Wednesday, May 2 is looking to be a beautiful day in the neighborhood, just like the last time I went photographing. This time, though, I'm doing a little traveling, as I'm going to cover something I've been discussing for a while, but have, for various reasons, been unable to do yet.

Compare this to the last time I went and did some photography, where I traveled to the far-off land of Waynesboro, which is actually the town where I work and also the next town over from where I live.

It's funny, though. Yesterday at work, a customer came up to me and asked me if I was a photographer. Turns out that they'd seen me doing the photo shoot downtown last Thursday. That kind of caught me off guard, since I usually don't photograph near home, and thus customers don't see me doing my photo sets. I do most of my work in DC, and in other cities that are a ways off from home. So fun stuff, indeed.

Meanwhile, today looks like it's going to be fun, as it's also laying groundwork for a future photo set at a similar location.

I had fun while I went out on Tuesday. As I kind of implied in the last entry, I went to Breezewood, Pennsylvania, which as it turns out is feasible to run as a day trip.

Going up, I took I-81 to I-70 just south of Hagerstown, Maryland. Then I took I-70 straight into Breezewood. First thing I did was to drive up to the east end of the strip and reset my trip meter to get an idea of the length of it. Turns out that it's a half-mile from the first motels to the last. Then, finishing that, I couldn't find a place to turn around for several miles. No one told me that US 30 becomes a divided highway west of Breezewood. Getting back into the subject area, I first went to McDonald's, which had been remodeled since I was last there in 2003, and had their Asian Salad for lunch. Then after lunch, Starbucks let me use their lot while I did the photo set. Then from there, I walked back up towards the Ramada, crossed, walked back down to the other end, crossed again, and then returned to Starbucks.

And I took over 400 photos in the process. We'll see how this turns out as a photo set.

Since I was working along a very busy highway, much of it with an Interstate designation (I-70 follows US 30 through Breezewood), where there were no sidewalks, and for that matter no facilities at all for pedestrians, I used my FliteStar vest to make sure people could see me. It worked out. In fact, I think I accidentally fooled a Turnpike employee into thinking I worked for the PTC. A turnpike worker in his car waved hello to me. I waved back.

Finishing at Breezewood, I hit the turnpike. Why the turnpike? First of all, yes, going back the way I came would have been more direct. But I wanted to go through the tunnels and revisit some places. I'd not been through the Tuscarora, Blue, and Kittatinny Mountain tunnels since our vacation in 1988, when we drove from Arkansas to New Jersey. I also got to see the part that got realigned in the 60's, bypassing the Rays Hill and Sideling Hill tunnels. That new alignment is pretty high up.

Then I'd not been through Carlisle (where I got off the turnpike) since 2001. Carlisle, as I mentioned before, is similar to Breezewood in being a non-connection. But there, neither freeway follows US 11 between the two roads.

Then I took I-81 straight down to Virginia again. Nice drive, indeed.

All in all, it was a fun trip.

Sometimes people really amuse me. In this case, a user on Wikipedia not only flamed me on multiple occasions for editing "his" article about Skyview High School (which I encountered while perusing Articles for Deletion), but then, when he realized that he couldn't do anything about my edits, he proceeded to go from decent contributor to blatant vandal. What's really funny is that he nominated my user page for deletion on Wikipedia. He also vandalized it three times. These were reverted by myself and two other users.

One thing I like about Wikipedia, though, is that no matter how destructive some individuals can be, their electronic feces can be cleaned up and everything fixed. The Articles for Deletion discussion about my user page was closed 33 minutes after it was opened.

And in the end, the fool was blocked for his vandalism and personal attacks.

Mom actually said that to a coworker of mine at Wal-Mart today regarding me. Of course, Mom was kidding, as she and everyone else knows that I have a really big mouth.

So that was amusing.

Otherwise, though, Mom didn't realize that I'd gone all the way to Pennsylvania last Tuesday. But indeed I did. And I have photos and receipts to prove it. I have a receipt from McDonald's from my lunch (the Asian salad), and a receipt from Starbucks where I got a Frappuccino. So there you have it.

Finally, after about two weeks of server problems, everything is working properly once again, and I can do regular updates again. I am just tickled.

I know that everyone on the discussion forums will be happy, too, since the server problems caused more issues there than anywhere else. After all, that's probably the most complicated part of the entire site. Most of the site is fairly simply done.

And then once everything got rectified, then it was a matter of cleaning up the forums. Any new topics attempted during the outage were lost, and so I had to manually create text files and posts for them (since the titles still showed up), and then delete them.

In any case, though, I'm just glad I have my site back.

