Gotta love an evening with a bunch of my fellow Wikipedia geeks…
2 minute read
December 10, 2007, 11:40 PM
I’d say I had quite a busy weekend! First the protest on Saturday, and then a Wikipedia meetup on Sunday. Basically, a Wikipedia meetup is where editors of Wikipedia get together at a restaurant and shoot the breeze for a while over dinner. This is my second one, and they’re a lot of fun. This time, we went to Skewers, which is across the street from where I work.
All in all, it was a fun time. We discussed Wikipedia, and we discussed things other than Wikipedia. We even got metal barnstars at the end of the event. We also learned that while we’re serious about building an encyclopedia, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, when we noticed a typo on the menu, which printed “species” where “spices” was intended, and someone mentioned that we should edit the menu.
In the end, it was a lot of fun, and we got a photo of everyone, too:
Continue reading…Categories: Wikipedia
It may have been small, but we certainly did have a blast…
4 minute read
December 9, 2007, 11:08 AM
I attended a relatively small protest march on Saturday in DC – a march reminding all of the FBI’s roundup of alleged environmental and animal rights activists two years ago, and how we cannot let such actions continue. We marched from Farragut Square to the FBI building via the White House in our “Resist the Greenscare” march.
It was a small march, with only ten people in attendance, but we were a dedicated bunch. In the regular DC crowd, we had Jeff, Luke, Olga, Dylan (Olga’s guy), Isis, and myself, as well as four others. We were expecting more, but we believed that the weather and lackluster promotion kept some people at home. Plus the people we did get mostly came later, as Metro was doing track work on all five lines this particular day, and a number of people got tied up in that. But with the group we had, we may have been small, but we were dedicated.
And as you can see, we had green and black flags at our march, as well as a banner.
Categories: Activism
Metro’s trying some new arrangements again, and…
5 minute read
December 8, 2007, 6:49 PM
Metro is once again trying some new designs with its railcars. On Alstom 6104 and 6105, they’re testing some new “resilient” flooring. On Breda 3283, Metro is testing a new seating arrangement, involving more bench-style seating near the center doors. Then Metro tested metal “straps” on all three cars.
First of all, the flooring. Here it is:
Photo: WMATA
Categories: WMATA
This marks the third day in a row that I’ve been watered…
< 1 minute read
December 6, 2007, 5:46 PM
Today marks the third day in a row that I’ve gotten watered over the course of the day at work. Tuesday, I was getting ready to pour a glass of juice for myself. I usually always shake well before opening, and this time, the top was not on, unbeknownst to me at the time. So I shook well as I usually do… and the juice went all over the front of me. Greeeeeeeeeat. Then yesterday, I was cleaning out one of those big coffee pots that get used at meetings, and managed to shoot myself with water out of a spot in the pump. At least it was clean water and not coffee that I got shot with. Then number three was today. I’m demonstrating a feature on the water cooler, grab a nearby pitcher that had an inch of water in the bottom of it, and it’s watering #3 as I grabbed it a little too fast and got water all over my leg.
Thankfully, I dry out pretty quickly, though. Still, if I had this much trouble with water, I’d hate to say “I don’t know” (ha ha).
Categories: Work
And the forecast called for snow!
< 1 minute read
December 5, 2007, 7:49 PM
First snowfall of the year in Washington today. It was cold as hell, and my bus in the morning was 40 minutes late. It was very cold and snowing, and I’m standing on the sidewalk waiting for the bus. No fun. And Metro was running more slowly as well due to snow on the rails in the aboveground sections.
But I did get pictures…
This is the snow in the morning, in the vacant lot next to my apartment.
Categories: Winter weather
Had lunch with the parents today…
2 minute read
December 2, 2007, 1:54 PM
I had a fun time today. My parents went up to New Jersey over the weekend, and I managed to talk them into a stop in my neck of the woods on the way back down. That was fun, as they came in Mom’s Scion. We went to downtown Silver Spring, and went to this place called Redrock Canyon Grill. Nice place. All three of us had the rotisserie chicken. It came with red potatoes and green beans. It was awesome.
Speaking of which, expect to eventually see downtown Silver Spring in a Photography set. It’s a beautiful area, and looks like a good place for a nighttime set.
Then I took Metro back to my neighborhood, and got Breda 4038. I also got to see two photos on the phone – one that Mom sent me, and one that Sis sent me.
Categories: Family
Have you ever seen an iMac with the skin off?
3 minute read
November 30, 2007, 9:21 PM
Well, you soon will. I had the opportunity to do a memory upgrade on a first-generation iMac G5 today at work, and so I got to open one of those puppies up. So this is what the iMac looks like with the skin off:
“Ben Schumin believes his life is very interesting. He’s wrong.”
3 minute read
November 29, 2007, 7:11 PM
Do you remember back in April when I inadvertently stayed up all night because I had too much coffee at Daily Grind? Well, while messing around on the Internet, I discovered the latest person making an attempt to be witty at my expense. This would be a person going by the name “Javier Magnante” (more than likely not the person’s real name), who runs the blog Today’s Special Is Pain, which dissects my Journal entries in a style similar to Mystery Science Theater 3000. He takes a bit of text from my Journal and reposts it in a light gray color, and then he makes sarcastic comments right below it in this salmon-colored text.
His style is rude and crude, as he portrays me in his profanity-laden commentaries as someone who is constantly eating large quantities of ham and paying no attention to personal hygiene, while simultaneously having sexual relations with my digital camera and laptop computer. Needless to say, cheap shots are in no short supply. Frank Wade should go see this guy for advice on how to take cheap shots at me.
Categories: Netculture, Some people
Ever seen a Wheelock push station live and in person?
< 1 minute read
November 25, 2007, 10:26 AM
Those of us on my discussion forums have known for some years that Wheelock makes “push stations”, which are similar to pull stations, except you just push a large red button rather than pull a handle. But no one’s ever seen one. I was at the Ikea in College Park last week, and saw one. It was in their “Family Restroom” at the front of the store, in fact, and it was blue and marked “MEDICAL EMERGENCY”.
So yeah, there you go. And as this is in a restroom, you can tell that some people have gotten bored in there and scraped off a few letters.
Categories: Fire alarms, IKEA
What a fun weekend!
5 minute read
November 25, 2007, 8:38 AM
All in all, I had a fun Thanksgiving weekend in Stuarts Draft, but I’m still very glad to be home again.
Thanksgiving itself involved the usual – turkey, and all the various fixings to go with it, and then falling asleep afterwards.
Then I spent Friday with Katie. We had a blast, as we did anything but shop. We went on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while, then rode back around to Charlottesville, where we went to the Mellow Mushroom, where we had a vegetarian pizza with a pesto base. Twas awesome.
However, before Katie and I started out, we got a movie of Katie’s cat Peabo chasing a laser pointer around…
Categories: Charlottesville, Driving, Food and drink, High school, Katie, Target, Thanksgiving, Walmart, Waynesboro Outlet Village
Happy Thanksgiving!
< 1 minute read
November 22, 2007, 5:13 PM
Happy Thanksgiving!
Hope everyone had a safe and fun turkey day.
Categories: Thanksgiving
Gentrification in Stuarts Draft…
< 1 minute read
November 22, 2007, 1:54 PM
I’m in Stuarts Draft for Thanksgiving, and I was driving around with Mom today, and I was like, whoa at just about every turn. All these new buildings. Dominion Outdoors and all this other shopping going up by Exit 91 in Fishersville. Food Lion and a related huge shopping center on US 250 in Fishersville. There’s a Sonic in front of my ex-Wal-Mart in Waynesboro now. Staunton now has Starbucks.
And a lot of McMansions are going up all over the place, as well as all kinds of condos. Oh, dear…
I’m just afraid that with all this building that it’s going to run roughshod over what I like about Stuarts Draft and surrounding areas. Wide open spaces. Scenic views. Leave that field there. Plant a plant, not a shopping center. I’m afraid it might suck the life right out of the area, and turn it into something that looks like Fairfax County. I don’t particularly care for Fairfax County, because it’s a traffic nightmare, and all you have is shopping center after shopping center after shopping center. I don’t want the area where I did most of my growing up to turn into that…
Categories: Stuarts Draft
You know, you’d think I lived here or something…
2 minute read
November 20, 2007, 11:30 PM
Yeah, based on my activities today, you’d think I lived in Maryland or something. Today, I finally got a Maryland driver’s license. Emphasis here on “finally”. I’ve lived here for what, six months now, and I’m just now finally getting the Maryland license. So that took me a while.
Of course, I’m pleased to have a license that once again agrees with the state where I actually live. Now whenever I get carded for the Manischewitz that I occasionally buy, the birthdate will be nearer the center, vs. in Virginia, where it’s towards the edge and partly blocked by the edge of the pocket in my wallet. Likewise, when I go to the bank and they ask for my ID, now it agrees with what’s in their systems, since I changed that to my Maryland address right away online.
Categories: Move to DC area, National politics
I’m drained!
2 minute read
November 18, 2007, 11:31 PM
Let me say this: I’m drained! Tonight, I completed and published three photo sets in Life and Times. Since the September 15 protest, the weekend with Katie, and the October Rebellion protests happened so close together, I decided to do the photo sets for all of these as one giant project. That’s something that will drain you by the time everything’s said and done. Everything that I would normally do for one photo set was done in triplicate. Three times writing. Three times picking photos. Three times watching movies. Three times the photo prep work. My goodness, I’m glad to be done.
That’s not to say, however, that these were not great experiences. Now you can finally see my first serious moves with radical cheerleading, as well as my usual black bloc stuff. So yeah. Plus Katie and I had a blast, as we kind of wandered around Washington and thereabouts, going from Chinatown to Metro Center to Dupont Circle to McPherson Square to Rosslyn to Georgetown to Foggy Bottom to Pentagon City and back to Silver Spring.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
I call this my “heartburn” look…
2 minute read
November 18, 2007, 12:27 AM
I’ve got two photos to show you that I found somewhat amusing. This first one was taken late on Friday at work, and is of Zack, a coworker of mine, and me, posing for a photo in my office:
