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I won “best concept”!

November 2, 2008, 7:03 PM

So halloween went swimmingly. We dressed up at work, and had a costume contest. We had four different categories: best concept, best execution, “that took guts to wear”, and “most likely to traumatize a child”. I ended up winning best concept, with my 3000-Series Breda. Take a look:

My Breda 3000-Series costume

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And the Metro costume made it to work…

October 27, 2008, 4:13 AM

Yes, my Metro costume made it to work:

My Metro costume at the office

So now all I have to do is wear it on Halloween. Score!

Categories: Halloween

And there you have it!

October 23, 2008, 9:41 PM

The costume is complete – well, at least the “A” side is complete. I still have to finish the “B” side of the costume. Still, take a look:

The completed Metro costume

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Categories: Halloween

So the painting on my costume is finally complete…

October 22, 2008, 12:43 AM

Yes, my Breda has been fully painted. Take a look:

The paint is done!

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Categories: Halloween

I’ve seen buses in odd conditions before, but this is ridiculous!

October 17, 2008, 10:50 PM

I wonder what happened with Ride-On’s bus #5718. It’s a 1999 Orion V, and it sported a few unusual features for my commute this morning. For one thing, it sported no stop annunciator – the device that announces the stops. “Georgia Avenue and Glenallan Avenue. Georgia Avenue and Epping Road.” And “Stop requested!” Ride-On put stop annunciators on just about all of their buses last November and December. How did this one get missed? Of course, not that I mind not having to hear that voice sometimes. It’s too loud on Ride-On buses. Then this bus also had no advertising along the ceiling, unlike most Ride-On buses.

And to top it all off, what is wrong with this picture?

Ride On bus 5718, which is missing its farebox

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Categories: Halloween, Ride On

My costume is starting to take form…

October 17, 2008, 12:48 AM

My Breda is brown:

My Metro costume with brown paint on it

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Categories: Halloween, WMATA

Not bad for an hour’s work…

October 15, 2008, 12:09 AM

Take a look:

The Metro costume with the lines drawn

(Apologies for the poor image quality – I hiked the contrast way up to make the lines easier to see)

As you can see, the drawing is basically finished. It looks like a Metro train all right, and it appears that the decision has been made: I’m going to be going as a Breda of some kind. Right now, the windows are square like the 2000 and 3000 series, but that wouldn’t stop me from rounding off those windows and being a 4000-series. Or I could round off one side and not the other and be 4018-4019. After the Woodley Park-Zoo accident, 4018 got squared-off windows during the repairs, while 4019 kept its original rounded windows.

So the drawing phase didn’t take very long at all. Now I get to start painting, turning this thing the proper shade of brown and aluminum to make it properly Metro.

Categories: Halloween, WMATA

Time for a fun little craft project…

October 14, 2008, 10:30 PM

It’s getting close to halloween already, and we’re having a costume party at work. I am going as something that showcases one of my little geekish interests and will certainly be unique. Specifically:

Breda 4000-Series car

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Categories: Companies, Halloween

Now this is an interesting situation…

September 24, 2008, 7:06 PM

This is an interesting situation. Halloween will involve a costume contest at work, and also likely an Anonymous raid after work. Lots of fun stuff going on, all requiring special outfits.

And the problem is that I can’t exactly wear the same costume for both things. I thought about just wearing the zentai that I wear for Anonymous for both things, but we run into two problems. First of all, the zentai has a set of gloves built into it, and I generally don’t do well with that, since for me, gloves rarely ever fit me “like a glove”. It’s a cruel reality. And my zentai is no exception. I’ve tried typing in it, and it doesn’t work. The other problem is that the zentai only has a back zipper that goes from mid-back to shoulders. No zippers in the front. If I need to answer nature’s call, I have to peel the whole suit off. I’ve commented that going to the bathroom in the zentai takes ten minutes. Four to take the suit off, one to actually answer nature’s call, one to wash my hands, and then four to put it all back on.

However, it’s not like my coworkers don’t know about the fact that I run with Anonymous, and about the zentai I wear to raids. After all, one of my coworkers yelled my name out at the May raid, and another one of my coworkers was passing by and posed with me for a photo at the September raid. Take a look…

Justine and I at the September raid.  I'm obviously the one in the zentai suit.

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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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Happy Thanksgiving!

November 22, 2007, 5:13 PM

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone had a safe and fun turkey day.

