So our Friday "Schumy Lunch" was more exciting than usual today. We went to Crepes-a-Go-Go west of Dupont Circle, and then went back to the circle to enjoy them. First of all, this place is really worth going back to. It's got a great selection of crepes for breakfast, lunch, and dessert, and the employees were really friendly.

Then after we finished lunch, since the fountain was running and full of water, with some encouragement from my coworkers, I decided to go for a quick wade in the Dupont Circle fountain. I'd been in the fountain once before, during Funk the War 7, but that was in winter when the fountain was not running, and dry.

So I rolled my jeans up to my knees, and went in. Katy, one of my coworkers, took pictures of me in the fountain...


Climbing into the fountain.

 
All smiles while standing in the fountain.


Walking around in the water.


Staring up at the water coming out of the top of the fountain.

And there you have it. Wading around in the fountain was surprisingly refreshing. The water wasn't too warm, nor was it particularly cold, either. I was concerned about the water being too cold, but it was actually pretty good. A bunch of us should go in some time.

And, especially considering this was our lunch hour from work, my clothes didn't get wet. So I just got right out after a couple of minutes in the fountain, rolled my pants back down, and all was well for the second half of the day. Better, actually!

I was recently thinking about what I took from the foreign language classes that I took in middle and high school, and what I ultimately took from them. I took four semesters of Spanish and two of Latin (my high school was on a block schedule). And interestingly enough, I ended up really holding onto different things more than a decade out.

First of all, in Spanish, I could easily become the Spanish language grammar Nazi, because after more than a decade after taking Spanish, I remember very little of the vocabulary, but I could probably run circles around you with the grammar. I could tell you, in English, all about Spanish verb conjugations, how to put sentences together, how to order people around, whether a noun is masculine or feminine and how that works with the adjectives and articles, exactly when and where to place a diacritical mark, and the times when you should use ser vs. estar (both meaning "to be" for different situations). I mean, you wouldn't say, "Yo soy en la casa," because that's a situation where you should use estar. Thus you should say, "Yo estoy en la casa," because you use estar as "to be" when you're describing where you are, because estar is for temporary conditions (I'm leaving the house and going to work tomorrow, after all), whereas ser is for permanent conditions and such.

When I was taking Spanish, Stuarts Draft High School used the Scott Foresman foreign language textbook series. Thus we went through Voces Y Vistas, Pasos Y Puentes, and Arcos Y Alamedas. Those of you who took Spanish in the 1990s will immediately remember this book:



Told you so. You know you remember it. I didn't do as well in the Palabras Nuevas (i.e. vocabulary) sections, but I killed in the Explicaciones (i.e. grammar) sections. Kind of funny how that works out. But I guess it follows the way I am in English. I am a huge stickler for grammar, and that's why working at Wal-Mart pained me so much, when my coworkers would speak using such horrible grammar.

Then I love it how Spanish has a distinct plural "you", or as it was once described to me, the "y'all" form. However, the fact that Spanish has two words for "you" (the more casual tú form, and the more formal usted form), both singular and plural, always irked me, since I was already grating against class barriers and such even back then, and found the whole multiple-yous bit to be a bit absurd. But that's the language, I suppose. But then for the most part, it breaks down in the plural, because the vosotros form (i.e. the casual "y'all") is less commonly used, so ustedes (formal "y'all") gets used somewhat indiscriminately.

One would think, though, being in an area with such a large hispanic population and with so many native Spanish speakers that I would have picked it up again somewhat naturally. Well... maybe eventually.

Now in Latin, where the class is taught in English, more than a decade out, I don't remember as much of the grammar, but I retained a lot of the vocabulary. And for Latin, which is not commonly spoken anymore (except maybe in the Vatican), I guess that works out, because after all, you take Latin in order to better understand your own language because of Latin's influence on modern languages. After all, even though English is not a Romance language, many words in English come from Latin, and I believe it has greatly increased my English vocabulary by knowing Latin and knowing that these words derived from English.

I also remember a lot of the word endings due to the way my Latin teacher in high school taught us to remember them. Specifically, through song. Seriously. And apparently, it worked quite well, because I still remember the endings - and the songs - over a decade later. The first declension song was to the tune of "Tea for Two", and went like this (spelling out the endings):

-a, -ae, -ae, -am,
long -a, -ae, -arum,
-is, -as, -is,
that's first declension

Then second declension was to "Jingle Bells":

-us, -i, -o, -um,
long -o, -i, -orum,
long -is, -os, -is,
That's second of declensions

(repeat)

Dashing through the halls,
Far too fast to mention,
Bumped into a wall,
Forgot my second declension!

