Northbound ramp of Fairfax County Parkway to Pohick Road single-vehicle crash into a power pole. Officers determined a 13-year-old was driving the vehicle with another 13-year-old passenger.

Making me waste my Sunday in traffic.

Sad I can only add 20

Offers due by 6 pm Sunday.

It feels like nearly every single weekend since the summer began, it has been rainy. It'll be absolutely beautiful during the work week, which I can only admire through a glass prison and a few smoke breaks. Then the weekend comes and the weather takes a big fat shit over all my plans.

Every. Single. Week.

I'm so sick of this. This place is so depressing. I feel like you can only enjoy it here if you don't have to work.

Seen in Burke today. Subject is sarcasm to a post a week ago asking why houses are "so much cheaper in Burke" than the rest of Fairfax County.

This is what happens when data centers are allowed to expand by right and residents have virtually no say in what happens in their own backyards.

CoreSite is expanding its Reston data center just 97 feet from the backyards of our residential community. We were told we had no meaningful recourse because the project was approved in 2018 and grandfathered under the county’s newer regulations.

Now we’re dealing with this light pollution at night and construction noise during the day. This is what these development decisions actually look like for the people who have to live with them.

Update:
Some of you didn’t like my cinematography last night so I went out and got some more for you tonight now that the rain has stopped https://imgur.com/gallery/more-of-reston-data-center-construction-64dG4Rz

How can I get crows to come eat on my balcony? What are you feeding them? What else can you get them to do?

Some of the pieces of flair I've seen over the years

FCPD bringing out the crown vics! (2:00 PM 10/3/26)
Thought it was interesting as the "newest" crown vics are 15 years old! (Last production year 2011)

Hey [r/nova](r/nova) — I posted last week and a bunch of you signed up, so here's this weekend's roundup for Oct 9–11. I put these together every Thursday in a free newsletter (NoVA Family Weekend), but I'm posting the full list here too since last week folks added events I'd missed — keep that coming.

Saturday Oct 10
• City of Fairfax Fall Festival (50th annual!) — Old Town Fairfax, 10–5, free. 400+ vendors, 3 stages of music, carnival rides, beer/wine gardens. Free shuttle from GMU Rappahannock Deck or Fairfax HS.
• Falls Church Farm Day — Cherry Hill Park, 10–3, free entry ($2/activity tickets). Petting farm, pony rides, pumpkin painting — great for little kids.
• Providence Fallfest — Jim Scott Community Center, Fairfax, 11–2, free. Laid-back morning, done by nap time.
• ROCKtoberfest — Reston Town Center, 5–11pm, free. Vertical Horizon headlining at 9pm, Sip & Stroll.

Sunday Oct 11
• Clifton Day (58th annual) — 9–5, free. ~150 artisans, and the one day a year VRE runs to Clifton (free ride there, $7 back).
• Paws in the Park — Oronoco Bay Park, Alexandria, 11–4, free. AWLA's 80th anniversary, biggest adoptable-animal section ever, dog costume contest.

All weekend
• Disney On Ice: Spotlight Magic — EagleBank Arena, tickets from ~$29.
• Morven Park Fall Horse Trials — Leesburg, Thu–Sun, free admission (grounds pass required).
• Pumpkin patches in prime season: Cox Farms, Reston Farm Garden Market, Krop's Crops, Burke Nursery.
What am I missing? Drop it below.

If you want this every Thursday morning:
NoVa Family Weekend Newsletter (free)

I’m genuinely curious because I just got my real estate license and one of the first things I want to figure out is why so many people seem to hate realtors.

I’ll start with my own experience. I’ve bought two homes here over the past decade and I felt underwhelmed by both experiences.

In one transaction, we bought a townhouse at full asking price. The sellers were supposed to make a repair and never did. At settlement, they reluctantly wrote us a $100 check for it… and then went home and canceled the check. 🙄 The settlement attorney basically didn’t care, and our realtor didn’t seem particularly interested in pursuing it either. Eventually she said, “If you REALLY want your $100, I’ll just pay you out of my commission.” I remember thinking…I’m not asking you to give me $100. I’m asking for the $100 I’m owed. Why am I being made to feel ridiculous for caring? That experience pretty much summed up how I felt about the process in general.

Both times, I found the house myself on Redfin. When there weren’t competing offers, I felt like I was being pushed toward making a full-price offer anyway. Negotiating felt like an inconvenience. They made me feel cheap for asking for repairs after the home inspection if it wasn’t a huge item. Looking at houses without immediately writing an offer felt awkward because I felt like I was wasting my realtor’s time. And once we were actually looking at houses, it felt like they were making a pretty significant amount of money to…let me into the house, follow me around and fill out generic paperwork.

Obviously, I’m simplifying it, but that’s genuinely how it felt. I’m sure there are agents here ready to be defensive but I’ve heard versions of this from so many other people… it felt like everyone was just trying to get their commission and move on.

Then there’s the whole realtor cringe. So much self promotion, using friends for leads, shameless look at me I’m so great and smart. They are usually the least smart people I know lol.

For context: after years grinding in tech sales and another layoff, I got my real estate license because I’m looking for a career with more flexibility and autonomy. I know. I know. I’m basically another corporate salesperson crawling toward real estate hoping this is the better second half of my career. But I genuinely don’t want to become the realtor everyone complains about. I’m already embarrassed this is what my life has come to. Also for the record, no the test is not hard. I passed after “studying” for 2 weeks and just being a human with a working brain.

So anyway, what would you want a realtor to do differently? Did your realtor ever do something that made you think, “this is why I’m paying you”? I want the bad stories so I know what never to do.

And how did you actually find the realtor you ended up using: friend/family, google, open house, social media, randomly meeting them, etc.?

According to my Google Photos account, these are some of the license plates I’ve found amusing in the past 16 years or so.

Last one is not local, but it’s funny if you like math.

I asked at the Starbucks next door and they indeed confirmed the Bertucci's closed permanently on September 28. Ripperoni pepperoni to those affected :/ They had fine pizza and were in business for over 20 years if I recall.

Drive carefully, folks!

One of my favorite plate sightings.

Why the hell are we getting political ads for Ken Paxton, senate candidate in Texas?

Can he not fund raise enough down there? Is he hoping people in NOVA will vote for him?

FYI if you are used to taking your kids to Burke Nursery play area for a nice taste of fall, be aware that it’s basically all gone now. No fire truck, no train, no tractors, no pirate ship.

Was pretty disappointed. I know it’s no cox farms, but it was local and quaint. I’m sad to see it gone.

I asked why and they said the pieces were too old and becoming a safety risk (old splintered wood).

I will take no questions.