I am ready to be snowed in…
3 minute read
February 5, 2010, 12:22 AM
I am ready to be snowed in this weekend. The Sable is safely parked, and the cabinets are full. I am set. My castle is stocked up. Bring it on, nature.
Otherwise, today I discovered that adults can be just as bad as children when it comes to getting revved up about a potential snow day. All I heard today was, “Do you think we’re going to get tomorrow off?” I was all, noooooooo, since I think that the Feds have already decided on their course of action. They’re operating under an unscheduled leave policy for Friday, which for us basically means show up. Now whether they close early once the snow starts coming down is another story.
Meanwhile, speaking of snow days, when I was in school, I always just wanted to strangle those teachers that acted like it was our fault for missing school due to bad winter weather when we grumbled about having to go to school on Memorial Day for make-up days. These teachers that would say, “You had your Memorial Day back in January!” Big help. Like it’s my fault that it snowed. I remember my seventh grade year was hell for that kind of thing. We had something like 16 snow days that year. Thus we had no days off of any kind except for weekends from the last snow day in March through to like June 16 plus one Saturday (yes, we had one make-up day on a Saturday). And when you couple that with the fact that my homeroom teacher was a real d—–bag, it made for a very rough year. This particular teacher even made fun of me (in a mean way) in front of the whole class when he presented me my perfect attendance certificate at the end of the year. I had better attendance than he did that year, and he made fun of me…
Continue reading…Categories: Snowmageddon, Walmart, WMATA
So I am now the proud father of a Motorola Droid…
3 minute read
January 19, 2010, 12:27 AM
So I got my Droid today. I now have what I describe as the iPhone for people who don’t want an iPhone. This thing has the touch screen, it has Wi-Fi, it has downloadable apps and games, and it has a five-megapixel camera.
Yes, five megapixels. That’s right – my cell phone just out-megapixeled the late Big Mavica (which was four-megapixel). That’s obscene. My cell phone still slots below my real cameras, though. Duckie has six, and the Canon does ten. And take a look at a sample of its work:
Categories: Cell phone, Staunton Mall
Something tells me that they’re closed.
4 minute read
December 27, 2009, 11:50 PM
First of all, hello from Stuarts Draft, Virginia, where I’m writing to you from the Lappy at my parents’ kitchen table instead of my real computer.
On the way down to Stuarts Draft, I stopped to photograph the Safeway in Wheaton. The Safeway in Wheaton recently closed due to a pending redevelopment. They’re supposed to be tearing down the existing store and replacing it with a mixed-use development, including a new modern Safeway store at street level. The store closed on the 19th (the day of the snowstorm), and, to my surprise, was completely boarded up following the closure. I saw it boarded up on Christmas Eve, and was like, whoa! when I saw it.
First of all, here’s the store as it appeared when open, courtesy of Google Earth:
Image: Google Earth
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
The parking lot known as Interstate 66…
4 minute read
November 25, 2009, 10:07 PM
First of all, greetings from Stuarts Draft, where I’ve not been in six months. I’m here until Sunday, and left straight from work, which was interesting.
I tried something new this time around. I drove into work, worked a half day, and then left for Stuarts Draft straight from the office. For that, I took 16th Street from P Street to K Street, and then took K Street to I-66. Then I took 66 to the end, where I caught I-81 down to Staunton, and then from there, moseyed around a few back roads to Stuarts Draft and my parents’ house.
Driving into work and then leaving straight from work certainly has its ups and downs. On one hand, I can load up in the morning and then go, and not have to go back home to pick up the car, i.e. go north from the office back to Maryland just to immediately turn south again to go to Virginia. Then the drop-at-Vienna-the-night-before bit is a shade complicated. Recall that the drop-at-Vienna method involves positioning the car with most of the luggage in Virginia the night before, taking Metro and a bus back to Maryland, and then going to work like normal the next day. Then after work, take Metro to Vienna rather than Glenmont, grab the car, and zing off to Stuarts Draft. The idea there was to avoid the inside-the-beltway traffic by putting the car ahead of that and taking Metro to meet the car, but it’s just a bit too much trouble, and involves a lot of advance planning and coordination of what needs to be where. Plus it’s weird stashing the car and one’s luggage in another state for a night.
The whole idea is dealing with the traffic most effciently when there’s a workday involved. See, going into work precludes use of the Beltway for the trip out, since work is in Dupont Circle, near downtown Washington. One would think that it would have been less congested, but I-66 was slow all the way to Vienna. Seriously, I was on the phone with Mom part of the way, and was like, “I’m going eight miles per hour. Oh, wait, now ten. Wait… five.” Yeah, that slow. On the freeway. At least I had people on the phone, plus Randi Rhodes when I didn’t have anyone on the phone.
