Malcolm X Park: Mission Accomplished
July 7, 2005, 9:48 PM
Yes, I had a very productive time in Washington DC. Though I did get a touch of a late start. But we recovered. I ended up making up the time by hurrying along my Sheetz stop on the way up, plus traffic was lighter than usual going in. Usually I hit a considerable bottleneck from mile 41-45 on eastbound I-66, and this time, while I did encounter traffic (slowed due to construction vehicle movements), it was not as bad as I’ve seen it. So I was able to breeze right through. I still got to Vienna a touch late, but no problem.
I also finally found some background information on the I-66 construction.
At Vienna, I got a pleasant surprise – a parking spot on the top level, close to the elevator. Usually, and especially since the garage rehabilitation project began, I can only get a parking spot in the North Garage after 10:00, when the guaranteed spaces open up. So that was handy. Also, the rehabilitation work has moved once again, now encompassing the western ramp between levels. How strange it is to have that section closed off now, since that’s the ramp I usually use going up and down.
Continue reading…Categories: DC trips, Driving, Food and drink, Homestar Runner, Shopping, Walmart, Washington DC, WMATA
We have Nintendo!
July 1, 2005, 7:05 PM
I got it all working, though not through the fix that I intended. The good thing, though, is that I can return the RF switch to Radioshack, since it turns out the problem was not the switch, but where in my massive array of stuff that I hooked it up. I don’t know. Don’t ask me. But it works.
Then I had to find the controllers. I have four Super Nintendo controllers. One is the standard-issue SNES control pad with purple buttons. One is some sort of weird turbo pad that doesn’t work. Then I have two “Superpad” SNES controllers, which look exactly like the standard-issue controllers, except they say “Superpad” on them and have the Super Famicom-style colors for the buttons (think the different-colored Yoshis).
Of course, when I dug the SNES and stuff out, I found only two controllers. The standard-issue one, and the non-working one (that I didn’t know didn’t work at the time). The Superpad ones were nowhere to be found. As you know, I’ve been cleaning out the closet and going through and tossing lots of stuff, considerably lightening my load. The closet looks good. So in looking for the two Superpad controllers, I ended up turning my room upside down. Went through the different totes of stuff, went hunting in dresser drawers, my desk, in stuff, under stuff, through my fire alarms, you name it. You know where I eventually found the controllers?
Categories: Video games
Still offline, but what a productive day!
July 1, 2005, 4:05 PM
I’m still offline and entering this Journal entry directly into the database, but I found out from Dad what most likely caused this outage. It turns out that the storm that I was outrunning in Amherst County last night was the likely cause of our losing Internet service. According to Dad, that’s when the outage occurred – during the storm. And it seems it was more intense in Stuarts Draft than where I was. Remember that I caught a lot of heavy rain between the town of Amherst and Lovingston in Nelson County. No thunder and lightning while I was getting the rain.
So we’ll see. We’ve got a guy coming to the house tomorrow to take a look at it.
Meanwhile, I got a lot of stuff accomplished today. I paid a bill related to that surgery I had in February, and then I went to the bank to deposit a check. So that worked out well. After that, I went to Radioshack in Waynesboro to pick up an RF switch that will hopefully make my Super Nintendo come to life again (more on that in a second). Then lastly, I went to Goodwill in Waynesboro and dropped off a whole load of stuff from the closet. Nice place, and I was in and out in five minutes. Smelled like a combination of old clothes and new building, though, but such is to be expected.
Categories: Internet, Shopping, Video games
It only took me a month, but it’s done!
June 29, 2005, 11:41 PM
Yay! The closet is clean! It only took me a month to do, but the closet is completely devoid of all of my crap. And I took no prisoners. Sixteen tubs’ worth of crap went to the landfill. I have one tub’s worth of stuff that I’m keeping/selling/donating. Not much came out of the closet that was of any worth, though.
