A fun and memorable day…
24 minute read
February 8, 2023, 9:00 AM
Today marks twenty years since I made one of my favorite early DC adventures. On that day, February 8, 2003, I drove up from Harrisonburg and headed up to the DC area on a Saturday for a day of fun, photographing the area in the snow and checking out parts of the Metro system that I’d never been to before. It was my senior year of college, and was one of three trips to DC that I made from my dorm that year. I also feel like I shot a number of my “classic” DC area photos on this trip, since a lot of photos from this trip have made their way all over the Internet (i.e. you’ve probably seen some of them in the wild, and never realized that they were my work).
This trip had an interesting set of circumstances that led up to it, though. As I recall, snow had been predicted for Thursday night and Friday morning. That prediction ultimately came to pass, as it snowed enough to cancel classes for Friday. This was not unanticipated, so, the night before, as part of my duties as a resident advisor in Potomac Hall, I had posted signs on my floor advising people to check the JMU website for information on class status. In other words, make sure that you have to go out before you go out, because you might not have to go out if the university cancels classes. The sign was posted with the intent of putting the responsibility for checking the status onto my residents, so that I would not have to get up early to check the status and post signs to that effect, since I didn’t have classes until later in the day, and would not wake up before the first classes of the day would have started. So with the signs posted, I went to bed. Good. Now fast forward to around 6 AM or so. I vaguely remembered hearing the phone ring a few times while I was trying to sleep, but I never answered it, because I was trying to sleep. Then I’m awakened by a very loud banging on my door. Having just been rudely awakened like that, my first response was to shout, “WHAT?!?” It was Mecca Marsh, our hall director, i.e. the boss, so it must be important. I went to get up, and in my haste in getting up, I lost my balance and fell back onto my bed, landing on my left elbow. When I landed, I heard a series of four or five popping sounds, and I remember thinking, “That can’t be good.” Apparently, that popping had come from something in my left shoulder, and it now hurt very much.
So what was the big, important reason that Mecca came up and woke me up out of a dead sleep? Make a sign and put it on the outside door stating that classes were cancelled. Believe me, she was lucky that my arm was sore from the injury that I had just suffered, because I probably would have hit her otherwise. I was absolutely seeing red following all of that. For the amount of effort that she went to, making multiple phone calls and then coming up to my floor and waking me up, just to order me to make a single sign, she could have done it herself. And when I mentioned that I had just injured my shoulder in the process of getting up, and that it now hurt very much, she responded with a dismissive, “You’ll be fine.” Yeah, way to show some compassion after an injury that you played a part in causing. I expected no less from Mecca, though, because she had her favorites on the staff and I was not one of them, and therefore I was treated accordingly. In any case, I made the sign, and tried to go back to sleep, but I was now pretty mad about what had just happened, plus I was in a good bit of pain. You understand why I consider Mecca Marsh to be one of the worst bosses that I’ve ever had. I probably should have seen a doctor on a worker’s comp claim, and I also can’t imagine that the management would have taken too kindly to the whole situation had I reported it like I probably should have, and it wouldn’t have reflected well on Mecca considering that she precipitated the whole thing. She would have hated that, considering how big she was on propping up her own image (she had some major inadequacy issues of her own). But I was only 21 and didn’t know any better, so I just suffered through it.
Continue reading…Categories: Alexandria, Arlington, DC trips, JMU, Northern Virginia, Personal health, Washington DC
The sounds of Metro…
2 minute read
January 18, 2020, 10:37 AM
Back on July 8, 2007, my friend Matthew and I went on a railfan adventure with a different purpose than we would usually do. Normally, a railfan adventure involved lots of photos and videos. This time, instead of a camera, we brought a laptop and a microphone. The goal was to get some audio recordings of the trains from the interior, for use in BVE, which is a train simulator program for Windows. We worked from the double-ended seats, which were located more or less directly over the wheel trucks and traction motors. I worked the laptop while wearing headphones, while Matthew held up the mic. I’ve never been a big train simulator enthusiast (I prefer watching the real thing vs. operating a simulator), so I don’t know if these recordings ever got used in any of the final versions of these trains, but I loved doing the field work for these sorts of community-built projects. I also did a set of Red Line announcements for the simulator. As I know, there has never been a commercially available train simulator for the DC Metro, so for that, I enjoyed contributing in a small way to what was the only WMATA train simulator out there.
Our adventure that day took us on the Red, Orange, and Blue Lines, and we got recordings of cars 3273 (Breda original), 3185 (Breda rehab), 5028 (CAF), and 1130 (Rohr).
Original Breda car 3273 from Forest Glen to Silver Spring
Categories: Arlington, Matthew, Silver Spring, Washington DC, WMATA
Looking at some old photos from 2002…
6 minute read
June 17, 2019, 11:54 AM
Sometimes, it’s fun to look back at old photos. The world changes, after all, and sometimes, old photos document things that don’t exist anymore. For whatever reason, Elyse and I were looking at my photos from a trip to the Washington DC area that I made on April 13, 2002. For context, back when this trip happened, I was a junior in college, and had just been notified that I was being laid off from my call center job with Telegate USA (the successor company to CFW Information Services) after just under five years’ employment there. The call center where I worked was closing, and Telegate, primarily a European company, would exit the US market entirely within the year.
