“You mean I’ve slept my last sleep in that bed?”
< 1 minute read
June 5, 2007, 2:32 PM
I was talking to Mom on the phone yesterday, and found out that Mom is getting rid of my old bed. She’s replacing it with a futon couch, since she claims it will be more comfortable and more versatile. I don’t doubt either claim. I’ve been sleeping on a futon couch for a little less than a month now, until I get my new bed in a week and a half or so.
Still, it’s one of those things where as much as you detest the bed, you never really thought that it would go. But, yeah, she’s getting rid of it. And it will likely be before I go down to visit again, so I’ve most likely seen the bed for the last time. Weird!
It will be so strange next time I go visit the parents to have this futon in my old bedroom. Now mind you, I still haven’t completely removed everything from there. Lots of my stuff still hasn’t made the ride from Stuarts Draft to Silver Spring. Still, that will be strange. But at least I’ll only be using it when I go to visit. Sleeping on a futon gets old after a while. I should know.
Still, as worn out and uncomfortable as it was, I’m going to miss that old bed.
Categories: Family, Stuarts Draft
So will it be the “girl room”, or the “man room”?
2 minute read
May 2, 2007, 6:31 PM
That’s the question I’ve posed to my parents about my soon-to-be-former room once I completely vacate it. But first there’s a back-story to it.
When Uncle Johnny and Aunt Beth came to visit two weeks ago, they described about how they repurposed their three children’s former bedrooms now that they had all moved out. The idea was that rather than referring to the rooms by who’s not in them (i.e. “Kate’s old room”, “Jesse’s old room”, and “Jan’s old room”), they would refer to them by what they were now using the rooms for. Thus one bedroom became the “girl room”, another one became the “man room”, and the third became the “sewing room”.
Now in our family, there are only two children – Sis and me. And since no one in our family sews, we can scratch off “sewing room”. Thus if we were to follow Uncle Johnny and Aunt Beth’s naming system, we’d have a “girl room” and a “man room”. One will become fully vacant by June (I get the apartment on the 20th, but there is no way in hell that I am moving everything at once), and the other room will be vacant in August when Sis moves to Chicago with Chris, with whom she is engaged to be engaged.
Continue reading…So for today, it’s like I’m five again…
4 minute read
April 21, 2007, 8:22 PM
First of all, don’t get me wrong – I love seeing relatives. Uncle Johnny (Mom’s brother) and Aunt Beth came down from Connecticut to visit for the weekend, and I love seeing them, talking to them, etc. They’re a lot of fun.
However, I do take offense to the way my parents get when relatives come over. All of a sudden, it’s like I’m five years old again. They’ve treated me like a child in almost every way today except cut my food for me. My father actually said “good night” like he was trying to order me to bed last night, for one thing. Then today, they really have gotten on my nerves. We went to Charlottesville today and took the Sienna, since it was the only one that would comfortably seat six people. Since I was the only one who knew exactly how to get where we were going, I figured I’d be navigating from the passenger seat. I was surprised to hear Dad tell me I was driving. I’m like, okay. I prefer to drive anyway. I’d rather just do it than tell someone how to do it. It’s about the only adult thing I got to do all day. And even then, my parents won’t trust my driving, as both parents decided to be back-seat drivers. Mom justified her back-seat driving by saying she wanted to “get there in one piece.”
Now mind you, I’m driving a car that I don’t drive regularly, it doesn’t fit me well (pedals are too far back), and that rides a lot higher than what I’m used to. And a number of controls are in different places, too. After all, I’m now used to driving a Mercury (basically a Ford) station wagon. And here I am driving a Toyota minivan. And I think I did a great job driving it, despite having less-than-awesome equipment. Something’s wrong with the brakes on there, because every time I’d hit the brake pedal, the pedal would shake, and so would the rest of the car. Sable doesn’t do that. Plus the van’s a lot heavier than the Sable. Still, they nagged me about my speed. They nagged me about what lane I was in. Everything.
Categories: Family
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
First time to DC in nearly three weeks…
2 minute read
January 23, 2007, 4:32 AM
Today is a DC day, and I’m ready to go, as it’s been nearly three weeks since January 4 when I last went. This trip was supposed to happen a week ago, but it got rescheduled for political reasons. You see, today is the day Bush gives the State of the Union address, and so I’m going to be at a counter-rally at the Capitol reflecting pool.
The Capitol reflecting pool, by the way, has special significance to me due to some comments Mom made. On our second-ever trip to DC in 1994, we walked from the White House to the Capitol – not a walk to be sneezed at. And in sub-freezing weather, no less. Nearing the Capitol reflecting pool, Mom said, jokingly of course, that it was the spot where all the congressmen and all the senators went to try to snap off Hillary Clinton’s bikini top. The Clinton administration was also the first time in twelve years that they’d been able to partake in snapping off the First Lady’s bikini top, too, as Rosalynn Carter was the last one that they’d been able to do it with. Nancy Reagan was “too small”, and Barbara Bush was “too old”. No word about whether Congress can have fun in the reflecting pool with Laura Bush, because Mom now denies that the exchange ever happened, but we know better.
So who knows. While Bush is blathering on about the poor state he’s left this country in after six years, maybe we’ll see a few representatives who skipped the speech playing in the pool, going after Laura Bush’s bikini top.
Otherwise, this is the first trip since the January 7 derailment at Mt. Vernon Square. And guess what one of my stops will be today – yes, Mt. Vernon Square. I’m going to the Infoshop today, and thus E01 is on the itinerary.
So wish me luck at the protest.
Categories: Activism, DC trips, Family, National politics
Remember not to misspell, now… that’s B-O-R-F.
2 minute read
January 21, 2007, 10:10 PM
Occasionally I have fun with my coworkers. I recently had the occasion of having some cans of spray paint go through the Service Desk to go back to their proper department. And in the meantime, talk of graffiti came up. I made reference to the DC-area graffiti artist John Tsombikos from Great Falls, best known as the main person behind the “Borf” campaign. Of course, my coworkers had no idea. They don’t make these biweekly runs to DC like I do. I remember seeing graffiti from the train along the eastern half of the Red Line referring to “Borf”, and I was like, what-the-heck. “Borf”? It wasn’t until really recently, talking about the “disarm” message that was stenciled on the sidewalk of the Key Bridge, that I really found out what Borf was all about. Very prolific.
Otherwise, it snowed today, as the weather forecasters predicted. Actually, it snowed first, then turned to freezing rain, and then to sleet. All and all, it was not a pleasant drive to work. Actually, going in was worse than leaving. It was all still snow then. Basically packed snow all the way to Waynesboro. The Sable still drives better in the snow than the Previa did, but the trip was not without its challenges, as stopping was something of a challenge. Most notably, I was unable to stop at the intersection of the westbound off-ramp of I-64 and Rosser Avenue in Waynesboro, and therefore slid right through a just-turned red light. So yes, I ran a red light today. I did, and so did the car beside me. Both of us slid right through the red light, blowing our horns to warn any potential cross-traffic of our situation. We both got through unscathed.
Categories: Anti-war, Driving, Family, Street art, Washington DC, Winter weather
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.
Unlocking Mom’s inner railfan…
2 minute read
December 27, 2006, 3:53 PM
Slowly but surely, I am unlocking Mom’s inner railfan. Today, on a trip to Washington that consists of Mom, Sis, Sis’s boyfriend Chris, and me, she chose to sit at the railfan window out of Huntington, commenting that she used to do this on the high-speed line in Philadelphia in the 1970s. It seems Mom thoroughly enjoyed her time at the railfan window of Breda 3087 from Huntington to Pentagon City.
Otherwise, we’ve had a fun trip. Sis did a bit of shopping, as we hit a vendor at Rosslyn, and right now, she and Chris are running through Pentagon City Mall. We also went to Chinatown in DC, where Mom learned that Chinatown’s not so Chinese anymore. Da Hua Market is gone, and a number of the restaurants are closed as well. It’s become very gentrified as of late, especially with the first thing you see when exiting via the Chinatown exit of the Gallery Pl-Chinatown station being a United Colors of Benetton store. But we still had a good time. Then we also visited the George Washington Masonic Memorial. All in all, a fun time was had by all.
And then we’re going to Murali at Pentagon Row for dinner. After that, our group parts company for a few hours, as Mom, Sis, and Chris are going to a play at the Kennedy Center. While they see a play, I’m meeting my friend Matthew Tilley, and we’re going to, like, chill for a few hours. Then we’re all getting together after the play, and riding back to Vienna. Then we go drop Matthew off at his house, and the rest of us go back home. All in all, a fun time shall be had by all.
And I have to figure out what to buy with a $40 Circuit City gift card, and a $25 Best Buy card. Hmmm…
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
I got my strap, and I got a battery for the Lappy…
< 1 minute read
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!
I took a crew with me to DC this time…
4 minute read
August 3, 2006, 12:36 AM
First of all, welcome to August, boys and girls. July is just so last month.
And August 1 saw me taking the Sable on its sixteenth DC trip, and this time with people in tow. Mom and Sis went with me on this particular trip. Mom came along because she was seeing a friend from high school, and then Sis came along as a what-the-heck kind of thing.
And amazingly, I did my whole routine. I made both my up-stops, though we got to Vienna really early compared to my usual arrival time. But not to worry – we made up that “early” time with what I’d call a “drop job”. Usually when I take these trips, my first stop is Rosslyn, without exception. I can’t think of a DC trip that I’ve taken since I started doing this regularly in 2004 where I did NOT stop at Rosslyn first thing. This trip would be that exception. Since Mom was meeting her friend at Union Station at 10:30, we did that first. So thus instead of Rosslyn, we went straight to Metro Center, and then took Red to Union Station. And once we got Mom to her friend, Sis and I got to have some quality time together.
So what did we do? Back to Rosslyn, duh… I had errands to run, and it was also right about my Rosslyn time, too, so it worked out. Sis also had a snack at Tummy Station in Rosslyn Center, so it worked out.
What a wonderful dinner!
2 minute read
May 31, 2006, 11:17 PM
What a wonderful dinner we had at O’Charley’s! Dad met us up there, since it made more sense for him to meet us up there than go back home. So Mom, Sis, and I went up to Harrisonburg in the Sable via Route 11 (the scenic route through several small towns) and then cut through JMU to get to Harrisonburg Crossing.
Everything went well. The only point where things went slightly awry was when all the staff came out to wish some other customer a happy birthday. Sis mentioned how good of an idea it would be to mention it to our server that this was my birthday dinner. Then our server came out, and Sis mentioned it to her. My exact response was, “Don’t even think about it.” It worked out, though. Our server said she’d bring out a cake without the fanfare. And it was a nice cake.
Still, like I need the sugar and calories in a cake.
Categories: Birthdays, Family, Myself, Schumin Web meta
“Shy, silent type that communicates with his eyes”
< 1 minute read
May 3, 2006, 12:21 AM
Mom actually said that to a coworker of mine at Wal-Mart today regarding me. Of course, Mom was kidding, as she and everyone else knows that I have a really big mouth.
So that was amusing.
Otherwise, though, Mom didn’t realize that I’d gone all the way to Pennsylvania last Tuesday. But indeed I did. And I have photos and receipts to prove it. I have a receipt from McDonald’s from my lunch (the Asian salad), and a receipt from Starbucks where I got a Frappuccino. So there you have it.
Categories: Family
4 AM on the way home from DC means…
2 minute read
January 7, 2006, 12:49 AM
First of all, yes, I get home LATE when I go to Washington. VERY late. It’s actually “tomorrow” for the parents when I’m just finishing up my “today”. If I’m not home by four in the morning, I get a call on my cell phone from Mom, which is basically what I call the are-you-alive call. And the call’s purpose is usually just to figure out when I am and determine when I’ll be back home.
Usually when I get this call, I’m in or close to Harrisonburg. One goal for me for the ride home is to be at least as far as Harrisonburg if not past it when I get that call.
On my December 21 DC trip, I never got that call. And when I got home, I was like, “Why didn’t you call me?” And it’s funny – first few times when Mom started calling, it did annoy me slightly. Now I enjoy them and come to expect such things. In fact, the reason that not getting called that time bothered me was because I was so ahead of schedule that I wanted to brag about how ahead of schedule I was. Just like, “Aha, look at me!” And I never got to do that, sad to say.
Meanwhile, in DC…
3 minute read
December 30, 2005, 12:26 AM
I took an “extra” DC trip this past Wednesday with Mom, Sis, and her boyfriend Chris Lysy. They had previously ordered tickets to see Wicked at the Kennedy Center for December 28, and when I found out that I would be off that day, I asked if I could come along, and Mom agreed. It turned out that my presence was quite helpful, as I knew exactly where I was going, both on the road and on the train, and also knew my way around Washington better than the rest of them. Plus I’m never one to pass up a trip to Washington, after all. Especially one where I didn’t have to pay for gas.
We were also celebrating Sis’s 21st birthday, which was on the 26th.
The trip was, to an extent, run like a regular DC trip of mine. Get to Vienna, park, ride to Rosslyn, go into Washington, run around for a bit, then go to Pentagon City. Our destinations while “running around” were things that Sis and I both picked.
Categories: Arlington, DC trips, Family, Washington DC, WMATA