Testosterone Replacement Therapy in Chantilly, VA

Andrew’s reaction: “It’s July!”

As he wrote in an email to me: “Does Lowe’s really think its customers should have to look at, let alone listen to, this nonsense while trying to shop for nearly four months, one third of the year? For a holiday for children that lasts about four hours?”

After he wrote about his encounter on Facebook, Andrew heard from his brother, who said he’d seen the same display at a Lowe’s in Binghamton, N.Y. A friend in Newport News, Va., reported the same thing.

For his part, Andrew put down his items, left the store and vowed not to return to Lowe’s until November, when Halloween is safely in the rearview mirror.

“Is this kind of ridiculousness really good for business?” he wondered. “They certainly lost me.”

When it comes to holidays that come too early — or are marketed too early — the one people usually complain about is Christmas. Or maybe Christmas is just the first one people started complaining about. Now all of the holidays seem to be creeping forward.

And it’s not just specific holidays. Seasons are increasingly fungible. We used to joke about pumpkin spice season existing at all. Now we say, “Is it pumpkin spice season already?”

I was at my local Giant food store the other day and there was a small section of autumnal items, what I would call Thanksgiving stuff: ceramic pumpkin mugs, wooden squirrels holding signs reading “Harvest Welcome,” orange centerpieces that said “Fall is my favorite color.”

It was close to 100 degrees outside, but in this little section of the supermarket, it was time to rake the leaves and mull the wine.

I suppose we shouldn’t blame retailers — Halloween brings in $10 billion a year. If people will buy it, why not sell it? I think that’s what “The Wire” was all about.

But July?

Bill Boltz, executive vice president of merchandising at Lowe’s, said Halloween enthusiasts think about Halloween year-round.

“Lowe’s is committed to delivering new and exciting innovative products to our customers; at the right time while they’re searching for it pre-season,” he wrote in an email. And this season’s selection of products — including the aforementioned pneumatic animatronic figures — is the chain’s largest.

If you’ve been thinking about Halloween since November, the time to get in gear is now.

I was curious when local stores used to begin advertising their Halloween wares, so I looked in old newspapers. In 1899, the first — the only — Halloween-related ad I could find in The Washington Post from Woodward & Lothrop, the late and lamented department store, ran on Oct. 28. It was for Halloween toys and noted: “We have received our new line of Party Games, including the Monkey Donation Party, Dressing the New Woman, the Dude Party, the Elephant Party, Helen’s Naughty Baby, Our Cinderella Party, the Tandem Party, and the Donkey Party, all of which are amusing for both young and old.”

You can keep your animatronic skeleton. I want to know what it was like to play the Monkey Donation Party or Helen’s Naughty Baby.

By 1905, the Woodies Halloween ad in The Post had crept a little earlier: Oct. 25. The Halloween items made up just one portion of a large ad for products ranging from men’s derby hats to new silk petticoats. Pumpkin jack-o’-lanterns started at a nickel. You could get three different sizes of “Satan mounted on a stand, with candy box attached,” from 25 cents to $1.

Not as frightening as a mummy that lights up and screams, perhaps, but a whole lot cheaper. And by purchasing it a week before Halloween, as opposed to three months, there was less of a chance you’d be sick of it by the time Oct. 31 rolled around.

WASHINGTON — A Space Force office created to work with the commercial space industry is opening up a new facility in Chantilly, Virginia.

Col. Richard Kniseley, head of the Commercial Space Office at Space Systems Command, said May 11 the location was chosen for its proximity to other government agencies that also work with the commercial space industry.

“We wanted to be close to the intelligence community, NASA, and the Space Development Agency,” Kniseley said on a webcast hosted by the National Security Space Association.

The commercial services office, known as COMSO, will oversee the procurement of satellite-based services from the private sector such as communications, imagery and weather data. It also will absorb other organizations that work with the commercial space industry, including SpaceWERX, the Space Domain Awareness data marketplace, the SSC Front Door initiative and a new program that is looking at ways the space industry could support the military during conflicts.

The Chantilly facility will be a “commercial collaboration center,” said Kniseley. The grand opening is planned for June 7 when the office will host an industry day focused on space-based navigation, positioning and timing services.

Kniseley said there is a “huge appetite” for commercial space services but it will take some time to work through bureaucratic and budgeting hurdles in order to fund these services.

Most of the funding for commercial services today is for satellite-based communications and space domain awareness data. Emerging areas of interest, he said, include space-based PNT that is not reliant on GPS, weather data and space-based data transport.

Services get a small share of Space Force funding

Industry analyst Mike Tierney, head of legislative affairs at the National Security Space Association, noted that the companies in the space sector may have set expectations too high when it comes to Space Force procurement of services.

Spending on commercial space domain awareness data, for example, is about $18 million in the 2024 budget, compared to hundreds of millions of dollars budgeted for government-owned systems.

There is a disconnect between industry’s expectations and the budget reality, he said May 9. “The COMSO office has an opportunity to clarify” what it realistically plans to buy, said Tierney. “And if we can get alignment in terms of expectations, I think we’d have a lot better dialogue between commercial and government about where the right areas are.”

Todd Harrison, managing director of Metrea Strategic Insights, said the Space Force needs to “show us their plan for how they’re going to fully leverage commercial space.”

Speaking May 9 at an NSSA webinar, said the industry has heard “a lot of talk” from the government and now wants to see more specifics.

