Malcolm X Park: Mission Accomplished
July 7, 2005, 9:48 PM
Yes, I had a very productive time in Washington DC. Though I did get a touch of a late start. But we recovered. I ended up making up the time by hurrying along my Sheetz stop on the way up, plus traffic was lighter than usual going in. Usually I hit a considerable bottleneck from mile 41-45 on eastbound I-66, and this time, while I did encounter traffic (slowed due to construction vehicle movements), it was not as bad as I’ve seen it. So I was able to breeze right through. I still got to Vienna a touch late, but no problem.
I also finally found some background information on the I-66 construction.
At Vienna, I got a pleasant surprise – a parking spot on the top level, close to the elevator. Usually, and especially since the garage rehabilitation project began, I can only get a parking spot in the North Garage after 10:00, when the guaranteed spaces open up. So that was handy. Also, the rehabilitation work has moved once again, now encompassing the western ramp between levels. How strange it is to have that section closed off now, since that’s the ramp I usually use going up and down.
Continue reading…Categories: DC trips, Driving, Food and drink, Homestar Runner, Shopping, Walmart, Washington DC, WMATA
They saw it, and that’s all that they shall see of it.
July 5, 2005, 6:00 PM
Sometimes, you just have to give people what they want. At work, coworkers comment all the time about my wearing my sandals with socks. That’s just how I do it. I wear the socks with the sandals because, for some reason, sandals without socks cause the shoes to smell absolutely awful. Plus the socks help wick sweat off my feet. So it works out.
A number of coworkers have said that I should go sockless with the sandals. Bare feet in the sandals, like many people do. One particular coworker was quite emphatic about it, and so I said to them, “Okay. For you, I’m going to wear my sandals without the socks one day.”
Fast forward about two weeks. Today was the day. So instead of my usual white socks with the sandals, this is what it looked like:
Categories: Shoes
Breezewood?
July 3, 2005, 10:00 PM
Yes, Breezewood. Specifically, Breezewood, Pennsylvania, which is known as the “town of motels”. I’m considering going up to Breezewood to do a photo set on the abandoned alignment of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which is now owned by the Southern Alleghenies Conservancy and being turned into the “Superhighway Trail”. This alignment includes the old Rays Hill and Sideling Hill tunnels, among other things.
You may recall that I traveled through Breezewood in 2003, as part of an LPCM trip. Photos and movies here. At that time, we used Breezewood as many others do, which is as a connection between the free I-70 and tolled I-76 (there is no direct connection between the two highways). In fact, that’s how Breezewood came into its modern existence.
According to this article, “…Breezewood is the unintended consequence of decisions having nothing to do with it.” Basically, to build a direct interchange between I-70 and I-76 at Breezewood, if federal funding was to be used to build a direct connection, then the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission would have to stop collecting tolls when the bonds funding the connection were retired. To quote the article again:
We have Nintendo!
July 1, 2005, 7:05 PM
I got it all working, though not through the fix that I intended. The good thing, though, is that I can return the RF switch to Radioshack, since it turns out the problem was not the switch, but where in my massive array of stuff that I hooked it up. I don’t know. Don’t ask me. But it works.
Then I had to find the controllers. I have four Super Nintendo controllers. One is the standard-issue SNES control pad with purple buttons. One is some sort of weird turbo pad that doesn’t work. Then I have two “Superpad” SNES controllers, which look exactly like the standard-issue controllers, except they say “Superpad” on them and have the Super Famicom-style colors for the buttons (think the different-colored Yoshis).
Of course, when I dug the SNES and stuff out, I found only two controllers. The standard-issue one, and the non-working one (that I didn’t know didn’t work at the time). The Superpad ones were nowhere to be found. As you know, I’ve been cleaning out the closet and going through and tossing lots of stuff, considerably lightening my load. The closet looks good. So in looking for the two Superpad controllers, I ended up turning my room upside down. Went through the different totes of stuff, went hunting in dresser drawers, my desk, in stuff, under stuff, through my fire alarms, you name it. You know where I eventually found the controllers?
Categories: Video games
Still offline, but what a productive day!
July 1, 2005, 4:05 PM
I’m still offline and entering this Journal entry directly into the database, but I found out from Dad what most likely caused this outage. It turns out that the storm that I was outrunning in Amherst County last night was the likely cause of our losing Internet service. According to Dad, that’s when the outage occurred – during the storm. And it seems it was more intense in Stuarts Draft than where I was. Remember that I caught a lot of heavy rain between the town of Amherst and Lovingston in Nelson County. No thunder and lightning while I was getting the rain.
So we’ll see. We’ve got a guy coming to the house tomorrow to take a look at it.
Meanwhile, I got a lot of stuff accomplished today. I paid a bill related to that surgery I had in February, and then I went to the bank to deposit a check. So that worked out well. After that, I went to Radioshack in Waynesboro to pick up an RF switch that will hopefully make my Super Nintendo come to life again (more on that in a second). Then lastly, I went to Goodwill in Waynesboro and dropped off a whole load of stuff from the closet. Nice place, and I was in and out in five minutes. Smelled like a combination of old clothes and new building, though, but such is to be expected.
Categories: Internet, Shopping, Video games
Talk about a trip gone off course…
July 1, 2005, 12:35 AM
First of all, welcome to July, which means I close out the journal file that I use for the first half of 2005, and open a new journal file for the second half. So that’s why none of the previous entries are showing on the front of the Journal. They’ve been swept off the page because I’ve switched journal files.
Otherwise, though, I did add one new feature to to the Journal with this new journal file for my own information. Now, whenever I post a Journal entry, it will capture the remote host name of the place where I posted the entry. Most of the entries will show the host name for my regular computer, but there are times when I post from elsewhere, like that time in the middle of March when I posted an entry on the Infoshop‘s computer while I was up in Washington on my first post-surgery DC trip. From your perspective, there will be no change in your experience. The host name information will not show on the site.
What’s ironic about this new feature, though, is that with this first entry in the new journal file that captures the host name, is that I’m writing it offline, thus there is no host name to capture. Why? A few reasons. First of all, my Internet connection is down for some unknown reason, and thus the online form that I usually use for it is inaccessible. So I’m writing this directly into the database. Secondly, I’ve not yet done any of the changeover work on the site for the new file. And lastly, this entry was not supposed to be the first July entry, but rather the final June entry, but a fly got into the ointment while I was out today after work, which made me FAR later in getting home than I wanted. That story follows.
Categories: Driving, Schumin Web meta, Weather