I have officially discovered YouTube, and this is kinda fun…
September 5, 2006, 11:39 AM
I have discovered YouTube, and it’s kind of fun. I consider it better than television because it’s real people doing real stuff. Compare to television where, while the video and sound are more professional-looking, it’s kind of a lot of the same rehashed over and over and over again.
And after some time trying to figure out how I could use YouTube effectively, I’ve decided that YouTube is that place where I can upload stuff that’s worth a look, but that I wouldn’t carry on the regular Web site.
For instance, I have some really long videos that I did when I was testing out Big Mavica on the first day I got it. I was wandering around Potomac Hall and being all silly and such. My residents were probably like, what’s he got now? as I went wandering around, filming everything. No one was used to Big Mavica, and neither was I, as we all soon found out. Of course, you’ve got to start somewhere. And with these videos sitting in storage for so long, we might as well show them off on YouTube.
So yeah, fun stuff. I take a lot of videos, so this should be interesting.
Categories: YouTube
Photos of mine, printed ABOVE the fold…
August 28, 2006, 7:51 AM
How often can you say that your photos end up on the front page of the local newspaper? And above the fold, no less. If you look at the August 28, 2006 edition of The News Virginian, you will see two photos anchoring an article about the Skyline Parkway Motel, which, you may recall, had been abandoned for some time, and then was torched in 2004. Both of them are tagged with “Photo courtesy of BEN SCHUMIN”. Here are the photos that the newspaper ran:
Continue reading…Categories: Afton Mountain, Skyline Parkway Motel, Virginia local news, Wikipedia
Firefighter Schumin is on his way!
July 26, 2006, 9:09 PM
Wasn’t today an exciting day at work!
Not long after my first break, one of our cart pushers reported that there was a mulch fire in the parking lot. One of our CSMs, knowing I’m on the safety team, came up to the service desk and got me, and handed me a fire extinguisher. I quickly found out what was going on as we were walking out to the parking lot to the fire. I ended up ripping off the tag and pulling out the pin on the way out the door.
We got to the mulch that was on fire in the parking lot. It was on a traffic island about a third of the way down the lot. After chasing off some very stupid teenagers who were trying to put it out by stomping it out in their flip flops (very dumb teenagers), I went to work. Since I had already pulled the pin, I went about it as I’d seen in the past, staying low, aiming for the base of the fire, and sweeping side to side. And I got the fire out, too. It seems that what I’d learned had sunken in fairly well, as I’d performed flawlessly despite having never actually used a fire extinguisher before.
I used up the entire extinguisher on it, just to be on the safe side. It’s just as well, too, since you can’t reuse a fire extinguisher that’s been discharged until it’s professionally recharged. But like I said, I got the fire out.
Categories: Today's Special, Walmart
“This is the best elevator music I’ve ever heard!”
July 22, 2006, 1:56 AM
First time I’d ever heard the term “elevator music” was actually on The Cosby Show, at the end of the sixth-season opening, when Bill Cosby says, “This is the best elevator music I’ve ever heard!”
I, being eight years old at the time, thought that “elevator music” was a genre, akin to rock and roll or classical, rather than something more practical: Music that gets played in an elevator. Though note that I’ve never actually been in an elevator with music being piped in.
Nowadays, though, I genuinely enjoy so-called “elevator music” when I just want something – nothing in particular – to drown out the silence. Music from The Weather Channel does really well for that. This would be why I hate the voice during the local forecast saying, “Currently in your area…” Then I also have a clip called “elevator music” and a bit of something else that allegedly was played on The Weather Channel.
So yeah, I’m a nerd.
And speaking of the title of this entry, it’s funny… the clip I have on my iPod of the sixth-season Cosby Show theme was from an Italian translation of the show. Thus instead of “This is the best elevator music I’ve ever heard!” it’s something else in a different voice in Italian. I was playing that for Mom on the way home from Harrisonburg once. She was surprised to hear that.
Categories: Music, Television
And here are the photos of the ark, as promised.
June 29, 2006, 2:20 PM
As promised, here are some photos of the ark from the upcoming movie Evan Almighty in Crozet:
Rohr relaxation…
June 22, 2006, 2:48 AM
I went to Washington DC on Tuesday, and it was a fairly typical “regular” trip. I got in right on time, parked at Vienna, and then the main mission this time was to check on some jobs I’d applied for. I also paid a visit to my friend Tristan and then paid a visit to Pentagon City.
On the Red Line en route to Rockville, I encountered a person that knows how to relax on a Rohr train:
Categories: DC trips, Video games, WMATA
Sometimes people just amuse me…
May 5, 2006, 11:50 AM
Sometimes people really amuse me. In this case, a user on Wikipedia not only flamed me on multiple occasions for editing “his” article about Skyview High School (which I encountered while perusing Articles for Deletion), but then, when he realized that he couldn’t do anything about my edits, he proceeded to go from decent contributor to blatant vandal. What’s really funny is that he nominated my user page for deletion on Wikipedia. He also vandalized it three times. These were reverted by myself and two other users.
One thing I like about Wikipedia, though, is that no matter how destructive some individuals can be, their electronic feces can be cleaned up and everything fixed. The Articles for Deletion discussion about my user page was closed 33 minutes after it was opened.
And in the end, the fool was blocked for his vandalism and personal attacks.
Categories: Wikipedia
I photographed downtown Huntsville, er, Waynesboro, today.
April 27, 2006, 3:53 PM
For those of you who are movie buffs, the upcoming movie Evan Almighty (sequel to Bruce Almighty) had some scenes filmed in Waynesboro, specifically downtown. You won’t find me in the film, but you will see the city. For this, downtown Waynesboro is dressed up as “Huntsville”.
It’s interesting what they did to Waynesboro, too. First of all, banners hanging from the lampposts say “Huntsville Festival of Fine Arts”. Then the Waynesboro Heritage Museum, which is very much under renovation, was done up as a coffee shop, with tables and chairs outside on the sidewalk. The Charles T. Yancey Municipal Building, which was a Bank of America before it became a city building, was disguised as a church. The building’s real sign was concealed by trees, and a fake church sign was placed in front. It said, “Obeying God: That means you, Evan.” The sign was covered by a tarp when I did my shoot. And finally, there were all kinds of fake plants attached to the real ones, and placed in various other places. The trees had fake blossoms tied on with wire. There were also piles of mulch on the sidewalk, with fake flowers stuck in there. All in all, downtown Waynesboro looked pretty good. It makes me want to see the movie, if nothing else but to see how Waynesboro ends up looking in the movie, done up as Huntsville.
And I now have a photo set of it all, which you may very well see in Photography.
Categories: Movies, Photography, Waynesboro
“I must dance my dance… at last I am Jeffrey!”
April 14, 2006, 11:07 PM
First of all, yes, I realize that the title of this entry is a mis-quote, from “A Visit to the Opera” on Today’s Special. The correct end of that line is “at last I am set free!” I wrote it with “Jeffrey” in there because that’s how I initially heard it as a child. A little mondegreen right there. It made sense to me – the character of Lightning in “The Rainmakers” was played by Jeff Hyslop, and while it seemed odd that he would sing “At last I am Jeffrey,” it made sense.
But the reason I mention this is because you should have seen the lightning this evening! It looked like a fire drill in the sky with all the flashing going on. And it wasn’t just the twinkly kind of lightning. There were some serious lightning bolts, both in the sky, and also going towards the ground. Some of them really lit up the landscape in this very eerie blue color. They’re very spectacular to watch, but not so fun when you’re out and about, as I was. I hit the Blue Ridge Parkway after work to relax, which I take as far down as Buena Vista, where I cross over to Lexington and then go back home via US 11.
I didn’t get the lightning, though, until I got to Lexington. Thankfully, I had clear skies while I was on the Parkway, though there was a slight haze in the valley below. By the way, the Blue Ridge Parkway is NOT somewhere that you want to be when it’s raining. Because it’s high up in the mountains, it gets VERY foggy up there, and visibility often becomes practically zero.
Categories: Blue Ridge Parkway, Radio, Today's Special, Weather
Thirsty or not!
April 13, 2006, 9:48 PM
Well, I was productive today. I found a little tiny stub article on Wikipedia about the soda Grapette, and adopted it as one of my own, and fleshed it out into an article that very well could become a featured article one day.
But don’t take my word for it. Let me show you. This is what I started out with. And then this is what I turned it into. And this shows the differences in the last revision before I started and the final revision that I made.
And what’s funny is that Grapette doesn’t even particularly send me. The way people talk about this soda, you’d think it was the best thing since sliced bread. It’s a grape soda, and it tastes grapey. Whoopty-doo.
Otherwise, though, today was the first day that I broke out the shorts and flip-flops. It was in the upper 70s today, and being off work today, I went casual. Really casual. I wore my fire alarm t-shirt with it, and so life is good. I don’t wear my Schumin Web apparel nearly enough anymore. Still, life is good.
Categories: Food and drink, Wikipedia
“What is this?”
