Flashback Friday: An exciting new feature we'll run until we get bored or run out of old photos

Here is our exciting new feature, Flashback Friday (tm), featuring rare artifacts from Reston's Dark Ages (literally, given the lack of lighting). In this lovely photo, a Realtor (tm) is captured for eternity in mid-pitch, extolling the many exciting features of Colson Cluster, or maybe Waterview Cluster, near Lake Anne -- including, no doubt, the bitchin' space-age air conditioning.

Democracy in Action

Posted without comment.

The Reston Citizens Association (RCA) will reconsider its election districts in light of confusion that led to one board member being elected as a representative of a district he did not live in.

"I am somewhat embarrassed about it," said Dan McGuire, formerly a South Lakes director on the RCA board, now installed as a Hunters Woods director.

P. Diddy-Style Street Cred: The Mean Streets of Reston

Let's say, just for argument's sake, you want to compete in a reality TV competition to become Puff Daddy P. Diddy Diddy's personal assistant. You've got to prove you have that certain "street cred" needed in today's modern rapper manservant, yet you live in bland, not-exactly-streetwise Loudoun County. How do you prove you've got what it takes? Ask Boris Kuperman, Cascades resident and participant in the VH1 reality series "I Want to Work for Diddy."

BY THE TIME he arrived at Park View, Kuperman already had a long history of conflicts with authority. He had been expelled from both Lake Anne Elementary School and Langston Hughes Middle School in Reston.

Say no more.

Metro Silver Line: The Big Dig, Reston Style?

As Metro's Silver Line appears to possibly maybe be nearing possible approval for actual construction (keep clapping!), backers of a shiny tunnel through the urban wonderland of Tysons Corner are now suggesting the same should be done in Reston, thereby depriving Silver Line riders of a fleeting glimpse of our exciting skyscape of generic, mid-rise buildings through the smoke from the track fires.

Scott Monett, president of TysonsTunnel.org — a coalition of businesses and citizens committed to raising the tunnel option as a consideration — criticized the plan to build the rail stations in the median of the [Dulles Toll] road. "Does it make sense to put the most valuable thing, which is the station, in the middle of 16 lanes," he said as he discussed the cost of building the extension and its vital components. "Highways are not friendly to transit-oriented developments. No one wants to live by them," said Monett.

Of course, Reston is a New Town(tm), and as a result, we have, as they say in the movies, a New Plan! Instead of burying the Silver Line, why not bury the entire Toll Road and build a whole pile of new crap mixed-use development on top of it?

Mike Corrigan, an RCA director,suggested another idea for burying a transportation project, one that had been expressed in previous years and months by Reston residents to include Richard Newlon, the Reston Design Review Board chairman, and architect Guy Rando, Lake Anne resident. "What we would really like is to bury that Toll Road," said Corrigan. He said the community could use the "121 acres or so" of land in the middle of Reston.

Monett cited examples of cities that have done similar projects, including Boston, but said there is a common theme for such a project and a tunnel for the rail extension. "Land use is the issue," said Monett, adding that now is a pivotal time for Reston to determine how to use its land.

Right on -- when we think Reston, we definitely think "the southern Boston." And we all know how successful their Big Dig was!

Reston's Vibrant Economy Part 23: Comstock FAIL, as the kids like to say, plus office space hits the mauve-colored wall

Awesome Reston homebuilder Comstock appears to be poised to collapse into itself like a dying sun. At least that's our layperson's grasp of this story, which uses lots of complex terms like "notices of default" and "sharehodler risk."

Comstock Homebuilding of Reston has defaulted on several development loans the company used to finance its projects during the years of the housing boom.

The company is hoping to renegotiate the terms of its loans with several banks, but some analysts warned that the company's future is cloudy.

"Comstock Homebuilding Company's ability to exist as a going concern is the primary risk to shareholders," Christopher R. Lucas, a senior real estate analyst in the Tysons Corner office of the investment firm Robert W. Baird, said in a July report, before Baird ceased covering the company. Lucas added that that the weak housing market and slumping economy "create a difficult operating environment for Comstock."