And then the whole thing repeats. And I still remember the endings without having to look them up.

Then I also still remember quite well some of the stories in the textbook. We used the Cambridge Latin Course series, which followed Quintus Caecilius Iucundus and various others through life in Pompeii, Roman Britain, and Rome. I remember the first book's stories best, where Quintus is a secondary character to his father, Lucius Caecilius Iucundus (referred to as simply "Caecilius").

I always found it interesting in Latin that there are no articles, and that capital letters are not used to start a sentence unless the word is a proper name. Thus you would say, "Caecilius est pater," (i.e. "Caecilius is the father") but if you wanted to say, "The father is making bread," it would be written as, "pater panem facit." Note the lack of a capital letter and articles. Interesting, indeed.

So all in all, I'm glad I took both Spanish and Latin, because it has made me a better speaker of English, and with our country becoming more and more bilingual all the time, it helps to know more than one language.

Well, I'd say that our raid on Saturday was a success. Not a single person came to take a "free stress test" while we were out raiding, and eventually Scientology decided to just pack it in. This is what their stress test table looked like most of the time we were out:



At least until it looked like this:



By the way, the two Scientologists taking the tent down was perhaps the most people that were at the stress test event the entire time. Seriously, no one came to take their stress test. It should also be noted that the E-meters in use did not carry the required warning label on them. Take a look:





The warning label is supposed to be prominent, and state something to the effect that "...any person using it for auditing or counseling of any kind is forbidden by law to represent that there is any medical or scientific basis for believing or asserting that the device is useful in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of any disease." I see no warning labels, do you? The writing on the bottom of the meter says "INTERNSHIP" (does that mean this isn't even a real E-meter?).

Meanwhile, while the Scilons weren't out bull-baiting us this time around, they did send someone out to film us:



Why didn't they send Vicki Turrisi out to film us? She's got lots of experience filming us in the past, and so one would think they'd use her. But instead they've got this new guy. And if you need proof of Scientological affiliation of this new guy, here it is:



The only person he would speak to was Scientology spokesmodel Sylvia Stanard, and the only person Sylvia would speak to was him.

On the topic of Sylvia, she's apparently not even trying anymore. Usually, when someone dyes their hair, they at least try to make it believable. If you're going to lie and make the world think that you really do have naturally light brown hair, you have to constantly maintain it, because the hair is going to still grow in, in Sylvia's case, gray. She had some serious roots going on:



Looks like someone needs to head over to their hairdresser post-haste. Of course, this isn't the first time she's had hair issues. One time, she came back from the beauty parlor with bright red hair. Now she's apparently decided to forgo the beauty parlor and let her true colors show. And there's nothing particularly shameful about having gray hair. Neither of my parents have ever colored their hair, and gray looks just fine on them. It's when you are trying to make people think that you have dark hair and let the roots show that much where we have issues.

Meanwhile, we made sure to thoroughly troll, and troll we did.


We made sure to troll the camera guy (who I suspect is the new Sadie-type figure now that Sadie is apparently gone - nine months now) with this "Spylon You Fail" sign.


MaidofWin was out with her "HONK" sign once again, soliciting honks from the cars driving by. With that, we were particularly successful this time.


I'm surprised we didn't think of this one a long time ago. The Dianetics pyramid logo is just ripe for this kind of thing.

And then I didn't even bother with the mask this time. They all know who I am over there already, and besides, it was a bit humid. So I just wore the Guy Fawkes mask on my arm as an identification mark more than anything else, to indicate that I was with Anonymous, and not with a mind-controlling cult.

And then one of my coworkers showed up, and we posed for a photo:



That's going on the wall, that's for sure. And it was good to see Beauchamp swing by our raid.

And since MaidofWin found it so interesting, bus photos:





Yes, even when I'm trolling Scientology, I can't resist being a transit nerd, getting some of WMATA's New Flyer LFA buses running the S2 and S4 routes.

So all in all, I'd say that Scientology was pretty effectively raided and trolled for August. I'm looking forward to September, when the weather starts to cool off, that's for sure.

