Two trade-in bids for the Sable, and some roadgeekery in between!
8 minute read
March 10, 2012, 5:36 PM
First of all, you knew I was also a bit of a roadgeek. I admit – I am. I’m a nerd about transportation in so many different ways. But interestingly enough, I’m not that into cars. But in any case…
So I am coming ever closer to replacing the Sable with a Kia Soul. Today I went to two Kia dealers that my guy at the credit union had previously spoken with and had gotten bids from for a Soul. My goal was to get bids from these dealers for a trade-in on the Sable, and of course they would need to actually see and feel the Sable to do that.
The first place I went to was JBA Kia in Ellicott City. This was surprisingly closer than I expected. Baltimore seems so far off to me, and Ellicott City is a suburb of Baltimore. I felt like I was there in no time. Arriving there, I explained what was going on, how I had been working with my guy at the credit union, etc. So they knew what to do, but they didn’t exactly give me a warm and fuzzy feeling in the process. I had to explain multiple times that I was not interested in discussing new cars with them (since I would do that exclusively through my guy at the credit union), and that I was there only for the bid on the Sable. You could tell that they were none too happy that I wouldn’t give them a chance to swindle me. If it tells you about the vibe that I got from this dealership, I posted this about it to my Facebook:
Continue reading…Commuter, railfan, transit nerd, and photographer…
2 minute read
March 5, 2012, 11:34 PM
And this past week, it seemed to all come together. Twice in the last week, I was interviewed on things related to Metro.
The first was for a three-minute video, where a group of Corcoran students interviewed me as a Metro commuter. They also interviewed Chris Barnes, aka @FixWMATA, as a vocal Twitter user, and then Metro chief spokesperson Dan Stessel representing Metro. That was actually a lot of fun to do. About a week and a half ago, I was approached about the possibility of appearing in the short video on Metro. I agreed, and so then on Monday the 27th, the group producing the video met me at my apartment complex. There, they wired me for sound, and filmed me on my commute and we talked about commuting via Metro. I am a daily Metro and bus rider, and one of the things that I shared was that I do have my commute down to a science. I know exactly what time I need to be at a given point in my commute in order to make my connections and then get home at the time. I also shared how since so many people take Metro, if the Red Line is going to be messed up, then a lot of people in the office will be affected.
Then the video also shows my particular geekish side, as they got a good shot of me doing my little transit log book, writing down the number of CAF 5188.
Categories: WMATA
The rule on pricing at Tysons II is, “If you have to ask, you cannot afford it.”
8 minute read
March 4, 2012, 4:17 PM
This weekend was certainly a blast. My mother came to visit, and we went to Tysons Corner on Saturday.
The plan was for Mom and I to meet at Vienna. It made sense, since she was coming from Virginia, Tysons is in Virginia, and I could take Metro to meet her, thus only have to take one car out. And Vienna is somewhere that all of us were familiar with from countless visits to the DC area before I moved up here. So my plan was to take the bus to Glenmont and then Metro the rest of the way. First thing I learned was that Nextbus, while useful for the most part, is still very much not perfect. I left the house based on a prediction of a Y8 in 12 minutes, and so I headed down to the corner. It does not take 12 minutes to get down to the corner, but when I got there, there was no bus, and the bus that I was tracking had dropped off the screen, with the next bus not supposed to show up for 45 minutes, which would make me very late. So I ended up walking to Glenmont, because I knew I could walk there in less time than it would take to wait for the bus. I had never walked to the Metro from my house before. I had done from Metro to home many times, but never the reverse. The uphill walk was very good for working the calves, since my legs were sore by the time I got to Glenmont. I might have to do that more often. It was a good workout, and helpful on a week where I had missed a pool session.
Once I got to the Metro, I got a seat on a train, and all was well. Mom, however, for reasons that neither one of us can quite figure out, got turned around a bit, and so my lateness ended up working out for her. I don’t know if she missed a sign for Vienna or what, but she managed to get lost. No idea how. And it’s frustrating when she’s lost in an area that I’m not entirely familiar with myself. Usually, I can guide someone over the phone to get wherever they need to, but I’m not that familiar with the neighborhood around Vienna station. I know how to reach the station from both sides of I-66, I know how to get to Route 123 from Vienna via Nutley Street, and I know how to reach the shopping center with the Safeway and Micro Center in it, and I know that there’s a high school northwest of the station, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge of that area. So I couldn’t help her as much as I usually can, since she didn’t know where she was very well, and neither did I. Somehow, she ended up at Dunn Loring station, and told me as much. My response: “Good. Stay there.” After all, she managed to get to an Orange Line station, and so all was well. None of us quite know how she managed to get to Dunn Loring, though, since I would have expected, if she was going to land at a different Metro, to end up at West Falls Church, which is also very close to I-66 and easily accessed from there. Dunn Loring, not so much. I don’t even know how to get to Dunn Loring by car. Only time I’d ever been to Dunn Loring before is for railfanning, since I think station visits are just as important as riding in the first car.
