonian operative asks a question:

Will they leave the boats in the water and make gambling boats out of them?

We can only hope.

A Motorcycle Fatality and an Unsolved International Kidnapping: Today's Update is Just a Big Pile of Sad

Fairfax County Police said that a man who lost control of his motorcycle on Fairfax County Parkway on July 8 died from his injuries late last week.

On Thursday, July 8 around 9:50 p.m., a 48-year-old man driving a 2007 Suzuki sport bike was northbound on Fairfax County Parkway near Baron Cameron Avenue. As he approached a left curve prior to Walnut Branch Road, he braked, skidded and lost control of the motorcycle, which came to rest in a culvert approximately 30 feet from the roadway. The driver was separated from his motorcycle and landed adjacent to a paved pedestrian path. The driver was transported to Inova Fairfax Hospital with life-threatening injuries.

On Thursday, July 22, Robert Berlin, of 1325 Shallow Ford Road in Herndon, succumbed to his injuries. Police were notified of the death on July 27.

Alcohol and speed are considered possible factors in the crash.

Meanwhile, a kidnapping warrant against a Reston mother who left the country with her two children in 2004 is still in force, FBI officials said this week.

More than 5 1/2 years after two Reston brothers went missing, and nearly four years after a kidnapping warrant was issued for their mother, authorities are still trying to track down all three.

Authorities say the father of Alec and Dominic Gardner last saw his sons Dec. 6, 2004. That's when authorities say their mother, Stefanie Zachariadis Gardner, left Reston with the boys, then ages 3 and 1. A warrant for her arrest on international parental kidnapping charges was issued in U.S. District Court in Alexandria in August 2006.

Zachariadis Gardner and her sons are believed to be in Germany.
A notice that she is wanted in Virginia is listed on Interpol's Web site. An FBI spokeswoman said this week that the kidnapping warrant is still active.

[snip]

The boys' father filed an application to have the children returned to the United States under the Hague Convention, the treaty that establishes a civil process for returning children wrongfully removed from their country of residence. But German courts denied the application, Findlay said.

Alec Gardner is now 8 years old, and Dominic Gardner is now 7 years old. Stefanie Zachariadis Gardner, now age 35, is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall and 120 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information about the case can call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678.

Pretty heavy for a Wednesday afternoon. Fortunately, the Connection is here to help with a heartwarming photo essay of a bunch of puppies cavorting at Reston's Fake Downtown. You're welcome.

RA Headquarters: New Location, Sassy New Attitude

Please to be enjoying these first pictures of the Reston Association's shiny new headquarters, located at 12001 Sunrise Valley Drive, which opened its doors bright and early at 8:30 this morning. Hey, what are those colorful, decidedly non earth-toned objects on the bookshelves in the background? We can only conclude that along with a new mailing address, this RA has a sassy new attitude! Now if you'll excuse us, we're off to paint the dingy exterior walls of Restonian World Headquarters a nice fuchsia.

Wow, you close for a few days to move, and check out the pent-up demand for pool passes!

All in all, this is just a painfully tantalizing glimpse of the wonders at the new RA headquarters. Hopefully the RA will post more in its next "Face Book" update.

This Week in Crime: Western-Style Gunslinging, Arlington Altercations, and Another Loudoun Runaway

As befits a street with an old-timey, vaguely western name, an unnamed gunslinger fired a gun inside a home on Barrel Cooper Court.

A man discharged a gun at a home in the 11800 block of Barrel Cooper Court around 11 p.m. on Saturday, July 17 during an altercation. The suspect fled the home. No one was injured. Police continue to investigate.

A Reston man was charged with assault after an altercation in Arlington.

On June 27 at 12:20 am, after a verbal argument, the victim was assaulted by a white male subject. The suspect was located by police. Zachary Belcher, 25, of Reston, was charged with Assault and Battery. He was given a $2,500 bond.

For the second time in as many months, a Loudoun County teenager who ran away from home was found... in Reston.

A 15-year-old Ashburn girl who went missing June 12 was found July 22 unharmed in Reston.

Police sent out a missing person’s notice about Ana Maria Ferster, who goes by Kimi, July 20.

At the time, she had made contact with her family but had not returned home. When she was found, Kimi was taken back to Loudoun County, police said.

What is the appeal of Reston to these krazy kids today? Growing up in Sterling and Ashburn must be pretty boring if our beige community is suddenly becoming Excitement Central for teen runaways.

This isn't really about Reston per se, but if you're a glutton for bad puns and painful pop culture references, please to be reading this county police press release. Consider yourselves warned.

