Shades of Orange

On a less soul-baring note, the studio isn't finished, it's kind of... half-finished. We left it, and had a family road trip. Washington D.C.

It's amazing when you live in the New York Metro area. I call it the "New York Metro Area" because I live on Long Island. Now, when it's written out, that's fine, but when it's spoken, most people in this area cram it into "Lon-gisland". It sounds tacky. I simply call it "the island". But, um, there's also Staten Island, Manhatten Island, Roosevelt Island, Governer's Island, plus a few others that I'm not entirely sure about.

Anyway, I, as a New Yorker, have one slight problem with the color-terror-code-system. (Does it have a name?!)

The New York Metro Area has been at Code Orange since the system was instated. At least Jersey has seen Yellow! We haven't!

So, on the day that both New York and D.C. go onto heightened alert, we leave from New York, to drive to D.C.

You're thinking, "Well, at least you didn't fly."

It usually takes us five hours to get to D.C, six if there's traffic. We spent four hours sitting in the parking lot known as New Jersey.

Traffic was that bad.

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I also have a quest for any one in the D.C area: in the Smithsonian, somewhere, there is, as part of a exhibit, a camel, with a machine gun on his (or her) back. It was in the Smithsonian castle, when I was little, and I was fascinated by it. Unfortunately, when we asked the lady behind the counter where "the camel with the machine guns from the 1876 exposition exhibit" was, she told us that that exhibit was dismantled "at least four years ago".

Find it.

Tell me where it is.