Comstock has received notices of default or demands for repayment from five lenders over the past two months, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company owes the banks about $86.5 million, according to the filings.

Is that kind of like when credit card companies start calling your house at odd hours, all friendly at first but then more insistent and eventually downright threatening as they attempt to get you to make good on your delinquent $23.75 Visa bill? Not that we'd know anything about that, of course.

But we digress. Meanwhile, Reston's commercial office space market appears to be headed off the cliff as well.

Although Washington's economy is still growing, with a 3.9 percent unemployment rate and 25,300 jobs added in June, the pace has slowed. That has made the companies that lease office space more cautious and less willing to take new space.

A total of 6.5 million square feet of office space was leased throughout the Washington area in the second quarter, a 10 percent decline from the same period last year, according to the Bethesda research firm CoStar. The majority of those deals were tenants renewing their leases, said John Sikaitis, research director for the Washington area office of Jones Lang LaSalle.

The Reston and Herndon area, which in the past few years has seen a wave of speculative development (development with no tenants lined up), saw its vacancy rate jump to 16.7 percent from 11.1 percent, with asking rents declining 1.2 percent from $31.45 to $31.07 a square foot. New projects there are unlikely, Zialcita said.

Does that mean the Macaroni Grill is safe for now? We can only hope. Maybe not, though, since developers there have been sending out press releases claiming the recession doesn't exist, at least not in Reston Town Center.

At a glance, it looks ominous: a 650,000-square-foot speculative office project in Northern Virginia, with top-dollar asking rents and no metrorail within 10 miles, delivering into a saturated market amid the bleakest U.S. economic forecast in years.

The project is South of Market, a three-building complex that Boston Properties opened several months ago at Reston Town Center, the massive urban-core of Reston, VA.

Yet, even as a number of recently constructed office buildings in the area sit vacant, South of Market has survived and even thrived since the credit markets froze 10 months ago. The project is roughly 90 percent leased or committed, far outpacing the broader Dulles Corridor area (comprised mainly of Reston and Herndon), which saw vacancy spike to nearly 20 percent last quarter.

Much of the space at South of Market was leased before the credit crunch, including big deals with Serco, an IT services group, and telecommunications firm NII Holdings.

But leasing has been surprisingly robust over the past year under what many observers have termed tough and deteriorating market conditions. Rolls Royce opened its North America headquarters at South of Market this month after agreeing to relocate from Chantilly, southwest of Reston, in December, while other blocks of space recently went to aerospace group International Launch Services, Internet metrics agency comScore Networks, online mortgage tracker MERS, and Google.

And, in one of Northern Virginia's largest leases this year, SAT test administrator The College Board took close to 200,000 square feet at the fourth South of Market building, a 235,000-square-foot structure known as Democracy Tower that is now under construction.

"These are firms that care about the image they project," said Joe Ritchey, the principal of Prospective Inc., who has played an active role in leasing and marketing several projects over the past two decades at Reston Town Center. "The firms that come to Reston Town Center brand Reston Town Center, but they're also branded by it."

What a great slogan! Reston Town Center: Brand or Be Branded.

This Week in Crime: Would-Be North Point Abductor Surrenders, Presumably After Getting One Last Starbucks Latte

The creep who attempted to abduct a 13-year-old at Reston's North Point Shopping Center a month or so back has turned himself in to authorities.

A Reston man has surrendered to authorities after he allegedly tried to abduct a 13-year-old girl.

Officials said he tried to abduct the girl July 18 along North Point Village Center. She was not injured.

Wow. Now it's safe to go back and get that skinny mocha latte from the North Point Starbucks. The only question is, which one?

What, you mean the astronaut schools aren't the best?

With all that wacky lawsuit business behind them, FairfaxCAPS has gone back to its other pet divide-and-conquer project: ranking all 136 Fairfax County elementary schools based on their performance on Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) tests.

