Please don’t stop for me when I’m waiting to cross the street…
5 minute read
August 25, 2018, 1:51 PM
On Thursday, while I was waiting for a bus, I witnessed a near accident involving a pedestrian at a crosswalk on Layhill Road near Glenfield Local Park in the Glenmont area of Montgomery County. In other words, this location, seen from approximately my vantage point:
Image: Google Street View
This view is facing approximately south, putting the northbound lanes on the left and the southbound lanes on the right. There is a median in the middle of the road. Southbound traffic has a turnout for traffic making left turns into the park police station (entrance visible at left). There are wide bike lanes on either side of the road. There is also a Metro facility entrance at this location (out of frame to the right). This intersection is not a big one by any means. There are no signals. Ride On has a bus stop on either side of the road at this location.
Continue reading…Categories: Roads, Silver Spring
I finally found it after twenty years…
3 minute read
August 14, 2018, 1:38 PM
When my family went to England back in 1998, we mainly watched Sky One, which ran American television shows, when we were at the hotel. I suppose that we watched mostly American TV because it was familiar. The commercials, however, were very British. Three commercials stuck out in my mind while we were there. One was for Ribena, which featured a pregnant woman explaining how beneficial it was during pregnancy. One was for some mac and cheese product where two boys were playing a game, and the younger boy’s job was to stand there and hold the antenna, complaining, “My arm hurts!” at the end of the spot. And then the third was for Lucozade, a sports drink.
That third one, for Lucozade, was by far the most memorable of the three, primarily because of some rather racy content. It featured several men wearing nothing but mountie hats putting on a show, while a bunch of cartoon women watched. At one point, they explain that because this variety of Lucozade is low in calories, it helps them “stay firm”, as the camera pans from the face down their body, stopping at their stomach, where the man says, “Where it counts!” as he pats his stomach. Very memorable, and very British. You would certainly never see a spot like that in the United States.
Back in the nineties, it was never a thought that we would be able to find this commercial. Of course not. The technology and the will wasn’t there. Now, though, with sites like YouTube and the like, a lot of older advertisements have seen new life for nostalgic purposes, which is a welcome addition. After all, full television programs tend to have good repeat value, but commercials, due to their more timely nature, rarely get airtime again after their planned run is completed. There are exceptions, like that Arby’s “five roast beef sandwiches” spot and the Fruity Pebbles spot with Santa, which ran for quite a few years, but for the most part, they’re one-and-done.
Categories: Advertising, Travel
Was I right to have been upset about this?
4 minute read
August 7, 2018, 6:18 PM
While participating in a discussion on Reddit, it conjured up the memory of something that happened in my junior year of college that left me a bit unsettled at the time, and on which I never got any closure. Before I begin, be advised – the events described here occurred more than 16 years ago, so at this point, this discussion is purely academic.
While I was a resident advisor in Potomac Hall in 2001-2002, there were two occasions where I was asked to swap office duty shifts near the end of the year. On the first occasion, the person who wanted to switch with me told me that it was for a family emergency. In that instance, I agreed to switch days without question, because I would expect the same thing for me should a similar situation arise for me. I remember seeing that person in the building that night, and thought, I thought that you had a family emergency, but dismissed it, because that really wasn’t my place to judge. Then on the second occasion, a different person asked me to switch duty days so that they could attend an awards ceremony. I said no, because I didn’t want to trade days, and an awards ceremony wasn’t an emergency. I held my ground on that, but later relented after my hall director, Mecca Marsh, whom I’ve written about previously in this space, turned the colleague’s request into an order from the boss. So I was a bit annoyed about that, especially since I knew that Mecca would have never taken my side like that should I have been in the same situation. But in the end, I did as I was told.
Then fast forward a month or so later. The colleague who swapped shifts with me for the awards ceremony brought a video over to show me. The video depicted a probate ceremony for an historically black sorority on campus. I learned a lot from the video, which both of my colleagues were in, because prior to this, I didn’t know anything about how historically black Greek letter organizations worked. My colleague did a great job in explaining to me what was going on, why it was going on, and the significance of it all. Then they went on to explain that sorority events were the real reason for the “awards ceremony”, and the other person’s “family emergency”. They couldn’t tell me what they were really doing because they were sworn to secrecy.
New rugs!
5 minute read
August 2, 2018, 10:28 AM
So I have a little house update for you: carpet! In the last month or so, I finally got the area rug question figured out, and procured and placed three area rugs in the house. It makes for a much richer setting with some area rugs on the hardwood floors. I put area rugs in my bedroom, the back bedroom, and the dining area part of the the living room. So now, all three bedrooms and the living room have rugs in them.
For some reason, choosing home decor tends to stress me out. I popped so many Advils in the process of picking these carpets. I think it’s because it’s a significant cash outlay, because (A) furniture and carpet aren’t cheap, and (B) it’s something that you really don’t want to return, especially if if required special arrangements to get it home in the first place. Choosing what loveseat to buy for the mezzanine was difficult, as I visited so many stores in search of the perfect loveseat. I eventually settled on an Ektorp loveseat from IKEA, which turned out to be the perfect thing to put up in the mezzanine.
Deciding on the area rugs took the stress from the loveseat search and multiplied it by twelve. I had three rooms to outfit, and each had to be perfect, but I didn’t know what “perfect” was. I knew what my dimensions needed to be, and then worked from there. I spent many nights on Amazon looking at area rugs. More headaches. I went to Walmart and Target’s websites. Nothing good – need more Advil. I went down to Big Lots and came out empty, save for a brand new headache. I also went to Ollie’s up in Jessup, and came out with something for Elyse, but no rugs. And rugs were my responsibility, since Elyse didn’t quite understand why I was so wound up about rugs, and often suggested that I “just pick something”.
Categories: House