“Where could the Space Force be leveraging commercial space services? There’s all kinds of electro optical imagery, space-based radar, radio-frequency sensing, on-orbit servicing of satellites, you can go down the list,” said Harrison. “And I don’t really see much of a plan at all. And most importantly, I don’t see it in the budget request.”

“Commercial services don’t work for everything,” he said. “But where appropriate, we should see that in the budget. We should see real funding streams. And for the most part, we’re not seeing that,” Harrison said. “The commercial space office has got a lot of work to do to catch up.”

There is a risk, said Harrison, that if the government doesn’t support some of these services, companies may not survive and “the Space Force could lose this opportunity to leverage what a lot of private capital has already invested in.”

Space Force opens new office to foster ties with private sector

The winner of the ticket is asked to contact the Virginia Lottery as soon as possible or present the ticket to the lottery's customer service center or prize zone.

CHANTILLY, Va. — Did you buy a New Year's Millionaire Raffle ticket in Chantilly for this year's drawing? If so, you might want to check your ticket because you could be the winner of $100,000.

Virginia Lottery officials said it's been more than five months since the Jan. 1 drawing which had five tickets each winning $1 million and seven tickets winning $100,000.

But, one of those $100,000 prizes remains unclaimed - and the clock is ticking. By law, winning tickets in the Commonwealth state expire within 180 days after the drawing. This means that the ticket will become worthless on Friday, June 30 at 5 p.m. - unless the winner comes forward to claim.

The winning ticket was bought at Wegman's, located at 14361 Newbrook Drive in Chantilly. The ticket number is 410073. The winner of the ticket is asked to contact the Virginia Lottery as soon as possible or present the ticket to the lottery's customer service center or prize zone.

Unclaimed prize money from the state's lottery goes to Virginia's Literary Fund. The fund is used solely for educational purposes, such as providing low-interest loans to localities for public school construction, and since the start of the fund more than $337 million has been transferred from unclaimed prizes.

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The area’s first Jollibee restaurant is one step closer to opening with the recent installation of the signage on the exterior of the store. It will be only the second Jollibee in Northern Virginia, and the first in the Loudoun/western Fairfax region.

As The Burn has been reporting, Jollibee is going up at the Chantilly Shopping Center. That’s just off State Road 28 at Willard Road, near the Walmart Supercenter and a bunch of other restaurants including Hooters and Arbys.

Sigs have gone up on the facade of the building and in the parking lot, some of them featuring Jollibee’s mascot — a bee wearing a chef’s hat. The mascot is called Juicy J, no relation to the rapper of the same name.

The official website page for the new Chantilly store still lists the store as opening in June, but it’s unclear if they will make that goal or have to push into July.

A peek inside shows the space looks just about ready. The digital menu board is up and illuminated. All the furniture and interior decor is in place. So is the soda dispenser at the beverage bar.

We’ve got messages in to Jollibee HQ, so stay tuned. News on when the restaurant will open could come any day now.

If you’re new to the Bee, it was founded back in the 1970s in the Philippines and now has more than 6,000 locations around the world.

Many of the US locations are on the west coast, especially in California, but a push is underway to expand to new markets. The first local location opened a year ago in Alexandria.

Jollibee specializes in fried chicken — what it refers to as Chicken Joy — but has other items on the menu as well, including spaghetti and a Filipino dish called Palabok. You can see the Jollibee menu here.

Lidl is almost ready to introduce itself to the Chantilly community.

The German grocer announced today (Thursday) that its store at the Chantilly Crossing shopping center (14445 Chantilly Crossing Lane) will officially open to customers on Wednesday, May 3.

However, for anyone who can’t wait quite that long to get a glimpse of the new store, there will be an open house from 5-6 p.m. on May 2, where attendees can tour the space, try samples and learn more about Lidl, according to a press release.

Then, on May 3, doors will open at 8 a.m. following a 7:40 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony. The grand opening will include giveaways of gift cards worth up to $100 for the first 100 people in line, along with a raffle for a $500 gift card.

In addition, Lidl will donate $1 to Capital Area Food Bank for every customer who signs up for its myLidl membership program and sets Chantilly as their “home store.”

Occupying a previously undeveloped lot at the corner of Chantilly Crossing Lane and Lee Road, Lidl joins a shopping center already anchored by Costco and Target. The addition will support a community expected to grow after Fairfax County adopted rules allowing more residential development in the area, Sully District Supervisor Kathy Smith noted.

“This is a great addition for the community and with the approval of more residential units in the area Lidl will provide another grocery store option for the residents,” Smith said in the press release. “I was pleased to work with Lidl as they went through the County land use process and welcome them to the Sully District.”

The Chantilly store will be Lidl’s 33rd in Virginia and seventh in Fairfax County. The company has also established locations in Merrifield, Fairfax, Burke, Springfield, Lincolnia, and most recently, McLean.

Known for its discounted prices and eclectic assortment of products, Lidl says it invested “millions of dollars” into the Chantilly site and brought more than 40 new jobs to the community.

The store’s regular operating hours will be from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on all seven days of the week.

The company has additional stores in the works at Liberty Market in Lorton and Pike 7 Plaza in Tysons.

“We are in the final stages of construction for both stores and expect to have more to share on both over the coming months,” Lidl spokesperson Chandler Spivey said.