Meanwhile, on Wednesday…
4 minute read
December 15, 2005, 10:45 PM
On Wednesday, I went up to northern Virginia, though not like you’d expect. This was by no means a “DC trip” like I usually do. Like my “accidental” DC trip in August, this was an off-week trip, but this time it didn’t involve the Metro at all (closest I got was driving past the 1C bus on two occasions), nor did it involve Pentagon City.
The official purpose of the trip was to make a run up to the DC metro area using US 29 via Charlottesville to see how well it would do as an alternate route. I also tested a variation on that route via Harrisonburg. Then while I was up that way, I also had a surprise in store for a friend.
So my trip went like so: I-64 westbound from Fishersville to Staunton. Swing north onto I-81, and take that as far as Harrisonburg. Here, we said goodbye to the Interstates for a while, which honestly are boring roads. I took a pass through JMU for old times’ sake, and ended up down near Valley Mall in Harrisonburg, at US 33. I took US 33 eastbound for a while. This took me through Elkton, in the eastern part of Rockingham County, and then up a mountain to Skyline Drive at Swift Run Gap. At the top of the mountain, we entered Greene County, and got into a monster of a backup. Two trucks were doing the safe thing – going down the mountain very slowly. We can’t fault them for that. Well, we could, but it wouldn’t be fair. Besides, the runaway truck ramp was snowed over, and looked pretty short anyway. I wouldn’t want to be a runaway truck and have to use that…
Continue reading…Bad, bad parking…
2 minute read
December 7, 2005, 4:09 AM
Just a couple of things I want to show you before I go off to Washington DC this morning…
First of all, check this out:
Categories: Driving, Matthew, Winter weather
A fun day was had by all…
10 minute read
October 27, 2005, 11:48 PM
Now that I’m back home, I’d like to tell you about my surprisingly eventful day in Washington on Wednesday. As I mentioned before, I spent much of the day railfanning with my friend Matthew Tilley. The day was “surprisingly” eventful for two main reasons. One was an incident at New Carrollton, and the other was an incident at Ballston.
I met up with Matthew Tilley at Rosslyn Center, where we’d previously agreed to meet. Not finding him right away, I looked outside the door, and saw a person matching his description outside. The person pulled out their cell phone. I had a feeling that mine would be ringing shortly. Not wanting to be detected, since I knew what I wanted to do here (you’ll see), I quietly stepped outside the door and waited. My cell phone went off as expected. “Hello?” Matthew says, “Where are you?” I replied, “I’m right behind you.” He turned around and hung up the phone. We ended up sitting at the tables on the first floor of Rosslyn Center for a few minutes before starting out, talking about what Metro and what we were going to do for the day and such.
Then we started out. Blue Line in the direction of Franconia-Springfield. We went as far as King Street. There, we got off, and I discovered a strange object on the platform:
What a fun time!
< 1 minute read
October 26, 2005, 5:25 PM
I had quite a fun time in DC with my friend Matthew Tilley today. We went railfanning, since he’s quite the Metro buff as well. We met up at Rosslyn, and then rode to Huntington via Arlington Cemetery with a transfer at King Street, then rode back up and transferred to the Blue Line again at L’Enfant Plaza, rode out to Morgan Boulevard and Largo Town Center, rode back to Stadium-Armory and transferred to an Orange Line train out to New Carrollton. Then we rode back in, and we parted company at L’Enfant Plaza. All in all, a fun day. We rode the trains, and also walked around at a number of stations. The Exeloo, however, was closed. A shame.
Meanwhile, now I’m at the Infoshop, where I’ve got a small notice posted to hopefully get some people to contribute to WikiProject Anti-war.
And next up: Pentagon City! This has really been a fun day, and I have lots of stories to tell you (particularly about our time at New Carrollton). I also got some beautiful photos today, and hopefully they’ll all come out like I want them to.
What a wonderful day Wednesday was…
4 minute read
September 8, 2005, 11:41 PM
I went down as far as Blacksburg on Wednesday. My goal was to visit two people: Sis at Virginia Tech, and my friend Amanda Mone, who I first met in December at the Roanoke Star.
But first, I had some shopping to do. Coca-Cola recently launched Vault, which is marketed as an energy drink, but is basically Surge in a new package. Currently, Coca-Cola is test-marketing it, and Roanoke is one of the areas where it’s being test-marketed. So I went down to the Wal-Mart next to Valley View Mall and got some. First I bought a 20-ounce bottle, to make sure it was really Surge in drag. It was a match! So I went and bought ten bottles of it, so that I’ll have lots of it, since I have no idea when I’ll be able to get down to Roanoke again to get some more.
I also checked out the Halloween aisles, since I was looking for a certain Halloween item that Wal-Mart sold last year that I was hoping they were going to sell again. You may recall that I mentioned in December about a mechanized black cat that reared up on its hind legs and sang a song that went like, “I’m just an alley cat, with an alley life.” I’d been unsuccessful in finding it in Waynesboro so far this year. I figured this store in Roanoke is bigger than Waynesboro, so it might be in this store. And I was right! So I bought the cat, and I’ll be figuring out all the lyrics. All I know is that I’m pretty psyched that I finally got my hands on it. I honestly thought I’d never hear that song again. And it’s catchy.
DC can be so fun, but in this heat, the fun is best had in the shade or indoors…
10 minute read
July 21, 2005, 10:03 PM
I had fun in DC on Wednesday the 20th. It was a long day, but fun nonetheless.
However, the fun didn’t start right away. Oh, no. The drive up to Vienna was “more challenging” than usual. For those of you who don’t know, my car will have been in our family for fifteen years this month. So it’s an old car as these things go. And it’s seen fairly continuous service for those fifteen years. As a result, things start doing strange things as they age. My cruise control can be a little tricky sometimes. When it wants to work, I get up to speed, start it up, and then set it. It will catch, and it will work fairly well. However, other days, it will do one of two things. It will either try to catch and miss, or do nothing at all. In both cases, the cruise control light blinks several times, and then goes out, and the light will not come on again until the car is restarted. The end result is no cruise control until the car has had several hours sitting turned off.
So coming off of VA 608 in Fishersville onto I-64, I set my cruise. It caught and we were sailing. Changing to I-81, I always come off of cruise control, since it’s too tight a curve to take at full speed. Then once I get back onto I-81, I set the cruise control back to where it was. And life is good, don’t you see. Today, coming off the ramp and onto I-81, in re-setting my cruise control, it missed. So no cruise for me on the way up! Thus instead of just sailing up there, I was kind of doing an up-and-down thing speeding up and slowing down, since my mind wants to be on cruise control, but my car just won’t agree to it. I’ll get up to the proper speed, and then accidentally let it drop. Not a good thing. So we have to start over, getting to the right speed again. It’s a vicious cycle. After my stops at Sheetz and Wal-Mart on the way up, I checked my cruise again to see if it would come to life again (it sometimes does), but unfortunately no. No cruise for me. Several blinks and then dark. But at least it’s during the day, and I’m still fresh as a daisy.
Jolt Cola: It really does exist!
3 minute read
July 12, 2005, 10:50 PM
I could not believe it today when I went to the 7-Eleven after work for some refreshment. Looking in the drink cooler, I found Jolt Cola. I was surprised, because I’d heard of it for so long, but had never ever seen it. I was starting to think that Jolt Cola, the soda that was completely LOADED with caffeine, was an urban legend, since people had spoken of it, but I’d never seen it before. But now I know it’s real, and it’s weird. Take a look:
Categories: Food and drink, Friends, Retail, Walmart
My adventure in College Park…
9 minute read
May 26, 2005, 7:51 PM
I went up to the DC area today, and, in an unusual twist of things, spent NO time above ground in downtown Washington DC.
Arriving at Vienna, one thing I quickly noticed in the North Garage was that the contractor had completed work on the first section of the garage to undergo rehabilitation, and had moved to the second section. I’m not quite sure what they did in rehabilitating it, since it looked exactly the same as it did before. Who knows. On the top level, a pickup truck was parked so badly in its space so as to make the opening for the space next to it a little too close for comfort. Thus there was this very attractive looking empty space, but it was a little too tight of a squeeze to get in there. I ended up having to wait for the guaranteed spaces to open up at 10:00, and then parked on the third level.
