Adventures in the mountains…
April 6, 2024, 6:38 PM
From March 20-22, Elyse and I made our quarterly weekend trip down to Staunton. This was one where the planning was kind of light. We planned the dates and booked the room well in advance (vacation at my work is scheduled all at once for the year in June), but the planning for the actual adveture was a little light. So we just kind of played it by ear. It turned out to be pretty fun, with a few hard want-to-see things, and a lot of happy surprises in between. This trip started out somewhat unconventionally, though. Elyse got an early start in order to see the “Fleet of the Future” event that Metro was running down on the mall, so she left early and took the train down to see that (I went the following week, so stay tuned for my reportback there). I then left at my intended time, and scooped her from Vienna. Once I got Elyse, we were on our way again, heading down I-66 to I-81. The plan for the trip down was to stop in Middletown, where there was a place called Shaffer’s BBQ. We stopped in there for lunch on the September trip, and enjoyed it so much that we went again this time. Then our next stop was going to be Harrisonburg, because Elyse wanted to eat at D-Hall.
When we got off I-66 and onto I-81, though, we immediately noticed that the air was really smoky. We didn’t know what was going on, so we made our planned stop at Shaffer’s and did some research online. I ended up making a Reddit post while I was at Shaffer’s to see what I could find out. Reddit is pretty useful for that, throwing a question out there and then seeing what you get back. Consensus was that there were a bunch of wildfires burning in the state because of dry and windy weather, and that what we saw was most likely wildfire smoke. Okay.
Then after we finished at Shaffer’s, we continued on our trip south, taking US 11 to avoid an issue near exit 291 on I-81. While we were going down the road, Elyse spotted the source of the smoke: a large wildfire to our west. Okay, then. We pulled over and strategized a little bit, looking at Google Maps and figuring out how to tackle this. We ended up playing it by ear, taking various back roads while keeping an eye on our target and navigating closer to it. We pulled over at one point to get our bearings after going for a while without seeing the fire. There, we sent the drone up and verified where it was relative to our location.
Continue reading…Categories: Augusta County, Harrisonburg, JMU, Staunton, Staunton Mall, Travel, Virginia, Walmart
When your photo of Giant becomes popular, and you don’t quite understand why…
February 6, 2024, 9:54 AM
Recently, when skimming around the Internet, I found a large number of YouTube videos using this image:
Categories: Copyright infringement, Giant Food, YouTube
Making a weekend trip out of a delivery…
April 7, 2023, 10:00 AM
Recently, I was finally able to complete the last little bits of business related to the car accident from last October, and put it all behind me. On Thursday, March 30, I made the 175-mile journey to Stuarts Draft in the Scion – a trip that would leave it back home with my parents, where it belongs. And while I was at it, I made a weekend trip out of it, coupling it with a day in Richmond, where I did some photography. As such, I would traverse what I like to call Virginia’s “Interstate square”. If you look at a map of Virginia, the various Interstate highways in the state form something like a lopsided square, consisting of I-66 to the north, I-81 to the west, I-64 to the south, and I-95 to the east, and Strasburg, the DC area, Richmond, and Staunton at the corners:
Categories: Driving, Family, Harrisonburg, Howard Johnson's, JMU, Photography, Richmond, Roads, Scion xB, Staunton, Stuarts Draft, Travel
Walmart circa 2006…
November 15, 2022, 1:17 PM
Recently, a commenter on my post about the 2005 remodel of the Lexington Walmart remarked about the evolving interior of these stores. They said, “It’s so interesting seeing as this company is a backbone of America, but people barely document the constantly evolving exterior and interior of a place that millions of people visit every day.” It’s true. Walmart looks very different now than it did ten years ago, which is also very different from the way that it looked ten years before that. After all, ten years ago, in 2012, Walmart stores were mostly blue and yellow on the inside, as the Project Impact store design had been rolled out to most stores. Ten years before that, in 2002, Walmart stores mostly used a lot of blue and red, and had white or gray walls. What we think of when we think “Walmart” constantly is evolving. In the early 1990s, they used fairly simple red signage for departments. Then they switched to larger signage with patterns and photos on it. Then there was the black decor, and Walmart’s switch soon after from red, gray, white, and blue to a brown color palette. Then there was the era of the large wall signs, with small signs that looked like pylons scattered throughout the rest of the store. Then there was a short-lived variation on that wall-signs package that incorporated the new logo. Then there was Project Impact\, which was rolled out in a very concerted effort chainwide, and really made use of the new logo on everything. Project Impact was surprisingly long-lived, with some stores’ being remodeled to the design twice. Then there was another design that we called “Black 2.0” which was fairly minimalistic, and now uses a much warmer color palette and lots of signage.