Categories: Driving, Harrisonburg, Stuarts Draft, Thanksgiving, Walmart
One would think it wouldn’t be that hard to find aqua socks in the middle of July, but if you thought that, you would be wrong.
4 minute read
July 19, 2009, 8:29 PM
One would think – July is the middle of the summer. Summer is a time when people spend a lot of time in the water. One would think that one would be able to find water-type shoes in the middle of the summer. But no. I went to seven different stores, and found no aqua socks that fit at a price that I was willing to pay.
The reason, of course, is because of the way retail works. “Spring” starts December 26, and runs to roughly Easter. Then “summer” runs from around Easter to the Fourth of July. Then “fall” goes until around Labor Day or so. Then “winter” runs from Labor Day to Christmas. Thus now, on July 19, the aqua socks are mostly gone, and the stock of sandals is dwindling.
So why am I so worked up about finding a pair of aqua socks? Well, I’m going tubing on the Shenandoah River in Luray next weekend with a bunch of my coworkers, and the Web site for Shenandoah River Outfitters, the company we’re going through for this tube trip, recommends that shoes be worn on the river for safety purposes. Makes perfect sense to me – there could be rough bottom terrain, sharp rocks, or other kinds of hazardous debris, and I don’t want to get hurt on the river. Even more so when you consider that I’m one of the drivers for this outing, and thus my feet will be doing a bit of work beyond the river, and injured feet on the pedals is a Bad Thing.
Categories: Retail, Shoes, Video games
Okay, I’m calling it – Staunton Mall is toast.
2 minute read
May 2, 2009, 1:36 PM
Okay, I’m calling it. Staunton Mall is a dying mall, if not already basically a dead mall. I was in there on Friday with Katie, and I believe there are now more empty locations than there are full ones. Steve and Barry’s, in an anchor spot, is gone. Books-A-Million is gone, in another large spot. KB Toys is gone, as part of the chain’s complete closure earlier this year. The former Piece Goods location has never been filled for any appreciable length of time since Piece Goods left. The old CVS/Pharmacy location is still empty after more than two years since CVS moved to a freestanding location nearby.
Additionally, Peebles, while open, is in deplorable shape, with visibly worn tiles, stained and worn carpet, and stained ceiling tiles. That location needs to be renovated badly, but I doubt that Stage Stores (which owns Peebles) will invest in it, considering that all they did when it changed to Peebles from Stone and Thomas was change the nameplate, change some interior signage, and wall in a gift-wrapping counter. Meanwhile, the Belk store in Staunton Mall has never been remodeled since I’ve been there, aside from changes related to when the store changed its nameplate from Leggett to Belk in 1997 or so. It, however, looks to be in better shape than Peebles, but partly because the lighting is somewhat darker in there, and thus it hides the aging. Still, it certainly says a lot about what a company thinks about certain locations when they don’t bother to ever remodel or update them, while remodeling and updating other locations, sometimes multiple times.
Categories: Retail, Staunton, Staunton Mall
You know, I understand the whole concept of wanting to promote good health while the economy’s in the dumper, but…
3 minute read
March 12, 2009, 7:46 PM
Indeed, I understand about wanting to promote good health while the economy is in the can, but I think we’ll all agree that this is probably not the way to do it:
Categories: Advertising, Safeway
So the apartment is clean from top to bottom…
5 minute read
December 28, 2008, 2:09 AM
I just finished giving my apartment a thorough cleaning ahead of my trip to Stuarts Draft for a week. I did the rugs, I did the floors, I dusted, I completely cleaned the kitchen, and I completely cleaned the bathroom. It was a long ordeal, but the place looks great now!
Most bothersome, though, was cleaning the carpets. I had Mom’s shampooer, and I went the whole nine yards. I picked everything up, moved furniture around, and everything. I had my coffee table up-ended and in the kitchen, if that tells you anything. Bedroom, hallway, and then living room. The living room was perhaps the most challenging. First I had to make sure not to shampoo myself into a corner, but also what to do once the carpets were done.
