The Schumin Web

Journal

@SchuminWeb

“Oh, it’s terrible! The King has been transformed! Please find the Magic Wand so we can change him back.”

8 minute read

November 27, 2010, 4:31 PM

First of all, I admit – the title doesn’t mean much in relation to this entry, except that it perhaps reflects that I’ve been playing too much Super Mario Bros. 3 on my Super Nintendo lately. Regardless, this Journal entry has been a long time in coming, since this is about a trip I took to Stuarts Draft two weeks ago. All I have to say is, hey, I’ve been busy. But it’s also somewhat fitting that I post this entry this weekend, since this was “Thanksgiving” with the parents a couple of weeks ahead of the holiday. Traffic is a real pain, you see, and this obviates the need to mess with it. Have you ever driven US 29 in Virginia on Thanksgiving weekend? It’s no walk in the park.

On Friday the 12th, after driving perhaps a shade too fast the whole way down, I arrived at Stuarts Draft Middle School. After all, Mom was there, and I hadn’t seen her new classroom yet. Mom was recently switched from sixth to eighth grade, and so she moved rooms as a result, from Room 24 to Room 1. And here it is:

Categories: Katie, Language, Middle school, Retail, Security, Staunton, Staunton Mall, Stuarts Draft, Video games, Walmart

So I had a fun weekend…

6 minute read

July 12, 2010, 9:21 PM

I certainly had fun this past weekend, spending it in Stuarts Draft. The goal was twofold: to attend the wedding of Patrick Jarrett and Anna Duncan, and to help Mom clean out some of the junk in the house in preparation for new flooring in the bedrooms.

Coming down, I took I-66 to I-81, on what had to have been one of the least stressful runs ever. Seriously, the ride went better than I’ve had in a long time. I made really good time, and I reached Waynesboro before you knew it. I only made two stops. At the second one, at the southbound rest area near New Market, I got an interesting picture:

Categories: Family, Friends, Katie

A fun time was had by all…

9 minute read

April 7, 2010, 9:06 PM

So I got back from Stuarts Draft last night, and all in all, it was a pretty good trip. First of all, on the way down, I visited my friend Bergit, who I first met at the National Equality March back in October. We had a good time, chatting it up, and visiting a few stores in Charlottesville’s Corner district. Perhaps the most amusing part of the whole trip was the discovery that UVA sold a Snuggie with their logo on it, which Bergit modeled for the camera:

Categories: Charlottesville, Friends, Harrisonburg, JMU, Katie, Roads

So it seems to be the case that the Waynesboro Wal-Mart is that special place where managers’ careers go to die…

4 minute read

November 27, 2009, 11:03 PM

So Katie and I had fun today, running around Staunton and Waynesboro doing part trolling and part shopping. After I picked Katie up, we first went over to troll the Waynesboro Wal-Mart, where we used to work. After saying hello to some of the people we used to work with, we also ran into the new store manager. The manager is now a guy named Nathan, and he looks like he should be wearing a pinstriped suit and a fedora rather than a Wal-Mart name badge. Seriously, he looked like a prohibition-era gangster.

So with Al Capone as the new manager, the question becomes, what happened to the previous manager, who was there when I was still there? Turns out that he is “no longer with the company”. In other words, he probably got canned, because when management types say that someone is no longer with the company and leave it at that, you know that someone’s career had a “fiery” end. Otherwise, if they left on good terms, people will generally say something like, “Bob left to take a new position at Company XYZ.” When I visited my ex-store not long after getting hired at my current job, I found out that the management at the store was saying that I was “no longer with the company”. I personally wish they would have just said that they fired me. Let’s be honest now, since I’m pretty open about it. Especially since in my case, they made stuff up and rammed it through a coaching process. Really ethical people over at Wal-Mart.

But anyway, that means that the Waynesboro Wal-Mart is three for three. Their current manager is number four, and the last three all did not leave the Waynesboro Wal-Mart with their Wal-Mart career intact. Thus the Waynesboro Wal-Mart seems to be the place where management careers go to die. No one’s career leaves there alive, it seems.

Categories: Food and drink, Katie, Thanksgiving, Walmart, Waynesboro

Finally, a caption…

< 1 minute read

October 29, 2009, 9:30 PM

Finally, I figured out a caption for this photo:

Peabo in Lolcat mode

This is a photo of my friend Katie’s cat Peabo. As you can see, he’s gotten himself into a case of beer. And it only took Katie and I a month and a half to come up with this caption. When she first sent this to me in mid-September, I immediately saw Lolcat potential for it, but couldn’t figure out a caption. I at first thought of “I can haz beer?” for it, but that’s too much like the oft-used “I can haz cheezburger?” line. Katie and I even did a little brainstorming on the phone last night and came up empty.

Then today, Katie sent the perfect caption: “Where’s the beer? I can’t find it, it’s not here!” I ran it through the Lolcat translator, and got, “Wherez teh ber? I cant find it, iz not her!” Then I dropped the second part of it, and put it in the proper Impact font, and on the image. And one lolcat image. Pretty clever, no?

Categories: Katie, Netculture

You know what I’d love to do to some of these people that send me junk mail?

3 minute read

October 28, 2009, 7:06 PM

You know what I’d just love to do to some of these people that send me junk mail? Send them a cinderblock. One of these:

Image: Katorisi on Wikimedia Commons

Categories: Amusing, Katie

So Katie and I had fun yesterday…

5 minute read

November 26, 2008, 5:23 PM

Katie and I went out and about in Staunton and Waynesboro yesterday, and we had fun. I can’t believe it had been three months since last I saw Katie, but indeed that was the case. But of course, that doesn’t mean we had any less fun.

First thing we did was go over to the nTelos store, since it was just about time to upgrade Katie’s cell phone, and so we were seeing what the scene looked like. I think Katie’s going to get a really good phone this time around – one with an on-board camera, and one that can do all of the cool things that cell phones can do nowadays. And I demonstrated the picture feature on one of the demo phones:

Categories: Blue Ridge Parkway, Katie, Products, Staunton, Staunton Mall, Waynesboro

So this will be an interesting summer, I’d say…

2 minute read

June 24, 2008, 10:48 PM

I’m looking at what’s coming down the pike for this summer, and I can tell right now that this is going to be a great summer. First of all, look at Schumin Web! It’s all refreshed for the summer as we’ve gone “square” with this new background. No more fades here as it’s been for nearly four years. The color gradient is gone, and we’ve moved on to a pattern. Hopefully this will make things look a little more festive.

And then I’m going to be busy in July, with two Anon events – July 12 and July 19. By then I ought to have something really cool figured out for a costume, since here’s the thing – the “black bloc” look doesn’t seem to work at Anonymous events. When I hang out with the anarchists, yes – black bloc is the style. For Anonymous, it’s more like a masquerade ball, since many people really get into the dress of the event, and dress in wild outfits while including the all important mask (don’t want to get fair gamed, after all – or R2-45’d for that matter). And as I learned on June 14, the Guy Fawkes mask is too warm for the summer. However, we must admit – I had fun at Operation Sea Arrrgh with my Guy Fawkes mask and all:

Categories: Katie, Project Chanology, Schumin Web meta, Travel