Hello… Roanoke?
September 16, 2015, 5:46 PM
This past Friday, I was out with my friend Elyse checking out a few interesting shopping centers in the Baltimore area. We weren’t so much interested in shopping as we were in seeing the centers themselves, and their various eccentricities. We first visited Owings Mills Mall, which is a large. two-story facility in Owings Mills, Maryland that contains only six tenants: Bath & Body Works, DTLR, Gymboree, JCPenney, Macy’s, and Victoria’s Secret. Needless to say, this was a dead mall. Then we visited the Centre at Glen Burnie, which is a small and well-hidden single-level indoor mall off of Route 2 in Glen Burnie. This was no dead mall by any means, but its being an enclosed mall surprised me. I’d been by this shopping center many times in the past, and shopped at the Target store there, and never would have guessed that this was an enclosed mall. Then our third and final mall was Security Square, a mid-sized single-level mall in Woodlawn. Security Square was interesting for its former JCPenney building, which, after Penney’s closed, was converted to “Seoul Plaza”, a mall-within-a-mall consisting mostly of Korean businesses, though now approaching dead mall status (though the rest of the mall is doing well).
However, the biggest surprise of the day came as Elyse and I were walking through the Sears wing of Security Square. Does this remind you of anywhere in particular?
Continue reading…Categories: Baltimore County, Elyse, Shopping
“I feel important, just like a king…”
May 30, 2015, 12:49 PM
So today is my birthday. I am officially 34 years old. I rang my birthday in doing one of the things that I always enjoy doing, i.e. driving the bus, and watching out for Virginia drivers (yes, Virginia drivers are, by far, the worst drivers in this area as far as I’m concerned). Then I took my birthday as a floating holiday, so I don’t have to work my birthday (yaaaaaay!).
But at the beginning of my workday on Friday, my friend Elyse met me at the location on the street where I pick up my first bus, and gave me a birthday card. Check it out:
And of course, I immediately made sport of the grammatical error in the handwritten message. But no worries – I did it with a smile, so it’s all in good fun. Then down at the bottom is an Edwards Integrity fire alarm horn/strobe, like they have at work.
Categories: Birthdays, Elyse, Schumin Web meta, Work
Fun in Philadelphia…
April 28, 2015, 11:29 PM
Back at the end of March, I went up to Philadelphia with my friends Melissa and Elyse. We had a list of things that we wanted to do, and we did as many of them as we could. We had a blast, plus we got to meet up with my cousins Mike and Tara for dinner. This trip was also a proof of concept for how my various little outings might go now that I routinely work late nights, since my typical workday runs from approximately 4:00 PM until just before 2:00 AM.
Logistically, it worked out this way: Melissa met me at Glenmont station around 11:00, and then we traveled up to Howard County to get Elyse. Then from there, up to Philadelphia via I-95. Then in Philadelphia, everything that we were planning was transit-accessible, save for one thing, but we worked it all out pretty well.
Our first point of interest was the non-transit-accessible one: the SS United States. This would be a quick look-see for some photos, and then move along to other targets. We parked at the IKEA store across the street, and then Elyse and I walked over for a look (Melissa stayed in the car). Here are pix:
I have ridden the 7000-Series…
April 15, 2015, 8:30 AM
Back in late March, Metro announced that the new 7000-Series railcars, which I toured in January of last year, would enter revenue service on Tuesday, April 14, on the Blue Line. So on that day, I got together with Elyse, and we sought out and rode Metro’s new 7000-Series railcars on their first day of revenue service. We met up in late afternoon, and we took the Red Line down to Metro Center from Glenmont. At Metro Center, we waited for the train. Elyse and I had been in communication with Metro’s social media team as we were making our way in, and they helped us with our planning, as they indicated when the train was entering service in the evening, how long it would be out, and where it was located, and in which direction it was heading.
And we watched the PIDS screens. We knew that the train would be eight cars, because the 7000-Series is designed to run in quad sets rather than married pairs. So when we saw something like this come up on the board, our ears definitely perked up:
Categories: Elyse, Washington DC, WMATA
I can’t believe I set off the DriveCam…
January 28, 2015, 7:57 PM
I had a good bit of fun on Tuesday. I went down to the Washington Auto Show at the Washington Convention Center with Elyse, and we wandered through, seeing all sorts of interesting things. We took the Red Line to Gallery Place, then took the 70 bus up to the Convention Center (and we got an artic).
