Have You Paid Your $43 For Covenants Enforcement?

As the annual due date for the Reston Association assessment draws near, it's always nice to take stock and use the soothing multicolored hues of a pie chart to reflect on the fact that each of is personally paying $43 to make sure that our neighbor doesn't use the wrong kind of outdoor light fixture, $47 for coconut fiber biologs and whatnot, and $81 for capital funding for things like no smoking signs (though, in fairness, those were supposed to be paid for out of the current year's budget).

All in all, we do think it's well worth an iPad and a half to live in Reston, though we hope that the $25 increase this year will find its way to maintaining Reston's current infrastructure and planning for sensible improvements for the influx of new people soon to arrive.

On the bright side, the fact that this is a leap year brings the cost of our assessment down nearly four-tenths a penny, to a mere $1.54 per day. Score!

On The YouTubes: The EPA Comes to Reston

Please to be enjoying this exciting video from the beloved viral video sensation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Our first thought was "Superfund site," but instead the EPA wanted to showcase the RA's lakeshore protection project, which mostly involves avoiding the construction of bulkheads on the shoreline through the use of natural plantings and "coconut fiber biologs," which sounds to us like something you'd buy at Whole Foods as a low-fat alternative to a Texas donut, the end.

Fairway to Heaven: Three Cheers for the DRB, and Other Things We Never Thought We'd Say

After what seemed like eons of back-and-forth and potential legal threats, the Reston Design Review Board approved a revised design for Fairway Apartments earlier this week. Gone is the delicious Texas donut design, the townhouses that are part of the 804-unit proposal are slightly shorter and more in tune with nearby clusters, and the famous "mauvescraper on its side" has been converted into three smaller multifamily buildings.

This is a significant win for Reston, since as recently as a month ago, JBG seemed to be digging in its heels and pushing back on making substantive changes. And earlier in the process, there was even talk that if the DRB rejected its proposal, JBG could challenge its right to do so in court.

We know that not everyone's going to be thrilled about this project or its (very real) impact on traffic, but this is an important decision that ensures that the DRB won't be challenged over its right to have the final say on development in Reston -- and it suggests that the board has the cajones to stick to its guns when needed. We'll also give JBG credit for making a good-faith effort to make changes, at the urging of county officials.

"The board should congratulate itself for sticking to its guns and getting to this point," said DRB member Ed Abbott. "And I congratulate JBG for sticking with us."

We couldn't agree more. To quote one of our awesome commenters, Macaroni Grill breadsticks all around.

On to the details of the proposal:

Now, the Texas Donut is gone and townhouses will be 3.5 stories. Parking for the multifamily buildings will be in a podium position that will blend in with the surroundings.

JBG architects also used nearby buildings, such as the Charles Goodman-designed Hickory Cluster, as inspiration for the exteriors of the townhouses, which now have a Cubist look to them.

Here's what they will look like:

Not bad at all, actually -- though when we Googled "cubist buildings," we got something that looked like this:

Perfect. Does it come in Russet Brown?

Having already been railroaded through approved by the Fairfax County Planning Commission, the Fairways proposal now goes before the county Board of Supervisors on March 20. If it is approved, the DRB will get another whack at a more detailed proposal, and will likely fixate on things like the colors of light fixtures and whatnot. At this point, they've earned it.

Here We Go Again: Metro Does Yet Another Survey, This Time About Silver Line Station Names

Taking a rare breather from "single tracking" trains during rush hour due to occult smoke and/or rails splitting in two for no apparent reason, Metro has decided to focus on what's really important: conducting a survey about the names of the awesome Silver Line stations, just like they did when they were toying with the idea of calling the train to Dulles the Cherry Blossom Pink Line. Of course, if they had just listened to our initial suggestions, we wouldn't be in this bind, but no matter!

Predictably, Herndonites are all up in arms about the other sharing a station name with Reston, despite the fact that the station and the parking will be on the Reston side of the Toll Road and there's a sizable contingent of town residents who want nothing more than a sidewalk on their side of the station to keep out the other development that might hurt the town's unique character, so you know they'll be voting in the survey in droves -- maybe with enough votes to call their station the "Jimmy's Old Town Station."