This particular trip produced the Old Town Alexandria set in Photography. I now consider that set to be poor work, and have it on my list of photo sets that I eventually want to reshoot, along with Meridian Hill Park. I figure that, with the passage of time and my becoming more proficient with the camera, I could do a much better job a second time around. In the case of the Old Town Alexandria set, I really didn’t take enough time to compose the shots. Timestamps indicate that it took me an hour to cover from near the waterfront to the Metro station. I was really just walking and photographing without putting much thought or effort into it.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around the DC area via the Metro, and more or less exploring around.
It’s also funny to think that I took these photos with my original Sony Mavica camera, which recorded at 640×480 resolution, with corresponding image quality. It was only slightly better quality than a potato.
Categories: Alexandria, Arlington, DC trips, Maryland, Photography, Washington DC, WMATA
Trying my hand at planespotting…
5 minute read
November 18, 2016, 11:02 AM
On Tuesday, November 16, Elyse and I went down to Gravelly Point in Arlington and photographed airplanes taking off from National Airport. In the past, I had photographed airplanes casually, usually when I’m over in Rosslyn, i.e. near the airport, while doing other things (the raw photo set for Urban Demolition II is peppered with random airplane and transit photos, if that tells you anything). However, this was my first dedicated outing for planespotting.
So I put the big lens on my camera and took it out for a spin, putting the camera in sports mode and going to town with it. My first takeoff, however, left something to be desired:
Categories: Airplanes, Arlington, Elyse, Photography
A look back on an old photo shoot…
5 minute read
July 7, 2016, 11:06 AM
July 7, 2001 was something of a milestone date for me. It was my first full-on photo shoot in DC. The result of that photo shoot was a Photography set called “The Schumin Web Salutes America”. I pulled the set during the WordPress conversion in 2012 because it was somewhat low quality, but you can still find it in the Internet Archive. Looking back on the set, it was clear that I didn’t know what I was doing, both in the photography itself as well as the post-production, but it was a start.
The set really embodied the way the Photography set started out, which was more like the modern Life and Times, but more subject-based. Photography didn’t take on its current form until 2008. In that, it started out showing my coming up to the area, traveling in on the Metro, it showed the things that I observed on that trip, and also showed a few landmarks in between.
Looking back on this day, fifteen years ago today, it’s funny to see how much has changed since this set was made. I was 20 years old. The camera was a Sony Mavica FD-73 – that means that I was toting a box of 3½” floppy disks around DC to save my photos. Buildings are now here that weren’t in 2001. Some buildings are gone now. This was also my first time riding past Smithsonian on the Blue and Orange Line, and my first time transferring to the Yellow Line, at L’Enfant Plaza, and going over the bridge. So here we go…
Categories: Arlington, Fire alarms, Photography, Schumin Web meta, Washington DC, WMATA
A splash photo that’s open to some interpretation…
4 minute read
November 25, 2014, 1:38 PM
This past Saturday, I got together with my friend Elyse, and we spent the day seeing what we could see, mostly in Rosslyn and Ballston. While we were in Rosslyn, we checked out the open-air patio on the fourth floor at the Le Méridien hotel (formerly Hotel Palomar) at the Waterview complex. The patio had decent enough views, but we ended up spending more time taking photos of the fire alarms, and as a result of that, got December’s splash photo:
Categories: Arlington, Elyse, Fire alarms, Schumin Web meta
I’ll bet no one realized that the headstone image was not randomly chosen…
3 minute read
November 13, 2009, 11:11 PM
Meanwhile, about Sunday…
3 minute read
November 2, 2008, 9:57 PM
I had fun today, as I completed the field work for my Rosslyn photo set. I have followed 1815 North Fort Myer Drive from operating office building to hole in the ground. Today, I finished up with photos of the completed demolition. Basically, we went from this:
Categories: Arlington, Silver Spring
Phew! The whole place smells like Sharpie…
3 minute read
September 8, 2008, 10:55 PM
Yes, I pulled out my Sharpies to hand-letter a few signs. I made three. This is the general gist of the message:
Categories: Arlington, Netculture
And they called her “Hanna”…
2 minute read
September 5, 2008, 8:41 PM
As of right now, Tropical Storm Hanna is expected to run up most of the eastern seaboard starting with the Carolinas and going up to New England. Per The Weather Channel, this is the projected path:
Image: The Weather Channel
Categories: Arlington, Tropical systems
Mom, Sis, and I had a great time…
3 minute read
June 15, 2008, 10:24 PM
I always enjoy when my sister comes back from Chicago. This time, she took a week and went to Stuarts Draft. However, as my own schedule precluded going down to Stuarts Draft, which meant that we didn’t get to have a the-four-of-us kind of moment this time around, I still did get to see her. Mom and Sis spent Thursday and Friday in DC with me, so the fun was still had.
First off, Mom and Sis met me Thursday afternoon at the office. Mom knows where my office building is, and so after stashing the car at Wheaton Plaza, she and Sis rode on down to Dupont Circle and met up with me in my office.