Unlike most car shows that I’ve been to in my 33 years, this was primarily for auto manufacturers to show off new cars. As such, it was heavy on the marketing, and you could touch and interact with most of the vehicles that were there. If you go on a Tuesday, as we did, the place was pretty quiet. No wait for tickets and security, and no wait to see or do anything, and more time to chat it up with people.
Right off the bat, with its being a slow day, Elyse and I could tell that the people working the event were in a good mood. When I purchased my ticket, the guy mentioned that admission, normally $12.00, was only $10.00 with a SmarTrip, or $5.00 with a student ID. My old JAC card from my college days still lives on my keychain over a decade after I graduated college. I said, “I still have my old student ID from when I was in college.” The guy sold me a ticket at the student rate, and justified it by saying that it just says “a student ID”, and not that you had to be a current student.
Categories: Elyse, Events, Washington DC, WMATA
A splash photo that’s open to some interpretation…
November 25, 2014, 1:38 PM
This past Saturday, I got together with my friend Elyse, and we spent the day seeing what we could see, mostly in Rosslyn and Ballston. While we were in Rosslyn, we checked out the open-air patio on the fourth floor at the Le Méridien hotel (formerly Hotel Palomar) at the Waterview complex. The patio had decent enough views, but we ended up spending more time taking photos of the fire alarms, and as a result of that, got December’s splash photo:
Categories: Arlington, Elyse, Fire alarms, Schumin Web meta
No longer a Baltimore transit virgin…
September 28, 2014, 1:58 PM
Two weeks ago, I went up to Baltimore with my friend Elyse. We went for the Star Spangled 200 celebration, and wandered around the city a bit. And most importantly, I rode public transportation in Baltimore for the first time. MTA Maryland is a very different beast from Metro. MTA has buses, and MTA has trains, and there’s also a Circulator-type service. But the details are quite different. Elyse and I started out at Cromwell station in Glen Burnie, which is out by BWI. That’s light rail. DC doesn’t have light rail, as you know. There’s a streetcar system coming in DC, but it’s not here yet. Then there’s a heavy rail system, i.e. the Metro Subway, which we also rode. That’s more like what I’m used to. We also rode the Charm City Circulator, which is a free bus service that travels around the city, separate from the regular MTA buses (which we didn’t get to ride). And owing to cooperation between MTA Maryland and Metro, my SmarTrip card worked in Baltimore.
Most surprising was that the fares for the light rail were basically on the honor system. You bought your ticket at the machine, and then you just got on. No faregates, no fareboxes, no nothing. In my case, I loaded an MTA pass onto my SmarTrip.
So this was what I saw on my first ride on the Baltimore Light Rail:
Categories: Baltimore, Elyse, MTA Maryland
“Fire drill in three, two, one…”
September 15, 2014, 10:09 PM
Back on August 1, I got together with my friend Elyse and we tested a number of different fire alarm notification appliances at her house. We had to take it to her house, because I live in an apartment, and, out of respect for my neighbors, I have a visual-only policy at my house, i.e. as many strobes as you want, but no horns. Most of the alarms that we tested were hers, though we did run a couple of mine, plus I provided the power, i.e. my Wheelock RPS-2440 24-volt power supply.
The first alarm up was a Gentex smoke alarm. I’ve seen these in person before, most notably when I stayed at the Bolger Center in Potomac for an event with a company that shall remain nameless, where there was a Gentex smoke detector in my room, next to a Wheelock ET speaker/strobe. At the time, I commented about the alarm system, “I thought about how neat it would be to see both devices in action, but the thing is, if both devices are going, you’re really screwed.” While I had since seen a Wheelock ET in action, I hadn’t seen a Gentex smoke alarm in action until this day. And here it is:
Categories: Elyse, Fire alarms
Best birthday cake ever…
August 28, 2014, 11:46 AM
My friend Elyse recently celebrated a birthday, and, as a fellow fire alarm enthusiast, she got what I consider to be the greatest cake ever. She sent me pictures of it. Take a look:
Categories: Birthdays, Elyse, Fire alarms, Food and drink