Yes, I am probably the only one who would make fire alarms out of Legos…
4 minute read
February 19, 2012, 1:27 PM
So I went to Arundel Mills yesterday. Trips to Arundel Mills are always fun because there’s so much going on in that place. My goal was to get shoes, and at that I was unsuccessful. I need to buy new shoes because my existing shoes are, according to my podiatrist, a bit too long for me. When you have feet as wide as mine, you see, shoes that fit are hard to come by. Historically, I had always compensated for the width by buying longer, but I’m told that’s a contributor to the foot problems that I’ve been having lately. In trying shoes out, I think I’ve got the length about right (size 9½ – surprise!), but I’ve got to go far wider than I could get at the places I went. “Extra wide” in most places doesn’t do my feet justice, it seems. I have big feet, it seems.
One place I always have fun at, though, is the Lego store. They have Legos out on a table where you can play with them, and I have gone to town on them. The time before this back in December, I built a house with a small retaining wall around it, and then helped a little girl build the postmodern office building of her dreams. Seriously, it was pretty cool. This is said postmodern building:
Categories: Arundel Mills, Fire alarms
Falcon update…
4 minute read
February 18, 2012, 12:10 PM
So it’s been about two months since I discussed Falcon, which is the name I’ve been using for the new version of Schumin Web that I’m building off to the side of things. The current production site (i.e. what you’re reading this on at the time of this writing) is kind of a mashup of whatever I could come up with to do what I wanted to do, and mostly built in-house. Falcon, meanwhile, runs WordPress.
This represents a major shift in how I do things. When I started doing this site in 1996, if I wanted something, I had to build it myself, and that’s how all the major site functionality still works for the most part. The Journal, for instance, is my own design. That’s why there’s no place for commenting. I could never figure out how to do it. Now with free software and such, the community builds the engine, and so Falcon is built with off-the-shelf parts and a custom skin.
As far as where the progress is, I am currently working on porting and restoring content from 2007. That’s stuff like J27 and October Rebellion, plus lots and lots of Journal entries. It feels really strange to be working on these pages, because this is the time period when I got fired from Walmart and moved to Maryland.
And here’s what Falcon currently looks like. Remember that the basic design is the same for now, and so the changes are going to be in the details.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
So what’s the other seven percent, then?
< 1 minute read
February 14, 2012, 11:46 PM
So I was perusing the Target store in Wheaton this evening, and ran across this:
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.
Categories: Food and drink, Products, Target
“This is a Yellow Line train to Stadium-Armory!”
3 minute read
February 12, 2012, 7:47 PM
Yes, you read that right. This weekend, Metro ran an unusual Yellow Line service due to the need to shut down the Fenwick Bridge over the Potomac River to do track maintenance. Because of this, the Yellow Line ran between Huntington and Stadium-Armory, following the Blue Line’s normal route through Arlington Cemetery and Metro Center. And the destination signs for northbound/eastbound trains appeared as such:
Thus going through the downtown area, you had three services running along the C and D Routes through downtown: Orange Line, Blue Line, and Yellow Line. There was no Yellow Line service along the E and F Routes in the downtown area (so it was Green only through there), and service was suspended entirely in both directions on the L Route (the bridge).
Categories: WMATA
How many boxes can I hold at once? This many!
< 1 minute read
February 8, 2012, 11:34 AM
So a coworker got an amusing photo of me. I picked up and moved a stack of half case boxes of paper today after unloading the contents, and managed to get them all at once. Take a look at this:
Categories: Amusing, Weight loss, Work
Feet and x-rays and…
2 minute read
January 31, 2012, 1:18 PM
First of all, this is my first WordPress Journal entry – kind of. It’s also my second mobile Journal entry (the first was done in 2005). I’m sitting in a waiting room ahead of getting an x-ray, and I’m tapping this out on my Droid Charge using WordPress for Android onto a development site of mine. Then I’m exporting it out of WordPress to put onto the production site when I get home.
So I saw the podiatrist about my foot today. The result surprised me. I also discovered that the body is a very interconnected thing. The hip bone connected to the leg bone connected to the foot bone, etc. (I realize that I am grossly oversimplifying – just smile and nod). Turns out that my high top shoes are causing me problems because they don’t allow full ankle movement, and that movement has to go somewhere. Thus because the ankle is constrained, other things are happening and causing great pain. That also explains why the pain goes away when I start wearing my Crocs (which are obviously low top). Who would have thought?
He also sent me for x-rays on my left foot, to make entirely sure that nothing is broken, and so here I am, in this waiting room that’s a few degrees too warm but not stuffy. Then I see the podiatrist on Thursday morning for a follow up on the x-rays (of which I’m getting a copy on a CD!).
So as a result of this surprising diagnosis, I am now in the market for a new pair of low top shoes. The fashionistas out there may weigh in if they would like, but I am looking for low top sneakers with good arch support. Be warned, though: I have a wide foot, and so many styles just don’t fit for that reason alone.
Categories: Personal health
Talk about a really scary dream…
2 minute read
January 30, 2012, 10:55 PM
Sometimes the scariest dreams that one has are the ones where one is drifting in and out of sleep in the early morning as the alarm clock blasts me out of my slumber periodically. The way I have things set, I have two alarm clocks. First, I have a conventional alarm clock next to the bed. Then across the room, I have an old cell phone with an alarm that’s set for a little while later that goes off for about a minute or so every five minutes that I have to actually get up to reset. Its repeated blasts are great for getting me up in the mornings.
