Why on earth did I photograph…?
3 minute read
September 30, 2011, 10:35 PM
In my work in restoring the site content for the upcoming WordPress conversion, I’m currently working on Photography sets from 2002 – everything done after “The Schumin Web Photo Essay Blitz” that was done in March 2002. That means I’m working on Old Town Alexandria, Protesting the World Bank, Autumn Leaves, The Iwo Jima Memorial, and Botanic Garden. So this encompasses the last of the material from the original Mavica period, and the beginning of the Big Mavica period.
The last two photo sets that I mentioned – Iwo Jima and Botanic Garden – were both done a DC trip that Mom, Sis, and I took on November 29, 2002, while I was home from college for Thanksgiving. Big Mavica was still really new to me, so apparently I was taking more photos than usual just to get used to the equipment during the time home. I came back to the CD that these files were on when locating the source material for those two photo sets for purposes of restoration, and got lost in all of the other photos from my time in Stuarts Draft in late November 2002. I apparently really went to town on photos, and some of them, particularly at my parents’ house, were ones where I was looking at them and thinking, why in the hell did I take this photo? I just have to remember that this was the work of a much younger man, and with nine more years’ experience, well… there you go.
Continue reading…Categories: Greta, Photography, Schumin Web meta
This is the cutest commercial ever…
< 1 minute read
November 9, 2008, 9:22 PM
This is the world’s cutest commercial ever. Take a look:
It’s so cute, with the dachshund inviting people to rub its belly. Seeing that made me think of Greta, because the dog in the commercial looks similar to Greta, and how she would roll around having a good time.
I miss Greta. That commercial, however, brought back some very nice memories.
Categories: Advertising, Greta
In Memoriam: Greta, February 12, 1994 – January 24, 2008
< 1 minute read
January 24, 2008, 7:18 PM
This is the entry I’d hoped not to ever have to make. Sad to say, Greta has passed on at the age of 13 years and 11 months. She died peacefully at home. Everyone whose lives she touched will miss her dearly.
Greta was quite the dog. She was very protective of the family, barking loudly and continuously at anyone who would visit that she didn’t know. She knew the drill when the doorbell rang, too – she would be the first at the door, barking her little head off. She would also do the same thing if a doorbell would sound on the TV. But she would always give a little doggy smile whenever she saw us.
She also knew how to give love and receive love, as Greta was Mom’s little baby, always small enough for Mom to hold in her arms. The two of them had a great time, too, as they would sit and watch television together, and Greta could always be found near Mom in the house. And as all domestic dogs should be, Greta was spoiled rotten, getting just about anything she wanted. Talk about a great life.
And now, all I have to say is, Greta, you will be missed…
Categories: Greta
And Greta’s back home again.
< 1 minute read
January 18, 2008, 10:34 PM
Well, we can all now breathe a sigh of relief. Greta’s back at home, and doing better. She’s on a special food for kidney patients, and she’s drinking her water. But at least now she can sleep in her own bed again, because the vet’s office stresses Greta out tremendously. Always has, too.
Is Greta totally out of the woods yet? Probably not. But at least she’s improved to the point of being able to return home.
Categories: Greta
Please get better, Greta…
< 1 minute read
January 16, 2008, 8:24 PM
Many of you know Greta, our brown dachshund, who has been part of our family since 1994. In fact, you may recall just yesterday, I was delighted to receive a picture of Greta from Mom.
Unfortunately, when a dog reaches an advanced age, though (Greta’s 13, almost 14), things don’t work as well as they once did. Greta had to be taken to the vet today, and it turned out to be some serious kidney problems. So Greta’s staying at the vet for the next two days for some serious treatment, getting all of her fluids in harmony again, and seeing what the deal is. I hope Greta makes it through this.
Meanwhile, if you could also think nice thoughts about Greta as she gets through this rough time, I would really appreciate it.
Categories: Greta
I so love it when Mom sends photos of Greta…
< 1 minute read
January 15, 2008, 6:43 PM
And here she is:
Yeah, Greta is perhaps the one I miss most being in Maryland now, as Greta, unlike the rest of them, doesn’t use the phone.
Categories: Greta
“Greta says HI!”
< 1 minute read
October 30, 2007, 7:28 PM
Just before I left work for the day today, I got a text message from Mom with a photo:
And Mom added, “Greta says HI!” It’s always nice to see Greta. I haven’t seen her in a while, after all, since I’ve not been to Stuarts Draft since September. Plus with Greta being a dog, she can’t talk on the phone.
So that was awesome, seeing Greta and all. Next time I see Greta will be on November 22, when I come down to Stuarts Draft for Thanksgiving.
Categories: Greta
Heading out for a weekend away from DC…
< 1 minute read
September 8, 2007, 8:21 AM
I tell you, I do love living in the DC area. However, occasionally, one must escape. And Mom will be glad to see me this weekend.
I’m actually going to be leaving in about ten minutes, and meeting Mom in Harrisonburg. There, we’re going to Costco, and doing whatever other Harrisonburg stuff we decide, then going back to Stuarts Draft. Well, actually, I’m not going back right away – I’m swinging by Satan’s Playground (Sis’s term for our ex-store) to go to SmartStyle to get a haircut. Plus I’ve not been in there since June, and so I’ve not seen a lot of people over there. There are a few folks over there that I actually miss.
Then at home, I get to see Greta again. Seeing Greta’s always a treat, since dogs don’t talk, thus I can’t catch up with Greta over the phone like I do with the humans.
And on Sunday? I get to see Katie! We’re going to go to Shoney’s, and also get her some train reservations for her DC trip at the end of this month. End of this month, she’s coming over to see me and we’re going to like run around DC and do whatever. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
Then in that weird twist of things, I’m also doing some photo work for a few of my coworkers who want to see the free-standing Starbucks in Waynesboro complete with drive-through (that will be providing its customers with hormone-free milk by the end of the year), as well as a few of the sights of Stuarts Draft.
So this ought to be a fun weekend. See you in Draft!
The challenges of trying to convert things…
2 minute read
April 5, 2007, 11:04 AM
My life is never dull. I am slowly but surely working to convert my site from one that operates on a Windows-based server to one that runs on a Unix/Linux/whatever-based server. I’m doing this because I seem to have hit a wall in my design. Everywhere I want to go requires a non-Windows server. So we’re converting. I’m going to eventually learn PHP and MySQL, and do it.
Some of you have already seen the forum, running on phpBB. The next thing I’m working on is the Journal, where it will be powered by WordPress. It’s going to look and feel mostly the same as before, though it will have this nifty RSS feed when it’s all said and done. I can phase in other features later.
Otherwise, I’ve been listening to my fair share of conservative radio talk show hosts. I still like Chris Lysy’s way of putting it: “Daily dose of outrage”. Lately, I’ve been listening to Mark Levin on podcast. I think I’ve been listening to too much Levin when I read the newspaper and they mention Nancy Pelosi and the term “stretch” comes to mind. Likewise all of Mark Levin’s other derogatory names for all the Democrats in Congress. And of course, I enjoyed hearing the talk shows’ reaction to M17 on the following Monday. I was at M17, don’t forget. I think the best comment was the accusation someone made of the anti-war demonstrators on Mark Levin’s show. They said that people were taking the Metro back into DC and marching around again to make the numbers look bigger. I find that kind of odd, especially since the Pentagon Metro station is on the south side of the Pentagon, and we were north of the Pentagon. I consider Pentagon station as kind of being required to pull such a stunt off, since Arlington Cemetery would have skipped half the march route. Also consider the fact that police were physically blocking the way to Pentagon station. Plus in DC, the Lincoln Memorial (the start of the march route) is not exactly near any Metro stations. Bottom line is, it’s impractical, and wouldn’t work even if someone wanted to do it.
Sometimes it’s just amusing what the other side comes up with…
Categories: Greta, Radio, Schumin Web meta
Saturday night, I had an interesting dream…
2 minute read
January 8, 2007, 10:56 AM
It’s not often that I’ll dream about Greta, our dachshund. Greta usually doesn’t factor into my dreams. I’ve had more dreams about fire drills in school than about Greta, if that tells you anything. I’ve also had more dreams about protests than about Greta.
But I did have a dream about Greta on Saturday night. In this dream, we had two dogs – Greta, and another, larger dog. In the dream, the dog looked like a Labrador Retriever, which is a bit bigger than Greta, a dachshund. Greta is twelve years old, and this unnamed new dog was definitely a lot younger than Greta. And despite the other dog’s larger stature, guess who was pushing who around. That’s right, Greta was showing the other dog who was boss.
I was like, go, Greta! in seeing this in the dream, because when we go on walks, Greta’s definitely the one getting her butt sniffed when we encounter other people’s dogs. So it was nice to see Greta basically taking charge, even if it was only a dream. In real life, Greta’s like those people who talk big and have nothing to back it up. The neighbors’ dogs know when Greta’s outside, because she always has a few words for them. And based on what I’ve heard Greta saying to those other dogs, I’d say that her mother would be embarrassed. Greta barks like a sailor, you see. But she’s got that fence to keep the other dogs out, so Greta can say whatever she wants and who’s going to stop her? Well, Mom, maybe.
I can’t believe that Greta has a better bed than me!