So I gave the "Schumin Web Video Journal" (a name I came up with after I filmed this) a spin once again:

• Fixing the camera issues from the first time I did this

• The August Anon raid, protesting Scientology, including Scientology spokesmodel Sylvia Stanard's gray roots

• Stainless steel water bottles

• Car woes - this time no heat

• Getting rid of Bank of America and finding another bank

• Getting rid of Comcast in favor of Verizon FIOS

This time, my production values have improved. The sound is not as loud. The focus is locked. I bumped down the resolution, since full HD is unnecessary for this kind of stuff. I also enhanced the recording environment a little bit, by turning on extra lights and turning off the fan behind me (that was audible in the first video). And I said something substantive this time around. My coworkers wrote me a note on my whiteboard about the last one:



So this time I actually talked about something. I do, however, have to remember to put the computer sound on mute, because people have this tendency to IM me in the middle of these things, and while I appreciate the messages, I don't want to have the chime on the soundtrack.

So I hope you enjoy the video. Full report on the Scientology raid tomorrow or so.

So I bought a new Web cam last night - a Microsoft LifeCam HD-5001. Seems to work well enough, as I sat and video blogged for a bit. Check it out:



What do you think? I think this is the first time I've really been in front of the camera for an extended period of time. I know a few things are weird on this video, and it's because I didn't quite know how to work this contraption when I recorded it. Turns out that the darkness at the beginning and the constant auto-focusing can be disabled by turning off their fancy-schmancy "smart" features, which, in typical Microsoft style, aren't too smart. But at least this one has sound. I tried a little cheapie Logitech one first, and I couldn't get any sound on it. That one went back to the store. And then the sound is kinda loud because I had the microphone turned up too high. Now that I know how loud I am, I can turn this down a bit.

Then of course I need to figure out where to place things. I just stuck the camera on top of my computer monitor for this session, but is that a good place? I remember that I always used to put my old Web cam back in the day off to the side, but that camera was used in more of a "monitor" capacity than something I'm going to be staring at and talking into. And do we really need it in HD, or can we knock the resolution down a bit? I mean, it's just me, and I don't think everyone needs to see me in that much detail, no?

And then personal hygiene lesson learned: Use a towel if you wash your hands right before going on camera. Just before doing the recording, I washed my hands, and then without thinking, wiped them on my shirt. After all, I wasn't planning to go anywhere, and didn't realize for a moment that I was going to be doing something on-camera. So in the video, I'm trying (in vain) to conceal a wet spot on my shirt from where I wiped my hands off.

But there you go. Next time will be better.

It's funny how Fridays work out sometimes. Last Friday, a few of us went out after work, and ended up at Maddy's in Dupont Circle, on the west side of Connecticut Avenue between R and S streets. All in all, it wasn't a bad time. We had a couple of beers, and some other bar food. They actually had a baked potato on the menu, which I had. Not too shabby if you ask me.

Then afterwards, some of us were heading back to the Metro and others back towards the office, and our path took us past the Fraser Mansion, which, as you know, is the old Founding Church of Scientology before they moved right next door to my office (someone should consider a cult moving in next door as creating a hostile work environment). So we got a photo while we were there, especially when one considers that one of my coworkers ended up briefly visiting the last Anon raid (after I left).


Photo: Sarah Alexander

You can tell that we were having a good time (and maybe still feeling the beer) when I said, for the photo, "Everyone say, 'Xenu'!" And believe it or not, everyone did.

Meanwhile, in researching the building for the Fraser Mansion article on Wikipedia, I start to wonder what could have been. Would a seven-story condo have prevented the building from becoming a Scientology org? If only the zoning battle hadn't been so fierce. Maybe Scientology might have kind of fizzled out in DC, and all of these wacko Scientologists would be back on their medications. And we'd still have a nice restaurant in the Fraser Mansion, too.

Then today, just for fun, I researched the property assessments for Scientology's two main buildings in DC: the (abandoned) Fraser Mansion, and the Embassy Building. The assessment for the Fraser Mansion lists the property as having an assessment of $6,920,620. Not bad, I suppose. But then you look at the assessment for the Embassy Building, and you see why you don't have to be very bright to be a Scientologist. The price that they bought the building for in 2005 was listed as $17,350,000. Then they sank $18 million into the building for renovations. And for all their work, turning the building from what I'm told was a somewhat decrepit office building into a modern "Class V" brainwashing camp, the property is assessed for only $14,527,000. Seems a little small, no? Scientology looked at the property, and $35 million later, they have a building that's only worth $14 million. Not a good return on their investment, if you ask me.

Then I've also noticed that the foot traffic in and out of their new "Ideal Org", based on my own personal observations and Sparrow's videos, consists mostly of staff members (recognizable by their bellhop-style uniforms). Very few public going in and out of that joint. No wonder Sylvia Stanard and Vicki Turrisi are such crabs. I'd be crabby, too, if I had nothing to do and had to answer to David "Slappy" Miscavige for my building's poor performance. After all, in order to be able to send "increasing monies to management reserves", one must first be actually taking in money to be able to pass it up the chain to Slappy. No public paying for brainwashing, no gold cufflinks for Slappy.