I did find some interesting stuff, though. One was an old videotape of early-1990s television that I had been looking for on and off for years. Turned out it was in my old toy box the whole time. How it got there, I don’t know. But that tape was a lot of fun to watch again. It contains, among other things, a re-airing of the original 1990 pilot of America’s Funniest Home Videos. Let me say this about it. The pilot was awful, but it showed great potential.
Speaking of my old toy box, we found it, and it’s in pretty good shape. I cleaned it completely out, and Mom and I are going to refinish it. Right now, it’s got some splinters in it, mostly around the edges, it’s got some weird marks on it, and some discoloration. So we intend on sanding it and painting it before it sees a new life storing whatever it is that I choose to put in there. It could hold a lot of stuff.
Categories: House, Schumin Web meta, Video games
An online survey
June 16, 2005, 12:05 PM
I thought I’d try one of those Email surveys. You know, the ones all your friends send you (you know, the ones that won’t be your friend much longer because they keep sending you all those annoying forward-this Emails). I’d gotten the idea that I wanted to do one on here, and you know me… I tend to be a little long-winded. So let’s take it for a spin, using this survey that I found online.
So, as Strong Bad might say, “Let’s get this train wreck a-rollin!”
WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES?
The plates in my kitchen are green and white, with an ivy theme on them. They’re cute, but when I find a real job and move out, I’m not getting anything like that. My dinnerware is going to be black, which is really shaping up to be a color I really like.
Categories: Netculture
“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
June 14, 2005, 10:42 PM
On my lunch break, I went to our in-store McDonald’s to get lunch, since our lines on the front end were backed out the wazoo (even the self-checkouts!). McDonald’s wasn’t busy. So since they weren’t busy, I decided to see what their reaction would be. I came up to the counter, and said that famous line of Wimpy‘s: “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
And the reaction?
*crickets chirping with blank stares*
Yeah, none of the people at the counter got it. The manager, however, did get it, and got a kick out of it.
Sometimes throwing pop culture references around is fun. Also amusing is that today was Thesday, so “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” was rather odd. Of course, I did gladly pay them Tuesday for a hamburger today, since it was Tuesday and all…
Categories: Food and drink, Television
Today was a good day, though a long day.
June 13, 2005, 6:01 PM
Today was a good day. It was also a long day, but a good day nonetheless. The customers were nice, and seemed to do fairly well today on the self-checkouts, compared to a weekend, where people seem to have trouble on them.
All in all, it was quite a pleasant day. It seemed to be a long day, too, but it was a good day. And we were comfortably busy. Not bad.
And then otherwise, I realized that I’m nearly two weeks late writing this month’s newsletter. I guess with everything going on lately it just totally slipped my mind. Well, I’m going to rectify that just as soon as I finish this Journal entry.
Today was also an interesting head-music day for me. I had the weirdest songs floating through my head today. I had Marzipan’s scroll buttons song running through my head. I had the Crying Kitten song in my head today. I had the I Love You Kitten song stuck in my head. I had Yatta playing on a loop in my head. Today just seemed to be a day for all the different “Internet Songs” to take over my mind.
Categories: Homestar Runner, Netculture, Television, Walmart
I can’t believe it’s been a year…
June 5, 2005, 8:09 PM
I can’t believe it’s been a year since the June 5 anti-war demonstration sponsored by ANSWER Coalition. I can’t get over that it’s been that long.
Goodness… I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember being excited, but a little bit nervous, since it would be my first time as a true participant, vs. the previous one where I’d stayed on the sidelines the whole time.
I wrote about the June 5 demonstration in the Journal back in June 2004, and it’s good reading. I still regret packing Big Mavica for that demonstration, as all the photos I took were taken with my cell phone. It was a good day temperature-wise, as the rain that fell that day cooled things off a bit.
After the march, I found myself near the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan station. I visited a nearby McDonald’s, where other participants in the march went afterwards, and I also helped out a girl who was in tears because she was stranded by her boyfriend in DC, hundreds of miles from home (she was from the Virginia Beach area). I provided comfort, and help. She was nice. I hope things worked out for her in the end.
Categories: Activism, DC trips, Driving, Video games, Walmart
The ice man cometh on Tuesdays!
April 5, 2005, 8:24 PM
In our Wal-Mart in Waynesboro, the guy from Reddy Ice comes on Tuesday mornings to fill up the ice machines. And so it’s an excuse to be funny. I say, “The ice man cometh.” And it’s one of those things where it’s perfectly accurate. The ice man did cometh. And he bringeth ice. I asked the Reddy Ice guy one time how many people say “the ice man cometh” when he comes to do the ice machine. I found out that he hears that A LOT… practically at every stop he makes. Of course, if you are the ice man, you must cometh. And we prefer an ice man who bringeth ice. That way, we can selleth ice to the customers.
I remember the first time I heard the phrase “the ice man cometh” (or “the iceman cometh”, your pick). It was on America’s Funniest Home Videos. The video showed a man in a martial arts uniform on a stage coming up to a rack of four large blocks of ice. He strikes it, and then falls off the stage, through the ice. The voiceover by Bob Saget was, “The ice man cometh. The ice man breaketh. The ice man falleth.”
Otherwise, though, today was a decent day. I got to rectify my pet peeves today. In other words, I got to neaten up and pull the trash out of the registers today. And dust what needed dusting. Nothing irritates me more than when I come to a register to work, and find that the people before me left me some “surprises” stuffed in weird places. And I always discover them at the most inopportune times, too.
Maybe one day I’ll have a job where I have a desk that only I use, and so I won’t come to work and find little “surprises” in funny places.
Categories: Television, Walmart
“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a credit card today.”
February 25, 2005, 10:34 PM
My friend Katie was working a table in the front of the store today getting people to sign up for a Wal-Mart Credit Card, instead of working in her usual spot back in the Garden Center. So Katie was right near me, in my usual spot somewhere along the front end. So as I was passing by, I borrowed a line from J. Wellington Wimpy, better known simply as “Wimpy” from the Popeye cartoons, saying, “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a credit card today.” Of course, Wimpy used to say, “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
But it was still amusing. Some people got my Wimpy reference and were amused by it, and for others it went right over their heads.
Otherwise, though, my day was good. I read in the newspaper in the breakroom that NASA has figured out a way to prevent the Columbia disaster from reoccurring. If the shuttle is damaged so as to make reentry dangerous, the crew will wait in the International Space Station until another shuttle with a four-man crew can arrive. For this first launch, Discovery will be the shuttle going on the mission, and should something go wrong, they’ll send Atlantis after it. Then should something go wrong, they’d undock Discovery from the station and dock Atlantis. They would then ditch Discovery by remote control and send it to a watery grave in the Pacific Ocean. Then Atlantis would return with eleven people on board – a world record.
I think it’s odd to hear them talking about ditching a Space Shuttle. The thought of this huge, expensive vehicle having to be “ditched” is just someting that struck me as strange. But it is a possibility, and it must be considered. I’m sure if they could do a rescue mission and then ditch Columbia, those seven astronauts would still be with us today.
Categories: Space, Television, Walmart
I might not have been able to go to DC, but I did get something accomplished…
February 24, 2005, 11:18 PM
I did actually get something accomplished today! Inspired by the umpteenth Email about pictures not working, or the odd state of multimedia on the site, I finally pulled out all my Webmaster’s tools and went to work hammering out that long-deferred new design for the Today’s Special site. In order to keep things neat, there will be a strong influence from the current version of The Schumin Web. To keep its Today’s Special character, the color scheme and a number of other stylings will remain from the existing site.
So let’s compare old to new:
This is the old site. It’s got a classic layout and look, but it definitely needs an update. But it is indisputably Today’s Special. Note the inclusion of details from the Children’s Department on the show along the top of the screen.
Categories: Schumin Web meta, Today's Special
No high-speed Internet yet…
January 26, 2005, 8:43 PM
Nope. No high-speed Internet. More 56K. Oh, boy.
Well, not yet. We have to get the cable guy over to make a house call to get it started because they say that something is wrong hardware-wise somewhere along the line. So they’re coming on Sunday to fix it and hopefully get it going.