All of this serves as something of a reminder that what was considered cutting edge one day is considered vintage or otherwise outdated later on. Back in 2006, when I still worked at Walmart, the company had announced their newest store prototype, which had a completely different signage package than my store had, and looked quite flashy for the time, and represented the latest attempt by Walmart, a pretty lowbrow company, to try to convince people that it’s highbrow. I later learned that the Walmart in Culpeper was being remodeled, and was getting this new store design. So on Sunday, September 17, a day that I was off of work from my own store, I headed up to Culpeper to see what it looked like and document it, because I’m a bit of a nerd like that.
A trip to New Jersey with Elyse and Woomy…
August 14, 2022, 7:57 PM
On Thursday, July 28, Elyse and I took a trip up to New Jersey. The main purpose of the trip was to visit the Scrub Daddy headquarters in Pennsauken, where the company has a retail store. Then we built a day around this in order to justify the trip. We were no stranger to Scrub Daddy by any means, as we had previously stopped by their facility on the last day of our Atlantic City trip back in January, just to see where it was. I remember how excited Elyse was during that visit to Scrub Daddy’s headquarters, and on that occasion, we just photographed the outside of the building, since the retail store wasn’t ready yet. I could only imagine how excited Elyse would be going in and actually seeing the place.
We left the house around 10:00 AM, and got as far as Delaware House by noon. This was to be our potty stop on the way up. Elyse noticed an Edwards Integrity on the outside of the facility, and got some photos of it:
Categories: Companies, Elyse, New Jersey, PATCO, Philadelphia, Products, Roads, Ships, Travel, Woomy
Yes, I really did meet Andre the Giant back in 1991…
July 26, 2022, 7:42 PM
Back in the summer of 1991, my life was quite different than it is now. We lived in Rogers, Arkansas back then, and I had just completed fourth grade. My father worked as a quality manager for Scott Nonwovens (now part of Berry Global following a series of acquisitions over the years). My mother worked as a fitness instructor at the Walton Life Fitness Center (WLFC) in Bentonville, i.e. Walmart’s corporate fitness center. That job of Mom’s provided a lot of benefits for the entire family, as we all got access to the fitness center facility, of which we made good use. We were there so much that the fitness center almost felt like a second home at times, what with my taking swimming and Taekwondo classes there, as well as a little fitness camp called “Kids Kamp” during the summers.
One of the benefits that came with the fitness center as far as Mom was concerned was the Walmart employee stock purchase program. I participated in it when I worked for Walmart in the mid 2000s, and as far as I know, the company still has this program. Basically, you elected to set aside a certain amount of money per paycheck, which was then used to purchase shares of Walmart stock in your name. As such, you were afforded all of the rights and privileges that came with being a shareholder, such as voting on issues presented to the shareholders, as well as attending the annual shareholders’ meeting. Back then, Walmart was a much smaller company than it is now, so much of the annual shareholders’ meeting occurred at their corporate headquarters in Bentonville.
One part of the Walmart shareholders’ meeting, at least at that time, was a trade show. A bunch of companies that you’ve probably heard of if you’ve ever shopped at Walmart had booths set up and they were showing off all of their new offerings. In 1991, this was held at the Walmart corporate office (in 1992, it was held in a former Walmart store nearby that they had recently vacated following a relocation). Among various things that we saw there, I got to take a Super Nintendo for a spin and play Super Mario World for the first time at the Nintendo booth, about two and a half months before it was released to the public. I remember being surprised to see so many different buttons on the controller (six compared to two on the original Nintendo), and seeing Mario do two different kinds of jumps, i.e. the spin jump and the regular jump.