Fear not -- as Restonites, you can preserve the honor of our earth-toned community by taking the fancy survey yourself. In the spirit of the "voters guides" of yesteryear, we'll offer our suggestions for each station below:

First up, the Tysons stations:

Come to think of it, that name will work for all of the Tysons stations, except for maybe the one next to the Wal-Mart. Let's just skip the rest and move on to Reston's bollardy goodness.

OBVSLY. As an added bonus, maybe we can talk Jimmy Buffett into recording a kick-ass anthem for the parking garage.

Really, there can be only one name for this one, right?

Alternately, if you really want to annoy our neighbors to the west, you could suggest calling it the Polo Fields station.

We'll ignore the rest of the stations, as they'll never be built beyond here there only be dragons, the end.

In Reston, Not a Good Week to Be a Deceased Critter

We've long heard that one of the longest-enduring shortcomings of our beloved earth-toned community is its lack of cemeteries for those of us who want to face eternity under the provisions of binding covenants. If two separate events that took place last week are any indication, the same holds true for the critters who call Reston home.

First up: A Viking funeral burial at sea lake for a dog that went terribly wrong:

Several Fairfax County Fire and Rescue and Police vehicles were called to the shores of Lake Thoreau Friday morning after a man and his stepson fell out of their canoe while trying to give the family pet a "burial at sea."

Police from the Reston District Station said the Reston residents took a canoe out to lay to rest Hank, their recently deceased dog, who loved to swim in Lake Thoreau.

Police said that as the men, whose names were not released, were trying to take care of what they thought would be Hank's last wishes, both people and the dog fell out of the boat.

A neighbor who lives on the lake heard them calling for help and called 911.

By the time emergency responders got to the scene, the people and the dog corpse were safely on shore.

There hasn't been this much excitement on the lake in years! Along with plain old common sense, OF COURSE there's a specific subset of RA regulations that makes such behavior a no-no:

Reston Association spokeswoman Amelia Townsend says under Common Area Rules and Regulation 2 - Lake Use Access - Item 8, Section F, no types of refuse or debris should be put in the lake.

Item 8, Section F strikes again. Curses!

Meanwhile, across town, the Reston Zoo got into a spot of trouble after allegedly euthanizing a wallaby:

Thursday morning, Fairfax County Police executed a search warrant after an employee at the zoo said the zoo director had drowned a sick Wallaby as a means of euthanasia. In The search warrant, the employee told the officer he'd put the Wallaby in a crate, and later observed the empty crate next to a water spigot with a five gallon bucket of water.

The warrant says the employee jumped into a dumpster and found a trash bag containing the deceased wallaby which was profusely wet.

The officer wrote that the director said she euthanized the Wallaby by injection with a drug called Beauthanasia. But, the officer found no blood at the supposed injection site and noted that the dead animal was wet. The director told the officer that they routinely wash and rinse the bodies.

If the director did euthanize the animal with an injection, that's also a problem for the Zoo. The officer who led the search found that the Reston Zoo is not permitted to perform euthanasia because it has not completed the required protocol, training, and certification required.

Here's the Action McNews segment, if you're into such things:



No word on what section of RA regulations this would fall under. But we'd be a bit nervous if we were a dingo with the sniffles right now, the end.

We're #2! Fairfax County the Nation's Second Richest, Just Behind Our Neighbors to the West

Dust off your ascots and give the servants the rest of the day off, because according to some fancy "web site," we're all living "high on the hog!"

With the not-at-all provocative headline "Where the 1 Percent Live," the Main Street site calls Fairfax County the second richest county in the nation, with a median household income of $103,010 -- which is about $103,001 more than one can make, say, running a "web log." Only the particleboard nirvana to our west, Loudoun County, is more affluent, with a median household income that's nearly $20,000 higher. Seems the streets out there are paved with Tyvek gold!

Here's what the "web site" said about Fairfax:

Fairfax County is one of the largest counties in terms of population to make our list (1,081,726 residents in 2010), but it is also notable for its real estate. Fairfax is one of only two counties on our list to break the half-million mark in home values. Coming in at $507,800 for the median value of owner-occupied homes, the county truly has some spectacular real estate.

Government buffs will be excited to learn that Langley (headquarters of the CIA) is within the county line, so government employees must be making a decent amount of money these days. Also, the unemployment rate in the county has been astoundingly low historically, hitting 1.4% in 1999.

As for our neighbors to the west, who shamelessly flaunt their wealth with their fancy 3-side brick townhomes and foreclosure rituals? Let's just say the only thing we agree with is the picture that the Main Street site unironically used to illustrate the "richest county in America:"

Yep, that's just about right.

On the YouTubes: A Fistful of Color Chips

Who says that Reston has lacked culture since its crowning artistic triumph? Please to be enjoying the first episode of the fancy Web series "Thurston," created by Reston couple Paul Awad and Kathryn O’Sullivan. "Thurston" has been nominated for the 3rd annual Indie Soap Awards for best Web series in the drama category, along with a number of individual awards. Tell us more, old-timey "news paper!"

"Thurston" tells the story of the residents of a remote mining town in the Kansas Ozarks and their struggle for survival. O’Sullivan, a theater professor at the Manassas Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College, wrote the screenplay for the series; Awad, an instructor in video and film-making at The Art Institute of Washington, D.C., directs and films the series.

Since Lake Anne's brutalist concrete splendor isn't exactly the closest fit to the Old West, visually speaking, the series has been filmed in Wytheville, Virginia -- at "a western theme park, complete with a dusty main street and faded clapboard buildings." In other words, an old-timey Fake Downtown, minus the frozen yogurt and Pottery Barn. Let's just hope an upcoming episode doesn't involve the sheriff arresting a mysterious stranger trying to make an unauthorized daguerreotype plate near the fountain watering hole, the end.

Indecision 2012: Here Are the RA Board Candidate Statements, In All Their Bullet Point Glory

The Reston Association has posted the official statements of the candidates for the RA Board of Directors on its fancy "web site." Grab your reading glasses because here they are, posted in their entirety and snark-free for your enjoyment civic knowledge.

Five people are running for two at-large seats on the board. In alphabetical order, first up is John Farrell, who provided this statement:

Qualifications:
I fell in love with Reston when I was 13 & living in Bethesda. Gulf sponsored coverage of the Gemini V mission. In the middle of the civil rights struggle, a planned community bragged about the absence of racial covenants, in Virginia(!); about the availability of housing for all socio-economic levels and for all stages of a family's life.

Those ads set my life's course: to study urban government in college and zoning and planning in law school.

Since our 1984 return to Reston, my wife, Susie, and I have raised four kids who took lessons at RA pools, went to RA camps and played on RA ballfields,

I've been privileged to represent Reston clusters and to form large homeowners associations throughout Northern Virginia. I've also been National President of Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation and President of Fairfax Girls Softball.

It's time to give back to the place I love.

Goals:
Mission
Two years of service on RA's Parks and Planning Advisory Committee have convinced me that the next 3 years pose significant challenges and opportunities for RA.

The recently completed reserve study shows that RA faces capital expenses of millions of dollars. That study did not include the costs to renovate the dozens of RA ballfields; many of which are 40+ years old and have never been regraded or resodded. All of RA's future capital needs must be scheduled and funded.

Thousands of additional people will be coming to Reston and RA's trail system is incomplete.

The coming population will want recreational facilities different from what we already have. Those facilities must be funded by the developers who will promote Reston and its amenities as part of their sales packages. They need to contribute to the renovation of existing facilities and the addition of needed new facilities.

Donna Miller Rostant's statement:

Qualifications:
I love this community. I am a Director of the Reston Triathlon and Reston Runners Women's Distance Festival and have been actively involved In the Reston community as a volunteer in many organizations and events. I know what it takes to work together and lead a group to accomplish goals. I have experience as a member of an Architectural Review Committee of a homeowners association, and I am well aware of the emotions involved when a homeowner feels at odds with neighbors. I know what it takes to accomplish goals kindly, to speak forthrightly on difficult issues, and to find the right balance. As a practicing lawyer and former nurse, I know how to listen to and represent people who believe their voices are not heard. I will listen to you, I will advocate for you, and I will treat you respectfully. I ask for your vote.