Getting back to Wheaton, they got to see how much I had done my restaurant homework for them. See, Mom was displeased in her earlier visits about how little I knew about the restaurant scene where I lived. I could tell you everything about places in Pentagon City and Dupont Circle, but nothing right in the immediate area where I actually live. After all, if I’m going to eat near where I live, I’ll just save the money and nuke something at home. But I found a restaurant for us to go to, and in Wheaton, no less. It’s called Umbertos, and it’s a family-owned restaurant located in this cluster of hispanic-run businesses in between Georgia Avenue and the Wheaton Plaza shopping mall. If you’re ever in Wheaton, I highly recommend it.
Then Friday, we headed to Georgetown. Yes, that Georgetown. So after an unexpected shopping trip at the JCPenney in Wheaton Plaza (Mom and Sis seem to be unable to turn down a sale on clothes), we took Metro down to Rosslyn, and then from there, walked over the Key Bridge to Georgetown. Sis’s big thing in Georgetown was seeing the Exorcist steps. And here they are:
Categories: Arlington, Family, Gas prices, Washington DC
A belated reportback is better than no reportback at all, I suppose.
9 minute read
May 25, 2008, 5:29 PM
Hey, I’ve been busy. So sue me. But I must report back that Katie and I had a great time last weekend. We went all over the place, and had a great time.
However, it started out somewhat rough – Katie took the train up to DC, specifically the Cardinal. And it was late. According to AmtrakDelays.com, on May 16, the eastbound Cardinal, train #50, was an hour and 42 minutes late arriving in Staunton, where Katie got on. Then at Union Station, where I was waiting for her, the train managed to rack up another 44 minutes of delays, and thus ended up getting in at 8:21 PM. That would make it two hours and 26 minutes late. This thing was supposed to show up at 5:55 PM, which would have fit my schedule quite nicely. Leave work, take Metro to Union Station, wait a few minutes, get Katie, and then ride back to Glenmont. However, I found out about the Staunton delay from Katie well in advance, so no problems there. I compensated other places as far as that delay went, and ended up staying later at work, since there were a few things I needed to take care of anyway, and planned to arrive in time for the new delayed arrival. Okay.
So arriving at Union Station, I got in, and immediately checked the boards to see what the deal was. Another delay. Lovely. So I ended up just kind of wandering around Union Station for the next two hours, as I had nothing else to do. I was totally unprepared for a longer delay. However, I did have my iPod, and so at least I got to listen to Randi Rhodes (now on Nova M Radio!). And with headphones on was how I passed a good hour or so of that delay, as I went in and out of stores, seeing what amused me. I also managed to find a relatively quiet corner of the station to make a phone call, finding out about how things were going on the train from Katie. That quiet spot ended up being in a far corner of the parking garage, interestingly enough. But hey, it was nice out, so it worked. I got to watch train movements north of the station, and found out that the initial delay was due to weather, and then heavy rail traffic caused the delays closer in. Okay. Beyond the control of either one of us. What are you going to do, I suppose.
Categories: Activism, Amtrak, Arlington, Arundel Mills, Katie, Project Chanology, Security, Washington DC, Wikipedia
A very ugly building in Rosslyn looks like it will be coming down soon…
3 minute read
April 11, 2008, 10:34 PM
Remember almost three years ago, back in 2005, when I wrote this Journal entry about the construction of a really tall building (by local standards) in Rosslyn, on a site that currently houses a frightfully ugly building? Well, here’s the building, at 1815 North Fort Myer Drive in Rosslyn:
Categories: Arlington
Hello from… Rosslyn?
< 1 minute read
April 30, 2007, 11:45 AM
Yeah. Hello from Rosslyn. I’ve found out that Rosslyn Center is just teeming with wireless access points. CommuterStore on the second floor has a free wireless hotspot, and it works in most of the first and second levels of Rosslyn Center. This is good to know for future reference, like if I’m meeting Matthew Tilley on a future railfan trip where the Lappy would play a role (we’ve discussed such a possibility). However, the CommuterStore link, or any other link for that matter, does not work in my favorite part of the building – the way back of the food court, near the windows. I usually go there to read the Express if I couldn’t finish on the Metro. That location is presumably too far away. There’s also a free wireless connection at Tivoli on the first floor. All I have to say is, sweet! about finding wireless connectivity here.
Next mission is to see if I can find a free wireless hotspot over at Pentagon Row. Now that would be nice, to be able to sit outside and get online there…
A photo set update for you now…
2 minute read
November 23, 2006, 2:13 AM
Every so often, as you know, I like to give updates on photo sets, like when things have changed. I think the most notable update has to be in my Afton Mountain photo set, where the Skyline Parkway Motel was torched ten months after I did the set.
This time, though, it’s a DC area update. You remember when I did Urban Demolition? That showed 1117 North 19th Street in the process of being demolished. Then when I did If These Streets Could Talk about a month and a half later, the site was simply a hole in the ground. The most recent update on that site that I provided was in Part 2 of my Year In Review photo set. There, it was still mostly a hole in the ground, but new structural elements were starting to take shape.
Now, check this out:
Categories: Arlington, Schumin Web meta