Oh, wait - this wasn't supposed to be an anti-Scientology rant. Oops. It's funny, though, how we ended up at the old Org. We originally went out for what we thought was a beer tasting at a different place in Dupont. Turns out we misread the sign. Of course, that's not before I mis-typed "beer tasting" in a text message as "beet tasting". The recipient said that a beet tasting would probably be healthier than a beer tasting, but oh, well. So that's how we ended up at Maddy's, where we tasted some beer, and then drank it. I would like to note that Maddy's house amber is quite good, and only $3.00. I dig it. Beer is good. Maybe next time we'll find a way to make beet-flavored beer. That would be an interesting taste, to say the least. After all, I had a cappuccino beer at the staff Christmas party in 2008, and it was quite good. If done right, coffee and beer go together quite well, believe it or not. Maybe the folks on The Drew Carey Show were onto something with Buzz Beer. And my coworkers said I seemed peppier than usual after that beer. I think the caffeine more than counteracted the alcohol.

So there you go. Meanwhile, if I ever decide to take one of those stress tests again, I'm going to talk about the Xenu story and say that's causing me stress. Could be fun.

School in Augusta County starts up again this Tuesday, August 17. I think that's a bit early, but there you go, I suppose. I thought it was neat when one year, they started on a Wednesday. That seems to make a quick first week that still has time to cover all the bases. Day one, you welcome everyone and visit all your classes to see what the teachers' expectations will be and to get your textbooks. Then day two, you have the big assemblies so that the administrators can explain their own expectations. Then on day three, you have a fire drill (Virginia law mandates a fire drill once per week during the first month of school).

Meanwhile, I decided to take a look at a few school-related things just for the fun of it. One of the things I looked at was supply lists. I went to the Rogers Public Schools Web site, because I've always found some of their supply lists amusing. Specifically, I found the supply list for Grimes Elementary, which is where I went to school. And we find out that the tradition continues. For more than twenty years, Grimes has been emphatic: NO TRAPPER KEEPERS. Does anyone even use Trapper Keepers anymore? Now there's another device that Grimes hates: wheeled backpacks. I would consider wheeled backpacks to be a good thing, as it brings heavy loads to the ground and on wheels, where they probably should be. Maybe Grimes has a deal with a local chiropractor, where they load the kids down with heavy stuff, make them carry them on their backs, and then get a kickback for every Grimes student's back that the chiropractor cracks. Who knows.

Then you have the oddball you-will-never-use-this stuff in the supply lists. First grade requires students to supply three 12-packs of #2 pencils - that's 36 pencils. Will students really go through a pencil a week? Then you have the school box required to hold this massive cache of pencils. Then second grade prohibits use of said school box. Well, there goes that, I suppose. Third grade requires two pocket folders - one red, and one green. So what would happen if I were to come in with a blue one and a yellow one? What if I like those colors better? I'll bet that if Mrs. Lois Jordan (pronounced "Jerdan"), my old third grade teacher, were still there, she would have said that they were "not appropriate" ("inappropriate" is apparently one of educators' favorite blanket I-don't-like-it terms). Oh, and third grade lists the school box again - the same one that first grade listed and that second grade prohibited. Where's the consistency here, folks? Then fourth grade requires a ruler, which you will probably not use until April, by which time it has been either (A) lost, (B) damaged beyond repair, or (C) taken away by the teacher because you were caught playing with it. Then fourth grade also requires all the boys to bring a bottle of hand sanitizer, and for the girls to bring disinfectant wipes. What kind of germaphobe came up with that? I would think that a bottle of (triclosan-free) liquid soap would be far more beneficial. All the classrooms at Grimes have sinks in them, and so it stands to argue that they should use them. Then fifth grade requires a package of red pens. I'd dare say that you will (A) not even use up a quarter of one pen, and (B) not be allowed to use it except in very specific situations. After all, the red pen is primarily teachers' territory. Of course, the red pen should generally go away overall. Red pens are somewhat confrontational. If you want a color to grade with, use green. It's far less confrontational.

Then let's dissect a grade's supply list for a moment. Let's just take a whole supply list and line-item it. Here's what you probably really need and don't need. I chose fourth grade.

BONNIE GRIMES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SUPPLY LIST 2010-2011

FOURTH GRADE

• Ruler with inches AND centimeters (you will use this once, if ever)

• 1 Pkg. Erasers (be wary of any time a teacher requests an entire package of something - I think for this one, I'd send the kid with an eraser, and then one that I scrounged up around the house)

• 24 Each #2 Pencils (you probably don't need this many)

• Scissors

• 4 Glue Sticks (you will barely make a dent on one of these all year, and you will use it once, in December)

• 1 Box Crayons, Markers, or Colored Pencils (go for the markers!)

• 4 Pkgs. Notebook Paper (seems a tad excessive - save a tree and only buy what you need as you go)

• 1 Pkg. Red Marking Pens (I guarantee you will only go through part of one of these - and get a green pen)

• 4 Pocket Folders WITH Prongs, 1 each of red, yellow, blue and green (I'd get orange, purple, black, and one with the Power Rangers on it, just to make a point that the color of the folder doesn't matter, but rather that it's a naked power grab)

• 6 Spiral Notebooks, 70 pages each (yellow, red or blue) (you will never use six, but rather maybe two or three, and I'd get those in purple, green, and one with Transformers on it just to make the aforementioned point)

• Highlighters, 1 each pink, yellow and green (trust me, you will never use these)

• 2 Large Dry Erase Markers (considering how long dry erase markers last and how much they cost, this is wasteful to have to buy two big ones per kid, especially if, as I suspect, it's just to give the teacher a stash of markers for their board, which, as office supplies, the school should supply for teacher use)

• 1 Fine Tip, Black Dry Erase Marker (wasteful again)

• 2 Large Boxes of Kleenex (if I'm buying a big box, I'd save a few bucks and just buy one for the communal classroom stash - no need to have 60 boxes of tissues)

• BOYS-1 Box sandwich size zipper storage bags AND 1 Bottle hand sanitizer (sending a bottle of triclosan-free soap instead, and I would send the teacher a note asking about the purpose and use of 4,500 plastic sandwich bags - assuming a box of sandwich bags has 300 bags in it times 15 male students. I'll bet that one can be skipped entirely)

• GIRLS-1 Box Large size zipper storage bags AND 1 Box disinfectant Wipes (same on both counts - triclosan-free soap and a note)

And that, boys and girls, is the real school supply list. Money, and school supplies, don't grow on trees. And we can see through these naked power grabs. And challenging these naked power grabs is what earned me a grade of "Unsatisfactory" from my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Sharon Bradley, for Study Skills in the first quarter, with the notation "Openly challenges teacher" written next to it. Yes, in my old elementary school, politely challenging an idea from an authority figure is "inappropriate", and will earn you a lecture from Mrs. Carmical (principal).

Then of course, I remember when I was in fourth grade, the school supply list asked for a large binder. We bought one (it was purple) and I actually used it. And my love affair with three-ring binders began. The spiral notebook was dead in my mind as soon as I laid my eyes on the three-ring binder. However, the school may have asked for it, but they really didn't think kids would use it. I was the only one who actually used it. I kept everything in that binder. And my binder ended up being a point of contention with the teacher, with the teacher taking away my binder at one point, and then returning it to my parents come conference time with the insistence that it not be brought back to school. The school guidance counselor later told me that if I ever brought the binder back to school, that I would lose ownership of the binder. I'm sure that they would have just loved it if I had brought that binder back, because I'm sure that Mrs. Patti Maidt (the teacher) or Mrs. Shirley Burns (the guidance counselor) already had big plans for it for themselves if they saw it again. Personally, I don't care how much school staff hates an item. If you take an item away from a student permanently, it is theft. Oh, if only my parents would have let me call that bluff on them. If I saw my purple binder on someone's shelf, I would be quick to reclaim it, too.

Meanwhile, have you ever been to a school's Web site? Most school sites that I've been to appear to have templates that have been professionally designed, and then those templates are filled by people with next to no experience or training on doing a Web site. I've noticed that most of them, if the teacher even bothers to maintain them, don't have a clear intended audience. Are they designed with the students as the intended audience? Or are they for the parents? Or are they more the teacher's personal Web site, and actual school-related stuff is an added bonus? Most are a bit of a mixture of all three, and it kind of looks messy and/or cheesy. Some teachers' pages (like this one) look very much like, "I've done this, and now I don't have to update this again until next year," without realizing that the Web site is a place for ongoing communication. Really, the Web site should be aimed at the parents. After all, the student sees the teacher every day. The parents don't necessarily visit with the teacher all the time, and so this is a great way to keep the communication open with parents about what's going on. I would imagine that an ideal teacher Web site would contain the syllabus, a list of assignments as they are given, topics covered with dates, and contact information. One of the problems, though, is that even with expectations of running a great site, the updates so often end in October. But such is life, I suppose.