Goals:
Quality of life is most important to Reston residents. Our community enables us to work, play, live and grow thanks to a healthy balance between residential life and urban development. As we move forward with the opening of Metro in Reston, I will ensure Reston harvests the benefits of better public transportation connecting us to the broader metropolitan region while maintaining that balance to preserve our community's lifestyle as we endure the inevitable change. As a runner, swimmer and bicyclist, I am committed to good health. Maintaining the infrastructure of Reston's "play" areas is essential to our community members' health. I will work to ensure the Association provides adequate funding for our facilities so they remain safe, affordable, and attractive for all residents. Educational growth and development is also important, and I will advocate for even better educational and cultural opportunities for Reston. I will work to keep assessments affordable.

Michael R. Sanio's statement:

Qualifications:

Reston Community Leadership:

Knowledge of the community having lived, worked and played in Reston since 2004 with my family - wife Grecia and boys Renzo, Aaron and Jason, active in soccer, swimming, tennis, church, school, Odyssey of the Mind
Knowledge of Reston Association through the Environmental Advisory Committee membership and presentation to the Reston Association Board of Directors about incorporating sustainability - economic, social and environmental - as an organizing principle in the 2011 - 16 RA Strategic Plan
Experience in non-profit management, over 25 years' professional leadership as a member, volunteer and staff
Professional Qualifications:

Director, Sustainability, American Society of Civil Engineers
Director, Sustainable Communities Award Foundation
Certified Association Executive
Educational Qualifications:

Master in Engineering, University of Texas (Austin)
Languages - English, German, French, Spanish
Goals:

Preserve Reston's unique qualities expressed by Robert Simon's goals

Attractive, economically viable neighborhoods and village centers
Diverse housing ensuring affordability and accessibility
Recreational assets for all community members
Safe, well maintained pathway system
Enhanced and restored lakes, streams and natural areas
Promote sound stewardship of Reston Association's financial resources

Ensure financial stability providing long-term benefits, maintaining existing assets, plan for future
Develop, allocate financial resources, preserve and enhance Reston's physical infrastructure through partnerships and efficient use of assessments
Plan for a sustainable future as Reston continues to develop

Serve as a resource on the techniques and practices of sustainable development
Strengthen RA's role in development and re-development, ensure Metro expansion serves the diverse needs of Reston
Protect Reston's core values by promoting community, innovation, low impact development
Work to effectively manage all resources resulting in a sustainable community

Eve Thompson's statement:

Qualifications:

My name is Eve Thompson, I have lived in Reston for 25 years with my husband where we raised 5 daughters. I am a local real estate agent focused primarily in Reston. I live in Lake Anne and have served on the Lake Anne Condominium BOD for several terms. On that board I was and continue as the head of the Landscaping Committee. I served 2 years as the Merchants Committee Chairperson, and now lead the Marketing & Events efforts for the Committee. Additionally I run Saturday Craft Market at Lake Anne.

In my role with the Lake Anne Merchants we brought many improvements and activities to the Plaza that the community has enjoyed, including: the casual seating, umbrellas and music festivals. These improvements and activities served to bring greater awareness to the commercial business on Lake Anne. I also serve on the Reston Historic Trust BOD.

Goals:

My goals and interests for Reston align well with the RA 2012 - 2016 Strategic Plan. Specifically I would hope to facilitate the actions necessary to reach the goals in the areas of sustainability and the maintenance of our community assets, including our open spaces.

I would like to see Reston become nationally recognized as a model of a sustainable community-- not only in the areas of environmental concern but also in the promotion and advocacy of small business growth and success. To the degree that RA can play a role, I would like to us focus on improving the vitality and use of the Village Centers, which I believe are a critical part of keeping Reston a unique place. Small locally owned businesses are an integral part of sustainability, but they are also a huge part of keeping our community interesting.