Gordmans, we hardly knew ye…
May 7, 2021, 10:03 AM
Recently, while working through my very large backlog of photos, I processed the various photos that I took of the Gordmans store in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. For those not familiar, Gordmans, in the form that I experienced it, was an off-price retailer owned by Stage Stores. Stage was in the process of implementing a major strategic move, repositioning itself away from department stores and going all-in on the off-price model (like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, or Ross). With that, the company had begun to convert all of its department store nameplates, i.e. Stage, Bealls, Goody’s, Palais Royal, and Peebles, to Gordmans. The goal was to have all of its 738 stores in 42 states converted to the off-price format under the Gordmans name by the end of 2020. The Waynesboro store was originally a Peebles, and was an early conversion to Gordmans.
As you probably guessed based on my wording, world events caused a change in Stage’s plans. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the various “lockdown” orders issued meant that all of Stage’s stores, considered “non-essential” businesses, were shuttered for several months. With the stores closed and the resulting lack of sales for an extended period, this pushed Stage off of a cliff, financially speaking, which lead to their filing for bankruptcy. It was ultimately determined that the best course of action was to wind-up operations, and as such, when the stores reopened, they immediately began going-out-of-business sales.
My first experience with Gordmans was on June 1, 2020. Elyse and I were out doing some photography in the Hagerstown and Waynesboro areas, and happened upon the Gordmans store in the Wayne Heights Mall shopping center, at an hour when it should have been in operation, if not for government orders requiring that it be closed.
Categories: Companies, COVID-19, Waynesboro (PA)
Going behind the pylons…
November 19, 2020, 11:31 AM
Back on November 6, Elyse and I took the drone out for a spin again, and I did some photography. This time, we went out to Leesburg, and took a late afternoon golden-hour flight around a familiar landmark: the former Walmart off of Route 15. This is a typical 1990s-era pylon-style store, and it closed in May 2019 when a new Supercenter opened elsewhere in the Leesburg area. Because of the proximity of the location to Leesburg airport, I had to notify the airport of our activity using their online form, and then, whirlybirds away. I flew up and around the building, and even investigated the roof a little bit.
A pre-flight capture, with the HR-V at right.
Categories: Loudoun County, Photography, Walmart
Flying over the Shenandoah Valley with a drone…
October 25, 2020, 10:45 PM
Elyse and I recently made a trip down to Augusta County to see my parents, and we both photographed a bunch of stuff with my drone while we were down there. So all in all, we had a pretty productive time. I have gotten pretty proficient in flying my drone around things, and I’ve gotten some nice photos. The goal of the drone photography this time was to duplicate a lot of what I did in my earlier entry about the area in Microsoft Flight Simulator, but in real life. All in all, I had a good time, and I liked the results, as I flew around Staunton, Waynesboro, Afton Mountain, and Stuarts Draft.
In Staunton, I first got aerials of the old DeJarnette Center, which is an abandoned children’s mental hospital that closed around 1996 in favor of a newer, more modern facility nearby. If this place sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve photographed it before. So here it is:
Categories: Afton Mountain, CFW, Family, Howard Johnson's, Photography, Staunton, Stuarts Draft, Walmart, Waynesboro, Woomy
Some sad looking retail…
August 9, 2020, 11:44 AM
On Saturday, Elyse, Aaron and Evan Stone, and I went out and visited the Kmart store in Aspen Hill, and the Sears store in White Oak. The last time that I had been to either of these stores was in 2017, well before the Sears bankruptcy. I had heard on social media about the way that the remaining non-closing Sears and Kmart stores were being merchandised, and I felt like it was time to see it for myself. What I saw was what I more or less expected based on what I saw online, but definitely not what someone might expect for a retail business that is still a going concern.
We first visited the Kmart on Connecticut Avenue, which is located less than a mile away from my old apartment on Hewitt Avenue. I knew this Kmart well enough, though I was never a regular there by any means. This is also the last Kmart in Maryland to remain a going concern, as the store in Edgewater is currently conducting a store-closing sale, and all of the other Kmart stores in Maryland are gone.