Meanwhile, it is a sad truth that perfect attendance is highly overrated. If I were to do it again, I certainly would have missed a few days here and there. As an adult looking back, I realize that it's okay to miss an occasional day, as long as it's not excessive. I certainly would have missed that Saturday make-up day we had back in 1994, for one thing. That day was a complete waste of time. But for a few times when I went to school obviously sick, I would have been better off staying at home and watching The Price is Right. After all, watching Bob Barker do his thing was one of the fun parts of having days off of school. Plus taking a rest day for being sick helps you recover faster, and keeps the other kids from catching whatever you have (just make sure you sneeze on the kids you don't like before you go, though - I'm sure they'll enjoy whatever you've got even more than you do).

So there you go. This is also probably why, if I ever have children, their teachers will hate me. I'll end up making them justify all the supplies and keep their Web site up to date. And say it all with a smile.

So today is one of those days where I drove to work. I had to do some work-related errands in the suburbs first thing, and when I do those kinds of things, I drive into work because I'm already in the car, and so it just makes sense to do that.

Now mind you, we had some intense storms today. There were some severe thunderstorms in the early-ish morning (enough to wake me up), and then in the late afternoon and early evening, there were more severe storms, including some tornado warnings (eek!) near Fredericksburg and in the northern part of Montgomery County. Needless to say, I hear "tornado warning" and "Montgomery County" in the same sentence, and I drop everything at work to find out exactly where the tornado is, because I would like to know if I'm going to be without power, or worse, homeless, when I get home. Thankfully, not only were the tornado warning areas a considerable bit north of me, but I also never lost power the whole time.

So... the morning's errands ended at Home Depot near my house. Since Georgia Avenue looked wall-to-wall, I took Connecticut Avenue, which I had hoped was not as bad. It was also pretty bad. It took ages to get as far as University Boulevard, i.e. this far. Basically, as Homer Simpson would say, "Gas, brake, honk."

And with all the time at a dead stop, I ended up hitting the Twitter a bit:

So #traffic with some signals out really sucks.

Stuck in #traffic on Connecticut Ave in #MoCo near Veirs Mill Road. Where are all these people trying to go?

At this rate, I will run out of my @randiradio podcast before I even get to the DC line... #traffic #moco

Why is the "Register of Wills" an elected position in #MoCo? Why is a job like that not a career position instead of being political?

Which car is uglier: the #Scion XB or the #Cube?

It was about this time that I decided to stick my phone out the window and share a picture with everyone:



As you can see, bumper-to-bumper traffic going down Connecticut Avenue, and with no end in sight. Not fun. We are approaching the intersection with University Boulevard going southbound. I GPS'd the tweet, so you can see exactly where I was.

Oh, and by the way, I was already getting into the second hour of my Randi Rhodes podcast at this point, and so thinking I was going to run out of Randi before I got to work was a fairly valid concern.

So after the intersection with University came and went, traffic got a little better, but not by much. I was only at a dead stop long enough to send two tweets:

Just passed the first dark #traffic light of the day... that on top of several on blink. #moco

Almost to the Mormon Temple...

By the way, this is the Mormon Temple that I am referring to in that last tweet.

Getting to the Beltway, I noticed that the outer loop was moving. So I took the Beltway, which was moving at full speed - yaaay! I ended up taking that to Cabin John Parkway, which becomes the Clara Barton Parkway, which eventually becomes Canal Road NW. I chose that route because I knew that there were no traffic lights until you got to Washington DC, and even then there were few lights until you got to Georgetown.

There was still a little congestion, though, with a couple dead stops, and so I pulled out the Twitter again:

Beltway was clear, so... DETOUR! Clara Barton Parkway is moving better than Connecticut Avenue. #traffic #moco

Then approaching the DC line while creeping along, I was so excited about finally reaching DC that I took a picture of the sign:



I was at this point, by the way, well into the third and final hour of Randi Rhodes.

Then I got to the Chain Bridge:



Traffic was crawling at the Chain Bridge, but I didn't know why. I would soon find out...



Turns out that traffic was being diverted off of Canal Road and onto Reservoir Road, for what I would later learn was a downed tree. Greeeat. On the Twitter:

Canal Road closed. Yay, another detour...

I think that pretty much summed it up.

But at least I was able to shake the traffic jams. Now I just had to find my way to work. Thankfully, I pretty much knew where I was going, and besides, DC is fairly easy to navigate. And let me tell you - the French Embassy is capital U-G-L-Y. Seriously. That thing is ugly. This is the country that gave the world the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. You'd think that they'd be able to come up with something better for their embassy than "70's modern".

Then meanwhile, an amusing tweet:

At 37th Street NW. 17 blocks to go...

Obviously, my math was a little off. If I'm at 37th Street, and my office is at almost 16th and P, I had at least 21 blocks to go, plus I was a few blocks north of P Street. But you'll forgive me, I'm sure.

And then when I got to P Street, another photo:



And I eventually made it to work, at least two hours after I started. Oh, and Randi Rhodes ran out in Georgetown, so I put on Car Talk for the rest of the drive.

Meanwhile, my coworkers tweeted to me, "@SchuminWeb aren't these tweets while driving sort of crazy dangerous?" and "don't die ben, we need you," while I was on the way, but I didn't see their tweets until I got to the office. And then when I arrived, I was roundly criticized by about four coworkers for tweeting and taking pictures while driving. My defense was that we were stopped while I was tweeting, but they wouldn't hear of it - I still shouldn't tweet and drive. I suppose they're right. The question, though, becomes, will I learn and not tweet and drive next time, even at a dead stop? We'll see, I suppose.

Then today was one of those days where I think I hit the workahol a little bit too hard. I worked a full day from my late arrival... and then some more. I didn't end up leaving the office until nearly 10:00 at night. But hey, I was productive, so it was worth it. I could have easily gone on for several more hours, and my coworkers would see me on Friday morning wearing the same clothes I was wearing today and still at my desk and without an "It's Friday, ya bastards!" message on Facebook. That would be bad. That's where you eventually have to put both hands on the desk and push. That's where you just have to say, "It will still be there tomorrow."

Then the drive home was mostly uneventful, except for a few dark intersections and a few wackos who tried to cut me off. And no tweeting and driving for me on the way home. Both hands on the wheel at all times.

And I never lost power at home this time. Yay me.

Meanwhile, I hope tomorrow's commute is totally uneventful. I'm taking the Metro, though, so that might be a tall request. But we'll see...

So today was interesting. It was a very quiet day at work today, with a lot of people either traveling on business or on vacation. We had so few people, we didn't even do our regular "lunch buddies" today. However, that's not to say I didn't have a few amusing moments...

First of all, I would like to point out that the people that design digital projectors should be required to mount their own projectors and then change the bulbs in them. The bulb in the digital projector in one of our conference rooms recently burned out, and it ended up becoming a much more involved process than I had wanted. See, the manufacturer, InFocus in this case, put the access door for changing the bulb on the same side as the mounting apparatus. Thus in order to change the bulb, one must:

• Disconnect everything

• Unscrew the mounting ring from the ceiling pole

• Unscrew the mounting bracket from the projector unit using the little special tool

• Open the easy-access (how ironic) door to access the bulb

• Disconnect old bulb

• Remove old bulb

• Insert new bulb

• Connect new bulb

• Replace the access panel

• Screw the mounting bracket back onto the projector, again using the little special tool

• Re-mount the projector on the ceiling pole

• Reconnect everything

It's a pain, that's what it is. The little special tool just adds insult to injury. It's bad enough that these bloody bulbs cost as much as they do (in the hundreds!). Then you have to have a special tool just to remove the mounting bracket. In the end: not fun. But I did get an amusing picture out of it:



This is what I call my I've-beheaded-the-projector look. Blasted thing...

Then meanwhile, I took the long way to lunch today. Usually, when I go to Metro Cafe, which is in the basement of our office complex, I take an internal route, either going through the lobby to the other building, or through the parking garage. This time, I went out the front door, around the corner, and back in the front door of the other building. Why did I do this? In order to spy. See, there's a certain cult located in between the two buildings when going via the street, more commonly known as the Founding Church of Scientology. I wanted to see if Scientology was having another barbecue, hoping to lure unsuspecting passers-by in to eat their Xenu-burgers and drink the Xenu juice. Turns out that they weren't cooking today. Of course, would you eat their burgers and drink their Kool-Aid? I wouldn't go near either one, even if I was dying of hunger and thirst.

So instead, they had people in bright red Dianetics shirts trying to lure people into their (empty) building to cough up their hard-earned cash for some brainwashing. Today's technique was an old one: free stress tests.



All I have to say is that there is nothing in that E-meter that will detect stress. I remember that during the Boston Megaraid back in May, an Anon cell had an E-meter, and I was so suppressive that they couldn't calibrate it for me. For a real Scientologist, I wonder if it would go like on South Park, where, for that, I would be declared the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard and made the leader of the organization. David Miscavige would bow down to me... just before I give him his Suppressive Person declare and excomunicate him. I think I'd start by selling a few Org properties, or even flat out donating them to worthy nonprofit organizations. Then next thing I'd do would be to abolish the "fixed donation" structure and change it to an ask-nicely-but-not-require-it system.

But wait, we're in the here and now. Enough fantasizing.

Then on the table was the Kool-Aid:



Come on, folks - at least make it a little bit challenging to find things to mock you by. This is too obvious, since I could talk about "drinking the Kool-Aid" all day, and making "Xenu Juice" jokes is also too easy.

When a man in a Dianetics shirt tried to hand me literature, I declined it, and we got into a short conversation:

"So you all aren't cooking up the Xenu burgers today?"

"The what?"

"The Xenu burgers."

"The what?"

"You know, Xenu, the alien in OT III who threw all the people into the volcanoes of Hawaii and blew them up with hydrogen bombs."

"What are you talking about?"

"Obviously, you're not high up enough on the bridge yet."

"I've been in for thirty years and I've never heard of that."

"Go look it up on the Internet. It's all there without your having to pay for it."

Yeah, I came out swinging. I thought about this later, and realized, Oh, dear, I just told him about OT III when he wasn't ready for it. I may have just given that man a life-threatening ailment. After all, Suppressive Persons such as myself are bad for Scientologists' health. And the Xenu story is one that, despite being written in Hubbard's own hand and told in Hubbard's own voice, Scientologists will deny until they're blue in the face. Mark Bunker describes it well about how ludicrous this practice is.

They also should have something in the Scientology Tech about brushing your teeth, since this guy's teeth were quite yellow, and he had some serious gunk in his teeth, too.

After screwing with the Scilons, I got lunch and then went back to work. Then after work, a bunch of us headed over to the Commissary, a restaurant on P Street across from Whole Foods. I ended up having two margaritas while out, and we had a great time. One thing I noticed: one of the liquor bottles at the bar looked like Mrs. Butterworth's. You decide:

 
Photo at right: Kelly Stewart on Flickr

You can definitely see a family resemblance there. And that was not even all the way through my first margarita. Maybe it's Mrs. Butterworth's cousin. Who knows.

Otherwise, as this was also a little going-away soiree for one of our interns, we got some photos...



 



As you can tell, we had a fun time. And margaritas are pricey. Two margaritas cost me nine bucks! This is why I don't go out much. It just plain costs too much money.

And now for this weekend, the question becomes, what to do, what to do...

I just finished a 20-minute workout on the exercise bike, and I feel like I got a lot done. I did a few miles, definitely broke a sweat, and I feel like I accomplished something.

In the DVD player for tonight's workout: Battle in Seattle. Every anarchist should know about the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, and more importantly, the protest activity surrounding it. I've studied it over the years, and I bought the movie Battle in Seattle in order to enjoy a dramatic recreation of the event.

So far, my impressions are this: The protesters are a dedicated bunch, and the cops and the mayor are slime. The WTO ministers can't get in? The mayor just assumed the protesters are being violent, and had to be talked down from that assumption. The cops then talked him up to allowing them to gas protesters. In the first twenty minutes of the movie. Yikes!

Then the 20-minute mark passed, meaning my workout was over and I stopped the movie. This is going to definitely be a workout-enhancing movie, that's for sure. If I'm already getting pissed off at seeing the police officers basically begging to be able to rough up some protesters, this movie will really help get the heart rate going. After all, I've been in how many of those kinds of things? By my count, I've been to more than 20 significant mobilizations on various topics and using various tactics - mainstream protest tactics, as well as more radical ones such as black bloc and radical cheerleading. I know how these things generally go, and what can be accomplished when people work together for a cause. Admittedly, though, the demonstrations I've been to, while some have been quite large, pale in comparison to the Battle of Seattle. DC demonstrations aren't like some of the ones I've read about in other cities. The demonstrators and the police generally know each other (though I don't think Jeff Herold knows my name), and that relationship (even if adversarial) shows in some of the interactions.

So perhaps Battle in Seattle is the way to make the pounds melt away like magic. I have promised myself that I will only watch this movie when the pedals are turning. No exercise, no movie. And this one is a "page-turner", it seems...