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< 1 minute read

September 8, 2007, 8:21 AM

I tell you, I do love living in the DC area. However, occasionally, one must escape. And Mom will be glad to see me this weekend.

I’m actually going to be leaving in about ten minutes, and meeting Mom in Harrisonburg. There, we’re going to Costco, and doing whatever other Harrisonburg stuff we decide, then going back to Stuarts Draft. Well, actually, I’m not going back right away – I’m swinging by Satan’s Playground (Sis’s term for our ex-store) to go to SmartStyle to get a haircut. Plus I’ve not been in there since June, and so I’ve not seen a lot of people over there. There are a few folks over there that I actually miss.

Then at home, I get to see Greta again. Seeing Greta’s always a treat, since dogs don’t talk, thus I can’t catch up with Greta over the phone like I do with the humans.

And on Sunday? I get to see Katie! We’re going to go to Shoney’s, and also get her some train reservations for her DC trip at the end of this month. End of this month, she’s coming over to see me and we’re going to like run around DC and do whatever. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Then in that weird twist of things, I’m also doing some photo work for a few of my coworkers who want to see the free-standing Starbucks in Waynesboro complete with drive-through (that will be providing its customers with hormone-free milk by the end of the year), as well as a few of the sights of Stuarts Draft.

So this ought to be a fun weekend. See you in Draft!

Categories: Family, Greta, Katie

< 1 minute read

September 4, 2007, 11:10 PM

I meant to go grocery shopping when… Sunday? And now it’s Tuesday night, and I still haven’t been. Shoppers is probably wondering where I’ve been. But yeah, this is what I get for hanging out late at the Infoshop. I didn’t get home until 9:00. So that shoots shopping for tonight…

So, yeah, the place is starting to look barren. I made my sandwich for tomorrow at work on regular bread (vs. my usual bagel), and packed the last peach for tomorrow. I have plenty of turkey, though.

Maybe Wednesday will be the day, though I could probably go all the way to Thursday if I really tried, before I really have to restock. But think about it. If I can squeeze out another week before I have to buy groceries again, this means I’m saving money. And saving money is good.

Categories: Retail

< 1 minute read

September 4, 2007, 6:13 AM

There’s still a little bit of residual congestion going on, but otherwise, I feel good, and I once again express my gratitude that this happened over a long weekend, because it means I won’t miss any work over this.

Of course, it means that I am so behind on some of the stuff that I wanted to do for this weekend. What I did accomplish was at home – I cleaned the bathroom, and I did the laundry. I didn’t get to go grocery shopping, which means there’s still not much food in the house. Methinks I’ll hit up Shoppers tonight.

Still, I’m so glad to be feeling better again. Being sick just plain old sucks.

Categories: Personal health

2 minute read

September 3, 2007, 5:44 PM

Following my day at Potomac Mills on Saturday, I was sick as a dog on Sunday. Of course, I guess there’s no better time to get sick than on a long weekend, where there is no work to miss. Goodness knows there’s no way I would have been able to go to work today if it were a regular day.

Meanwhile, everything’s going back to normal now, as the fever I’d been running has been burning off, and the sore throat has been going away, and the headache-inducing cough has been getting less and less frequent. And the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck have gone back to normal.

In all the times I’ve been sick, though, I’ve never had “swollen glands”. It was weird. Thursday it started higher up, like it was some kind of food debris that I’d failed to brush out in my lower right molars. Then the next morning, the teeth were fine, but it had gone further down into the neck, and was slightly tender to the touch, and definitely a different feel – harder than usual. Then Saturday, the throat started to kick in, being scratchy and sensitive, and then Sunday, it was full blast – fatigue, throat, glands, fever, cough, headache, congestion… you name it. No fun. About all I did all day was sleep. Sleep, get up, feel bad, go back to sleep, get up, feel bad, go back to sleep… it was a never-ending cycle.

Continue reading…

Categories: Personal health

3 minute read

September 2, 2007, 2:53 PM

I went shopping on Saturday, and I had a blast. I went down to Potomac Mills, where I did some furniture shopping for work at Ikea, shuffled over to Casual Male for some odds and ends, and then went perusing the Outlets at the mall itself.

