I have reached a milestone…
4 minute read
September 11, 2018, 4:08 PM
I recently reached a milestone when it comes to my overhaul of my Today’s Special site. I last wrote about this project in 2013, at which time I had settled on a platform for the site (WordPress) and had written a few articles, mainly as proof of concept. The build plan has always been to start with “Hats” and work my way through to “Memories“, adding content in the order that it appears in the show. After I get through all 121 episodes and the content related to those, I will then write the articles for the content that doesn’t necessarily tie neatly into an episode or episodes, like the articles for the main characters, the various sets, and so on. Then once all of the articles are written, I just need to write the “business” pages like the main page, privacy statement, etc., give everything a final check, and then launch.
Since I announced the project in 2013, the project has made good progress, though that progress has happened in fits and starts over the intervening years. I completed the articles for “Hats“, “Snow“, “Noses“, and “Family” in late 2013, and then set the project aside for about two years. I suppose that other matters took precedence during that time. Then when I picked it up again in late 2015, I got a lot of prep work done for the episode pages, such as all of the writer, director, and sequence information, and then by March 2016, I had completed things through “Games“, i.e. the twelfth episode. I then picked it up again in December 2016, and finished up the first season in February 2017. I picked up on the second season in September 2017, starting with “Dance“, and finished it up exactly one year later, taking approximately six months off from it from December 2017 to June 2018. That work on the second season also included writing seven brand new episode synopses, to replace some temporary short synopses written in the nineties. You know what they say: there is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. That said, the new synopses are the same length as the standard ones.
In finishing the 1982 episodes, and a number of other articles related to that, I believe that I have reached a significant milestone as far as Today’s Special goes. Going into the project, I was concerned that I would get bogged down in those early episodes and the project would stall indefinitely. But now I’m done with them. I have completed the early material, and am now moving into the middle of the series. Starting in 1983, the series really “grew out its beard“, as the show definitely hit its stride during that period. The 1981 episodes were fairly light on story, focusing mostly on teaching about the various concepts that the show covered, such as hats, snow, camping, fruit, and so on. The 1982 episodes were built around an actual plot, but still had a lot of teaching and explaining in them. Starting in 1983, the concepts are taught through the storyline, with less direct explanation of concepts. There’s also more conflict, as 1983 has five episodes where characters get very upset with each other for very valid reasons. In addition, the characters are far more developed in 1983, as all of their origin stories are shown. The show also changes its appearance slightly, as this is when Jodie begins wearing her third uniform, which is the version with the long sleeved button-down shirt and pocket on the right side, rather than the short sleeved jumpsuit that she wore previously.
Continue reading…Categories: Schumin Web meta, Today's Special
“Roseanne” becomes “The Conners”…
9 minute read
September 1, 2018, 10:51 AM
Funny how real life sometimes writes the plot. I was planning to do a review of the tenth season of Roseanne in this space back in May, but while I was writing it, the show was cancelled by ABC after Roseanne Barr posted some pretty vile stuff on the Twitter. That put the partially-written Journal entry on hold, because those events affected a lot of what I was working on. However, the network’s reaction to the Twitter rant was completely understandable. I can’t imagine that any company would want to be associated with such vile rhetoric coming from one of their key players.
Based on the fallout, where Barr blamed Ambien for her racist rant, I can tell you one thing: she’s not sorry. Sure, she’s sorry that she ran her mouth and lost her job, but she’s not sorry for what she said. If anything, her using the medication as a scapegoat cements that those were her true feelings. The idea is that the medication “removed the filter”, and, with nothing to prevent vile things from being said, she let out what she had really been thinking all along. And then she doubled down on it on a Fox News appearance later on. I’m disappointed, because I expected better from Barr. But I suppose that it doesn’t matter anymore, because Barr’s career is most definitely over, destroyed by an ill-considered Twitter post.
I suppose that this is also a lesson about how to handle your relationship between your personal social media and your employer, especially when you’re in a very public position. People hear about stuff like this and complain about free speech, but the whole concept of “free speech” as laid out by the First Amendment only applies to the government. A private entity is completely free to fire you for saying something vile on the Internet, and that’s what happened with Barr. The government played no role in her firing. She ran her mouth, and boom – she lost her job.