Finally, a "tip jar" was stolen from an undisclosed business at the Hunters Woods Plaza, which is pretty low by any account.

First Earthquakes, Now Wind: Shocking Photos, Videos From Sunday's HELLPOCALYPSEWINDGUST 2010 (tm)

This shocking photo shows the wake of devastation after a 75 mph gust of wind blew threw Reston Sunday afternoon, causing immeasurable damage to diners' corporate expense accounts. For a while, the National Weather Service was also reporting a "roof collapse" on a parking garage on Fountain Drive, but this might be what they were thinking of. Elsewhere in the region, the storms killed two people, but here in Reston, there was this. Also, the lights apparently went out at Target for a while.

Here's an eyewitness video that captures the raw terror of being at Ground Zero, or at least some midscale retail emporium, mere yards from the Morton's awning. Skip ahead to about 2:00 for the "good" part.


Much like this cinematic classic, the critics were less than kind.

Wow great idea lets stand next to the GLASS door during a tornado warning. Who ever taped this must be a moron.

First, earthquakes, now dangerous gusts of winds. When did our favorite earth-toned community move to California?

With Ceremonial Dumping of the Filing Cabinets, Reston Association Move Begins

At long last, we get a furtive glimpse of the contents of the Reston Association's filing cabinets! Apparently the RA got help from some interns at AOL to throw all those historic goldenrod copies of the DRB violations of yesteryear into some decidedly non-earth toned plastic totes to get ready for its move across the Toll Road to the fancy new place with the child labor cubbies.

In case you've been remiss in picking up your pool passes, RA headquarters is open today, but the phones are down. The building will be closed both tomorrow and Monday as the move continues, and the headquarters will reopen bright and early on Tuesday in its new location, at 12001 Sunrise Valley Drive.

Good luck, RA staffers, with the move. Just remember -- lift with your legs, not your back.

Spies Like Us: This Post is TOP SECRET

The Washington Post, which according to some recently declassified information is a "news-paper," has been running all week this big investigative report saying we all have TOP SECRET clearances and are all spying on each other or something, which is, well... yeah. Don't these people live here?

Anyhoo, the Post apparently got its hands on a computer with Internet access and managed to Google Google Maps, because they found 50 companies working on TOP SECRET projects in Reston. In case there are any highly competent Russian spies out there who take a minute away from friending each other on Facebook, here's the complete list, plus this handy TOP SECRET MAP.

Now that you've looked at this TOP SECRET map, please to be sure to print it out, cut the printout into tiny pieces, and then swallow every last one of them. Thanks. Now if you'll excuse us, our shoe phone is ringing.

Shocker: Metro Silver Line Possibly Delayed Until March 4, 2014

We were shocked -- shocked! -- to hear that the first smoking track fire on wheels to roll into the Reston Wiehle Metro station has been unofficially delayed by three months.

The construction of the first part of Metrorail's Silver Line into Northern Virginia has been unofficially delayed by three months but officials say their schedule is not falling off the tracks -- yet.

December 2013 has been the target date for when passengers would be able to ride Metro an additional 11.5 miles into Fairfax County, to Tysons Corner and the eastern edge of Reston.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is overseeing the Silver Line construction, is now projecting Metro's doors will open March 4, 2014 -- a 90-day delay from the official start date in December 2013.

Marcia McAllister, an MWAA spokeswoman, said that official December date has not changed but that the projected date -- used internally for planning purposes -- has indeed been moved back, noting that "there is more than enough time to make up the difference and open in December."

McAllister said the construction timeline is behind schedule primarily due to February's massive snowstorms, which "substantially impacted" the construction work being done by contractors.

Meeting the December deadline had also been thrown into jeopardy because of lingering issues between Metro and MWAA over the cost of rail cars, which are set for delivery in November 2013, a month before the subway's scheduled opening.

At this pace, the Silver Line will nose its way into the particleboard subdivisions of Loudoun County by... well, never.

Midscale Retail? There's an App for That

All the ambience of Reston's Fake Downtown is now available on your fancy "smart phone." Reston Town Center has developed a free iPhone app allowing you to check movie times, and store names and... well, all kinds of stuff, we guess. We're not entirely sure, as we haven't been able to download it to our fancy 1987 cellular phone yet -- maybe we need to put the app on a 5 1/4" floppy disk, or something, so we can "load" it into the phone's briefcase transmitter?

So enjoy. If nothing else, you can use it on your iPhone while you're standing in line waiting to pick up another iPhone.