< 1 minute read
November 19, 2006, 6:42 AM
I also can’t believe that I accidentally erased the first version of this Journal entry as I was getting ready to post it. Let’s see if I can remember everything I wrote before as we begin “take two”.
But yeah, Greta got a new bed, and it’s quite nice. It’s all memory foam. Greta’s old bed was a two inch thick piece of foam rubber with a cover on it. The bottom of the old bed’s cover had cow spots, and the top part was some sort of fleece. Now, memory foam is where it’s at.
Compare to my bed, which I’ve had since 1988, back when I was in first grade at Grimes Elementary. The mattress is slightly newer than the bed itself, but now, 18 years later, it’s no longer as nice as it once was. To put it nicely, it sucks. To give you an idea of how not-fond I am of my bed, I had actually seriously considered taking the bed that came with my room in Potomac Hall home with me, and letting Residence Life bill me for it. So many people complained about the dorm beds, but compared to my bed at home, the dorm bed was living large.
I still remember when I first got it. The bed was bunk beds back then, but in 1998 or so, I finally dismantled the top bunk as being of no use to me anymore. I remember that I put a nice gash in the wall when I accidentally hit one of the parts against the wall, which I then had to fix.
So there you go. And when I mentioned it to Dad and Sis, they good-naturedly told me that I could get a doggy bed for myself just like it…
Categories: Greta
Greta enjoys her Christmas dinner…
< 1 minute read
December 26, 2005, 12:31 AM
Fishing for dachshunds…
< 1 minute read
May 18, 2005, 10:07 AM
I just went over to Mom and Dad’s room and fished Greta out from under the bed. Today was Merry Maids day, and so they came and gave the house a cleaning. And Greta goes and hides under Mom and Dad’s bed while they’re here.
This goes back to a recurring thread with Greta. She thinks she’s a ferocious watchdog, protecting her family from intruders. But a watchdog she is not. She barks at the TV, and when the Merry Maids show up, she hides under the bed, and barks from there. She goes under the bed on one side, and crawls all the way over to the other side, and stays there. Some watchdog. And then once the Merry Maids leave, she stays there and continues to bark. Sis tried to fish her out earlier (which involves calling her to come out), with no success. So an hour or so after she tried, I successfully extracted her, picking up the dust ruffle around the bed, and calling to her to come out. She came out the same way she went in. And she still won’t shut up. Once she figures out that no one’s around, she’ll be satisfied.
Categories: Greta
“I don’t want to feel like a fish with no water!”
2 minute read
August 26, 2004, 8:04 AM
At work yesterday, we were actually discussing those public service ads that run on cable TV. Like the one where the fish tank slowly loses water talking about asthma, or the one where the guy walks into the store to buy a wallet and he gets a really tiny wallet for the really tiny money he’ll be making as a high school dropout.
And then there’s one ad that, among the people in our group, that kind of creeped us all out a little bit:
Nobody likes me. Nobody. Maybe it’s because I like to attack people. Men. Women. Kids. I can leave them as stammering, confused, scared imitations of their former selves. If they don’t stop me, I just might leave them that way for life. I am a stroke.
A little creepy, because he looks like a pretty rough character there, with the wrinkled face in the shadow. But still, it’s a very memorable way to get the message across. I think we’ll all understand the seriousness of a stroke now if we didn’t before.
Categories: Greta, Television, WMATA
One job finishes, another job begins…
3 minute read
August 10, 2004, 7:04 PM
The deck’s finished! I have some hooray-the-deck-is-finished photos that I took with Big Mavica. The construction is totally finished, and now all that’s left to do is for Mom to pick up the new furniture that she’s getting for there.
Phase two also begins, as we replace the remainder of the downstairs flooring. The living room will be getting a new rug, and the family room and dining room are getting new hardwood flooring. In addition, beyond downstairs, we’re replacing the carpeting on the stairs with hardwood, as well as the carpeting in the upstairs hallway. Also hardwood. Currently, the family room and dining room are finished, and we’re putting things back to how they should be in there. The stairs and upstairs hallway are bare. That looks really weird. The living room has not yet been touched. I’ll be glad when it’s all finished, since waking up to the sound of nailing and other handyman-type jobs is not my idea of a good wake-up call. And now the work is right outside my door.
And then Greta’s away at the vet for a few days, getting a nodule of fat removed on her underside. So Greta’s kind of out of it right now. Greta’s operation was successful, and she’s at Cedarcrest right now, where she’s recovering. She’ll be back home on Friday. It’s probably just as well that she’s getting it done now, while work on the stairs is progressing. And Greta will be a better dog for this, too, which will be a good thing.
Categories: Greta, New porch and floors, Virginia Beach