Using that yardstick, schools in Reston ran the gamut, from among the best in the county to near the bottom of the barrel. Contradicting years of mindlessly repeated advice from real estate agents, though, the two "astronaut schools" -- North Reston's Armstrong Elementary and Aldrin Elementary -- were not the top two schools on the list. Test score-obsessed parents might want to consider moving to South Reston, as two of the three top-ranked elementary schools in Reston are located south of the Toll Road, but they're probably already asking to transfer their kids to Haycock, Colvin Run, or Great Falls Elementary (ranked 1st-3rd) because of their AP Kindergarten classes and lack of stubby scissors and whatnot.

Here's how Reston-area schools stacked up:

• Sunrise Valley Elementary ranked 16th
  
• Aldrin Elementary ranked 22nd
  
• Hunters Woods Elementary ranked 39th
  
• Forest Edge Elementary ranked 58th
  
• Armstrong Elementary ranked 84th
  
• Terraset Elementary ranked 104th
  
• Lake Anne Elementary ranked 107th
  
• Dogwood Elementary ranked 131st

Education experts will tell you that test scores tell you far more about the socioeconomic backgrounds of a school's students than the quality of the educational program or its teachers. Fortunately, we all know that socioeconomic differences were never what worried FairfaxCAPS and its backers, right?

Right.

Metro Silver Line: And we haven't even reminded people to keep clapping for months!

Breaking news: Apparently the not-quite-dead-yet Silver Line has been given another jolt of CPR:

Federal officials have offered another signal that a $5.2 billion Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport is on track to receive federal funding by the end of the year, giving project officials the green light to begin construction in the heart of Tysons Corner.

Sweet! We look forward to years of traffic tie-ups in the heart of "Fairfax County's downtown," or whatever godawful slogan they're using to market Tysons Corner these days, now that the over-not-under folks have gone home to take a nap or whatever. That traffic will continue until 2325, or whenever the Silver Line is supposed to officially open and we can take the Metro from Wiehle Avenue to somewhere just west of Tysons Corner, where we'll perish in an epic track fire within sight of the Linens 'N Whatnots.

The FTA's letter further dims hope for those still pushing for a tunnel through the Tysons Corner portion of the rail line. The project was delayed more than a year by a grass-roots effort to force the line underground to maximize redevelopment potential in Tysons and avoid the unsightliness of an elevated track. The effort has waned as a number of political leaders, including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), determined that a tunnel would be too expensive and that pursuing it could jeopardize federal funding. At Kaine's insistence, the FTA is reviewing the aerial alignment only.

But for tunnel backers, there is one consolation:

That larger tunnel is not to be confused with a smaller tunnel that project officials are preparing to dig through Tysons. Plans call for an aboveground alignment through most of Tysons, including four stations -- two on Route 123 and two in the median of Route 7. But the tracks must dip underground briefly through an elevation rise where routes 123 and 7 meet.

And the good news for the rest of us?

The excavation will require a staging area and traffic disruptions along Route 123. Such disruptions are likely to intensify through the fall.

Guess we won't be going to the Olive Garden anytime soon.

More This Week in Crime: White Collar Edition

What an exciting week! First, some kids get busted for breaking into a country club, now two grownups are arrested for embezzlement at Lake Fairfax Park.

Two employees of the Water Mine Family Swimmin' Hole in Reston were arrested yesterday by Fairfax County police for allegedly embezzling money from the pool office.

Police said an anonymous tip to the county park authority last month led detectives to start investigating missing funds at the water park, which is part of Lake Fairfax Park, just off Leesburg Pike. Police obtained warrants charging [two men] with one count of embezzlement, and both men turned themselves in yesterday at the Reston station.

And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids! Actually, we just love saying "Family Swimmin' Hole," because it's so not Reston, right down to the picture of the dentally challenged hillbilly they use on the signs out front. Real hillbillies would never stand for restrictions on where they can park their boats, after all.

Anyhoo, now we come to a tale of wheeling and dealing real estate intrigue, kind of like Donald Trump, only more explicitly illegal and without the toupee.

A 47-year-old Reston man pleaded guilty to federal fraud and money laundering charges in U.S. District Court Thursday.

[He] was charged in connection with real estate fraud scheme that took place in 2005 and 2006, according to the office of Chuck Rosenburg, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He faces up to 30 years in federal prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of at least $500,000 and full restitution when he is sentenced by United States District Judge T.S. Ellis, III on Oct. 31, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

According to court documents, [he] was the president of Loanworth Corporation Inc., a Vienna-based real estate firm. He defrauded three sets of clients, resulting in a loss to those victims of approximately $1.14 million.

Nice. I'm sure his victims will be happy he'll likely go to one of those cushy white-collar prisons, instead of this place (possibly NSFW, unless your employer is cool about the movie Office Space).

This Week in Crime: More peeping and creeping, plus the most ill-timed break-in since Watergate

More tomfoolery and general creepy lurking-about business this week:

Police arrested a Reston man after they found him peeping through the window of an apartment in the 2000 block of Royal Fern Court at about 10 p.m. Saturday. A 53-year-old Reston woman reportedly saw the man outside her window and called police. Officers located the man, who fled the scene but was later found. He was taken to the Fairfax County jail and charged with peeping.

We didn't realize "peeping" was the official name of a criminal charge, but maybe we don't watch enough late-night premium cable.

Another Reston native got slapped with a more troubling criminal charge.

An assistant principal at Freedom High School in South Riding was arrested yesterday and charged with possession of child pornography.

Apparently, this stems back to an earlier brouhaha with a confiscated student cellphone photo, and there seems to be considerable sentiment among commenters on the Post Web site that he was railroaded. (Bonus points, by the way, Washington Post, for pretending to let people post anonymously and then running their usernames right next to the word "anonymous." Well played!)

But the attorney's name seems... strangely familiar. Oh, right!

And finally, three teenagers rather ineptly attempted to break into Hidden Creek Country Club, only to be caught by police shortly afterwards.

Three teens were apprehended after they reportedly broke into the Hidden Creek Country Club, located at 1711 Clubhouse Rd., at about 3 a.m. Aug. 13. Police responded to an alarm that went off in the building and found that someone had entered the building. A vehicle was seen leaving the club shortly after. Police stopped the vehicle and determined the three teenage boys inside were responsible for breaking into the club. Police also located alcohol in the car. Two 17-year-old Herndon-area boys were charged with underage possession of alcohol and released to their parents. Petitions for burglary will be obtained on each of them. A 16-year-old boy from Hempstead, N.Y., was transported and held at the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center where a petition for burglary was obtained. Nothing was taken from the club.

That's why they stop asking kids to write the "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essays somewhere around middle school.

Reston Real Estate: The High-Low Game, pt. 7

August is always a great time to buy a new house or six, so grab your prequalified subprime mortgage forms and let's hit the streets of Reston in search of those awesome dancing open house costumes and "price improvement" signs!

Our first stop on today's exciting tour of homes is the penthouse of the Paramount, that tall building near Reston's Fake Downtown. Priced at a reasonable $1,399,999, it's apparently got awesome views.

TOP FLOOR/15TH FLOOR PENTHOUSE WITH PANORAMIC VIEWS FROM ALL ROOMS.**LARGEST MODEL-3065 SF! BEAUTIFUL MARBLE ENTRY, HARDWOOD FLOORS, UPGRADED CARPET IN BEDROOMS. MAGNIFICENT MASTER SUITE WITH OVERSIZE CLOSET WITH DOUBLE-ENTRY. *TWO-ZONED HEAT/COOLING*HUMIDIFIERS* FAMILY ROOM/BREAKFAST AREA AS PART OF KITCHEN/GLASS WALL VIEWS WEST/SUNSETS/BLUE RIDGE MTNS.

You had us at "sunsets" and "Blue Ridge." Sounds nice, but the agent used this photo to illustrate the view instead:


Wow... the top of a parking garage. You'll be so enthralled by watching commuters' cars being towed away you'll forget to go to work, lose your job, and be unable to float that $6,632 mortgage. That can't be good for the old credit rating!

On the other end of the price spectrum is this charming townhouse on Lofty Heights Place. At $142,900, its entire lot is half the square footage of the Paramount penthouse. But judging by the street name, the entire neighborhood has awesome, penthouse-like views!

END UNIT ON A SHADY LOT THAT BACKS TO TREES. FRONT HALL ACCESS TO LIVING ROOM, STEP UP TO DINING ROOM. BRIGHT KITCHEN, ENGLISH BASEMENT. LARGE UTILITY/LAUNDRY ROOM. FULLY FENCED AND PATIO.

Trees, or the roof of a parking deck? The difference is a mere $1,257,099.

United at Dulles: Fly the Indifferent Skies

What on earth have the folks at United Airlines been smoking during those long layovers at Dulles Airport? First, they lose a dog, which escaped from a crate about to be loaded on a plane and ran into the woods surrounding the airport, and now, they almost lose a 10-year-old.

A Reston couple is furious after their daughter was allegedly lost at Dulles airport from a flight with her grandmother.

Ten-year-old Jenna Boyer had a button pinned to her shirt signifying she was an unaccompanied minor before boarding a plane from Boston to Dulles Sunday.

According to Jenna's parents, Jeffrey and Judy Boyer, United Airlines lost their daughter for nearly an hour at Dulles. The Boyers say per United policy, a United crew member was supposed to escort Jenna from her seat to the gate at Dulles, where she would be reunited with her mother. But Jenna says no one helped her.

Jenna says she followed other passengers to a tram and then to baggage claim where she started crying after realizing her mother was not there. That's when the Boyers say a stranger asked Jenna if she was lost then took her to an information desk. All the while, Judy Boyer was desperately searching for her daughter.

They should thank their lucky stars: At least Jenna was found. We've seen firsthand how helpful United is when it comes to finding lost animals.

Reston: Ground Zero in the presidential elections, or just a place a reporter could get ice cream while talking to people? You be the judge

As we've all been reminded a zillion times, Virginia is a battleground state in this fall's presidential election, and some hippy political magazine from overcaffienated Seattle decided it might be a good idea to pull on its grungster fleece cap, metaphorically speaking, and sample the political zeitgeist at Reston Town Center. Hey, good plan, even though the last time someone tried a similar stunt, folks kept writing in savvy political choices like Dennis Kucinich and H. Ross Perot.

Reston, Va. -- If Virginia were a person, it would look a lot like Rod Markham, a federal contractor, retired from the Army, who's leaning ever so slightly toward Obama but is still of two minds about the presidential race.

And if Reston were a person, it would wear lots of earth tones, be slightly anal about following obscure rules and regulations, and eat at the Macaroni Grill three times a day. Anyhoo!

The part of Virginia that wants to go Obama is here in the northern tier that includes the Washington suburbs and the booming Dulles Technology Corridor, which has replaced downtown D.C. as the region's business center. So diverse is the area that some 100 languages are spoken at home by kids in Fairfax County public schools.

That's definitely been a big selling point of late! But what of this strange place, "Reston?"

I meet Markham in Reston Town Center, where there's a farmers market on Thursday evenings and concerts on Saturdays. Reston was founded in 1964, as part of the "new community" movement that was a forerunner of smart growth. Though you still have to take a bus to get between here and the closest D.C. Metro line, the Town Center does have an unusual amount of street life. On a weekday afternoon, people are sitting by the fountain and in outdoor cafes, reading or having coffee or, in Markham's case, a cup of chocolate ice cream from Ben & Jerry's down the street.

Awww, that's sweet. Just don't try taking photos!

Across the square, Paul Patton and his bike (pictured) are taking a little break. He's a musician, originally from Pennsylvania, and is volunteering part-time for Obama, the first candidate who's ever moved him to do that. Last week, they had him working a phone bank one night over the dinner hour -- an assignment he did not find easy. "I'm not really outgoing, but I was able to do it," he said, despite the weirdness of trying to keep a total stranger on the line while reading from a script and being distracted by the noise of a dozen other people reading from the same script. Patton was won over long ago, after reading Obama's two books, and hates that the knock against his candidate is that he's an elitist: "Average guys aren't supposed to become president!"

Instead, they can run for office in the tolerant town to our west. But Reston can't be completely full of evil, elitist liberals who want to officiate gay marriages between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden whilst on vacation in France, can it? Thankfully, no.

So, is there anybody around here who's voting McCain? Yes, but it's not easy being in the political minority, and when I do happen on a couple of Republicans, they decline to give their names. When I ask the woman what issues she's interested in, she replies, "Anything John McCain says. And that's all I have to say."

Well said. Well said.

Meet Your Neighbors: What Happens in Vegas Stays in Reston... wait, what?

So you're an IT specialist rocking out at one of the nondescript midrise office buildings fronting the Toll Road. You work hard, but you know when vacation time rolls around, you'll play hard, too. So you buy your plane ticket to Las Vegas and get ready for a wild weekend of carousing, gambling, and scoping out unsecured wireless networks along the Las Vegas Strip using a rented hot-air balloon transmitting data back to a wireless-enabled laptop for later analysis.

Wait, what?

From the balloon's 15 story height, they were able to survey about a 7 1/2 mile (12 kilometers) radius, Hill said. The balloon sent so much data, it just started rushing by on his screen. About one-third of all the networks they spotted were unencrypted, he said.

But this isn't just a run-of-the-mill story about TCP/IP packets and WEP security. In fact, things got so wild and crazy that Rick Hill and his team of volunteers almost got kicked out of a Vegas hotel!

In his day job Hill is a senior scientist with Tenacity Solutions, a security services consultancy in Reston, Va.

Despite methodical preparation for this year's Defcon, and Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) approval, Hill's warballoon almost didn't take off at all.

That's because management at the Riviera Hotel, host of the Defcon hacking conference, changed its mind late last week and told him that he could not launch the balloon from hotel property. In fact, the Riviera said, he couldn't even bring the warballoon into the hotel. The reason for the grounding was vague. Riviera staffers told Hill that local police were concerned after a nearby casino had complained of the operation.

Those pesky stick-in-the-mud casino operators! They just don't want anyone to have any fun at all. So what happened?

The balloon he was using was rented from a national company that rents out the devices for real-estate photography. And though he knew that the balloon was perfectly legal to fly, he was still a little worried about local police shutting him down."That's when we did plan B: the covert operation," he said.

Oooh! Grab your Dr. Pibb and let's go!

To cut down on any chance of the operation being shut down, they quietly inflated the balloon inside a rented moving truck while parked in the Treasure Island hotel parking lot. Then they drove to a nearby park and set it off from an abandoned parking lot. "It probably took us less than five minutes to get the balloon airborne." he said.

Near the end of the operation, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police cruiser drove by the parking lot to see what was going on. Hill and his team waved. The police officers waved back and drove off.

Actually, this sounds like a lot more fun than the usual Vegas fare to us. But then again, we've been called nerds before.

This Week in Crime: More Fun at North Point?

Several of our tipsters wrote in to share stories of heightened police activity at everyone's favorite shopping center with two -- count 'em, two -- Starbucks and one -- count 'em, one -- recent attempted abduction, Reston's North Point Shopping Center.

Since you are the place I go for all of my Reston news, I am writing to see if you knew why there has been a significant amount of police activity at the North Point Shopping Center this week. On both Wednesday and Thursday afternoons (or maybe it was Tuesday and Wednesday; I've lost track of days), there were lots of police cars and officers, and apparently, guns were even drawn. Do you have any information about this?

We could pick up the phone and do a little of what those anachronistic, frequently laid off old-media types might call "reporting," but this is the Web 2.0/iPhone/Twitter world, and frankly, we might as well be rubbing sticks together to start what our neanderthal ancestors might have called "fire." (Instead, we now use this.) So we'll just ask: Has anyone else seen/heard anything? Discuss this, as well as the decline of journalism, in the comments.

Happy Blogiversary, or whatever, to us, plus a children's treasury of hilarious Google search terms

Well, it's been a heck of a year since our first heartfelt post, and we'd like to thank the tens of you who visit the site regularly to get the latest news about Bratz-hating Oakton parents, our tolerant neighbors to the west, or the awesome long-foreshadowed yet still somehow imminent demise of our beloved Macaroni Grill. Mostly, we'd like to thank the words "mauve" and "awesome," because it if weren't for them, we'd actually have to learn how to write.

We've also learned what you, the folks who come to this site after Googling some vital fact about life in Reston, are really looking for. Below, some of our favorite search terms that led folks to this humble site in the past year:

• Lake Anne hispanics loitering
  
• Should I move to Reston
  
• Reston singles (Ed. Note: We found them. Don't bother looking.)
  
• Robert E. Simon dies
  
• Free ice cream
  
• Reston expensive
  
• Reston macaroni grill closing
  
• car towed away from Reston Town Center

Yes, it's been a heck of a year, and we're proud to share a little slice of life from the 37th best place to live in the U.S. of A. After all, you can't spell "fundamental restrictions to land usage and homeowner covenants" without the letters F-U-N, right?

Ahem. Anyhoo, as we look forward to another year of mocking ridiculous regulations and the vague possibility of mass transit possibly coming here someday, we'll leave you with just one word:

Mauve.

What else did you expect?

Reston's Olympic Dreams: Going to the Dogs (Slow News Week Month Day 3)

Well, Reston native Alan Webb didn't make it to the Olympics this year, but another Reston resident did the next best thing.

Nine-month-old puppy Jack — a mix breed of bichon frise and poodle — will compete on Animal Planet’s Puppy Games, to be aired on Friday night in concurrence with the Olympic Games opening ceremonies.

Jack will join 20 other puppies whose breeds represent nations throughout the world — China, England, Malta, Germany and many others — in the competition. The event is somewhat based on the Puppy Bowl, the Animal Planet’s popular show aired during the Superbowl.

In order to make the Games, Jack had to satisfy requirements for behavior in front of a camera — basically not freeze when confronted with recording equipment. "My dog excelled on camera," said Sandy Morris, Reston resident and Jack’s owner.

Awww. We've said it before, we'll say it again: Everyone loves puppies.

This Week in Crime: Unhappy Campers

Some creep assaulted an RA camp counselor near Brown's Chapel Park on Wednesday.

This morning, one of our Senior Counselors was assaulted in the "owl woods" which are located between our camp facility and Baron Cameron Ave. The staff member was alone. He did not sustain any serious injuries and chose to complete his normal work day.

No campers were involved in the incident. However, police were called, and they responded promptly. They are looking for a white male, approximately 6 feet tall in his 40s with shoulder length brown hair and scruffy facial hair. He was wearing black jeans, a white tank top, black croc style footwear, and a gray winter coat. He was also armed with a knife.

Because the safety of your children and our staff is our top priority, we wanted you to have this information. Use of the "owl woods" by camp has been indefinitely suspended. And, as always, your children will be within sight and sound of our staff at all times. The additional precautionary measures that were implemented immediately after the incident will remain in place indefinitely.

That's just great. Another run-of-the-mill Reston creep, and no one ever gets to have fun ever again. Happy summer, kids!

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Cops on Bicycles to Singlehandedly Solve Nation's Immigration Crisis, Forever

Hey, remember the time folks in Herndon, our tolerant neighbor to the west, closed its evil day labor center, thereby solving the national immigration crisis forever and ensuring that only native-born Herndonians would have unfettered access to Slurpees and other precious bodily fluids at the Elden Street 7-11? Yeah, that was awesome. Only it didn't quite seem to work, so now Herndon's political elite is coming up with, as they say in the movies, a new plan.

Revoking the ABC licenses of area convenience stores, confiscating bicycles and removing pay phones along Elden Street are but a few suggestions recently offered by Herndon Councilman Dennis Husch in an effort to "make Herndon unwelcoming to illegal aliens."

In a July 16 memo from Husch to Herndon Mayor Steve DeBenedittis and other council members, Husch outlined his intention to reduce the numbers of day laborers who congregate near the intersection of Alabama Drive and Elden Street.

"When action is taken to reduce their numbers, they will seek employment elsewhere," he wrote in the memo.

Sounds great! We sure wouldn't like it if we couldn't ride our bike to the local bodega to get a bumper before calling home from a pay phone. But what other ideas are in store to rid the Herndon area of the scourge of unwanted pay-phone users?

Among them are assigning a police officer and zoning inspector to the area; establishing a room rental permit program and a "pedestrian safety zone" that would prohibit standing along Elden Street between Herndon Parkway and Sterling Road.

Makes sense. If you ban pedestrians, they'll definitely be safe. Any other plans?

"Enough is enough," [Council Member] David Kirby said in an e-mail addressed to the mayor and other council members. "I believe it is time to insist on our HPD Officers get out of the cruisers and walk or ride bicycles (save gas and bring back 'walking the beat') in that area and show their presence."

That doesn't sound menacing at all. But it certainly is thrifty!

All this comes after some sort of secret meeting between Herndon officials and a federal immigration agency. We couldn't quite get the gist of what happened from the article, but it sounds like the upshot is that they'll keep bustin' on the immigrants. If nothing else, that'll ensure they keep raking in the lucrative conference trade.

Slow News Week, Day 2: Reston Hospital Center: Germs are icky, may possibly spread something called 'germs'

Folks at Reston Hospital Center now know how to wash their hands.

At Reston Hospital Center, an awareness campaign introduced in 2006 has boosted hand-hygiene compliance to more than 90 percent; it also led to a drop in the hospital's infection rate.

Well, that's a relief -- you can't learn everything in seven years of med school, after all. But what about the 10 percent of hospital staph who don't wash their hands?

News You Can't Use: Restonians Take Bronze in Rule-Ridden Sand Castle Contest (yes, we're entering the slowest news month of the year)

We've pointed out before that there's no reason any sane person would ever want to leave Reston, given our awesome staycation-like resort atmosphere. But apparently, some people do go on these things called "vacations," and when they do, they apparently look for places that match Reston's ethos.

Take Rehoboth Beach, which is perhaps the most retentive of all the retentive Delaware beaches (there's a very large sign with lots of words on the boardwalk that, among many other things, "prohibits the playing of any game where a ball or other object is thrown as a missile from 9am-5pm" -- or words to that effect). So it makes perfect sense it's a place for Reston residents to "let their hair down" and get a little crazy, like staying in a house that's not a Pantone-correct shade of taupe, or maybe even putting out the trash at 6:59pm the night before (!!!)

Anyhoo, Rehoboth holds a sand castle building contest each year, no doubt chock full of exciting rules and restrictions, and a bunch of Restonians took third place in the Adult Freeform Division:

3rd place: David O’Brien of Arlington, Va., Shai Segal of Washington, D.C., Tim Smith of Reston, Va., Jill Tunick of Reston, Va., Barbara Best of Vienna, Va., Carolyn Best of Reston, Va., Jeff Ozimek of Reston, Va., Kathryn Ozimek of Reston, Va. with Going Dutch (not pictured).

Sweet! We're wondering if folks from Columbia, Reston's evil doppelganger, placed second.