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A trip to New Jersey with Elyse and Woomy…

August 14, 2022, 7:57 PM

On Thursday, July 28, Elyse and I took a trip up to New Jersey.  The main purpose of the trip was to visit the Scrub Daddy headquarters in Pennsauken, where the company has a retail store.  Then we built a day around this in order to justify the trip.  We were no stranger to Scrub Daddy by any means, as we had previously stopped by their facility on the last day of our Atlantic City trip back in January, just to see where it was.  I remember how excited Elyse was during that visit to Scrub Daddy’s headquarters, and on that occasion, we just photographed the outside of the building, since the retail store wasn’t ready yet.  I could only imagine how excited Elyse would be going in and actually seeing the place.

We left the house around 10:00 AM, and got as far as Delaware House by noon.  This was to be our potty stop on the way up.  Elyse noticed an Edwards Integrity on the outside of the facility, and got some photos of it:

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So what’s the other seven percent, then?

February 14, 2012, 11:46 PM

So I was perusing the Target store in Wheaton this evening, and ran across this:

Justin's Maple Almond Butter: 93% organic!

So if it’s “93% organic” as the manufacturer of Justin’s Maple Almond Butter claims, what’s in the other seven percent that’s not? Remember that USDA regulates the use of the word “organic” when it comes to food. So since they’re not carrying the organic certification mark, one would presume that it’s not really “organic” food. So why even bring it up, then? That seems odd to say the least.

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But does Verizon provide the dancing speaker?

January 3, 2012, 11:30 PM

So while I was out on New Year’s Eve, I saw a commercial on TV for Verizon Home Monitoring and Control, which apparently controls door locks, turns the lights on and off, monitors energy systems, allows one to adjust the thermostat, and allows one to monitor activity in the house via cameras. All of this can be done remotely online. I saw this, and I was like, “They’ve created TXL!”

Yes, that TXL:

TXL Series 4, from "Babies"

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Categories: Products, Today's Special

What an, um… unfortunate… placement right there…

October 6, 2011, 11:02 PM

This is a rather unfortunate design:

A rather unfortunate design

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Categories: Amusing, Products

This time, I am saying something substantive while on camera…

August 21, 2010, 11:54 PM

So I gave the “Schumin Web Video Journal” (a name I came up with after I filmed this) a spin once again:

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Ladies: Would you really want your guy smelling like a cheeseburger?

December 18, 2008, 11:11 PM

You know, I thought it was enough getting used to the scent of the Brut. But then one of my coworkers forwarded me an Email about Burger King’s releasing a meat-scented cologne for men. Seriously. Take a look.

I don’t know about you, but that’s not the kind of scent I would want to be spraying on myself. Honestly, the smell of meat is not the kind of scent I would want to wear to impress someone. Personally, if I encountered someone smelling like meat, I’d start to wonder. “So are you carrying a few hamburgers in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” Besides, hamburgers, and especially fast food hamburgers, are kind of gross. For that matter, Burger King food is just disgusting in general, and along with McDonald’s, I try to avoid it.

Personally, I’ve never really seen the point of cologne in general. It makes you smell like something, but you usually have to really use your imagination to decide just what the stuff smells like. However, even the cheap stuff costs too much money, and too often, cologne is done badly by the person wearing it. I remember two specific examples of colognes done badly. One was my sophomore year in college. My RA in Potomac Hall wore way too much cologne. You could smell him coming way before you saw him. His fumes preceded him. Likewise, when I worked at Wal-Mart, there was this one guy who wore too much cologne who worked the cigarette line regularly. His fumes preceded him, too. He smelled awful because he wore far too much cologne.

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Categories: Products, Walmart

This new deodorant is burning my nose today…

December 18, 2008, 1:31 PM

Well, folks, I made one of those changes last night that only happens once a decade. I changed my deodorant brand. I used to use Old Spice, but am now giving Brut a whirl. We’ll see how that goes, I suppose.

But today is definitely the break-in period. Any time you change deodorant scents, even within the same brand, you can really smell it on the first day or so. So today, I can’t smell anything except for Brut. As far as I’m concerned, the whole office smells like Brut (even though I know it’s really me that smells of it). And this new scent is burning my nose. Seriously, it’s enough of a change that I’m getting that burning feeling in my nose. Of course, I’ll get used to the smell and then won’t be able to smell it anymore, but for now, it’s burning my nose.