So this morning, the cell phone alarm is doing its thing, and I’m drifting in and out of sleep. Between two of the alarms, I had a very short but terrifying dream. Ever heard of anesthesia awareness? This dream centered on that.
In this dream, I’m about to undergo a surgical procedure of some sort. Doesn’t matter what the procedure was, because it wasn’t made explicit in the dream. But it was enough to require general anesthesia. So in this dream, I’m there, and they administer the anesthesia. Everything goes black, and I am completely paralyzed, i.e. I can’t move anything or open my eyes. But my mind was still fully alert, and they were about to operate on me! I was terrified. I tried to shout, “I’M STILL HERE!” in an attempt to get the doctors’ attention, but because I was completely paralyzed by the anesthesia, I couldn’t do anything. I was helpless. I didn’t know what to do, because I couldn’t do anything. After what felt like a few minutes of that horrible feeling, knowing that extended, excruciating pain was imminent, I felt myself become able to move again… and woke up.
Categories: Dreams
3-6-9, debt is on the line, G20, IMF policies ain’t fine…
3 minute read
January 29, 2012, 6:22 PM
A friend suggested this evening that, since I’ve lost so much weight in the last year, I try on my old radical cheerleader outfit and see how it fits. So I did.
Here are the results:
Categories: Activism, Weight loss
My foot claims its first victim…
2 minute read
January 28, 2012, 7:59 AM
It’s not even 8:00 yet, and already today’s a wash. I was going to go to the Maryland polar bear plunge at Sandy Point State Park today, but health issues have conspired against me to prevent this from coming to fruition.
See, it’s once again my stupid foot that’s acting up. I’m not quite sure what it is, but I’m making an additional appointment to see the podiatrist this week, because this is the second time in two weeks that my left foot has become painful to walk on, and we need to get to the bottom of this. Two weeks ago it was minor and I could ignore it, but this time around, I can barely walk. So this makes four foot issues that I’ve had over the span of six months. Once on the right foot that resolved itself and hasn’t come back, and now three times on the left. There is something seriously wrong with one or both of my feet. I’m pretty confident that it is related to my getting in better shape, since this didn’t happen until the pounds started melting away like magic, and the amount of physical activity that I was involved in got to be a lot more.
A couple of my friends on Facebook suggested that it might be gout, but I’m pretty confident that it’s not that. Based on the Wikipedia article, gout comes with swelling, redness, and warm spots when it occurs, and I’m not getting that. Outwardly, it looks the same, but it’s hard to put on a shoe when it happens due to pain (thus why I switch to my Crocs whenever this comes up). I really wonder if this isn’t a stress fracture or something, because I looked it up, and it seems like a pretty decent match on paper, but I want to know for sure. In any case, this is no way to live, and I’m not about to go on living this way. Plus I’ve been doing the stretches that I’m supposed to do and this still came up.
So hopefully they can squeeze me in as soon as possible, because last time I saw my podiatrist it wasn’t hurting anymore, and I want it to be hurting when I go see it (though at the same time, I’m not taking a hammer to my foot to guarantee some pain).
Categories: Personal health, Weight loss
First it was cold, and then it was colder…
8 minute read
January 21, 2012, 7:49 PM
I think that about describes today. Upper forties, my foot. It was bloody cold today. And of course, today would be the day that the Chesapeake Climate Action Network would have its seventh annual “Keep Winter Cold” polar bear plunge, which, you may have heard, more than once, that I signed up to participate in over at National Harbor. I had a lot fun, though I was certainly excited about things.
Going down to the event, I decided to do a Video Journal to talk about it, since I was a little nervous and needed to distract myself:
Categories: Activism, Events, Friends, Today's Special, Video Journal
What to wear on Saturday? Help me decide!
3 minute read
January 18, 2012, 11:05 PM
So this Saturday is the Chesapeake Climate Action Network‘s “Keep Winter Cold” polar bear plunge. As you know, I’m going in this year, and hoping that I don’t freeze to death (but my doctor has given me his approval to go). I am helping raise funds for the event, and so if you want to help sponsor me, I would appreciate it.
But the thing that’s still undecided with two-and-some days to go is this: what to wear? Basically, I’ve got about four different choices for you. There’s the solid black Speedo jammer, the Speedo jammer with a yellow stripe down both sides, a Dolfin jammer with a red and white stripe on both sides, or a black Speedo “solid dive suit”. So I need some help deciding. You should know, though, that these suits are ones I wear at various times when I go swimming. The folks at Olney Swim Center and the folks who do Aqua Zumba in Olney can vouch for this. I didn’t buy anything specifically for this event.
So here are your choices…
First, the Dolfin jammer with the red stripes:
Categories: Clothing
How many of you have secretly wanted to see this happen to me?
< 1 minute read
January 17, 2012, 10:14 PM
So a coworker got a new app for his iPhone today called Action Movie FX, and decided to use me as his test subject. So first my coworker dropped a boulder on me from above: