A fun little trip to the Valley…
11 minute read
December 26, 2024, 10:03 AM
From December 18-20, Elyse and I took a trip down to Virginia, staying in the Staunton area. This was the usual one of these trips, where we go down, do stuff, and then see my parents. This time, we went down via US 29 and back via I-81. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as big of a photography trip as I’d hoped, owing mostly to weather conditions. But overall, we had a good time.
We started out with a side trip in Northern Virginia, stopping at a small Polish grocery store in Vienna that Elyse had previously identified. Nice place. Then we continued, stopping at an antique mall in Culpeper. That began as a restroom stop for Elyse, but as it would turn out, they had a big area with model train stuff, which Elyse spent some time looking at. She ended up getting a small model railcar from there. I found two things interesting. First, they had a vintage exit sign in the back:
Continue reading…Categories: Family, Fire alarms, Friends, Roads, Staunton, Travel, Virginia, Waynesboro
When you realize that you got dumped for being autistic…
6 minute read
December 16, 2024, 8:47 AM
It’s funny what kinds of things cross your mind sometimes. I was preparing some material for my photo site, which is work of a more “mechanical” nature, i.e. it doesn’t require much in the way of thinking. When I’m doing this kind of work, my mind has space to wander. And for some reason, in this instance, my mind went to the relationship that I had with a girl named Sarah Chegash back in 1998. We were both 17, and we both worked at CFW Information Services doing directory assistance. We went to different schools, so we only ever saw each other at work. She started there in the summer of 1998, after I had been working there about a year, and we really hit it off. We chatted a lot, and we would give each other smiles from across the room. It was really cute. We started dating in November of that year, but it only lasted a few weeks before she dumped me, and then she quit her job at CFW not long after our relationship ended.
When we were dating, it was not exactly the easiest thing ever. I suppose that I got too caught up in my own head about it, putting too much emphasis on the idea that it was a “date” and how to behave on account of that, and not about just enjoying the time with this person who had clearly shown an interest in me. “Highly nervous” would be putting it lightly. And she was trying to put the moves on me from time to time, but I was too uptight to actually respond or otherwise participate. I was like, I know that she is doing something that indicates interest, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to this. That said, because I had no idea how to respond, I did not reciprocate. All I knew is that was a very awkward situation, and I felt very uncomfortable, not so much because of what she was doing, but because I was totally clueless on what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to respond.
Meanwhile, what we did on our first date was so stereotypically me. We went up to the DC area and took the Metro from Vienna to Pentagon City, where we fully explored Pentagon City Mall. My first time transferring between the Orange Line and the Blue Line at Rosslyn was on that date. We had a good time, and I got to hit a few nerd goals, even if the time was a bit awkward overall. But getting on the train and being able to be a little nerdy about it at least made me feel slightly more comfortable.
Categories: Autism, Schumin Web meta, WMATA, Work
Yes, that is a photo of me in a red speedo…
9 minute read
December 1, 2024, 12:00 AM
Some of you may have been surprised to open the website today and find this photo staring back at you:
Categories: Artificial intelligence, Schumin Web meta, Social media