Categories: Television
Please don’t stop for me when I’m waiting to cross the street…
5 minute read
August 25, 2018, 1:51 PM
On Thursday, while I was waiting for a bus, I witnessed a near accident involving a pedestrian at a crosswalk on Layhill Road near Glenfield Local Park in the Glenmont area of Montgomery County. In other words, this location, seen from approximately my vantage point:
Image: Google Street View
This view is facing approximately south, putting the northbound lanes on the left and the southbound lanes on the right. There is a median in the middle of the road. Southbound traffic has a turnout for traffic making left turns into the park police station (entrance visible at left). There are wide bike lanes on either side of the road. There is also a Metro facility entrance at this location (out of frame to the right). This intersection is not a big one by any means. There are no signals. Ride On has a bus stop on either side of the road at this location.
Categories: Roads, Silver Spring
I finally found it after twenty years…
3 minute read
August 14, 2018, 1:38 PM
When my family went to England back in 1998, we mainly watched Sky One, which ran American television shows, when we were at the hotel. I suppose that we watched mostly American TV because it was familiar. The commercials, however, were very British. Three commercials stuck out in my mind while we were there. One was for Ribena, which featured a pregnant woman explaining how beneficial it was during pregnancy. One was for some mac and cheese product where two boys were playing a game, and the younger boy’s job was to stand there and hold the antenna, complaining, “My arm hurts!” at the end of the spot. And then the third was for Lucozade, a sports drink.
That third one, for Lucozade, was by far the most memorable of the three, primarily because of some rather racy content. It featured several men wearing nothing but mountie hats putting on a show, while a bunch of cartoon women watched. At one point, they explain that because this variety of Lucozade is low in calories, it helps them “stay firm”, as the camera pans from the face down their body, stopping at their stomach, where the man says, “Where it counts!” as he pats his stomach. Very memorable, and very British. You would certainly never see a spot like that in the United States.
Back in the nineties, it was never a thought that we would be able to find this commercial. Of course not. The technology and the will wasn’t there. Now, though, with sites like YouTube and the like, a lot of older advertisements have seen new life for nostalgic purposes, which is a welcome addition. After all, full television programs tend to have good repeat value, but commercials, due to their more timely nature, rarely get airtime again after their planned run is completed. There are exceptions, like that Arby’s “five roast beef sandwiches” spot and the Fruity Pebbles spot with Santa, which ran for quite a few years, but for the most part, they’re one-and-done.
Categories: Advertising, Travel
Was I right to have been upset about this?
4 minute read
August 7, 2018, 6:18 PM
While participating in a discussion on Reddit, it conjured up the memory of something that happened in my junior year of college that left me a bit unsettled at the time, and on which I never got any closure. Before I begin, be advised – the events described here occurred more than 16 years ago, so at this point, this discussion is purely academic.
While I was a resident advisor in Potomac Hall in 2001-2002, there were two occasions where I was asked to swap office duty shifts near the end of the year. On the first occasion, the person who wanted to switch with me told me that it was for a family emergency. In that instance, I agreed to switch days without question, because I would expect the same thing for me should a similar situation arise for me. I remember seeing that person in the building that night, and thought, I thought that you had a family emergency, but dismissed it, because that really wasn’t my place to judge. Then on the second occasion, a different person asked me to switch duty days so that they could attend an awards ceremony. I said no, because I didn’t want to trade days, and an awards ceremony wasn’t an emergency. I held my ground on that, but later relented after my hall director, Mecca Marsh, whom I’ve written about previously in this space, turned the colleague’s request into an order from the boss. So I was a bit annoyed about that, especially since I knew that Mecca would have never taken my side like that should I have been in the same situation. But in the end, I did as I was told.
Then fast forward a month or so later. The colleague who swapped shifts with me for the awards ceremony brought a video over to show me. The video depicted a probate ceremony for an historically black sorority on campus. I learned a lot from the video, which both of my colleagues were in, because prior to this, I didn’t know anything about how historically black Greek letter organizations worked. My colleague did a great job in explaining to me what was going on, why it was going on, and the significance of it all. Then they went on to explain that sorority events were the real reason for the “awards ceremony”, and the other person’s “family emergency”. They couldn’t tell me what they were really doing because they were sworn to secrecy.
New rugs!
5 minute read
August 2, 2018, 10:28 AM
So I have a little house update for you: carpet! In the last month or so, I finally got the area rug question figured out, and procured and placed three area rugs in the house. It makes for a much richer setting with some area rugs on the hardwood floors. I put area rugs in my bedroom, the back bedroom, and the dining area part of the the living room. So now, all three bedrooms and the living room have rugs in them.
For some reason, choosing home decor tends to stress me out. I popped so many Advils in the process of picking these carpets. I think it’s because it’s a significant cash outlay, because (A) furniture and carpet aren’t cheap, and (B) it’s something that you really don’t want to return, especially if if required special arrangements to get it home in the first place. Choosing what loveseat to buy for the mezzanine was difficult, as I visited so many stores in search of the perfect loveseat. I eventually settled on an Ektorp loveseat from IKEA, which turned out to be the perfect thing to put up in the mezzanine.
Deciding on the area rugs took the stress from the loveseat search and multiplied it by twelve. I had three rooms to outfit, and each had to be perfect, but I didn’t know what “perfect” was. I knew what my dimensions needed to be, and then worked from there. I spent many nights on Amazon looking at area rugs. More headaches. I went to Walmart and Target’s websites. Nothing good – need more Advil. I went down to Big Lots and came out empty, save for a brand new headache. I also went to Ollie’s up in Jessup, and came out with something for Elyse, but no rugs. And rugs were my responsibility, since Elyse didn’t quite understand why I was so wound up about rugs, and often suggested that I “just pick something”.
Categories: House
You know, he totally looks like…
< 1 minute read
July 31, 2018, 10:50 AM
So I was recently on Reddit and looking at /r/blunderyears, which is a board where people post old embarrassing photos of themselves, and came across this guy’s old photo from 2005:
Categories: Asbury Park, Reddit
Five years since I left the nonprofit world…
4 minute read
July 20, 2018, 2:34 PM
Yesterday marked five years since I left Food & Water Watch, where I worked for a little over six years. I had not been happy there for a while, and the deterioration of things in my last three months or so was the final push that I needed in order to do what I knew that I needed to do, i.e. leave the organization. Looking back, I suppose that what ultimately happened was the logical conclusion to my work there. I was hired into a very generalist position back in 2007. I was that guy who “did everything”. One day I would be doing accounting work. One day I was building furniture. One day I was fixing computers. One day I would be working in fundraising. You name it, and I probably did it at some point. Over the years, my job evolved and changed as the organization grew, and people with more specialized roles were added as various functions of the organization became too large for a more generalist position. Eventually, there became less of a need for a position like mine, but so rather than promote me to a new role, they opted to unload me. Suit yourself, I suppose.
In any case, the next fifteen months were an interesting time in my life. I was reminded of exactly how much job hunting sucks, but I also remember not really feeling any of the positions that I was applying for. More nonprofit work after just having been chewed up and spit out by one didn’t exactly ignite my passion. Especially when there was that nagging thought that in a few years, I would probably be searching for a job again, since most people tended to only stay somewhere for two or three years before moving on. By October, I had given up on nonprofits, and focused on transportation. I got a CDL, and I was applying to driving jobs. I was more excited about the work than sitting in an office all day, that’s for sure. I knew I was in the right place, because I felt like the passion and the fire were back.
