Fun day in Lynchburg and Roanoke on Wednesday…
December 2, 2005, 1:21 AM
I got a late start, but things still went well. When I go to Lynchburg, I usually take a back way – 610 to 664 (Mt. Torrey Road), which changes to Delphine Avenue when you hit the Waynesboro city limits. Then I take I-64 to Charlottesville and then take US 29 south to Lynchburg.
This time, I did things differently – partly by choice, and partly by necessity. I intended on taking Route 610 to 664 and then to US 250 over the mountain, and then follow Route 6 to US 29 near the Nelson County Wayside. I was on a bit of a no-interstates thing on Wednesday. No interstates (except for the dash back home from Roanoke), and nothing controlled-access, either.
The by-necessity change started on Route 610, which was impassable due to the flooding from the day before. Unlike the people in their pickup trucks, my van with its low ground clearance wouldn’t stand a chance if I crossed the water. I think I’d more likely be dead in the water. Visions of June 5, 2004 came to mind, when I hit a large puddle coming off an exit ramp, which caused the car to strain at 25 mph. Thankfully in that case, I was already at the end of my trip, and had less than a mile to go, so I just limped into the parking garage at Vienna and parked. This time, it was at the beginning of my trip, and would have wrecked the trip if I’d had that happen again. So I turned around and took an alternate route. I ended up taking US 340 into Waynesboro like I would take to go to work, went past Wal-Mart, down Main Street, and then up the mountain via US 250.
Continue reading…Black Friday, FliteStar, and beyond…
November 28, 2005, 10:34 PM
Let me tell you… the day after Thanksgiving, when Wal-Mart had its blitz sale, was interesting.
First of all, I was somewhat disappointed about the results of my efforts to get coworkers to wear all-black with me. I bombed badly on that front, as I was one of only two people wearing black on that day.
Anyways, though, I worked 4:30 in the morning to 1:30 in the afternoon, as scheduled. I arrived in the parking lot at 4:15 in the morning. The lot was packed. Coming into the store, it was full of people, most of whom were kind of hanging around, waiting for the big sale to start at 5:00. Many told me that they’d been in the store since 3 AM waiting.
My exact reaction was to think, that’s hardcore. Me, I’ll happily pay full price and not deal with the crowds and chaos.
Categories: Blue Ridge Parkway, Clothing, Walmart
My trip to Starbucks to get a Venti Coffee Frappuccino…
October 10, 2005, 9:57 PM
I finally visited the new Starbucks Coffee in Waynesboro after work today. Yes, that’s right. Starbucks in Waynesboro. I never thought of Waynesboro as a Starbucks kind of town, but there you have it. I guess someone thought we were.
So I went over there to check the place out. It was built on a small property, where the old KFC once stood (KFC moved to a bigger property next door and the old building was demolished). It’s bigger inside than it looks, too. Going in, I remembered SpinnWebe‘s parody of my original Wal-Mart photo set, now in Life and Times, and so I ordered a Venti Coffee Frappuccino. So this is what it looked like:
Categories: Food and drink, Shopping, Toyota Previa, Waynesboro
What a wonderful day Wednesday was…
September 8, 2005, 11:41 PM
I went down as far as Blacksburg on Wednesday. My goal was to visit two people: Sis at Virginia Tech, and my friend Amanda Mone, who I first met in December at the Roanoke Star.
But first, I had some shopping to do. Coca-Cola recently launched Vault, which is marketed as an energy drink, but is basically Surge in a new package. Currently, Coca-Cola is test-marketing it, and Roanoke is one of the areas where it’s being test-marketed. So I went down to the Wal-Mart next to Valley View Mall and got some. First I bought a 20-ounce bottle, to make sure it was really Surge in drag. It was a match! So I went and bought ten bottles of it, so that I’ll have lots of it, since I have no idea when I’ll be able to get down to Roanoke again to get some more.
I also checked out the Halloween aisles, since I was looking for a certain Halloween item that Wal-Mart sold last year that I was hoping they were going to sell again. You may recall that I mentioned in December about a mechanized black cat that reared up on its hind legs and sang a song that went like, “I’m just an alley cat, with an alley life.” I’d been unsuccessful in finding it in Waynesboro so far this year. I figured this store in Roanoke is bigger than Waynesboro, so it might be in this store. And I was right! So I bought the cat, and I’ll be figuring out all the lyrics. All I know is that I’m pretty psyched that I finally got my hands on it. I honestly thought I’d never hear that song again. And it’s catchy.