Getting on the train at Vienna, I rode a mixed consist of Breda 4000-series cars and CAF cars. Leaving the station, the 4000s were in front, and the four CAFs followed behind. The operator out of Vienna knew me from a previous trip.
Categories: College Park, DC trips, Friends, Howard Johnson's, WMATA
A16… and what a day it was!
13 minute read
April 17, 2005, 10:15 PM
April 16, 2005 was definitely an interesting day for all involved. It was on this day that a large demonstration against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund was planned. As is the usual case with days that I go to big demonstrations, I fit the trip into the framework of my regular trips to Washington DC that I make every two weeks or so. The big difference on this trip, though, was that I took my sister with me. I normally don’t take anyone with me when I go on my DC trips. It’s just me. Last time I took anyone to DC with me was when Mom and Sis and I went to Washington DC on August 9, 2003, when we did my A Day in DC photo set. Since then, I’d met both Dad and Mom on trips to Washington DC in April 2004 and July 2004 respectively, but since our agendas were so different, each made their way up to DC separately.
So at the early hour of 5 AM, Sis and I set off for Washington DC, but not before the car gave us trouble starting up. Don’t know what caused that, since it was working fine the day before, and also worked fine on the rest of the trip. So who knows. On the way up, we made my usual stops – one at the Sheetz in Mt. Jackson, and once at Wal-Mart in Manassas. Sis got to give the self-checkouts in Manassas a whirl, and we got a shot of that:
Categories: Black bloc, DC trips, Friends, WMATA, World Bank
Stand to the right!
2 minute read
April 11, 2005, 11:55 PM
Interestingly enough, a post made on Metroriders made me think about something that I noticed when Katie and I went to Lynchburg and Roanoke last Wednesday.
First of all, the post is here.
Now… so you know the background information, the unwritten rule of etiquette on Metro escalators is to stand to the right, and walk to the left. Tourists in DC are the biggest violators of this bit of Metro etiquette, though we will cut them a little (very little) bit of slack for being from out of town and not knowing DC Metro etiquette. But if you ride Metro, if you’re just riding the escalators, stand on the right side so that those walking the escalators can pass you.
I realized that I had internalized the unwritten “stand to the right” rule when Katie and I were at Valley View Mall in Roanoke. Valley View Mall is a two-story mall, and several sets of escalators link the two levels. I got on the escalator first, and immediately found the right side of the escalator without even thinking about it. Katie, on the other hand, kind of stood wherever. She’s never ridden the Metro before, so she’s never needed to put “stand to the right” into practice. Still, when I saw Katie standing in the middle-to-left part of the escalator, I encouraged her to stand to the right because that’s what you’re supposed to do on the escalator. Then I realized where I was. I wasn’t in Washington. I was in Roanoke, and more than 300 miles from a Metro station.
Still, I stood to the right nonetheless. It made me feel better.
And remember – if ever you go to Washington DC, stand to the right and walk to the left on the escalators, or you’ll leave some very aggravated Metro riders in your wake.
Eight days until A16…
3 minute read
April 8, 2005, 10:05 PM
Only eight more days until A16, and I can’t wait. Of course, that day has big shoes to fill. I hope it’s as fun as or more fun than J20, the counter-inaugural. That day was SO fun. Still, A16 (World Bank/IMF demonstration), should all go as expected, will be my sixth big demonstration, and my fourth black bloc. I’m excited. And my sister’s coming with me!
Otherwise, Katie and I had a fun time in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Roanoke on Wednesday. We saw Teri, a former coworker, at her new job at the Comfort Inn in Charlottesville, and we also saw Steve, our old front end manager, at his current store in Lynchburg. And besides seeing old friends, we also shot a few photo sets with Big Mavica, and also some very humorous photos with the cell phone.
One of the more amusing moments was when we were finished eating at the Radio Grill in Madison Heights. Without even thinking, not only did I throw the contents of the tray away after I was finished eating… but I also threw the tray away as well. And I didn’t even notice that I did it until Katie mentioned it to me. She wondered if, after I threw the tray away, whether I would walk away from it. I did, since I didn’t even realize I did it. But I was a good person and fished it out, since it was right on top.
Categories: Charlottesville, Katie, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Shoes
Katie and I are going to Lynchburg on Wednesday!
2 minute read
April 4, 2005, 8:32 PM
Finally, Katie and I are going to take a trip somewhere. We’re going to hit three cities in one day: Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Roanoke. We’re going to be hitting a few things for each person. For Katie, we’re going to visit our friend Teri, who used to work with us at Wal-Mart, in Charlottesville, and then we’re also going to swing by River Ridge Mall, and also to visit our old manager, Steve, at the Lynchburg Wal-Mart. For me, I’m going to turn the whole day into a Life and Times set, plus I want to do Photography sets in downtown Lynchburg and possibly in Bedford. Then I also need a little “star time” in Roanoke, meaning it’s up to the Roanoke Star for us!
For some reason, when I need to think or something, I like to get up somewhere really high, and then look down and survey the area below. And I can do this either in a natural setting, like on top of a mountain, or I can do this in an artificial setting, like at the top of a parking garage. Just as long as I can see a lot, and can look down and watch things going on. I’ve actually found that the top of the parking garage at Huntington fits this purpose quite well. In Roanoke, I find that place at the Roanoke Star overlook. And then near home, that refuge can be found on the Blue Ridge Parkway, looking down over the Nelson County/Albemarle County side, or over the Augusta County side. I prefer the Augusta County side, since I’m more familiar with it. On that side, you can see Stuarts Draft and Waynesboro. One time when I visited during the day, I even found Wal-Mart! So yeah, I like high places when it comes to unwinding.
And we change the clocks again…
3 minute read
April 3, 2005, 12:27 AM
I can’t believe that our time with Standard Time has come to an end once again. And now it’s time for Daylight Savings! Amazing. I also can’t believe that it’s April, and that A16 is only two weeks away.
Meanwhile, Katie had a birthday on Thursday, March 31. So now she’s 23. She and I and her mother and her mother’s boss all went to Sanzone’s Italian Restaurant in Stuarts Draft for dinner. It was a lovely dinner, too. We all had some sort of pasta. And let me tell you… Sanzone’s is a wonderful restaurant. They really did a number on the old Tastee Freez building. Inside, you wouldn’t think that it was fast food. It’s a gorgeous Italian restaurant now. Now outside, its former use is still evident, as the drive-thru canopy is still there, though not in use, and the exterior looks like it was once fast food. But all in all, though, Sanzone’s is a good place to take your family if you’re interested in Italian food. Good food, and good service.
Okay, end of ringing endorsement. But they are good.
Categories: Katie, Schumin Web meta, Walmart
It’s nice to hear from people…
2 minute read
March 3, 2005, 10:11 AM
Since I had the procedure on Monday, it’s nice to get support from the people who care about you. I’ve gotten many kind words of support over the computer from many people, and also two cards from people from church! This one was particularly cute:
So very amusing…
2 minute read
February 11, 2005, 2:42 AM
It’s interesting what my friend Katie and I ended up doing after work this evening. We ended up going to her house, and worked on getting the treadmill that she recently bought working correctly. It’s one of those push-it-yourself models, and the belt wasn’t moving very well. It seems that the belt was not properly lubricated, after I took a test walk on it. It took me considerable effort to get it moving, and then once it started, it practically flung me right off.
So I got on the floor with this silicone oil that came with the treadmill and went to work. I put “a few drops” on the surface beneath the belt as the directions specified. Still no luck, after a test run.
So I tried a plan B, which was to put some more drops of oil on there. In squeezing the bottle, the dropper thing came off the end. I guess you weren’t supposed to squeeze like that. No problem, though. I got some oil where it was supposed to go, and we gave it another test run. No go. Still wasn’t running smoothly.
Meanwhile, Katie’s laughing her head off, watching me practically fly off the back of the treadmill whenever it unexpectedly started.
Categories: Katie