Today going to work, I went with a different shirt than usual. My regular shirts are simple. Solid, and with a few buttons on the front.

Today? Tie-dye. When I was putting away my winter clothes on Tuesday, I found a new shirt that I'd forgotten about in the bottom of things. I figure that I probably got it from Mom either last Christmas or the Christmas before that. It was tie-dyed - blue and darker blue. It fit me really well, and so I took the tags off and introduced it into the regular clothes rotation. And thus Wednesday was the first day it was out.

And what did the coworkers have to say? It was a very nice change from my regular wardrobe, and that they liked it. And the best part? The comments were unsolicited. I just kind of went about my business, and the comments just kind of rolled in.

So now this brings me to an interesting question. I need to get some more warm-weather shirts anyway. More tie-dye? It's an idea... I'm going to go price shirts at the mall tomorrow where the shirt came from (Steve and Barry's University Sportswear) and see how feasible that might be.

How does one fail the DMV vision test? I'd like to know. I went to DMV today to renew my license, and subsequently failed the vision test. Weird. And it wasn't that things were fuzzy. Things did look sharp, but they all looked like 8's. I don't know exactly how to explain it, because I can see. Quite well, as long as I'm wearing my glasses. I wonder if it's the machine, because I didn't think to ask to use a different machine. Either way, though, I have to go see Dr. Patel at AMC again to get an eye exam. But DMV said that once I get the eye exam and Dr. Patel fills out their form, that will bypass DMV's vision test. All in all, weird.

Otherwise, though, I went up to Harrisonburg today. I actually am writing this from JMU, and I got an interesting photo of myself with my cell phone that will probably end up being May's photo on the front of the site. Still, things have changed at JMU. Taylor Down Under has been rearranged, with a new TDU stage, and some other stuff has been shuffled around. I also visited Harrison Hall, which was just starting renovations when I graduated. Now, it's done, and it's interesting. It's certainly not the rathole that I remember from my college days anymore.

I also stopped at Steve and Barry's to see if I could get more tie-dye shirts. In a word: No. They clearanced them all out, and so there are none left to wear. A shame.

So all and all, it's been an interesting day. I still have more stuff to take care of in Harrisonburg, so I'm not done yet...

I have two cans of Pledge (as in the furniture polish) so that I can work on a set of chairs we used to have in the kitchen and then stored off-site.

A little history for you... we bought the table (which is still in storage off site) at Freight Sales Furniture in Bentonville, Arkansas right before we moved to Virginia.

Freight Sales Furniture, for those of you who don't know, is (or was, I don't know) a small furniture chain that had locations in Joplin, Missouri, and also Fort Smith, Springdale, and Bentonville in Arkansas. Their spokespeople were Lurlene Freight and Lois Price. Lois Price had a thick southern accident, curly blond hair, and was a touch overdressed. Her big line was, "Remember, if you're looking for Lois Price, I'll always be at Freight Sales Furniture!"

Anyway, we set up the table in the house here, and that's where it lived until 2003.

In December 2002, my grandmother died, and in all of everything with that, Mom ended up getting her kitchen table and chairs. So the old table went out, and Grandma's old set went in. However, the chairs weren't sturdy enough for our family. So we got new heavy-duty chairs for the table. Much better.

With the old table and chairs basically assigned to me for future use, they were stored.

Now, with the off-site storage in my name, and my no longer wanting to pay for it, I took them home and will find a place for them here. But before I store them again, I'm getting all the dust and gunk accumulated in that dirty, dusty, nasty storage locker off of these chairs. Thus... Pledge!

And let me tell you... I love this table and chairs. We've had that set since I was 11, and so I did a lot of growing up with this set.

Well, it's Monday night, and the whole house has the smell of burned food in it as I accidentally burned a pot of spaghetti. And of all foods, I thought that spaghetti was the one food that you couldn't mess up.

And it really is my fault for burning it. I put it in the pot, and then left it for a while, during which time I worked on a future photo set for the Web site and talked to a few friends online. Then, remembering that I had spaghetti on the stove, I "brb"-ed myself, and went downstairs, where the distinct smell of burned food greeted me. I caught that smell and my exact thought was, that's not a good sign. In the pot, the water had boiled away, and some of the spaghetti was stuck to the pan. So I took it off the heat, and with the pot in one hand, I pulled out the colander and salvaged what I could. The spaghetti was sticky and slightly gloppy, but I got it out. I also scraped out a lot of burned spaghetti. Eww. And right down the garbage disposal with that. That pot's going to need a little work to get all that gunk off of it.

But the unburned spaghetti was salvageable, and I still had a nice dinner, after I added the chunky Ragu sauce. But now we know better for next time, despite that after so many cookings of spaghetti, this is the first time I've screwed it up.

I got a new cell phone last week while I was up in Harrisonburg, and it's definitely an improvement over the old one. Along with a 1.3 megapixel camera (wheee!), this one has a better mobile Web feature. It actually displays graphics, and all in all makes things very easy to get around in, provided that the site is optimized for such a use.

And The Schumin Web is a pain in the butt to get around in on the mobile browser. It's because my design is optimized for display on a computer monitor with a conventional browser. I use a big table to lay everything out, for proper viewing on a computer. With that, the phone then tries to make do with what it's given.

As a result, the first thing you get is my logo and the "Celebrating ten years online" message beneath it. Then you get the list of sections. Then it displays the header image, and from there it rattles off the menu. Then it displays a large black box, which is how it renders that black vertical line that I use as a divider. Then, after navigating through all of that, you finally get to the actual content. By then your thumb is tired from all the scrolling, and you've probably decided it's not worth the trouble to browse my site on your phone.

I have determined to change that. This is not going to be a site redesign. I'm actually going to create a second version of the site optimized for display on a cell phone. Pretty cool, no?

As is usually the case, my Journal will be the test bed. Why the Journal? Because it's easy to program. The entire thing is driven by a database, and so I can set the whole thing up in minutes. Just remember how quickly I was able to set the Journal up as its own section (it was originally part of Life and Times) in October 2004. Nothing to it.

So we'll see how that works out. We'll just add that onto my other open projects, which include three new Photography sets, one new Life and Times set, photo captions (partly complete), and nine months of photos on Transit Center. So yeah, I have a backlog.

As you might be able to tell from the subject line, I tried out some new software products today.

First of all, I finally took the time to download and install the Mozilla Firefox browser application. I was quite impressed with the way Firefox operates on my computer. It has all the things that I like about IE, and isn't afraid to look like a computer program. Plus it has tabbed browsing, which keeps things neat and tidy. I was an instant convert to Mozilla.

I also upgraded my Internet Explorer to the newest version, which was IE 7. IE 7 also offers tabbed browsing and such. However, it was so "heavy" that it slowed my computer down (my computer is eight years old), and the interface was confusing. All I have to say is that if this is the future of Internet Explorer, I'm jumping ship. I was not impressed.

Then there's AIM Triton. Like IE, it was somewhat "heavy", and the interface was hideous. Most of the handy features that I liked about AIM were gone, and it was pretty bad overall. It also came with AOL's own Web browser, which was not welcome on my computer from the outset. The one nice thing about it was that it didn't install over my old AIM, so going back to the old version was a snap. It was still there and waiting for me. So I just uninstalled AIM Triton and that was it. Sometimes there's no program like an old program, after all.

And I'm just glad to have finally discovered Mozilla. What a lovely browser.

Yes, that's an actual line from a Metro train operator that my friend Tristan and I encountered on a Blue Line train to Pentagon City on Tuesday. Note "The platform elevators at Crystal City is out of service. Such hideous grammar…

Now, though, it's Saturday, and I'm in DC again. There was an ANSWER Coalition rally and march related to Latin American issues that I covered strictly as a photographer. Thus, I didn't participate directly, nor did I march the route. I took the Metro to the ending point. The opening rally was at Malcolm X Park, and the closing rally at Lafayette Square. So all in all, fun.

It's funny, though… the first protest I ever went to was an ANSWER event. Now, though, they seem to have gotten so "out there" that I understand why so many people don't want to associate with them. ANSWER does best when they attack issues like the Iraq War. This one didn't draw the same kind of crowd (and certainly not the Infoshop crowd), and seemed a little bit "out there" politically.

I was amused, though, that ANSWER gave me press credentials for the event. Seriously. I have a badge from ANSWER that says "Media" on it. I didn't wear it (no one's going to stop me from photographing an event on public property), but it's a souvenir of the day. So I kept it. I'll post it on here later on.

Arriving at Lafayette Square ahead of the march, I ended up conversing with a number of folks. First group I talked to? The cops. It was the same group of cops from the April 22 protest (there's a photo set called "Night March" on the way that will cover that event in detail). So we talked about that for a bit, and also about some of the demonstrators and such. Turns out it's one group of cops that covers all the protests. So fun. Parting comments were "I'll see you at the next protest!"

I also got a chance to talk with Larry Holmes of the International Action Center. Mr. Holmes, you may recall, led the march to the Hotel Washington during the Million Worker March. I mentioned to him that I had a Web address I wanted to give him about one of the MWM. Turns out that he'd already seen my work and was quite impressed! And I knew it was me because he described my site to a T. He especially enjoyed my videos of the event. That just made my day.

After leaving the protest, I caught a Blue Line train to Largo Town Center. My friend Steven Holzinger was out that way for an airshow at Andrews Air Force Base, and we'd discussed meeting, but it turned out not to work out due to his schedule. Ah, well. Still, since I was done with my planned events a lot earlier than expected, and it was too early to do Pentagon City, I went out there regardless. I ended up going to the Boulevard at Capital Centre, and over to Starbucks for a beverage. I also got to see a little bit of the airshow, as some of the planes' movements were visible from the Metro station.

And from there? Pentagon City, where I'm now writing you. So I've had fun.

And I also realized that I'd forgotten to tell the parents that I was going to DC when I got a call early on in my day. I'm reading the Express at Rosslyn, and my phone goes off. Turns out it was Mom. "Where are you?" "Rosslyn." "Didn't you just go to DC?" "Yes..." Don't even get me started about why I try to maintain a regular schedule for what's mostly a pleasure trip. Just smile and nod. Very good.

I can't believe what happened today after work at the gas station in front of Martin's. I was waiting in line for the pump, and this old man in a white Honda Accord went forward out of the pumps and rammed me.

Why was forward a bad move? It's because I was already occupying that position and his clear space was behind him. My gas tank is on the right, and so I sometimes have to make some odd maneuvers.

So this man didn't even think to look behind him for the clear area to leave. Instead, he tried to go forward past me in a very tight maneuver that he didn't have the room to make. So in going out, he hit my Sable. In the end, he left some paint from his car on my front bumper, and a small scratch on my car.

Here's what happened:



And the worst thing about it? He got away clean. Hit and run. I couldn't get his plate number, and in discussing with the managers at Martin's, who reviewed the security footage, the man's plate number was not visible. So I seemed to be out of luck.

That whole thing just irritated me. At least Dad and I were able to get most of it off, and so it's nearly good as new.

Still, some people...

I went and had that eye exam today, and there were no surprises there. When they checked me, they even admitted that it was really strange that I failed the test at the DMV office. Indeed, with glasses on, I have perfect vision. So $90 later, I passed the vision test with flying colors.

It's funny, though, regarding getting to the appointment. I went to what I thought was the office on the first floor of the Medical Office Building, which is a wing of the Augusta Medical Center building. I get there, and I see something that's definitely not Augusta Eye Associates. I'm like, What in the heck? I caught the nearest person with an AMC identification, and asked what happened to Augusta Eye Associates. As it turned out, they moved across the street to a new building. Very nice, too. Well-decorated, and so spacious.

And I absolutely love that "new building smell" that the office had. I absolutely love that smell.

What can I say? I'm tickled. I just completed a version of my Journal that's optimized for display and navigation on a Web-enabled cell phone. I call it "The Schumin Web Mobile Edition".

And why only the Journal? Because the whole thing is database-driven, and thus it's easy to convert. No having to do any reconfiguring on the regular site at all. I just created a second interface for it from scratch and ta-da. It looks like crap on the regular Web, but it looks fine on the phone.

Compare what we see on the Web using a real computer...



To the cell phone...



As you can see, it's certainly optimized for a cell phone. Yay me. Now I just need to figure out how to tie it into the rest of the Web site.

One thing you just have to love is Memorial Day weekend. People come in and buy hamburgers, hot dogs, buns, and beer. And some people are nice to their dedicated Wal-Mart cashiers who have to work the entire holiday weekend, while they're eating and boozing it up. And then some people are crabby. The crabby ones are the ones you just want to strangle, because they make an unpleasant weekend even worse. Add to that the fact that I have a crummy schedule for the next three bloody weeks, and it's just not fun. I have NO early mornings all three of these weeks. The earliest I come in is 9 AM. My usual schedule is coming in at seven, and out by four.

Otherwise, my birthday is this Tuesday. This year, I'm taking it kind of nonchalantly. No huge celebrations, but then again, I'm not rebelling against it this year like I did in 2005, where I wanted nothing to do with it at all. The only celebrating that I want is to go to dinner, and I haven't even picked the restaurant yet.

I do know one thing, though - it's not going to be T-Bone Jacks in Waynesboro. There was a fire there in the wee hours of Saturday morning, which basically gutted the place, and caused the roof to collapse in one place. They say it's not arson, according to news reports. They say it started as an electrical fire in a back office. Most you can see from Lew Dewitt Boulevard is yellow caution tape all around the building and lots of smoke damage. Smoke seems to have come out of every possible opening based on the marks on the building. It even came out in between the individual sections of wood on the side. I figure when you consider the damage to the building, they'll probably demolish the building and rebuild at the same location. I just hope they had insurance.

T-Bone Jacks was located in the former Western Sizzlin building, which closed on Christmas Eve, 2004. And it's funny... fire seems to be the usual fate of former Western Sizzlin locations in this area. The Western Sizzlin in Staunton closed in the mid-1990's and was converted to a Texas Steakhouse. Not all that long after they opened, the restaurant was torched after someone allegedly looted the restaurant's safe. The building was pretty much destroyed, so they demolished the old building, and built a new building on the same site. And the new building looked like a Texas Steakhouse should look, rather than a converted Western Sizzlin. Hopefully, if T-Bone Jacks builds a new building, it will look just as good.

Still, I'll keep you posted about what happens with my birthday and dinner. I am, though, keeping firm with my "no cake" request once again. Not for not celebrating, though, but rather because I'm really watching what I eat. Cakes have WAY too much sugar. It would be really nice to slim down even more, to the point of risking a loss of pants again at work. Yes, it would be embarrassing, but I'd be proud of it for the whole weight-loss thing.

My 25th birthday, unlike my 24th birthday, did NOT suck.

I was off work, and with Sis in Blacksburg and the parents at their own workplaces, I had the day to myself. I got up, I ate something, and then went to work on the Web site. I got the upcoming Outlet Village photo set very close to completion, with the goal of releasing it on May 31.

I got the photos whittled down to 65, prepped them, and placed them all on a blank Schumin Web template. All I have to do is arrange them like I want, determine a "break point" to split the set into two parts, and I'm done. I chose May 31 for a release date, because that's the day that the Outlet Village closes for good. Thus after we won't be able to see the Outlet Village live and in person anymore, at least we'll still have the memories.

The goal of my day was to finally renew my driver's license. See this entry and this entry for more information on my license renewal ordeal. This time, though, I was successful, and I got another great license picture. The only difference between my old license and my new license besides the photo is the license number. The old license had my Social Security Number as the license number. I now have one of those "T numbers" on there (e.g. T00-00-0000). So all in all, good deal.

Mom was home by the time I got home from the DMV, and she noticed that I'd not yet opened my gift. On the kitchen table was a box wrapped in gold-colored paper. So I sat down, and opened it. It was something I'd mentioned I'd wanted before, but honestly didn't think I was going to get it. I got a 2 GB iPod Nano. An iPod is exactly what I wanted, as that will certainly make up for the fact that the Sable doesn't have a CD player on board.

Mom also asked where I wanted to go for dinner tomorrow, and I was still undecided at that time. When Dad came home, he wanted to know the same. I didn't know.

I ended up going out later on, after spending more time with the aforementioned Photography set. I ended up going to Charlottesville to clear my head, possibly do some photography, and also scout out some restaurant possibilities for tomorrow. I went looking, and nothing really struck my fancy. However, I did finally make my decision: O'Charley's in Harrisonburg. And I'm going to insist we take the Sable. We can all fit into the Sable, plus I just don't want to take Mom's Sienna.

I also got several "happy birthday" messages on the cell phone via my Schumin Wireless screen name. That was a nice touch.

So all in all, not a bad day.

What a wonderful dinner we had at O'Charley's! Dad met us up there, since it made more sense for him to meet us up there than go back home. So Mom, Sis, and I went up to Harrisonburg in the Sable via Route 11 (the scenic route through several small towns) and then cut through JMU to get to Harrisonburg Crossing.

Everything went well. The only point where things went slightly awry was when all the staff came out to wish some other customer a happy birthday. Sis mentioned how good of an idea it would be to mention it to our server that this was my birthday dinner. Then our server came out, and Sis mentioned it to her. My exact response was, "Don't even think about it." It worked out, though. Our server said she'd bring out a cake without the fanfare. And it was a nice cake.

Still, like I need the sugar and calories in a cake.

After that, we went across the street to the Verizon store and got some stuff fixed up. I got my cell phone put entirely in my name, and they also worked on Sis's phone, where the hinge was broken.

And the funny line of the day was from another customer in the store. When this girl learned she'd have to be without her cell phone for a day, she said, in despair, "You mean I have to be 24 hours without my cell phone?" I tried to hold it in, but once they left, I started laughing.

Otherwise, I made my goal for my Outlet Village photo set. The Outlet Village closed for good today, and I got the photo set out that night. The Outlet Village may soon be passing into retail heaven with demolition set to begin next month, but now we at least have the memories.