You know you’re from the [Shenandoah] Valley if…
September 6, 2005, 8:06 PM
I found this on a friend’s AIM profile, and I was laughing out loud at it. I’ve lived in Stuarts Draft for thirteen years now, which means that most of my life has been spent in this area. Some of it is just SO true, while other parts of it are a stretch. So here goes.
You know you’re from the valley if…
- You think the traffic on 340 at 5pm on a Friday is a major traffic jam.
- If you go to Wal-Mart and you see at least 10 people that you know pretty well.
- The smell of manure makes you homesick.
- When people ask where you’re from and you never give the specific town… but somewhere about 30 miles away (Charlottesville,
Harrisonburg). - When you’re showing an outsider the town, they’re shocked that so many people wave in
passing… even though you don’t know half of them. - Two words POTATO GUN.
- If you remember shopping at Roses or skating at TRB’s in Waynesboro.
- If the Stuarts Draft Fireman’s Lawn Party and parade was a must.
- If you remember when 340 (through Stuarts Draft) was a two-lane road.
- You had a heart attack when we got TWO Wal-Marts!
- “Bring your tractor to school day” was a regular part of spirit week.
- You went to the Frontier Culture Museum for a field trip every year in elementary school.
- Wright’s Dairy Rite, a movie, and Wal-Mart is the ideal date.
- “Stuarts Draft” is pronounced as one word.
- You’re driving down the road and you smell cow manure, you don’t roll your window up, you just breathe it in.
- One of the cliques at your school was the “Aggies.”
- Your parents had the same teachers in school you did.
Interesting, no?
Categories: Amusing, Stuarts Draft
Talk about threatening-looking weather…
August 30, 2005, 5:15 PM
Wheee, back to the salt mines again.
August 28, 2005, 5:36 PM
So far, we’ve spent two days back at work post-vacation. Saturday and Sunday. Everyone was glad to see me, and actually was questioned a couple of times on whether or not I really actually went to the beach. Why? Because I came back home from the beach the same color as I was when I left. And that would be a pasty white color over most of me, and then a little bit browner over one side of my arms (and slightly more pronounced on my left arm due to the “driving tan” effect).
Why did I keep my original color? Because I was really careful with my sun exposure for that very reason. I did not want to come back with something like what happened last year – where I had a huge sunburn, with a white spot on my chest shaped exactly like Big Mavica (seriously!). So this year, we took a lot of precautions. First of all, I made sure to either cover up or lotion up. On Tuesday, when it rained all day, and I did the strip, I didn’t use sunscreen (due to an oversight). But I did keep covered. When it was raining, of course I used the umbrella. But even when it wasn’t raining, for those brief periods when the sun was out, I still used the umbrella. And I remained pasty-white.
Categories: Myself, Virginia Beach
Tuesday may have been a wash, but things still went quite well!
August 25, 2005, 10:39 AM
Tuesday was mostly a wash, unfortunately, with rain causing me to scrap most of my outdoor activities. Sad. But I did get to peruse the strip, and got “part 2” of the holier-than-thou attitude of the management of the Holiday Department Store at the corner of 19th and Atlantic (diagonal from my hotel). I photographed a sign on the door of the “boy’s stockroom”, which is just as bad as the one I got last year on the back door about boxes. The writing is readable, and I shall transcribe it when I get back home (I’m at the library again).
Anyway, though, the strip was good, and I made a discovery. To discover the strip, you really only need to walk maybe six blocks in either direction from your hotel (if that), because the strip repeats itself. You have a few classes of stores on the strip. Stores that sell souvenirs and beach crap, stores that offer henna tattoos, oxygen bars, little convenience stores, and restaurants for seafood or pizza. Then they start to repeat. Seriously. Even the same stores. I went a ways south on the strip, and found another “Holiday Department Store”. I found three “Sunsations” stores. It all repeats.
