So I had a fun weekend…
July 12, 2010, 9:21 PM
I certainly had fun this past weekend, spending it in Stuarts Draft. The goal was twofold: to attend the wedding of Patrick Jarrett and Anna Duncan, and to help Mom clean out some of the junk in the house in preparation for new flooring in the bedrooms.
Coming down, I took I-66 to I-81, on what had to have been one of the least stressful runs ever. Seriously, the ride went better than I’ve had in a long time. I made really good time, and I reached Waynesboro before you knew it. I only made two stops. At the second one, at the southbound rest area near New Market, I got an interesting picture:
Anyone want to guess what this is? Anyone have any idea what this might be? I’m stumped, and my gut reaction was joking to myself that BP has been busy, spilling more oil.
Before stopping home, though, I visited Katie. We ordered from Buffalo Wild Wings and had it to go, and I had dinner with Katie and her mother at Katie’s house. Fun times.
And then off to Stuarts Draft. We got stuff going in the laundry (I usually bring laundry with me because I don’t have to feed quarters into their washer), and that was pretty much it.
The next day, we had the wedding in the evening. But first, some cleaning needed to be done. My job was to determine the usefulness and fate of various items in my former bedroom. What is (whatever), and do I still want/need it? We went through a lot of stuff. Mom was surprised about some of the stuff I got rid of, and some of what I kept. We also went through some other boxes of stuff, where we found this:
Yeah, we found an action figure of Tommy the Power Ranger as Zeo Ranger V, and of Kimberly as the Pink Ranger. We sent these photos to Sis in Chicago, who commented that Kimberly had quite the man-body going on there. I suppose that whoever made the toy used the same mold for all the rangers (except Tommy, because he never had a standard uniform during the Mighty Morphin era). Note, however, that the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers never had their power coin symbols on their chests in the television show. While that was on just about all the merchandise and such, it was never on the television show. The first movie had the symbols on the chests, but it was only about fist-sized, and besides, the movie wasn’t part of the TV show’s storyline anyway. If it was, we would have had Dulcea fighting monsters in giant size next to the Ninja Megazord (much to the delight of the male viewers, I’m sure), rather than Ninjor (who sounded like Dudley Do-Right). We also found a whole bunch of other Power Rangers memorabilia and toys there, including a “morphing” Yellow Ranger toy, where you could set it with Trini’s head sticking out (though she looked more like Michael Jackson than Thuy Trang), and then press a button, which would flip the head around, showing the Yellow Ranger helmet.
Then later, we went to my ex-store because Mom needed to get some things. I wanted to see what it looked like post-remodel. And the store certainly looked different:
Compare to how it used to look:
And for the record, that new “Walmart” logo certainly looks like where the sun don’t shine. I believe that with this new logo, they forgot to include the hands, best illustrated by this picture that I found online:
Image: Mike D. in a comment to a post on Clusterflock
Yes, I said it, but it’s true. That’s what it looks like. And no, I’m not going to tell you what this picture is based on. Go look it up.
And of course, they did a few things that were stupid in the remodel, as is to be expected. Back in 2004, the safety team, which I was on, had the cart corrals in the parking lot bolted down to prevent them from moving around when hit, since Wal-Mart won’t get a cart corral that is heavy enough to stay in one place on its own. In the remodel, they put new cart corrals in, and they were loose, and from what I could tell, they had shifted:
Lesson obviously not learned, as the new cart corral had already shifted enough to move into the parking space next to it. They say “not responsible for damage done by carts”, but what about damage done by the cart corral?
Then after going to Wal-Mart, we did some more cleaning, and then it was time to go to the wedding. So Mom and I got dressed up, and we were ready to go. Dad got our picture:
We looked pretty sharp, no? I added a suit jacket to this for the wedding, which I put on when we got there.
The wedding, held at the First Bretheren Church in Buena Vista, was beautiful, as Anna was given away by both her father and her grandfather. There was even a live musical group, which provided the music for the ceremony. We also got to visit with a couple that we knew from church, and also with a former Wal-Mart coworker of mine.
Then after the wedding, everyone headed to the reception at Glen Maury Park. The reception was at the double decker pavilion. The seating was pre-assigned, and we were at Table 15. Mom and I were listed as “Mr. and Mrs. Ben Schumin”, which we found amusing. We had a lot of fun. Our tablemates were a family from Buena Vista, and we had a great time talking to them. The food was excellent, and both Mom and I drank way too much iced tea, as we were both up until 1:00 that night. We were seriously buzzed from the caffeine. One of the perks of drinking icea tea in the evening, I suppose. We also got to talk with Patrick, Anna, and Patrick’s parents, who were all glad that we could make it. We departed once the dancing got going, since neither Mom or I really could dance, plus it was starting to get late. So we wished Patrick and Anna a happy honeymoon (a cruise!), and that we should all get together again some time, and then we headed out.
Then on Sunday, I got ready to head back to Washington. We got the laundry together, and also filled a tub with whatever junk I was planning to take with me to Maryland. It’s times like this where I say that I never realized I had this much junk. And most of it is junk, too, but junk that I’m not quite ready to part with just yet.
And then I was off. The drive home, via US 29, was more stressful than the drive down, but then again, you can’t really beat the stress-free drive that I had coming down. This was a Sunday afternoon, and people had places to go. But the part that I expected would be most stressful – Northern Virginia – was actually pretty tame. So that was good. And the air conditioning didn’t spaz out on me, which I appreciated (thank you, car, for that).
And now I can set my sights on next weekend, when Mom and I head out to Chicago for a week…
Song: iJustine goes to Harris Teeter. Funny - she sees this store as all southern, but I've always considered it more upscale and "yuppie", where the customers generally don't have southern accents...
Quote: Unrelated: I took the exercise bike for its maiden voyage today. I believe I can handle this. I did a 20-minute workout on a low setting, and watched Left of the Dial, a documentary about Air America Radio while I did it. Not bad. I think this exercise bike and I will get along just fine.