This is the state that the Aspen Hill store was in:
The exterior of the store.
Categories: Companies, Elyse, Friends, Shopping, Silver Spring
If this turns out to be the end, I think that they had a good run…
June 13, 2020, 11:43 PM
Some of the news that has come out of the various retail groups that I’m in on Facebook has centered around the rather dire financial situation that CEC Entertainment, the company that owns Chuck E. Cheese, has found itself in lately. In short, with the coronavirus pandemic and related closures, that has put the company in a bad financial situation. The articles that I’ve read have indicated that bankruptcy and liquidation are probably in the company’s near future. And really, if that is how it ends, that’s not the worst thing in the world.
First of all, though, I find the moves that the company has made since pandemic-related restrictions put the kibosh on their normal business to be rather curious, because it has tended to lay bare certain aspects of the business that they would probably rather not have everyone realize. One thing that I’ve seen posted online is that the company is selling the prizes outright, whereas normally, they are only available by redeeming prize tickets from the games. The asking prices show what the company thinks that those prizes are really worth, including a profit margin, rather than having the games and tickets as a middleman to obscure the actual value of these things. It makes me think of the mug that I won at ShowBiz Pizza for around 100 tickets, mostly via an arcade version of Bozo the Clown’s Grand Prize Game, played for tickets. I remember that the game was relatively generous with tickets, giving out one ticket per bucket successfully hit. That’s why I played it, because this game gave up to six tickets per play, while most games only gave out one or two tickets per play. Thus if I wanted something good, this was the machine to do it with. So assuming a perfect play every time, to get 100 tickets would have required 17 plays, or $4.25. But it probably ended up costing us a bit more than that because at around eight years old, I was not capable of doing a perfect play every time, and even getting to the sixth bucket at all, let alone making it, was pretty rare for me. A more realistic estimate for my size and skill at that time would be three tickets per play, which would require 34 plays and cost $8.50. And this was not an $8.50 mug, by any means, especially not in 1989 dollars (around $18 in today’s money). The thing was probably only worth a dollar, even back then. We paid a lot more for it because you had to redeem tickets from the games for it. I imagine that if they sold the mug today for cash rather than tickets, it would probably reveal that we paid way more than we should have for that mug. But for the time, I accomplished what I was trying to do, and left with the mug, the satisfaction of having gotten a good prize, for once, as well as a massive headache. I did some major hurling that night, too. Totally worth it.
Categories: Companies
These photos could have been taken anywhere…
February 28, 2020, 8:30 AM
While on an outing on Thursday, I stopped to photograph the former Walmart store in Leesburg, Virginia. I had been planning a photo shoot here ever since the store closed in May 2019, upon the opening of a new Supercenter store elsewhere in the Leesburg area. I was drawn to this location because, unlike a lot of former Walmart stores, this one left a massive labelscar on the building due to repaintings over the years, as revealed in photos taken by Aaron Stone. Other Walmarts that closed have had lesser labelscars, and Walmart has also been known to paint out their labelscars. But this one had “WAL★MART” still easily readable in blue. I felt something of a sense of urgency in getting down to this location, because who knows how long a former Walmart will sit idle. Other former Walmart stores in the DC area have been scooped up relatively quickly, such as the former Manassas Walmart, which was quickly converted to other uses. So who knew how long this might remain in this form.
Arriving on site, I couldn’t have gotten better shooting conditions. The skies were partly cloudy, with only a small amount of cloud cover, which worked to my benefit. Completely clear skies make for slightly bluish photos that need to be color corrected in post-production, while partly cloudy skies tend to lend to more accurate colors that require less work at the computer. My only complaint about the conditions was that it was cold and windy, which was not fun to shoot in. By the time I finished this shoot, which took about 25 minutes to do, I was quite cold. It took me some time to warm back up once I got back in the car.