The only problem with Brut, however, is that it’s a bit harder to find than I expected. I went to Target and Shoppers with no luck, and then finally found it at CVS. So we might still be giving a few more things a try.

Until then, though, my nose is getting used to a new scent…

Categories: Products

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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Every time I see one of these…

October 19, 2007, 11:01 AM

…I just want to run it off the road. What am I referring to? Take a look:

Hummer limousine

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Categories: Products

I got my strap, and I got a battery for the Lappy…

October 21, 2006, 6:21 PM

My strap and the Lappy’s battery came on the same day. First of all, thank you to everyone who made suggestions regarding both items.

Interestingly, Mom intercepted the package for the strap before I got home, and was wondering about the fact that I’d ordered from a scuba company. After all, I’ve never expressed an interest in scuba diving, nor have I even so much as mentioned it in passage. And then Mom sees this package, a nondescript brown box, addressed to me, with “scuba.com” as the return address. So it caught her interest. And so I explained the whole story, as I already explained to you here, ending with, “And no, I’m not planning on taking up scuba diving.”

I still find it amusing, though, that the only place where I could find a replacement strap was through a scuba place. Of all places, a scuba place. That just doesn’t make sense, but I’m like, sure. At least I got a new strap. And the bag rides like two inches higher with the new strap than it used to, and I have no problem with that. So all is well on that front.

And meanwhile, we scored a direct hit with the Lappy’s battery. We got an exact replacement, and it snapped right in, and now it’s charging peacefully.

So once again, all is well!

Categories: Computer, Family, Products

My kingdom for a notepad cover!

October 1, 2006, 10:20 PM

Remember back in October 2004, when I wrote this Journal entry? It was about when a company called Myron sent me a notepad with a flip-top cover as a free sample, printed with the name of my father’s consulting business, “Evolved Quality Consulting”.

I actually started using that notepad back in August 2005, and still do. I’ve actually refilled the notepad twice since I got it. I use it to log the transit vehicles that I ride in. For instance, this is what I logged in my little notepad on September 24, 2005:

Transit log, September 24, 2005

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Categories: Products

I bought a confetti maker…

July 21, 2006, 8:50 PM

Yes, I bought a confetti maker – in other words, paper shredder – after work yesterday. I figure it’s a good thing to have, so that one can shred all of one’s confidential but no longer needed documents. And I made sure to get the cross cut shredder, thus the “confetti maker” term. I like the cross cut shredder over the strip cut shredder.

I bought it at Staples. Since they had display models set up in the store, I shredded some things with the floor model before I bought one of my own. I think I destroyed about half of their brochures on shredding before I decided to get one. After all, though, one has to make sure that everything gets shredded into confetti to one’s satisfaction before going off and purchasing one.

Now I just need to play with this thing. Just don’t do like Fred Pfisterer wrote about in his “Follow the Leader” column, where he wrote that he shredded, among other things, the instructions to his shredder. I just need to make sure that anything important is locked away and out of sight before I have a shredding party. Don’t want to destroy anything important by accident now…

Categories: Products

My new DVD/VCR combo unit seems to work!

June 12, 2006, 12:40 AM

Tonight, I bought a new DVD/VCR combo unit to replace my old VCR, which died a while back. I figure I got my money’s worth out of the old one. It was a cheap VCR that I bought eight years ago, and it’s served me well. Now, it’s in the trash, as it would no longer play anything. It would start up, show a still image for a few seconds, power off, and then spit out the tape.

I was originally going to go with another cheap VCR, but the only cheap VCR that Wal-Mart had was one that I’d seen come back a lot. Basically, enough times to where one could figure out that the product is crap. I asked the associate to open the box for me so I could look at the remote, and that’s when I realized exactly what VCR it was. I’d seen that interior before, as I’d fished through that model’s box before at the Service Desk looking for all the right material.

So I went a notch up and bought a combo DVD/VCR. I ended up getting a Magnavox this time around (the old VCR was an Orion). Oooooooh.

I also took the opportunity to rearrange all of my wires for the cable, TV, VCR, Super Nintendo, and TV card. The old setup received interference from one of my computer monitors, which created weird effects in the TV picture. So yanking out all the cords worked out. This new setup receives no interference, and the picture is GREAT.

Categories: Products

“I’m just an alley cat, with an alley life…”

September 16, 2005, 11:47 PM

You may have seen this before:

Alley Cat in normal position

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Categories: Halloween, Products