\Determining what to do once the carpets were finished was actually pretty exciting. I grabbed my coat, my hat, my iPod, and my phone, and took to the Sable for a few hours late at night. Makes me glad that gas is cheaper again, because I finally got to explore a bit. It’s time to see what’s beyond Silver Spring. So I took a small late-night road trip. Previously, I’d only been on Georgia Avenue as far as Norbeck Road, which is not all that much further north than my street. Now, I followed Georgia Avenue a long way. I went through Olney, seeing roughly where Montgomery General Hospital is (the Y bus’s northern terminus), and continued, finding out that Georgia Avenue narrows down to two lanes once you clear Olney. Olney also appeared to be a lot smaller than I expected. I expected a larger town, but there you go. And then beyond Olney, Georgia Avenue reminded me a lot of various back roads in Augusta County, Virginia, where I used to live. Lots of curves, and two lanes. For the first time in a long time, I broke out the high beams.
Ladies: Would you really want your guy smelling like a cheeseburger?
2 minute read
December 18, 2008, 11:11 PM
You know, I thought it was enough getting used to the scent of the Brut. But then one of my coworkers forwarded me an Email about Burger King’s releasing a meat-scented cologne for men. Seriously. Take a look.
I don’t know about you, but that’s not the kind of scent I would want to be spraying on myself. Honestly, the smell of meat is not the kind of scent I would want to wear to impress someone. Personally, if I encountered someone smelling like meat, I’d start to wonder. “So are you carrying a few hamburgers in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” Besides, hamburgers, and especially fast food hamburgers, are kind of gross. For that matter, Burger King food is just disgusting in general, and along with McDonald’s, I try to avoid it.
Personally, I’ve never really seen the point of cologne in general. It makes you smell like something, but you usually have to really use your imagination to decide just what the stuff smells like. However, even the cheap stuff costs too much money, and too often, cologne is done badly by the person wearing it. I remember two specific examples of colognes done badly. One was my sophomore year in college. My RA in Potomac Hall wore way too much cologne. You could smell him coming way before you saw him. His fumes preceded him. Likewise, when I worked at Wal-Mart, there was this one guy who wore too much cologne who worked the cigarette line regularly. His fumes preceded him, too. He smelled awful because he wore far too much cologne.
This new deodorant is burning my nose today…
< 1 minute read
December 18, 2008, 1:31 PM
Well, folks, I made one of those changes last night that only happens once a decade. I changed my deodorant brand. I used to use Old Spice, but am now giving Brut a whirl. We’ll see how that goes, I suppose.
But today is definitely the break-in period. Any time you change deodorant scents, even within the same brand, you can really smell it on the first day or so. So today, I can’t smell anything except for Brut. As far as I’m concerned, the whole office smells like Brut (even though I know it’s really me that smells of it). And this new scent is burning my nose. Seriously, it’s enough of a change that I’m getting that burning feeling in my nose. Of course, I’ll get used to the smell and then won’t be able to smell it anymore, but for now, it’s burning my nose.
The only problem with Brut, however, is that it’s a bit harder to find than I expected. I went to Target and Shoppers with no luck, and then finally found it at CVS. So we might still be giving a few more things a try.
Until then, though, my nose is getting used to a new scent…
Categories: Products
Gas went down eighteen cents in three days?
3 minute read
November 26, 2008, 8:25 PM
Yes, it’s true! If you look about two Journal entries back, you’ll see that gas at the Martin’s in Waynesboro was $1.59 per gallon on Sunday. Now, three days later, on Wednesday, look:
Categories: Charlottesville, Family, Retail
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 maybe someone wants us to just believe that $4.00 per gallon was just a bad dream or something?
3 minute read
November 23, 2008, 7:50 PM
First of all, hello from my parents’ house in Stuarts Draft, where I’ll be for the better part of a week. I’ve set up a little Lappy workstation in the kitchen, which is where I write you today.
And with all the price speculation on oil having subsided with the economy in the dumper, look at these numbers:
Categories: Afton Mountain, Gas prices
So the meetup went well, though turnout was low.
2 minute read
September 7, 2008, 1:58 AM
I always love getting together with my fellow Wikipedia geeks. We have so much fun, though I admit that the turnout was a bit low this time around. But, I also can’t blame many for not showing, considering that Tropical Storm Hanna came blowing through on the same day. I got pretty wet just walking the ten feet from my door to the car, but otherwise, no problem, since it was a short drive to the Metro station, and then from there, I’m on Metro and it can be as rainy and windy as it wants, because all the stations I’m dealing with (Wheaton and Union Station in this case) are underground.
Otherwise, though, Uno’s was wonderful as always, and the wait staff took very good care of us. One thing we noticed on the check was that they never billed us for the drinks! Much to our surprise, none of the beverages that anyone ordered, alcoholic or otherwise, appeared on the check. Then the conversation was lovely, as we made light of some of the various situations that came up on Wikipedia and all the things we managed to get into. Fun times.
And here we are:
