* Thursday is BID day, with three separate activities, starting with the Capitol Riverfront Farmers Market at New Jersey and M (up behind the fences) from 3 to 7 pm. Then there's the "Front Run Club," a new gathering for runners of all fitness levels that meets every Thursday night at 6 pm at Second and M. And of course it's movie night, as the Ultimate Underdog Movie Series continues with Shrek, with festivities starting at Second and M at 7:30 pm and the movie itself beginning around 8:45 pm. There will also be a hula hooping "Hoops Jam" before the movie.

* The Summer of Strasburg (SoS) continues with the phenom's second home start, on Friday night against the White Sox. Game time is 7:05 pm, with the gates at Nationals Park opening at 4:30 pm, and the swarms of sudden baseball fans descending on the neighborhood soon after. Be prepared for big crowds on Metro, roads, sidewalks, bike lanes, etc.

* Also at Nationals Park this weekend is "Nats U," which is being held on Saturday and offers women ages 15 and up "the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of America's favorite pastime from the experts at the Washington Nationals." For $50, female fans can sign up for either beginner or advanced sessions, and also receive tickets to Saturday's 4:10 pm game against the White Sox.

* There's also a series of additional events and promotions at the ballpark tied into Father's Day (you DID remember that Sunday is Father's Day, right?), which you can read about here.

The Post's baseball writer Adam Kilgore contacted Stan Kasten today, and wrote: "In a telephone conversation Saturday morning, Team President Stan Kasten said the Nationals have not been informed by the league about hosting the 2015 All-Star Game but remain confident Nationals Park will house the game in the near future. 'We haven't heard anything from anybody about it,' Kasten said. 'We're certainly hopeful it comes to Washington. We continue to push to get an All-Star Game, and I'm sure we will soon.' Kasten's comments by no means challenged the veracity of last night's report. Washington, a high-profile market with a new stadium, makes perfect sense as an All-Star Game host. Sooner or later, the District was going to get the game."

So, no confirmation, and perhaps not one for a while to come, but as the previous sentence says, it's not a big shocker that DC would be in the queue.

No pressure, kid!

PS: And if you aren't heading for the ballpark, you can still get your fill without leaving your easy chair: ESPN will be broadcasting live from Nats Park starting Tuesday at 3:30 pm with a special edition of ESPN Baseball Tonight. The MLB Network will also be live from Nationals Park with MLB Live at 5:30 p.m, and both networks will also do post-game shows from DC. The game will be shown on MASN2.

UPDATE II: I'm getting out of practice on this. I should have included a link to my Stadium Parking Options map, which shows both the official Nats lots and the many unofficial cash lots that have sprouted up. Though, of course, Metro really is the way to go, especially for an evening game, given how heavy the volume will be of stadium drivers combined with the regular rush hour traffic coming off the SW Freeway at South Capitol.

UPDATE III: For newcomers landing here today off a Google search or some such, here's my Nationals Park page, with an FAQ, if you scroll down, and a lot of photos showing how the park came to be.

"Another advocate for a D.C. venue is Nationals President Stan Kasten, who confirmed his team is prepared to make a hard charge to put on the Winter Classic. That aggressive bid will be led by Mark Lerner, a minority owner of the Capitals whose family owns the Nationals. Kasten said the Nationals have already made a detailed presentation to the NHL, complete with schematics showing where the rink would be placed. Kasten also said officials from the league paid Nationals Park a visit earlier this year when Washington was being considered for the 2011 game.

"'Let's face it, Nationals Park is the premier venue in the most important city in the world,' Kasten said. 'I can't imagine it being anywhere but Nationals Park.'"

The article also quotes NHL league commissioner Gary Bettman, on being asked if the connection of Nationals owner Mark Lerner to the Capitals (he's a minority owner) helps the case for Nats Park: "It certainly doesn't hurt."

The article does say, though, that the NHL prefers football stadiums, since they can hold more fans. Nationals Park would hold about 42,000, while FedEx Field has nearly 92,000 seats for Redskins games.

(There's also a bit more detail in a Thursday Capitals Insider blog post.)

* From City Paper's Housing Complex blog, a report on some reimagining of the Anacostia Waterfront by middleschoolers as part of the National Building Museum's CityVision program. The Navy Yard, Poplar Point, and Florida Rock were given the treatment, with an underwater library envisioned at the latter, among other notions.

* Urban Turf asked a group of soothsayers to look ahead five years on which "unsung" DC neighborhoods would be attracting homebuyers five years from now. The "Southeast Waterfront" was one of the 'hoods (as once again people make clear that no name yet floated for the area is truly capturing the populace's fancy, which is why I stick with the REAL name ;-) ), and while it will take a while to be "fully realized," the writer reminds readers that Near Southeast has some pretty solid "bones": With "proximity to Capitol Hill, access to Metro and major roads, Nationals Park, a potential streetcar line, a waterfront park that I think will be one of the best in the city and of course the river[,] this neighborhood starts to make a lot of sense as a place to live."

* SWill reports from just across the way about the plans for hip, happenin' shindigs once again this summer at the Capitol Skyline Hotel. "The parties [...] have been named Liquid Lounge and will feature some of the best house music DJs from Washington, DC and beyond. The hotel and Nocturnal Vibe will host their inaugural event on Saturday, June 5th from 2 p.m. - 9 p.m., poolside at the architecturally iconic DC destination."

* With the DC season of Top Chef now having an announced premier date of June 16, it's been confirmed (by DCist) that Nationals Park was the site of one of the challenges (apparently on May 6, according to this tweet). I'm going to LOL if they make guest judge Eric Ripert chow down on nachos, half smokes, two-pound pretzels, or other ballpark haute cuisine.

* And, the subject of filming at Nationals Park reminded me to go see what the latest is on the Reese Witherspoon/Jack Nicholson/Paul Rudd/Owen Wilson/James L. Brooks movie filmed at the park a year ago. It's called How Do You Know, and IMDB says it has a release date of December 17. (Prime Oscar season!)

* It's one of the pitstops on Bike to Work Day on Friday.

* It's the Battle of the Beltways weekend, with three games against the Baltimore Orioles.

* It's the team's fifth annual Food Drive, benefitting the Capital Area Food Bank. On Saturday and Sunday you can drop off non-perishable food items at the Center Field Gate from the time the gates open through the end of the Fourth Inning. (And I bet you don't even have to have tickets to the game to drop off donations!)

* If biking to the stadium on Friday for Bike to Work Day isn't enough, Sunday's game is Bike to the Park Day, with the team encouraging fans to ride to the game and use the free bike valet at First and N or one of the 250(!) bike racks around the ballpark.

(The fact that there will be major delays on the Green [and Orange and Red] lines this weekend might be an added reason to jump on your bike to get to the stadium....)

It's also worth noting that the official Nats lots that can be cash lots aren't always. I've left them marked on the map with their cash prices, but it appears that on nights where the crowds aren't anticipated to be huge (like tonight's game against the Braves), the cash option for official lots in the red and green zones directly north of the stadium isn't available. I would expect that to be different when, say, the Red Sox come to town or when Stephen Strasburg arrives.

(And thanks to the readers who passed along info on lots over the past few days, and spurred me into action, finally.)

* Thursday (May 6) is the first Capitol Riverfront Farmers Market of 2010, running from 3 pm to 7 pm through November on the northwest corner of New Jersey and M, adjacent to the Navy Yard Metro station entrance. More than 10 local farmers and vendors will sell produce, baked goods, prepared foods, and more. The first 50 customers to attend the farmers market on Thursday will be given a $5 off coupon for any purchase at the market.

* Alas, I missed the kickoff of the USDOT farmers' market, which started today (oops) and will be held every Tuesday from 10 am to 2 pm on the pedestrian plaza between the two buildings, at Third and M.

And, here are two events that I'm passing along on behalf of Lisa Pagano, the Nationals' manager of communications, who has been very good to JDLand over the years. She is running for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Woman of the Year award, and is trying to raise $75,000 by June 12 (more info here and here), with two fundraising events being held in Near Southeast over the next week or so:

* A Cornhole Tournament is being held at the Bullpen on Wednesday, May 12, with the party starting at 6 pm and the tournament itself at 7 pm. There will be live music and raffle items in addition to the tournament. Admission is $5 for the event and $20 for teams of two entering the tournament (with one free beer per player!). More info can be found on Facebook.

* Buy a $22 Scoreboard Pavilion seat for the May 20 Nats vs. Mets game, and $8 of the ticket price will go directly to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. For more information, and to purchase tickets online, visit nationals.com/mwoy.

The session started off with an update on the (few) changes to parking and traffic flow in the new season. Some are already well known, such as the two new Nats economy lots replacing the RFK shuttle service; otherwise, there have been some slight modifications to signal timing at South Capitol and Potomac and to pedestrian flow on M at First and South Capitol. Plus, DDOT says they have corrected the lack of signs/meters in the Half/Van/L area.

Gregory McCarthy of the Nats said that there are about 125 more cars parking in each of the two economy lots this season, and that the Nats are happy that neither lot is particularly accessible through any residential neighborhoods. He also mentioned that only 30 percent of fans drive to the games, with the rest taking transit or arriving other ways, such as by foot/bike/water taxi/parachute/personal jetpack/teleportation. (I'm paraphrasing.)

McCarthy did acknowledge that, while traffic flow generally works well when game attendance is under 25,000, there is "significant congestion" when there's more tickets sold, and specifically mentioned First and M as a chokepoint where cars need to be moved faster through their right turn to the various parking lots. He also said that the team needs to do a better job getting the taxi stand working, to get taxis to actually line up there for customers and to get them to use it as a drop-off point. (What? You didn't know there's a taxi stand? Why, yes, there is, on Half Street next to 20 M.)

The rest of the meeting was taken up with questions and complaints from the audience, all of which related to issues in the residential neighborhoods of Southwest. (There wasn't a single resident of Southeast in attendance, unless you count ANC 6D07 commissioner Bob Siegel. And Tommy. And me.) There were complaints about stadium workers parking just to the west of South Capitol Street and using Ward 6 visitor parking permits to do so, and about what the residents see as a distinct lack of ticketing and towing, which is why people were very unhappy that DPW was not at the meeting, despite having been invited. Tommy promised to help get some action, saying that enforcement should be very heavy at the beginning of the season, to send a message. (He also noted that, yes, this meeting should have been held *before* Opening Day.)

If you have any issues with gameday parking that you think need to be addressed, you can contact Tommy's office through his web site--if you can assemble any sort of illustrative materials that might be helpful (photos, tag numbers of offending vehicles, etc.), Tommy said that would be appreciated.

UPDATE: For more specifics on the SW concerns, see SWill's blog.