Since it was still raining quite hard by the time dinner came around, I pulled out the umbrella and took a walk down the strip in search of the food that struck my fancy. I walked a LONG way south and didn’t find anything exciting. Not wanting to walk all that way back, I took a VB Wave trolleybus up to about 24th Street and then walked south again. I found a seafood restaurant, and had dinner there. Quite enjoyable, though I hate restaurants with mirror walls. I don’t like looking at a mirror image of myself eating while I’m eating.
Categories: Anti-war, Photography, Travel, Virginia Beach
Vacation: So far, so good, but it’s raining today.
August 23, 2005, 10:25 AM
So far, vacation has been pretty good. I went to Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant on 21st Street again last night for dinner, which was, as before, a great experience. Then I went down to the boardwalk and did a lot of night photography, which went really well. I even met a couple from Pennsylvania who showed great interest in my work. I gave them the address to the Web site, and so who knows – maybe they’ll see some of the photos I showed them on the camera on the Web site.
So I had wonderful weather coming in. I made all the stops I intended, and a couple more. Breakfast went without a hitch, and then I stopped at the Patrick Henry Mall as planned. Turns out that’s not the mall that I was thinking of. They had mostly System Sensor horn/strobes, and the mall I was after had Edwards. But we did find the mall later. But I’m not there yet.
Before leaving that area, however, I stopped at the Wal-Mart in Newport News, where one of our Waynesboro people transferred. And I found our former coworker Carliqua running register 33. Since it was slow, we got to catch up for a few minutes. It was good to see her again.
Categories: Homestar Runner, Travel, Virginia Beach
Packing up for a nice vacation…
August 21, 2005, 9:13 PM
I’ve got my suitcase all packed up, and all I have left to do is to properly pack Big Mavica, unhook my alarm clock and my cell phone charger, and put together my entire toiletries kit. Not too shabby. Then over here on the Web site, I’m going to change the photo feature to an image from last year’s trip to the beach (the black-and-white photo of the woman in Dupont Circle was deliberately held longer than intended to time this next feature), and then I’m going to put a vacation message on the updates list.
All in all, I’m excited! And I think that everyone at work knows that I’m going on vacation. I told everyone, and even was nearly counting down the minutes until 4:00 (which is “quittin’ time” for me). I also jokingly told a few more coworkers I’d get them some sand as a souvenir. And then other coworkers were saying it’s going to be so quiet around the store without me for those five days.
Also, I had one of those priceless moments at work today. In a slower moment, a coworker needed a CSM. They ultimately needed to page over the squawk box for them. So they dial the number to page, and thought they were paging. What do we hear? A voice without amplification. So I said, “I don’t think you got it.” So they try again, and they still don’t get on there. So I give it a try. I dial to page, and I’m live on the PA system, and successfully deliver the page. I hang up, and turn to the coworker: *raspberry*. Yes, I couldn’t resist doing the old “Bronx cheer” there, giving them the raspberries. They knew I was being silly, and so it was all good.
Categories: Schumin Web meta, Television, Travel, Virginia Beach, Walmart
You know what I need to do…
August 19, 2005, 6:32 PM
You know what I need to do? I need to get a big banner, and wrap it around my car. The banner should say, “I’m going to the beach!” Then the most important part would be finding some school buses full of kids to fly that banner past.
What can I say? The kiddies got three months off. I get this little vacation. If I were to actually pull the above stunt off (and there is no chance in hell that I would), it would be quite fun. Nothing like rubbing it in their faces. And four (count ’em – FOUR) days in Virginia Beach while the children back home sit in school hearing from every one of their teachers about how to evacuate for a fire drill.
This is what we call the benefit of not having children. Once the children get back to reality, I get to leave reality for a few days. Of course, I’ll probably look like a lobster when I get back, but it will be worth it.
Categories: Virginia Beach
I just added an extra day onto my vacation…
August 19, 2005, 4:24 PM
I just added another day to my fabulous Virginia Beach vacation that’s coming up in three days. Now, instead of leaving Tuesday and coming back Thursday, I’m leaving Monday and coming back Thursday. That means that I have Friday to be back at home, and then on Saturday, back to work. So thus it’s going to be a four-day vacation instead of three. Very nice, indeed. So all in all, life is very good. Get some time away from work and home, in order to kind of, like, chill out in a different setting for a few days. And maybe get a nice tan or something.
Of course, getting a tan kind of reminds me of what Strong Bad said in Email #77 about the suggestion that he should turn over to cook evenly: “What? Who wants a tan on their back? There’s no abs to accentuate.”