March 30, 2006, 12:37 AM
Sometimes people just astound me. First of all, I was very disappointed to find that Mike Brooks, one of my DC buddies, has been “disinvited” from the Infoshop. Translated, “disinvited” basically means “banned”. I was quite disappointed by that, and I considered that a major loss-of-cool-points for the Infoshop.
The other oddball thing at the Infoshop, which is in on the whole anti-Starbucks thing, was what I found on a shelf tucked away in the corner: Two packets of Starbucks Decaf. Seeing that, I held it up to show the attendant at the desk, and said mock-disapprovingly, “What is this?” The attendant didn’t have an answer for that one.
Meanwhile, I’m sure that Sis, who, on A16, left a demonstration to go to Starbucks, is going to really get a huge kick out of my Infoshop find.
Otherwise, I found quick food near Old Town in Alexandria. There’s a Whole Foods Market behind the Old Town Transit Shop, and it’s got a hot bar and a salad bar like Martin’s in Waynesboro. Notice I didn’t say “cheap food”, though. I said “quick food”. The reason is that Whole Foods is pretty darn pricey. Martin’s, which I consider expensive, looks dirt cheap when compared to Whole Foods.
Categories: DC trips, Radio, Some people
I got called “babe” today, by a man, in front of his wife!
March 26, 2006, 8:53 PM
Of all the stupid things people can say, the thing that a man in my line said today definitely took the cake.
First of all, for those of you who have seen pictures of me (and if you’re here at my site, it’s pretty hard not to), you can tell I’m obviously male.
Yet this man, after I handed him his change and his receipt, said, “Thanks, babe.”
I paused, so as to take a moment to digest this comment, which I was not expecting. Then I said, “Did you just call me ‘babe’?” He explained it away by saying that he was thinking about the cashier before me on that register (we’d just switched out just before I started ringing him up). Still, I wonder if he wanted a little salt with that foot, considering he said that right in front of his wife, of all people.
That just took the cake, let me tell you.
Categories: Some people, Walmart, Wikipedia
I went ice skating, and it was not exactly pretty…
March 1, 2006, 6:16 PM
First of all, I am back from ice skating at Pentagon Row, and all body parts are intact. And I think the best way to describe it was that I had no idea what I was doing.
Now mind you, I used to be a decent skater. That was back a long time ago, though. But a few coworkers said that skating was like riding a bicycle – once you learn, you never forget. They lied.
I took my FliteStar vest with me for this trip and used it on the ice, primarily due to the length of time between skating experiences.
I also got one of the skate guards to take pictures of me while out on the ice, so there is photographic proof of it. One of those photos is on the splash page for March.
Funny the way things work sometimes…
February 22, 2006, 9:23 PM
Who would have thought back when I was made fun of by Greg Galcik on his Spinnwebe site back in 2000 that now, in 2006, I would be one of the stronger defenders of the Spinnwebe article on Wikipedia?
It’s true!
The article on Spinnwebe on Wikipedia is up for deletion again, after having previously been deleted out from under us, and after someone else recreated the article. I have voted to keep the article, needless to say. I also was the initial creator of the original Spinnwebe article.
This whole process also goes to show how some people can get when they’re determined to accomplish something. A few users seem dead set on killing the article about Spinnwebe. It just kind of amazes me.
Categories: Wikipedia
What Schumin does on his “weekend”…
January 27, 2006, 12:51 AM
My Wednesday-Thursday weekend was fun. I got to accomplish a few things that I’d wanted to do. First of all, I attempted to visit the new Martin’s store in Waynesboro, that opened up next to Wal-Mart. I attempted to get in, but the store was so crowded that I ended up having to scratch that idea, since I wasn’t about to park at Wal-Mart and walk over to Martin’s. There were literally no parking spaces available in the Martin’s lot. I consider that too far of a distance to walk, plus I consider it rude to park in one business’s parking lot to patronize their competitor. I did, however, get the chance to fill up the car, since Martin’s has a gas station on its premises. I got to fill up for $2.19 a gallon, too, which is pretty good for Waynesboro at this time (the nearby Exxon and Citgo stations were selling at $2.29 a gallon).
After that, I took a trip to Roanoke, which worked out well despite that the friend I was supposed to meet up with in Roanoke never got back with me (so we didn’t end up meeting up). I ended up visiting my usual Roanoke spots, plus I also drove over to Salem, where I basically took a little driving tour of the town. So that was fun.
Categories: Martin's, Roanoke, Schumin Web meta, Shopping, Wikipedia