Tom Vis's statement:

Qualifications:
• Fiscal management
Cluster Budget preparation nearly two decades.
Established Reserve for parking replacement (3 lots).
• Cluster management
Past Board of Directors
Maintenance Coordinator - landscaping, trees, large projects.
• Historical/cultural memory
Resident since 1979, homeowner since 1983.
• MBA degree; IT career
Sperry Corporation, National Academy of Sciences, AOL

Goals:
• Pools and Pathways - My own most utilized aspects of Reston and therefore a key area of watchfulness.
• Budget and Dues - Vocal advocate of protecting existing assets. The two-year budget cycle obscures visibility of the long-range costs to maintain Pools, Pathways, Lakes and Dams. Current funding falls below known average required to fully support the next 10 years.
• Design Review Board/Covenants - Generally supportive. Have participated during inspections and viewed the worst cases of neglect. Have also witnessed anger of owners unfamiliar with the system.
• Indoor Tennis - Supportive of the concept but unwilling to take priority away from funds needed for repair and maintenance of existing assets (Pools, Pathways, Lakes and Dams).

Richard Chew is running unopposed for the South Lakes seat. His statement:

QUALIFICATIONS
I bring to this candidacy ...

Commitment to openness, truthfulness, accountability
Strong personal commitment to community service
Broad understanding of the Reston Association, Its members, processes and procedures, and organizational structure
Prior service as an At-Large Director on Reston Association Board of Directors
Prior service on Board Administration and Legal Committees and liaison to Design Review Board
Prior service on several RA advisory committees
Lessons learned as former President of an RA cluster
Demonstrated commitment to fiscal responsibility
Experience working with other clusters on matters related to governing documents, design guidelines and routine cluster management
Strong professional background managing projects, programs and operations
GOALS
If elected, I would challenge the Board to be GREAT...

Governance. The Board must take governance to a higher level by being more professional In Its activities and more strategic in its thinking.
Respect. Directors need to be more respectful, courteous and collegial with each other. Constituent and special interests groups need to show respect for differing positions.
Engagement. We need more effectIve ways to engage Members - knowing what is important to Members requires closing the knowledge gap through better communications.

Advocacy. The Board must raise its voice louder and more effectively within the community on issues affecting the Association. The Board must take the lead in advocating policies and practices that protect and enhance the “Reston Way.”

Transparency. The Board must make sure Members have direct access to accurate and meaningful information needed to understand and monitor Association decisions.

On the YouTubes: We Watch the Reston Association Videos So You Don't Have To

Even in the dead of winter, dulcet-toned Andy Sigle rocks the business casual look as he introduces this, the February edition of Reston Today. But no time for idle chit-chat, it's on to the news!

We soon learn how a grant from the US Tennis Association is converting the tennis courts on North Shore Drive to six "right-sized" courts for children 10 and under, complete with stadium seating for all the helicopter parents. Then we see this:

Looks like the RA has found a way to make indoor tennis happen after all!

Then we get some swirling, bollardy CAD drawings of the soon-to-be renovated Dogwood Pool. The 33-year-old pool should be ready just in time for summer -- a delay after the initial plans were right-sized for budget reasons. And finally, we learn about the annual Newcomers Night on March 29, where "door prizes will be awarded." Sweet!

And with that, another 4 minutes and 49 seconds are irrevocably gone, time that could have otherwise been spent with loved ones as we move inexorably onward, towards the lonely fate that awaits us all. Happy Valentines Day!

Flashback Monday: Palindrome Provides Prescient Present-Day Prediction, No Pickled Peppers

For this week's flashback, our favorite correspondent, The Peasant from Less Sought After South Reston, borrowed the keys to the earth-toned Wayback Machine and set the controls for December 6, 1964, where he came across the minutes from a meeting of the Palindrome Corporation, the early Reston land-holding company that sounds "like one of those sinister organizations for world domination in a James Bond film," as he puts it. Maybe, except that nefarious criminal enterprises rarely type up meeting minutes in perfect outline form.

Still, this treasure trove of bullet points gives us a snapshot, as though sealed in amber mauve, of the excitement of Reston's earliest planning stages. We can almost smell the heady fumes coming from the mimeograph machine and the smoke wafting around the Don Drapers huddled in a meeting room somewhere.

And as you'll see, no detail was too small for Palindrome to consider:

Um, didn't they have refrigerators back then?

Then there's this:

Of course, this was before "web logs" were available to handle the job.

Reston's focus on art began early:

Who knew that incoming companies all got their very own Sun Boat or Wooden Horse? As the Peasant asked, "Wonder what the Macaroni Grill received?"

There was also a bunch of stuff about getting nursery schools off the ground for the future contingent of Reston breeders parents. Apparently, there was much hand-wringing about the respective nursery-school plans of the "Methodists" and "Catholics." The Peasant concludes:

Hey, it's the 30 Year War (or was it the 100 Year War?) all over again!

Amid all the minutiae of a status update meeting, this one bullet point struck us as prescient:

Some 30 years beyond 1980, that dynamic is still very much at play. We're still about 10,000 people short of that original goal, but not for much longer, the end.

The Uncanny (Sunrise) Valley: Man in Suit Gives Speech

Confidential Restonian Operative "The Paper Army" tweeted us this exciting photo of likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney, who spoke at the Reston Hyatt this morning. Funny, he's much more relaxed and lifelike in person than we would have expected.

Lock Up the Kids and Head to the Macaroni Grill: Reston Named 7th Most Romantic City in US

Just in time for Valentine's Day and obsessive list-readers everywhere, Reston has been named the 7th most romantic city in the United States by vaguely irritating "check-in" machine Foursquare. Apparently Foursquare interprets check-ins like this

as signifying romantic interludes. Okay then!

Using that fool-proof metric, Reston was rated as more romantic than boring Key West, Beverly Hills and Myrtle Beach. You could have sun and surf or... the Macaroni Grill.

We'll let you be the judge with a romantic Rorschach test of sorts. Which of the following evocative, romantic images stirs your loins tender affections more?

Case closed.

Only San Francisco, New York, St. Louis and a couple of places in California rank above Reston in terms of romantic-ness. The most romantic place, according to Foursquare? Disneyland, which should tell you everything you need to know about this list, the end.

Update: One of our awesome commenters shares the romantic song we should all be singing to each other on Tuesday.

Sorry, Tysons: Incontrovertible Proof That Reston Is Really 'Fairfax County's Downtown'

Even as awesome new car lot/suburban office park Tysons Corner prepares to morph into a vibrant urban core anchored by a Wal-Mart and a short subway tunnel, almost like a real city, plus we dunno, a giant 30 story tall statue of Crystal Koons or something, there's now incontrovertible evidence that the real "action" -- if by "action" you mean cholesterol-soaked expense account meals funded by employers busy strapping bombs to dolphins providing services -- is already moving to Reston.

The Tysons Corner Morton’s The Steakhouse — serving Northern Virginians for 20 years — ended its run last week when new owner, Fertitta Morton’s Restaurants, shut it down after taking over Feb. 1. The restaurant had been located in Fairfax Square, Tysons’ version of Rodeo Drive, where Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton and other high enders have been ensconced.

Meanwhile, the Morton's in Reston remains open. In your face, Tysons!

Also, when was the last time a Tysons business got sued by an entire freaking state? Seems unlikely, unless even as we speak some ambitious state attorney general somewhere is planning to launch an investigation into the Olive Garden's bottomless salad bowls or something. In the meantime, awesome badassery of that magnitude can only be found right here in good old Reston.

With all this mindlessly boosterish gloating, it almost seems unfair to point out that there's the potential of the future Reston becoming more dense than the future Tysons -- which isn't exactly a good thing. But in reality, growth in both areas may very well wind up being below the champagne wishes and caviar dreams of the most cavalier growth projections.

But we'll still be the ones with the Mortons.

Indecision 2012: Six to Run for RA Board

Yes, it's already that time of year again. Six candidates are officially running for three seats on the Reston Association Board of Directors, including one unopposed veteran and five candidates vying for two at-large seats.

Going off the board are RA Board President Kathleen Driscoll McKee, who is barred from running again due to term limits, and VP Paul Thomas, who chose not to run for a second term.

Former at-large director Richard Chew will run unopposed for the South Lakes seat -- a decision he first announced on Facebook, much like a certain GOP contender for president.

The at-large race will be a bit more crowded:

Incumbent Tom Vis is running for a second three-year term. Four more residents are running in the at-large race for the two open seats. They are lawyer John Farrell, lawyer Donna Miller Rostant, association executive Michael R. Sanio, and Realtor Eve Thompson.

Ballots will be mailed to RA members on March 5, with voting closing at 5pm March 30.

It's great that so many people are willing to run for the board -- which, as we've pointed out before, is something of a thankless job.

Global Warming Can't Sink the Polar Plunge

Someone alert Al Gore, because as this shocking photo from our Facebook BFFs at the Reston Association clearly shows, this year's Polar Plunge was hardly polar. Not only was there no ice to clear, but this gentleman apparently found the T-shirt that polite company would ordinarily dictate be worn with overalls to be too warm for the 40-degree lake water. Where's that Second Ice Age when you need it?


Here's North Point RA Board member Mike Collins and his kids jumping into the lake. They raised $1,200 for Camp Sunshine, the beneficiary of the annual charity event.

Along with the Reston Association's fancy photo gallery, our BFFs at Lake Anne Plaza and Patch have even more pictures, if you're into that sort of thing.

On The Twitter Machine: Snubs, Tough Love, and What Happens When a Spambot Gets a Thesaurus

After neglecting the Twitter machine quietly grinding away in the corner of Restonian World Headquarters for months, we plugged it into the dot-matrix printer to see what all the krazy kids are "tweeting" about these days. And what did we learn?

Once again, we were somehow overlooked for Best of Reston. Go figure!

Tough love.

Sounds like a wacky sitcom premise. Let's call it "Latte and Land-Use Laffs."

Something tells us this guy went to J-school.

These guys, hands down. That is rap they're singing, right?

Hey, at least you got invited.

Um, creepy? Have fun at Jacksons, though.

And there's no basement at the Alamo, either.

For completely inscrutable reasons, some spambot keeps picking out random adjectives for Reston and tweeting them. It's currently the leading candidate to be the next editor of this "web log."

That's all well and good, but don't try taking any pictures.

At long last, a Foursquare check-in we can really get behind.

With Irrefutable Logic, The Soulless Ants Strike Back

Hey, remember that time some fancy columnist decided to fill space in her obsolescent relic of the industrial era "news paper" by calling Reston a "soulless ant colony?" Yeah, that was awesome. Well, apparently various and sundry Restonians have been sending her missives, and like most members of the Fourth Estate, rather than admit having made a mistake in a throwaway comment, Kerry Dougherty has decided to double down.

January's reader responses have been heavily tilted in favor of the 703 area code. Seems 18 little words buried in a column about the General Assembly have provoked something of a firestorm - OK, a little campfire - from the gentle folks of Reston.

Along with scores of indignant invitations to visit that Northern Virginia community, there have been terse tweets, objections from hypersensitive politicians, and even a blog in a newspaper that compared the crime rates of Norfolk and Reston in a bizarre attempt to link a lack of crime with a city's "soulfulness."

Try selling that slice of crazy in New Orleans.

No matter how often I remind people that I've visited Reston plenty of times, the irate calls and emails keep coming.

"Kerry Dougherty, you're a moron," screamed one anonymous Restonian last week, sounding a lot like that editor in my nightmare.

Am I sorry I wrote "Be honest, is there a more soulless spot in the commonwealth than that bland ant colony near Dulles?"

Yes, I am. I wish I'd added "humorless."

OH NO SHE DIDN'T! We've been to New Orleans. Norfolk, you are no New Orleans. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to be New Rochelle.

Fortunately, we did a little research and can put this ridiculous debate to rest. Here's the shocking fact that the lamestream Tidewater media doesn't want you to know:

That's right. We may be soulless, but Norfolkians are Macaroni Grill-less. They have to drive 8.5 miles to enjoy the cheesy, high-carb splendor we have right in our own backyards.

Game. Set. Match.