Categories: Thanksgiving

No better way to say “happy halloween”…

October 29, 2007, 8:21 PM

This is what greeted me as I took my usual walk along P Street to work this morning…

Pumpkins on P Street NW

Pumpkins! Aren’t they just darling? I like the one on the right because the face is just slightly off-kilter by design, and then the face on the one of the left isn’t exactly creepy, but it is the perfect complement to the über-happy one on the right.

Meanwhile, this year for halloween, I’m going as an office worker. My costume will consist of dress pants, dark shoes, and a collared shirt. No hat, and glasses on. Accessories to go with this costume include an iMac G5 and my red Swingline stapler. In other words, I’m not dressing up. Then when I get home, I’m changing into those pajama pants that only cost $7.00 at the JCPenney Outlet and making the next day’s lunch.

Still, it was so fun to see those pumpkins this morning…

Categories: Halloween, Work

July 4 photos…

July 9, 2007, 9:22 PM

Greetings, all! Finally I get an opportunity to share the photos from my Fourth of July. As I mentioned, my protest buddies and I all got together to counter-protest a group that ended up being a no-show, but we still had fun with it.

Maddy by far had the most interesting shirt, working the peace sign and the anarchy sign in there with her "Who you callin a terrorist?" shirt.
Maddy by far had the most interesting shirt, working the peace sign and the anarchy sign in there with her “Who you callin a terrorist?” shirt.

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Categories: Friends, July 4, WMATA

The people we were counter-protesting didn’t even show up…

July 4, 2007, 10:14 PM

Today, this Fourth of July, I went down to the National Mall and once again stood up for a cause with my regular protest buddies. This time, we were staging a counter-protest, rather than being the main demonstration. The event we would be counter-protesting was a Nazi rally planned for the Washington Monument. We would be counter-protesting them from the area around the World War II Memorial. The idea was to tell those people that racism is not welcome in DC. Our counter-rally was advertised on DC Indymedia here and here.

We showed up, and what do you know – they didn’t. And just as well. I think a friend of mine and I weren’t the only ones with visions of The Blues Brothers dancing in our heads, where Jake and Elwood ran the Illinois Nazis off a bridge and into a river.

Also, here’s something you don’t see every day – DC’s anarchist crowd showing up to a protest and doing it “straight”, as I call it – no masks, no black bloc.

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Categories: Activism, July 4, WMATA

My birthday was good, with the exception of the morning commute.

May 30, 2007, 6:40 PM

So I had a good birthday. Thanks to all who IMed me, texted me, and left me messages on my Wikipedia talk page. And also thank you to all my coworkers who wished me a happy birthday.

However, the day started off like it was going to suck. My commute to work did not go very well. I think one could say it sucked. First of all, my regular bus never showed up. I usually take the Y5, which usually shows up right around 7:35 to take me to the Metro, give or take a couple of minutes. I get to the bus stop at 7:30, and the bus is there moments later. The Y5 never showed this morning. So 7:35 passes. Then 7:40. Then 7:45. Finally at 7:50, a bus shows up. It’s another Y5, and it’s Flxible 9769, which, interestingly enough, was the bus that took me home from Glenmont yesterday. So I got on, and rode into Glenmont station to catch the Metro. Then on the Metro, it was a slow ride aboard Breda 2066 – a rehab. It went well at first, though. We were going fairly smoothly until about Union Station. Then it was very much stop and go. I’m guessing that the trains got bunched up because of Union Station, Metro Center, Gallery Pl-Chinatown, and Farragut North – all very busy stations. At Farragut North, the operator for some reason turned off the train while we waited. So the little “RED” on the LED went out. That meant that we weren’t moving until that “RED” came back on. It did, and we took off again. Once we left Farragut North, it was smooth sailing as far as I was concerned. I was getting off at Dupont Circle – the next station. Then I got to work, and that was the end of my commute. Thank goodness.

Now the return commute was a breeze. I planted myself in a seat on Rohr 1100 next to a door partition, and the next thing I knew, we were at Glenmont. I kind of conked out for that ride. A nice late-afternoon nap always does a person good, and it’s a testament to the smoothness of Metro’s ride when I can go to sleep like that. Then I got Ride On’s 25th Anniversary bus on the 51 back to my house.

So, yeah, it was a nice birthday, except for the morning commute. Now I just have to iron clothes, make tomorrow’s lunch, and eat dinner (in that order), and then go to bed.

Categories: Birthdays, Commuting, WMATA