I have now been to Ikea enough times that I know what’s going on. Not like that Memorial Day trip where I was totally overwhelmed. I’ve got it down, yo. And the Woodbridge store is an exact duplicate of the one in College Park.

This time, though, I was going by myself. No problem. So I picked out the stuff for the office in the showroom, crossed through the “marketplace” without looking, and arrived at the big warehouse where you actually grab your furniture. Yippee. I had no difficulty with the boxes, but then steering was a problem. Usually, when I go to Ikea with someone, I drive the flat-cart from the back, and they steer. Since it was just me, I had to push and steer all at once, from the back. So imagine this if you will. All four wheels turn on this thing. Thus it can move in any direction or spin on the spot. Personally, I think they should have welded the back wheels to make them non-turnable, since that would make it far easier to control, though some maneuverability would be sacrificed. But it would be worth it. Still, I can’t drive these things. The weight of the furniture and my inability to get a good handle on steering would have made it a difficult move to the checkout. Thankfully, I was able to flag down an employee, who helped me get to the checkout.

Continue reading…

Categories: IKEA, Retail

< 1 minute read

August 29, 2007, 2:46 PM

Remember how I said in the previous entry that our own aging infrastructure would kill us before any wannabe terrorist would? Well, I told you so. According to Metro, the problems on Sunday and Monday were caused by a lightning-induced power surge that knocked out the Potomac Yard power substation (that small brick building next to the tracks between Braddock Road and National Airport stations), causing other substations that were already at reduced capacity due to maintenance work in progress to work over to take up the slack. Thus the fires across the system.

And to fix the problem, Metro is replacing the Potomac Yard transformer, reconfiguring one at National Airport, and will be running trains at reduced speed between Pentagon City and Braddock Road. On that last one, here’s what you need to take out of it: “minor” delay.

Meanwhile, the fire at U Street-Cardozo was unrelated, having been caused by a problem with a “stud bolt”. I believe it relates to grounding the third rail, but don’t hold me to that.

So it’s not foul play. No surprises there.

And I still don’t know the number of the car with the brake problem. I want to know if it’s an older car like a Rohr or a Breda, or a newer car like a CAF, a Breda rehab, or an Alstom.

Categories: WMATA

2 minute read

August 28, 2007, 3:06 PM

Metro, Metro, Metro, what’s going on? As if five smoke and fire incidents on Sunday evening weren’t enough, the problems continued yesterday evening, according to Metro and The Washington Post. This time, there was a power failure from Pentagon to Braddock Road on the Blue and Yellow Lines, smoke in the tunnels near Pentagon City, and smoke at U Street-Cardozo caused by an overheated insulator.

It’s like Randi Rhodes said. Terrorists aren’t going to kill us, because our own aging infrastructure will do us in first. Now in Metro’s case, let’s see… we’ve so far had six stationary problems, and one train problem. I’ve not gotten wind of the car number that had the brake problem, so I can’t make a judgement about age, since it could have been a 30-year-old Rohr car, or a fresh-off-the-line Alstom, for all we know. Then for the others, we’ve had incidents at Mt. Vernon Square, U Street-Cardozo, Farragut North, Huntington, National Airport, and a large chunk of the C Route. Of these, Farragut North is 31 years old, National Airport is 30 years old, Huntington is 24 years old, and Mt. Vernon Square and U Street-Cardozo are both 16 years old. The section of the C Route that was affected was two different ages – from National Airport and on north is 30 years old, and south of National Airport is 24 years old. So this infrastructure is definitely no spring chicken anymore. Metro is also now considered a “mature” system, so one must be mindful of these things. Still, this is not good to have this many incidents happen so close together.

Continue reading…

Categories: Radio, Security, WMATA

2 minute read

August 27, 2007, 2:37 PM

The things that happen on Metro sometimes verge on comical. And boy, am I glad I didn’t have to take Metro anywhere yesterday, opting to drive instead. Why? How about five different smoke/fire incidents through various parts of the system, affecting five lines?

