What a neat use for a hood ornament!
< 1 minute read
April 6, 2007, 12:47 PM
While Katie and I were at the mall yesterday, we saw one other thing that caught my eye. One patron of the mall had a Mercedes, and they modified the hood ornament on their car:
It almost makes me wish I had a Mercedes so I could adapt the hood ornament into a peace sign for my own use. What a great use, going from a corporate advertisement to a very relevant sentiment in this day and age.
“Staunton” and “Augusta County” are mutually exclusive…
2 minute read
April 6, 2007, 10:47 AM
Katie and I went to Staunton Mall yesterday evening, and had a great time. Then we went to Applebee’s for dinner, which was fun (though we ended up having to sweeten the sweet tea!).
One thing that led to an interesting discussion was when we saw a Sheriff’s deputy’s car parked outside the mall. I made the comment about the fact that seeing that is a reminder that technically, Staunton Mall is in Augusta County, to which Katie replied, “Well, yeah, Staunton’s in Augusta County.”
My little ears kind of perked up on that one, and my mind with its background in public administration kicked right into gear. I was like, “Noooooooo… Staunton is an independent city, therefore by definition it is not part of Augusta County.” And being in the car and being on the Belk side of the mall made it much easier to describe, because the boundary roughly runs along the edge of the mall’s property on that side. What better place to have this discussion than right at the city limits, no? I was like, “We’re in the county right now, but that CVS over there is in Staunton. Therefore, if you call Staunton Police for an incident at the mall, they’re out of their jurisdiction, since that’s Augusta County. They’ll refer you to the Augusta County Sheriff’s office.
Continue reading…Categories: Katie, State and local politics, Staunton
Fun times in Charlottesville
4 minute read
March 8, 2007, 2:08 AM
For the second time, Katie and I went over the mountain to Charlottesville, and we had a blast. I picked her up at her place, and we went over. I had Big Mavica and the Lappy in tow.
We went to the Downtown Mall, parked on the top level of the Market Street garage, and walked from the parking garage to the Charlottesville Ice Park and back. On the way, we stopped in at Five Guys for a restroom break and a soda (and where they don’t validate parking!), and at this little coffee shop near the Ice Park end for a steamer. Then going back, we stopped over at the free speech wall and photographed the messages, and added some of our own. The free speech wall is so fun, both to read and to contribute to. It’s also so Charlottesville, as in it’s something that is just so fitting for Charlottesville.
And we got lots of photos, too.
Katie took a moment to pose for a long-exposure photo on some planters.
Categories: Charlottesville
And what a wonderful time in Harrisonburg it was!
2 minute read
February 24, 2007, 9:25 PM
I had a fun day today in Harrisonburg. First of all, my time with Patrick went quite well. I got to meet his father, and the three of us had dinner at Ruby Tuesday. He also got to see the Sable, and he was impressed. It helped that I ran it through the car wash earlier that day, too. I also got to see his Chevy Venture, which was pretty neat.
The three of us were also in agreement that the people who designed the traffic patterns for the Harrisonburg Crossing shopping center deserve to be shot, since there are only three points of entrance to that very large and very congested shopping center. There’s one on Burgess Road, which leads to East Market Street (US 33). Then there are two at the other end on Reservoir Street. And the parking rows have no breaks from one end to the other. Therefore, you have two ways across the shopping center, parallel to the buildings. Right up against Wal-Mart and Home Depot, or right up against the Barnes and Noble/Michaels/Ross/Staples/Circuit City/whatever building. Thus it’s very easy to get stuck in parking lot hell, as you have to go all the way to either end to change rows, and the two side areas are VERY congested with traffic. Two words: It sucks. They would be very well served to reconfigure the parking lot to add another way across that massive lot parallel to the buildings. Imagine another path parallel to the buildings down the center. That would start directly in front of the main entrance at Reservoir Street to right in between O’Charley’s and Ruby Tuesday. The construction work necessary to do this would involve building some new parking lot islands to mark the new ends of the rows, and paving through some long islands that run perpendicular to the buildings and run the full length of the lot. Until they do that, which I don’t see as being likely to happen any time soon, have one hand on the horn, and have the middle finger on the other hand at the ready, because Harrisonburg drivers drive like idiots, and that goes for permanent residents and JMU students alike. Every time I have to cross that shopping center when it’s busy, another hair turns gray.
Categories: Friends, Harrisonburg
There you are – UTS 8338 in Waynesboro
3 minute read
February 4, 2007, 12:43 AM
Well, as promised, I got photos of UTS 8338 in front of the Aaron’s/Goodwill building in Waynesboro on my way to work. Also, I was mistaken about what they were promoting. While there is a sign on the premises about cell phones for troops, that is not what was on the bus. The bus is displaying a promotion for a food drive by the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, and it is sponsored by Aaron’s and Liberty Tax Service. So here are the photos…
Categories: Transit, Waynesboro
What the heck is a UTS bus doing in Waynesboro?
2 minute read
February 3, 2007, 11:13 AM
Remember back in February of 2005 when I went over to Charlottesville and did some photographing at the University of Virginia, getting photos of the University Transit Service buses for Transit Center?
Well, I saw one of the buses I photographed at that time in Waynesboro yesterday. It’s an Orion I, bus 8338. That would be this bus:
Categories: Transit, Waynesboro
I found the beacon in Rockingham County
2 minute read
January 11, 2007, 2:43 PM
You may recall back in November in this entry that I was discussing a beacon visible from I-81 in Rockingham County.
Fast forward about a month and a half, and I can now tell you that I found the beacon. I was coming home from Harrisonburg last night, after attending a potluck at Rocktown Infoshop. I took Route 42 down as far as Bridgewater, and then crossed over to Route 11 on Dinkel Avenue. And there’s the light from the beacon, going around and around.
I’d spoken with some people about the beacon since I wrote my Journal entry, and they told me about an airport that I previously didn’t know about that exists in Bridgewater. I thought it was somewhat odd for an airport to be in Bridgewater, considering that the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport exists just over the county line in Weyers Cave. But okay. There’s the light, and it had been a curiosity of mine for some years.
So I turned onto Route 11 and proceeded south through Mount Crawford, and turned right onto the aptly-named Airport Road. Airport Road starts out with a one-lane bridge over some river or stream, and then follows a series of sharp curves. All the while, the beacon’s light is still visible in the distance. And there are houses on this road. I could not imagine living so close to that beacon, but still, there you go. And as I traveled along this road, the beacon’s sweep became somewhat narrower, making it apparent that I was getting closer to the source.
Categories: Harrisonburg
If you can imagine this…
2 minute read
December 18, 2006, 7:53 PM
Picture with me if you will…
I’m walking up Diagonal Road in Alexandria towards the Old Town Transit Shop, and right when I get there, I hear a loud crashing sound and see sparks. Then I see a tire rolling down towards King Street station. A gentleman in a red SUV actually dropped a wheel! Literally dropped a wheel, as the left front wheel separated from the car and, now liberated, went rolling on its own down the hill. My exact reaction was to say a four-letter word that I can’t say in this space. So I went in to see my friend Tristan, and what did we do? We went outside to look. We both couldn’t believe that this guy had dropped a wheel. But the car was visibly off-kilter, leaning down in the direction of that missing wheel. I’m sure that the guy was not happy about that.
Otherwise, I had a lovely walk in Georgetown, discovering The Shops at Georgetown Park, which is a very expensive three-story shopping mall on M Street. I got a few pictures of it, and I’m going to tell Sis about it, since she loves to shop. Those of you who have seen the movie First Kid will know Georgetown Park, since that is the place where the big hostage/shootout scene happens.
Categories: Alexandria, DC trips, Washington DC
Does anyone know…
< 1 minute read
November 29, 2006, 8:21 PM
Does anyone know the location and/or purpose of a beacon or searchlight in Rockingham County, Virginia just south of Harrisonburg? I first noticed it in 2003 when I was commuting to JMU, and I gave it some more serious thought about what it was last night when I most recently saw it. And I see it on most trips through that area at night.
It appears to originate west of Interstate 81 and US 11, appearing to originate from Bridgewater, or just south of there. I’ve never actually seen the device that this light originates from – just the light itself. The beam of light is white, and it moves in a clockwise direction at a fast speed. If you’ve ever seen the way a lighthouse’s beam moves, it’s about the same.
To see the area I’m referring to, here’s a map. The beacon appears to originate from west of the highway (left on that map). The furthest north I’ve been able to see it is at Exit 240, which is the Mt. Crawford/Bridgewater exit on I-81, the junction of I-81 and Friedens Church Road. The furthest south I’ve seen it is just north of the Augusta County line. The boundary between the two counties is not marked on the map, but to give you a general idea, it’s a straight northwest-to-southeast line just north of Fadley Road and Weyers Cave Road (Route 256).
So my question is, has anyone else seen this particular bit of light? Does anyone know where it’s actually located? Does anyone know what its purpose is? If you know what it is, I would like to know!
Categories: Driving, Harrisonburg
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
Sometimes, the way I set up a shot is amusing…
2 minute read
October 22, 2006, 1:02 AM
I’m looking at the photo feature I’m running right now, described as “Headlights illuminate a sign marking the Buena Vista overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway.” What I find amusing is how I used practically everything I had with me except for the Blistex that I keep in my camera bag in order to get this shot. Seriously. Even the Sable got into the act. Where do you think the headlights that illuminated the sign came from? Sa-a-a-a-a-able…
I was actually trying to get a nice long-exposure shot of the sign, which is how this all came about. The sun was down enough to where the shot would come out dark, but light enough to where it would be blue. So I fiddled with things, and also, since I was parked right in front of the sign, I fiddled with my headlights to get things how I wanted. In the shot I ultimately used, I timed things. I set the camera up at an eight-second exposure, and then using the remote, unlocked my doors (which makes the headlights come on) with two seconds to go. I used other exposures and length of time with the headlights on as well, but that’s the one that looked the way I liked.
I also had some fun taking some long-exposure shots of the Sable while I was up there in the dark, with the tripod all set up. I reached into the car and hit the switch for the interior and door lights. Then I fired off a few long-exposure shots of that. Thus we have the Sable, an island of light in the midst of darkness…
Categories: Blue Ridge Parkway, Photography
Photos of mine, printed ABOVE the fold…
2 minute read
August 28, 2006, 7:51 AM
How often can you say that your photos end up on the front page of the local newspaper? And above the fold, no less. If you look at the August 28, 2006 edition of The News Virginian, you will see two photos anchoring an article about the Skyline Parkway Motel, which, you may recall, had been abandoned for some time, and then was torched in 2004. Both of them are tagged with “Photo courtesy of BEN SCHUMIN”. Here are the photos that the newspaper ran:
Categories: Afton Mountain, Skyline Parkway Motel, Virginia local news, Wikipedia
Should we call it “close encounters of the deered kind”?
< 1 minute read
August 24, 2006, 3:18 AM
The Blue Ridge Parkway is very quickly becoming a dangerous place for the Sable. And before you ask, no, I did not hit another deer (thank goodness). But I did have a close encounter near the Rockfish Valley Parking Overlook. This deer was along the side of the road, minding its own business. I kept an eye on it as soon as I spotted it, waiting for it to make a move. It sees me. It did that deer-in-the-headlights thing. Then, as I continued, it just darted out in front of me. I slammed the brakes, enough to activate the anti-lock brakes. It was a close encounter, but we missed each other.
I contemplated adding deer whistles to the Sable after the repairs are completed, but according to this article, this article, and this article, they’re junk. So that goes out the window.
I don’t know what it is, but it seems that the deer are really out and about this year. I didn’t see nearly as many deer on the Parkway this time last year.
Categories: Blue Ridge Parkway, Mercury Sable
Just make them an offer that they CAN refuse…
2 minute read
August 17, 2006, 8:11 PM
First of all, hello from Pentagon City.
I went over to Brookstone while here, and they have this new device that you sit on that’s supposed to work your body as if you’re riding a horse. Okay, fine. So I got on, I sat down, and I gave it a whirl. I made some interesting faces while riding that thing, trying to maintain my balance on there.
So then this group of teenaged girls comes in. They see me on the thing, unbeknownst to me. I got off. They want to see me ride it again. I said, “No thank you, I’ve already ridden it. Why don’t you give it a try?” They declined. They want to see ME do it again. I declined again. Then they start offering me money. One girl offers a quarter. Another a penny. Then someone ponies up a dollar. I still refuse.
I got this feeling that they were making fun of me. And I was through riding that contraption and that was all there was to it. So when they asked how much it would take to get me to ride it again, I went for the big guns. “Fifty bucks,” I said. They were quite shocked at the price I named, and left, which is what I wanted them to do. Because when you’re being made fun of, it’s best to one-up them. And one-upping a group of unsupervised teenaged girls that all share one brain amongst the lot of them is not hard to do.
Seeing these groups of teenagers at Pentagon City makes me think that putting these various groups from out of town in chain gangs is not a particularly bad idea. Since the adult leaders of these groups use Pentagon City as a way to cut these children loose while they go take a smoke or something. So they subject the rest of us, the well-behaved members of society, to these obnoxious children.
Categories: Arlington, DC trips, Retail, Some people
“So who gets the deer: me or the dog?”
3 minute read
August 15, 2006, 1:08 AM
I am sad to announce that my Sable got into its first accident tonight on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I hit a deer. I was going southbound at 40 mph (five below the posted speed limit of 45), and two deer darted out in front of me closely enough that I didn’t have time to stop or swerve. I barely cleared the first one, and then I nailed the second one head-on in the body. That deer bounced off the front of the car, and then rolled stiff-legged off the road and landed in the grass. It looked as if it was one-piece construction and not a real deer, because no parts of the body moved – the whole thing just rolled off, appearing completely rigid. I don’t know what happened to it from there, because I couldn’t stop right there due to lack of available shoulder space. The rule is that if you stop on the Parkway, you have to have all four wheels off the road. I was able to accomplish this about a quarter mile down the road.
Thankfully, the Sable survived intact for the most part. The deer left a big dent in the right fender, left a dent in the hood, and jarred the grille loose, but the car was driveable, and both headlights survived intact. I was not injured at all, though I can’t say the same for the deer. I guess the best way to describe the Sable’s post-deer condition is “walking wounded”, since it walked away from the accident, but didn’t make it out unscathed.
I initially tried to call 1-800-PARKWATCH (Blue Ridge Parkway emergency dispatch) from the accident scene, but got no signal. So I drove up to the nearby Boston Knob overlook, and after two tries, I got a good signal, and reported the accident. They got my contact information, and said that a ranger would call me and do the accident report over the phone.
Categories: Blue Ridge Parkway, Mercury Sable