This and That: A Mid-Summer Slouch Through Reston News

• Remember what a bummer it was that Sallie Mae was moving to Delaware, taking its foul-mouthed CEO and hundreds of employees with it? Well, it looks like Verisign Inc., one of those fancy "Inter net" companies, is looking at Sallie Mae's awesome office building in the fake downtown, unless it moves to some low-slung office space in Loudoun instead.
  
  
• Boston Properties bought a parcel of land in the Reston Town Center, where it might build up to 360 apartments in the "very near future."
  
  
• Marion Stillson will remain president of the Reston Citizens Association following elections during the Reston Festival in July. Hank Blakely and John Bowman will serve two-year terms on the RCA Board, while Mike Corrigan will serve for one year.
  
  
• Ha ha ha ha, the Tyson's Connector shuttle service is so underused it might get shut down. Guess people don't want free rides to gawk at Crystal Koons' sprawling car lots "Fairfax County's Downtown" at lunchtime after all.
  
  
• The W&OD trail will be closed periodically during the next couple of weeks, as crews work on the bridge that will carry the Metro Silver Line over it.
  
  
• Friends of Reston raised more than $1,000 for the Nature House during its recent storytelling fundraiser. You can watch videos from the performance at the link.
  
  
• Because there's nothing else to do in Washington, D.C., these days, Rep. Frank Wolf wrote a fancy letter, on Congress stationery and everything, urging the rollback of toll hikes on the Greenway and calling them "highway robbery." (Get it?)
  
  
• The Reston Post Office will expand its building on Sunset Hills Road, adding space and parking spaces by summer 2011.
  
  
• Herndon-Reston FISH named Darlene Tolbert Palmer president of the non-profit organization.
  
  
• Reston company Tetra Tech EM is one of many local companies that's gotten a share of the Gulf oil spill cleanup work, contracting with the EPA. Maybe if we show up in Louisiana with a roll of paper towels and some Lysol, we could get some of that sweet BP federal money.
  
  
• South Lakes High School and its feeder elementary schools are in a partnership with Google to learn how to use Google Earth and other fancy software in the classroom. Computers in the classroom? Now there's a fad.
  
  
• One judge had enough of a lawsuit involving real estate agents and a disputed house sale, ordering a Reston realtor and her attorney to pay $272,000 as a sanction.
  
  
• Lafarge North America opened a new green headquarters in Reston, which we point out mainly because it's the one and only time we'll be able to link to Pit and Quarry Magazine.
  
  
• Reston native Nora Corrigan recently won $28,200 on Jeopardy, crediting her success to "epic" all-night games of Trivial Pursuit in college.
  
  
• Finally, we've found a place in Reston where brand-new single family homes cost $199,950, and near some sort of body of water to boot! Oh, wait -- it's a new development in suburban Chicago. Never mind.