Still, I did buy $300 worth of stuff at Wal-Mart to hook everyone up with it. About half of that equipment is opened and scattered around my room. Some of it’s hooked up. Some of it is halfway hooked up. I had to stop when we found out that a house call was needed.
All I have to say is that I’m pleased and upset all at the same time. I’m pleased because I know that it’s not a mistake on my part, and that I most likely did it correctly. But then I’m upset because I have to wait for my high-speed Internet, which I’d be hoping to write this Journal entry on this evening.
Somehow, we’ll get it all straight in the end, I’m sure.
Categories: Internet, Power Rangers
I don’t know what it is about this time of year that makes me want to start a project at home
January 13, 2005, 7:44 PM
Yeah, Sis is going back to school on Sunday, and I’m again going to use her room as swing space. This time, I’m attacking the problem spots in my room. Mainly those spots where junk accumulates.
Let me put it to you this way: I still have the tubs of junk from my Potomac Hall room in the middle of my floor, nearly two years later. I moved them out when I redecorated last year, and then moved them back in afterwards. This time, I’m officially attacking those tubs. And the closet. And whatever other corners and spots have become junk repositories.
Here’s the battle plan. Sis’s floor will be divided up into four sections. One area will be “keep”. One will be “sell”, which I intend to list on eBay. A third will be “trash”. And a fourth will be “Goodwill”. Now that we have a new Goodwill store in Waynesboro right next to Wal-Mart, I’m most likely going to donate a boatload of stuff from this adventure to Goodwill. Still, I intend to make this room more livable than it is right now. Besides, I’d have to do this anyway after I find a job in Washington and move out. So I might as well just do it now.
Categories: House, Today's Special
“…he was from New Jersey! I went to my senior prom with a YANKEE!”
January 13, 2005, 7:22 PM
That line of Blanche’s from The Golden Girls just cracks me up. Since, you see, I am originally from New Jersey, and still consider myself northern, even though I’ve lived in Virginia for more than half my life.
This is why I love it when people say that I sound northern, like one person told me today. Shows I haven’t lost it. And let me tell you – the word “y’all” is not in my vocabulary. And if ever you hear me say “y’all”, slap me.
Meanwhile, I’m going to the doctor’s office tomorrow for pain. Where? Wrists! Over Christmas, I managed to get a repetitive stress injury in both wrists from scanning items for customers. Now it’s painful to scan stuff. I had this happen in 2003 in my right wrist only, and then it went away after a while on the Service Desk. This time it’s both wrists, and I am so done with the Service Desk, so that’s not an escape again. I’m hoping to get some “feel-good medicine” to make me feel good (thus “feel-good medicine”) and make the pain go away. Usually I do so well, and nothing ever ails me. Then within the last month or so, I got two colds in a row in December, and then this. Yuck.
Categories: Activism, Fire drills, Personal health, Television
Today was a busy Saturday…
January 8, 2005, 7:28 PM
Yes, this was a busy day today. Though not nearly as bad as pre-Christmas, mind you. Still, this reinforces the point that I cannot stand the express lanes – the “20 items or less” lanes where every other customer comments about that “rule”, getting on my nerves in the process, and the fact that the customers put their items on the edge of the counter without fail. And the more delicate and breakable they are, the closer they put it to the edge. Then there are the debit reader machines. If you’ve ever paid with a card at Wal-Mart, you’ll know that when you’re finished, the machine displays “ask cashier to press debit key” or “ask cashier to press credit key”. And so I hear a hundred times a day from customers, “Press the credit key” or “You need to press the credit key”. I don’t think that they realize that I can see what method they’ve used without their interaction. I so wish Wal-Mart would change that message to something else, like “Thank you” so that I don’t have to be told by umpteen customers how to do my job like I’m an idiot.
Anyway, end of rant.
Meanwhile, I need to make an appointment with the doctor for a repetitive-stress injury that I got around Christmas that I had hoped would go away on its own. So it hurts in both wrists to scan some items. And unlike some people, I’m not out for blood. I’m just concerned about getting better. That’s all.