It’s funny, though, what makes you realize how much you’ve grown and changed in five years. I redid my resume about a month ago for a few internal positions that I am pursuing with my current employer, and based the new resume on the one that I had used in 2013 and 2014. That old resume was trying to be a lot of different things, and focused on how well-rounded I was as a candidate, focusing on technical abilities, writing, and work experience. It was two pages (front and back), and probably had too much on it, as it had this big, flowery “skills” section, plus a section on volunteer work which covered all of my writing on Wikipedia, and also showcased the various skills developed through Schumin Web. I thought it was great in 2013 and 2014, but in 2018, I saw a whole lot of fluff. I condensed that puppy down to one page, as a lot of that was irrelevant to an internal move in a transit agency. My Wikipedia writing experience went right out the window, as I hadn’t done that in quite a few years, and thus it was less relevant. Schumin Web is now listed as a real job, as the business side of things (i.e. licensing photos for third party use) has actually become a real revenue stream in the last few years. And then my Office on Youth internship, which I did in the summer of 2003, is gone. It didn’t provide any new insights that other positions didn’t already provide, and was for such a short duration that it could disappear and no one would miss it. Kind of weird to think about, though, since that internship defined my summer that year. But then again, things change. No one from when I interned there still works there. I don’t recognize a single face on their staff bio page.
Nothing like tackling some rewriting projects to make you realize a few things…
6 minute read
July 12, 2018, 4:00 PM
You know, there’s nothing like undertaking a rewriting project to make you realize that you’re a much better writer than you used to be, and also that fluff for the purpose of filling space isn’t helping anyone. For several years, I’ve had a list of pages that I want to redo, and recently, I finally started knocking a few of them out. I’ve already completed the new About Me page, and the main page for Odds and Ends also got a rewrite. Cars and Quote Archives were substantially reworked recently, though those pages were not full rewrites from scratch. Then I’m also planning on doing full rewrites on the main pages for Archives, Life and Times, and Photography, as the writing on all of those pages is at least a decade old, likely dating back to the 2003 or 2004 redesign. The photos on those introduction pages were last changed in 2012, when I converted the site to WordPress (six years ago!).
If the two completed rewrites are any indication, this will be a beneficial and much needed upgrade. The new About Me page replaced a page that was written in 2007 during a site conversion that left the reader with the impression of a person that I no longer am. The new page corrects that, reflecting new perspectives on things. The new version also intermingles the history of the website with my own personal history, acknowledging that I’ve had the website for the majority of my life, and that as such, our histories are very much intertwined. I’ve also linked to different Journal entries and pages throughout, with the idea of providing an overview while not trying to reinvent the wheel by duplicating material that I have already discussed in detail elsewhere on the site.
Then the Odds and Ends rewrite was extremely straightforward, replacing a longer three-paragraph page with a single paragraph. There’s not much to say about what is essentially a “miscellaneous” section, and the new writing reflects that. It’s not quite “here it is”, but it avoids droning on for paragraphs just to fill space in order to make the page appear full. It’s not afraid to be succinct, and to be shorter than the section menu to its right. I suppose that the new Odds and Ends page’s having blank space beneath while the sidebar continues downward is a flaw in the current site design, but I’m willing to tolerate that for now. The current site design is nearly six years old at this point, and the site as a whole could probably benefit from a redesign, but one thing at a time.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
So now what do I do?
5 minute read
June 27, 2018, 8:30 AM
This exercise thing sucks. I recently came to the realization that I’m never going back to Planet Fitness, and therefore I’m cancelling my membership. No sense in spending $20 per month on something that I’m not going to use.
I can’t say that I didn’t try, though. I signed up, and I went as I planned, i.e. after work, during the overnight hours. I tried all of the equipment, and while the elliptical and the recumbent stair climber seemed like possible winners, the whole Planet Fitness environment intimidated me too much. How ironic for a company that markets itself with a slogan of “No Gymtimidation”. I got the specific feeling that they were more interested in their “No Gymtimidation” and “Judgement [sic] Free Zone” image than they were about fitness (and a few people seem to agree with me). The presence of that stupid “lunk alarm” gimmick also sent off the wrong vibe, and I never even touched the free weights, nor did I have any intention to ever use them. It’s allegedly the judgment free zone, but they’re constantly watching and judging everything that you do, and that made me feel less at ease with it than I preferred. I just want to go in, do my thing, and leave. Too much emphasis on individual conduct makes me uncomfortable because it makes me feel somewhat on edge, and that creates a sense of hostility, like I’m being micromanaged. Perception is reality here, and that perception negatively affected my enjoyment of the club.
Additionally, I couldn’t find a location that I liked. I found out that some locations were de facto closed on Sunday nights because they dismantled the entire facility to clean it on those nights. However, because one of Planet Fitness’s big selling points was being open 24 hours, they couldn’t actually close the facility to clean it. They had to remain open, even though none of the equipment was available. So on more than one occasion, Elyse and I got dressed and went out, only to be turned away because all of the equipment was offline for cleaning. That just speaks of poor planning on the facility’s part, since they could easily split the work and clean in sections over the course of a week in order to maintain full access at all times. Other locations were better, but too far from my house. I halfway liked the downtown Silver Spring location, but it was just too far away to be practical.
Categories: Companies, Personal health, Recreation/Exercise
It has been twenty years since my trip to England…
9 minute read
June 19, 2018, 12:50 PM
This week marks twenty years since my family went to England. That trip, from June 14-21, 1998, was our last real family vacation, where we spent about a week doing all of the various touristy things, mostly in the greater London area.
Interestingly, this was a trip that I had been dreading for quite some time. TWA Flight 800, which went down a few years prior due to what was determined to be a malfunction, was still fresh in my mind, and I was convinced that I was going to die on this flight. Thus I didn’t want to go. But they made me. And as things turned out, I got there and back in one piece, but nonetheless, I still am not a fan of flying. Every little bump, I’m wondering what’s going on. I guess that I’m a bit of a white-knuckle flyer, though I wasn’t as a child. In hindsight, I consider my concern to be rational enough, but I was forgetting that for every incident that makes the news, there are thousands of flights that take off and land uneventfully every day. It also didn’t help that my last flight prior to that, from Dallas-Fort Worth to Fayetteville on American Eagle in 1992, was one where they had aborted the takeoff due to a mechanical issue. After aborting the takeoff, they parked the plane somewhere to run a test to determine what was wrong. The test involved the entire plane’s shaking violently on the tarmac. After the shaking stopped, they announced that the problem “had corrected itself”. That was not exactly reassuring. I would have preferred that they had swapped the plane after that for one where they hadn’t told us of any issues. I wanted off of that plane, but there was nothing that I could do about it. Every single bump in that flight, I thought, we’re going to crash. Not a good feeling. I was so glad when we finally were on the ground again at the end of that flight.
In any case, we flew from Charlottesville to Philadelphia aboard US Airways Express, and then flew US Airways flight 98 from Philadelphia to London Gatwick. The Tube was on strike the week that we were visiting, so we did much of our travel via London black cab.
The first day was basically a rest day. We were jetlagged and knew it, and so we did a lot of sleeping that day, ate dinner at our hotel the Novotel Waterloo), and then took a walk around the area.
Finding my old fifth grade teacher on Facebook…
14 minute read
June 4, 2018, 2:30 PM
Recently, a very familiar name came up in my friend suggestions: “Sharon Payne Bradley”. In other words, this person:
Categories: Arkansas, Childhood, Elementary school
I’m pretty sure that I now have the modern equivalent of TXL…
2 minute read
June 1, 2018, 3:50 PM
Over the last month or so, Elyse and I created a network of smart speakers in the house. Elyse has had a Google Home Mini since early January, and I expanded it, first to three, and then to seven speakers when I realized the capabilities of the devices. With speakers throughout the house, we can use the “broadcast” feature as something of a home intercom system, and we’ve also created speaker groups in order to play music on multiple speakers in various sections of the house, or throughout the entire house. I love these things, because I can, for instance, just ask the system what the weather is, or what time it is, and it will tell me. I can even make phone calls on them and control the lights, though I don’t typically use the phone feature because of audio quality issues, and I’m not willing to spend money on the lights at this point in time (but maybe in the future). Right now, I use them most often for music, and for the home intercom function. And then if I ever get various Nest products, I will be able to connect them to the system as well. Pretty neat.
All in all, I can do a lot of things that TXL could do on Today’s Special. I can talk to it and it gives me information back, I can place phone calls through it, and I can make it control various building systems. I still don’t know how to get it to play “Yo He Ho” at the most inopportune times, though one day I might figure out a way to make it do that. Only thing about this system that I’m not a fan of is that you have to activate it by saying, “Okay, Google,” or “Hey, Google.” If I could customize the phrases that it responds to, I would make it respond to “TXL”, to make it complete. Considering that it does a lot of things that TXL could do on Today’s Special, it seems rather fitting.
Those of you who have used the various smart speakers also know that Google has built some Easter eggs in them, like if you ask what the answer is to life, the universe, and everything, it will tell you that the answer is 42. Using custom routines, I built in a couple of Easter eggs of my own, related to Today’s Special. I wanted it to respond to “How many size 9 shoes are for sale in the store?” with “There are ten pairs of size 9 shoes for sale,” (from “Boxes and Boxes“) but for some reason, it couldn’t comprehend that one, try as I might.
Categories: Computer, House, Today's Special
A walk down an abandoned road…
11 minute read
May 24, 2018, 5:40 AM
On May 17, 2018, I took a solo trip up to Centralia, Pennsylvania. For those not familiar, Centralia is something of a modern ghost town, having gradually been abandoned due to a coal mine fire that’s been burning uncontrolled beneath the town since 1962, likely caused by deliberate burning of trash in the town’s landfill, which was on top of a former strip mine. As of 2013, the town had only seven residents remaining, and when those remaining residents pass on or otherwise leave the town, their properties will be seized via eminent domain.
I had done some research about the site, but was a bit iffy on whether it was going to be good or not. I was concerned about its being a bust, but it was still intriguing enough to make the trip. And as it turned out, it was pretty cool. The biggest “attraction” at Centralia is an abandoned section of road known as the “Graffiti Highway”. That road came about when Pennsylvania Route 61 began having subsidence and visibility issues due to the coal mine fire. The state built a new alignment for the route on more stable ground in 1993, and the old alignment was abandoned. Since then, many people have come by and left graffiti tags on the road, which gave the road its nickname. Besides the road, there are also several cemeteries in Centralia, as well as one remaining active church, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
When I went up, I wasn’t quite sure how it would work out. Based on my research, as well as a little Google sightseeing, there were the roads of the former town surrounded by empty land and a few houses, and the possibility of seeing steam from the mine fire rising from the ground. The Graffiti Highway was most intriguing. I’d heard mixed reports about how accessible the Graffiti Highway was, though. When it was still under state ownership, my understanding was that police tended to chase people away on a routine basis. I didn’t want to travel that far just to get chased out. But last fall, the state vacated their easement, i.e. they gave up the right of way, determining that it will never again be used for a road, and ownership of the land reverted back to adjacent property owners. So I believe that the old road is now on privately owned land, and as such, the heavy enforcement went away now that the state no longer owns the land. In any case, no one bothered me on my visit.
Categories: Centralia, Honda HR-V (2018), Roads, Urban exploration
Another room transformed…
5 minute read
May 19, 2018, 10:40 PM
A second room in my house meets the paintbrush. As you may recall, I painted Elyse’s bathroom a few weeks ago, and now, while Elyse was out on a trip to Japan, I painted her bedroom. This was a much-anticipated paint job, because the basement bedroom was, to put it nicely, the only weird room in the house. While the rest of the house had white trim, the trim in the basement bedroom was a blue color. That color, along with the wall color and the ugly chandelier, worked with the previous owner’s furniture, which involved muted colors. With my furniture in it the color scheme doesn’t work. So I fixed it.
The color that we chose was Behr “High Speed Access”, which is a medium gray color, in satin finish. I strongly recommended that Elyse go with a neutral color for the walls, because she intended to put lots of different things on her walls, and that would avoid having colors on the wallhangings clash with the walls themselves. And then the trim was getting painted white. That part was non-negotiable. The rest of the house had white trim, and Elyse’s room was getting that, too, to achieve a consistent design language. I have a few other “design language” issues with the house that I want to correct as well, such as doorknobs and light switches, but this was a relatively easy one that I knew how to do.
I started the morning after Elyse left, getting “before” pix:
Categories: House