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“Oh, it’s terrible! The King has been transformed! Please find the Magic Wand so we can change him back.”

November 27, 2010, 4:31 PM

First of all, I admit – the title doesn’t mean much in relation to this entry, except that it perhaps reflects that I’ve been playing too much Super Mario Bros. 3 on my Super Nintendo lately. Regardless, this Journal entry has been a long time in coming, since this is about a trip I took to Stuarts Draft two weeks ago. All I have to say is, hey, I’ve been busy. But it’s also somewhat fitting that I post this entry this weekend, since this was “Thanksgiving” with the parents a couple of weeks ahead of the holiday. Traffic is a real pain, you see, and this obviates the need to mess with it. Have you ever driven US 29 in Virginia on Thanksgiving weekend? It’s no walk in the park.

On Friday the 12th, after driving perhaps a shade too fast the whole way down, I arrived at Stuarts Draft Middle School. After all, Mom was there, and I hadn’t seen her new classroom yet. Mom was recently switched from sixth to eighth grade, and so she moved rooms as a result, from Room 24 to Room 1. And here it is:

Mom's new classroom, Room 1

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So I had a fun weekend…

July 12, 2010, 9:21 PM

I certainly had fun this past weekend, spending it in Stuarts Draft. The goal was twofold: to attend the wedding of Patrick Jarrett and Anna Duncan, and to help Mom clean out some of the junk in the house in preparation for new flooring in the bedrooms.

Coming down, I took I-66 to I-81, on what had to have been one of the least stressful runs ever. Seriously, the ride went better than I’ve had in a long time. I made really good time, and I reached Waynesboro before you knew it. I only made two stops. At the second one, at the southbound rest area near New Market, I got an interesting picture:

Anyone want to guess what this is? Anyone have any idea what this might be? I'm stumped, and my gut reaction was joking to myself that BP has been busy, spilling more oil.

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Categories: Family, Friends, Katie

A fun time was had by all…

April 7, 2010, 9:06 PM

So I got back from Stuarts Draft last night, and all in all, it was a pretty good trip. First of all, on the way down, I visited my friend Bergit, who I first met at the National Equality March back in October. We had a good time, chatting it up, and visiting a few stores in Charlottesville’s Corner district. Perhaps the most amusing part of the whole trip was the discovery that UVA sold a Snuggie with their logo on it, which Bergit modeled for the camera:

Bergit models the UVA Snuggie

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So it seems to be the case that the Waynesboro Wal-Mart is that special place where managers’ careers go to die…

November 27, 2009, 11:03 PM

So Katie and I had fun today, running around Staunton and Waynesboro doing part trolling and part shopping. After I picked Katie up, we first went over to troll the Waynesboro Wal-Mart, where we used to work. After saying hello to some of the people we used to work with, we also ran into the new store manager. The manager is now a guy named Nathan, and he looks like he should be wearing a pinstriped suit and a fedora rather than a Wal-Mart name badge. Seriously, he looked like a prohibition-era gangster.

So with Al Capone as the new manager, the question becomes, what happened to the previous manager, who was there when I was still there? Turns out that he is “no longer with the company”. In other words, he probably got canned, because when management types say that someone is no longer with the company and leave it at that, you know that someone’s career had a “fiery” end. Otherwise, if they left on good terms, people will generally say something like, “Bob left to take a new position at Company XYZ.” When I visited my ex-store not long after getting hired at my current job, I found out that the management at the store was saying that I was “no longer with the company”. I personally wish they would have just said that they fired me. Let’s be honest now, since I’m pretty open about it. Especially since in my case, they made stuff up and rammed it through a coaching process. Really ethical people over at Wal-Mart.

But anyway, that means that the Waynesboro Wal-Mart is three for three. Their current manager is number four, and the last three all did not leave the Waynesboro Wal-Mart with their Wal-Mart career intact. Thus the Waynesboro Wal-Mart seems to be the place where management careers go to die. No one’s career leaves there alive, it seems.

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Finally, a caption…

October 29, 2009, 9:30 PM

Finally, I figured out a caption for this photo:

Peabo in Lolcat mode

This is a photo of my friend Katie’s cat Peabo. As you can see, he’s gotten himself into a case of beer. And it only took Katie and I a month and a half to come up with this caption. When she first sent this to me in mid-September, I immediately saw Lolcat potential for it, but couldn’t figure out a caption. I at first thought of “I can haz beer?” for it, but that’s too much like the oft-used “I can haz cheezburger?” line. Katie and I even did a little brainstorming on the phone last night and came up empty.

Then today, Katie sent the perfect caption: “Where’s the beer? I can’t find it, it’s not here!” I ran it through the Lolcat translator, and got, “Wherez teh ber? I cant find it, iz not her!” Then I dropped the second part of it, and put it in the proper Impact font, and on the image. And one lolcat image. Pretty clever, no?

Categories: Katie, Netculture

You know what I’d love to do to some of these people that send me junk mail?

October 28, 2009, 7:06 PM

You know what I’d just love to do to some of these people that send me junk mail? Send them a cinderblock. One of these:

Cinderblock
Image: Katorisi on Wikimedia Commons

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Categories: Amusing, Katie

So Katie and I had fun yesterday…

November 26, 2008, 5:23 PM

Katie and I went out and about in Staunton and Waynesboro yesterday, and we had fun. I can’t believe it had been three months since last I saw Katie, but indeed that was the case. But of course, that doesn’t mean we had any less fun.

First thing we did was go over to the nTelos store, since it was just about time to upgrade Katie’s cell phone, and so we were seeing what the scene looked like. I think Katie’s going to get a really good phone this time around – one with an on-board camera, and one that can do all of the cool things that cell phones can do nowadays. And I demonstrated the picture feature on one of the demo phones:

Katie at the nTelos store

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So this will be an interesting summer, I’d say…

June 24, 2008, 10:48 PM

I’m looking at what’s coming down the pike for this summer, and I can tell right now that this is going to be a great summer. First of all, look at Schumin Web! It’s all refreshed for the summer as we’ve gone “square” with this new background. No more fades here as it’s been for nearly four years. The color gradient is gone, and we’ve moved on to a pattern. Hopefully this will make things look a little more festive.

And then I’m going to be busy in July, with two Anon events – July 12 and July 19. By then I ought to have something really cool figured out for a costume, since here’s the thing – the “black bloc” look doesn’t seem to work at Anonymous events. When I hang out with the anarchists, yes – black bloc is the style. For Anonymous, it’s more like a masquerade ball, since many people really get into the dress of the event, and dress in wild outfits while including the all important mask (don’t want to get fair gamed, after all – or R2-45’d for that matter). And as I learned on June 14, the Guy Fawkes mask is too warm for the summer. However, we must admit – I had fun at Operation Sea Arrrgh with my Guy Fawkes mask and all:

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A belated reportback is better than no reportback at all, I suppose.

May 25, 2008, 5:29 PM

Hey, I’ve been busy. So sue me. But I must report back that Katie and I had a great time last weekend. We went all over the place, and had a great time.

However, it started out somewhat rough – Katie took the train up to DC, specifically the Cardinal. And it was late. According to AmtrakDelays.com, on May 16, the eastbound Cardinal, train #50, was an hour and 42 minutes late arriving in Staunton, where Katie got on. Then at Union Station, where I was waiting for her, the train managed to rack up another 44 minutes of delays, and thus ended up getting in at 8:21 PM. That would make it two hours and 26 minutes late. This thing was supposed to show up at 5:55 PM, which would have fit my schedule quite nicely. Leave work, take Metro to Union Station, wait a few minutes, get Katie, and then ride back to Glenmont. However, I found out about the Staunton delay from Katie well in advance, so no problems there. I compensated other places as far as that delay went, and ended up staying later at work, since there were a few things I needed to take care of anyway, and planned to arrive in time for the new delayed arrival. Okay.

So arriving at Union Station, I got in, and immediately checked the boards to see what the deal was. Another delay. Lovely. So I ended up just kind of wandering around Union Station for the next two hours, as I had nothing else to do. I was totally unprepared for a longer delay. However, I did have my iPod, and so at least I got to listen to Randi Rhodes (now on Nova M Radio!). And with headphones on was how I passed a good hour or so of that delay, as I went in and out of stores, seeing what amused me. I also managed to find a relatively quiet corner of the station to make a phone call, finding out about how things were going on the train from Katie. That quiet spot ended up being in a far corner of the parking garage, interestingly enough. But hey, it was nice out, so it worked. I got to watch train movements north of the station, and found out that the initial delay was due to weather, and then heavy rail traffic caused the delays closer in. Okay. Beyond the control of either one of us. What are you going to do, I suppose.

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iMac takes Metro?

February 10, 2008, 11:51 AM

This past week, I had two things that were worth a shot or two, and so I thought I’d share…

First of all, Katie and her mother went up to Leesburg in northern Virginia to see her brother and his family. And while she was up there, we also got together. The surprise of the evening was that prior to my arrival, her brother’s wife styled her hair. So here’s a photo of the one and only time she’ll be all curly, taken here at Chili’s, where we had dinner:

Katie with curls

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Categories: Katie, WMATA, Work

What a fun weekend!

November 25, 2007, 8:38 AM

All in all, I had a fun Thanksgiving weekend in Stuarts Draft, but I’m still very glad to be home again.

Thanksgiving itself involved the usual – turkey, and all the various fixings to go with it, and then falling asleep afterwards.

Then I spent Friday with Katie. We had a blast, as we did anything but shop. We went on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while, then rode back around to Charlottesville, where we went to the Mellow Mushroom, where we had a vegetarian pizza with a pesto base. Twas awesome.

However, before Katie and I started out, we got a movie of Katie’s cat Peabo chasing a laser pointer around…

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Four days and counting…

September 24, 2007, 2:33 PM

I am excited! In four days, my friend Katie is coming to visit me up in Maryland. She’s going to be taking Amtrak from Charlottesville to Union Station, and will be staying three nights. It’s going to be so much fun! I’m taking the day off on Friday, and so after I spend much of the day cleaning and scrubbing and making the place look really nice for Katie’s arrival, I’m going to hop on the Metro and ride into DC to go to Union Station to meet her. We’re going to have such fun, too.

Otherwise, I finally finished College Life last night, and so now it’s all back together and looks goooooood. It’s designed a little differently than it was before, with a left-hand menu like Schumin Web. And it’s also up to my current design standards, which required a bit of retrofitting. But we’re done. I’m tickled.

And now, the next thing to do is a small update on the discussion forums, and then Transit Center. That’s going to be fun. Transit Center is not going to be a simple restoration. No way. Transit Center was incredibly cumbersome to handle before, which is why updates were so few – because it was too much of a pain in the butt to deal with. Now, I’m rewriting everything from scratch.

So all in all, I’m excited about this weekend, and in the meantime, I still have plenty to do…

Categories: Katie, Schumin Web meta

So I guess you could say I had a good time in Stuarts Draft over the weekend…

September 11, 2007, 10:48 PM

All in all, I did have a good time. Spent time with the parents on Saturday, and with Katie on Sunday. We had a blast, too.

First of all, on the way in, as I mentioned, I photographed the Starbucks in Waynesboro at the request of a coworker, and here it is:

Starbucks in Waynesboro

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Heading out for a weekend away from DC…

September 8, 2007, 8:21 AM

I tell you, I do love living in the DC area. However, occasionally, one must escape. And Mom will be glad to see me this weekend.

I’m actually going to be leaving in about ten minutes, and meeting Mom in Harrisonburg. There, we’re going to Costco, and doing whatever other Harrisonburg stuff we decide, then going back to Stuarts Draft. Well, actually, I’m not going back right away – I’m swinging by Satan’s Playground (Sis’s term for our ex-store) to go to SmartStyle to get a haircut. Plus I’ve not been in there since June, and so I’ve not seen a lot of people over there. There are a few folks over there that I actually miss.

Then at home, I get to see Greta again. Seeing Greta’s always a treat, since dogs don’t talk, thus I can’t catch up with Greta over the phone like I do with the humans.

And on Sunday? I get to see Katie! We’re going to go to Shoney’s, and also get her some train reservations for her DC trip at the end of this month. End of this month, she’s coming over to see me and we’re going to like run around DC and do whatever. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Then in that weird twist of things, I’m also doing some photo work for a few of my coworkers who want to see the free-standing Starbucks in Waynesboro complete with drive-through (that will be providing its customers with hormone-free milk by the end of the year), as well as a few of the sights of Stuarts Draft.

So this ought to be a fun weekend. See you in Draft!

Categories: Family, Greta, Katie

“And just where they should stick out…”

August 12, 2007, 6:40 PM

On the way back to DC, I visited with my friend Katie for a few hours. We went out for breakfast, and then just kind of hung around for a bit. Fun times.

Meanwhile, in the car on the way to breakfast, I played Katie the song that Randi Rhodes plays every Friday on her show. Turns out that Katie and her mother enjoy the song, too! And Katie knows the words about as well as I do. Funny moment. We were going along with the song:

You know girls, men aren’t the only people in the world today that have something to give, but it sure looks like it sometimes. Just look around you – men stick out all over the place. Big fat cigars! Big fat stomachs! And just where they should stick out – phhbtt! – where is it?!

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Categories: Driving, Katie, Music