Categories: Loudoun County, Walmart
The remodeling of a Walmart store…
February 19, 2020, 4:33 PM
Back in 2005, I was living in my parents’ house and working for Walmart. I tended to go out a bit after work in order to unwind, and when I did, I would usually do a circuit that took me from my store in Waynesboro up Afton Mountain, down the Blue Ridge Parkway as far south as Route 60, go west on Route 60 to Lexington, and then head back home via I-81. When I did this, the Walmart in Lexington tended to be one of my stops, as it was a logical place to get up, walk around, and shop if I needed to (I didn’t like shopping at my own store because I didn’t feel like a customer there, nor was I treated like a real customer). For a few months that year, Walmart remodeled that store from the late-1990s design that it was given when it was expanded to a Supercenter to the then-current store design, which was the mid-2000s black signage with brown walls. For some reason, I documented this remodel throughout the process via cell phone photos. So here it is. Forgive the quality, because cell phone cameras at the time didn’t take much better photos than a potato, and using Big Mavica would have been too obvious.
So now what do I do?
June 27, 2018, 8:30 AM
This exercise thing sucks. I recently came to the realization that I’m never going back to Planet Fitness, and therefore I’m cancelling my membership. No sense in spending $20 per month on something that I’m not going to use.
I can’t say that I didn’t try, though. I signed up, and I went as I planned, i.e. after work, during the overnight hours. I tried all of the equipment, and while the elliptical and the recumbent stair climber seemed like possible winners, the whole Planet Fitness environment intimidated me too much. How ironic for a company that markets itself with a slogan of “No Gymtimidation”. I got the specific feeling that they were more interested in their “No Gymtimidation” and “Judgement [sic] Free Zone” image than they were about fitness (and a few people seem to agree with me). The presence of that stupid “lunk alarm” gimmick also sent off the wrong vibe, and I never even touched the free weights, nor did I have any intention to ever use them. It’s allegedly the judgment free zone, but they’re constantly watching and judging everything that you do, and that made me feel less at ease with it than I preferred. I just want to go in, do my thing, and leave. Too much emphasis on individual conduct makes me uncomfortable because it makes me feel somewhat on edge, and that creates a sense of hostility, like I’m being micromanaged. Perception is reality here, and that perception negatively affected my enjoyment of the club.
Additionally, I couldn’t find a location that I liked. I found out that some locations were de facto closed on Sunday nights because they dismantled the entire facility to clean it on those nights. However, because one of Planet Fitness’s big selling points was being open 24 hours, they couldn’t actually close the facility to clean it. They had to remain open, even though none of the equipment was available. So on more than one occasion, Elyse and I got dressed and went out, only to be turned away because all of the equipment was offline for cleaning. That just speaks of poor planning on the facility’s part, since they could easily split the work and clean in sections over the course of a week in order to maintain full access at all times. Other locations were better, but too far from my house. I halfway liked the downtown Silver Spring location, but it was just too far away to be practical.
Categories: Companies, Personal health, Recreation/Exercise
When you just hate recognition that much…
May 15, 2018, 11:05 PM
People are always amazed when I tell them that I hate receiving recognition. I just don’t like it. I don’t find it enjoyable. In fact, I find it incredibly awkward all around. I don’t know what it is, but it just isn’t a fun thing. This came to mind recently because of two discussions that I had with colleagues in the last few weeks. One was about an operator competition that my employer was having, and another was about an employee of the month program that my specific division has.
In the case of the former, where train operators go out and demonstrate their skills for judges, I couldn’t see any way to get a satisfactory result for myself as a participant. If I don’t place, I’m kicking myself for not doing better. If I place, then I have to deal with a whole bunch of unwanted recognition. Not participating at all seems to take care of both concerns, and I have no problem attending as a non-competitor and watching others compete. I’ve done that before at a similar event for the bus, where I was there but didn’t compete, and I had a blast. Besides, I have the most fun just being myself while operating the service.
In the case of the latter, a coworker brought up the idea of it, and how I would possibly be a good candidate for the employee of the month award. I was honest about it: if I ever were to get the award, I believe that my response would be, “Thank you very much, but please give it to someone else.” In other words, I would probably decline it. I just want to do my job and call it a day, and a whole bunch of unnecessary attention just gets in the way of my being awesome.