And if nothing else, maybe I can get something like what happened last year: a sunburn with a blank spot on my chest shaped exactly like Big Mavica.
Categories: Homestar Runner, Travel, Virginia Beach
I lost my Breda sticker… very sad.
August 6, 2005, 7:29 PM
How sad, indeed. I lost my “My other car is a Breda” bumper sticker magnet. I think I know how I lost it, though. I believe I lost it when I took my car through the car wash on Friday with the magnet still in place. I noticed it after work on Saturday, after Mom and I went to Home Depot (she met me after work), when I finally got a good look at the back of my car when she drove me back to it, and noticed it was missing – showing an outline of dirt around where the sticker used to be. Mom said that next time I go through a car wash, I need to remove the magnets first. Good idea.
And it’s not like the sticker is irreplaceable. I still have the pattern for it, so I’ll just have a new one made up. This would also be an opportune time for me to get the “Stand to the right” bumper sticker that I designed, to add to the right side of the car, similar to the Breda sticker. The Breda sticker being on the left was a coincidence. The “stand to the right” sticker being on the right is deliberate. After all, that would be a little hypocritical otherwise, no? The “stand to the right” sticker magnet standing on the left side of my car? No. Still, check it out:
Categories: Arlington, Toyota Previa, WMATA
I did go out, and I certainly covered some distance!
July 30, 2005, 10:59 PM
Yes, I did go out on Thursday, and it was quite a road trip, for that matter. I drove up to Pennsylvania and back via I-81.
I left the house at around 10:30 AM. The outfit was black shirt, blue shorts, and flip flops. Also unshaven for that matter, but the last time the razor and I had spent some quality time together was Tuesday morning. So I could almost pass it off as one of those thin beards that some men wear. Moving along, though, one look from Mom at how I looked leaving the house got this reaction: “You’re wearing flip-flops?” I’m like, “Yes…”
I still don’t understand what Mom’s obsession is with my shoes. After all, I’m an adult, and I can wear what I want, and look as sharp or as dumpy as I want. I decided to go for “casual”, thus no shave and the flip-flops. Still, the objection to it was weird, but expected. But it’s rare that I’ll wear flip-flops. Normally, I’ll wear my chucks or my real sandals (with socks, of course). Never flip-flops with otherwise bare feet. So that was a surprise for Mom, but lately on my off-days when I’m not doing anything too important, I’ll wear that. It’s quick and easy.
Moving along, though, I ran this like DC to an extent. But obviously, the destination was not DC this time around. The 10:30 departure, for one thing. Still, I went to Mt. Jackson on the way up and enjoyed some grub at the Sheetz there, which I do on the way up to DC. It was busier there, though, since it was around 11:30 when I got there, vs. 7 AM or so when I go on my DC trips.
I went to Singles Shopping… or at least tried.
July 23, 2005, 5:38 AM
I went down to Roanoke on Friday evening after work to visit the Wal-Mart on US 220, where, you may recall, I wrote in this space about “Singles Shopping”, the place for desperate singles to tie a red ribbon onto their cart and try to find true love.
So after traveling 90 miles from Stuarts Draft to Roanoke, I arrived at Wally World way down in Roanoke, only to find out that Singles Shopping was cancelled, and that they wouldn’t be having it anymore. I knew something was up as soon as I got in, considering there was no signage for the event, and saw no red-ribbon carts. I asked the greeter, who, after enthusiastically greeting me with a hearty “Welcome to Wal-Mart!” (major plus points there), told me it was cancelled. Turns out that earlier in the day, the store received a directive from Home Office in Bentonville: Do not have Singles Shopping tonight, and do not have it again. Drat. And I was looking forward to it, too. I, along with several others, put in comment cards about how we traveled distances to see this, only to find it was cancelled. Some even came from West Virginia, though from Roanoke to West Virginia isn’t as far as from Roanoke to here. All the store associates I spoke to were very apologetic about it, from the managers and right on down, since this was their great idea, and Bentonville nixed it (though I was told that some associates absolutely HATED the concept). After all, it got such wonderful press in the Roanoke Times (linked in the first entry I posted on this topic), and via the Associated Press to other papers. Jay Leno even made fun of it on his show.