Seriously. And all within about three hours’ time. First there was a smoke condition at Mt. Vernon Square at 5:46 PM Sunday due to an insulator problem. Then a fire in an equipment room at National Airport six minutes later. Then another 38 minutes later, a fire on the tail tracks at Huntington (i.e. the dead-end tunnels south of the station), causing the station to be temporarily closed. Then 38 minutes after that, there’s a cable fire at Farragut North, causing that station to be closed, and a bustitution was set up between Dupont Circle and Metro Center. And then at 8:12 PM, a train at Foggy Bottom had brake problems, causing the temporary closure of Farragut West station due to heavy smoke down the tunnel.

What makes it (somewhat) comical, though, is that while Metro was doing its darndest with the bustitution during the fire, the bus then caught fire! As if things couldn’t get any worse.

Meanwhile, I’d be interested in learning what the fleet numbers were for the train that had the brake problems, and the bus that caught fire, mainly to see if it’s an older vehicle (think a Rohr rail car or a Flxible bus), or a newer vehicle (say, a CAF rail car or an Orion VII bus).

Like I said, I’m glad that yesterday, I drove where I was going rather than taking Metro. But at least my commute today to work was uneventful, even if longer than usual. We were stop-and-go all the way from New York Avenue to Dupont Circle. No fun. But no fires, either, thankfully.

Categories: WMATA

2 minute read

August 26, 2007, 10:49 PM

I went to Splashdown Waterpark in Manassas today, and took advantage of their after-3:00 pricing, where rather than spend $13.00 for all day, I spent $7.00 for about four hours’ worth of time there. And that’s fine by me, since I really just needed a little while to play in the water. And it’s not like this is a huge production to go, either. It’s close enough to where I can go about any time I want.

Not like when I would go to Water Country USA, where I would have to leave the house early and drive three-plus hours to go to Williamsburg, including going through Richmond. Then more than $30 to get through the gate, and another $10 or so to park the car. And all that just to spend more time in line than in the water.

So Splashdown is close, it’s cheap, and so what has it got inside? Well, it’s a relatively small waterpark, but it’s got that lazy-river feature that I like so much. Seriously, give me an inner tube, stick me in that lazy river, and I’m happy. And for only seven bucks this close by, I don’t feel guilty for skipping the big slides, which are okay, but aren’t really my thing. And parking is free. Big plus. So I’m happy with the place, and they’ll probably see me there again, though it probably won’t be this season, because their last day before closing for the season is Labor Day. I regret not checking out Splashdown Waterpark earlier, because this was fun.

The only major downside is that I leave there smelling like sunscreen and chlorine, but it’s unavoidable, as it comes with the turf.

Then afterwards, I took a more circuitous route back than I normally would, in order to surprise my friend Matthew Tilley at the place where he works. It was a slow day there, and he was putting back returns, so we got a chance to, like, talk about whatever for a few minutes. That was fun. He was so surprised to see me.

So all in all, I guess you can say I had a fun weekend. And I got the rest of the main body of the Web site finished.

Categories: Places, Recreation/Exercise

< 1 minute read

August 24, 2007, 2:44 PM

Yeah, my sister, Ann Schumin, is moving to Chicago with her boyfriend, Chris Lysy. They leave on September 1. I’m stunned. I know that they’ve been talking about it, but now they’re really going. They even have an apartment!

I’m just surprised, because I didn’t know the exact date until a few days ago. So wow. Still, Chicago is just so far. It’s in a different time zone, and it’s far, far, far from the coast. Of course, this means I’m finally going to get to visit Chicago. Maybe I’ll get to see some Blues Brothers landmarks, like Dixie Square Mall.

Of course, we wish the two of them all the best in Chicago, though I’m going to miss them. After all, I’m within a day’s drive of the parents and most of my other relatives. In fact, being in the Washington area puts me right in the middle of everyone. Then Sis will be a bit of a time commitment to travel, requiring either an overnight train trip or an airplane trip. Yikes.

Still, September 1. Wow.

Categories: Family

2 minute read

August 22, 2007, 10:04 PM

By my calculations, I have twelve photo sets to go before the core site is complete, and I can start working on subsidiary sites.

Of course, those twelve sets are, with only one exception, multi-part sets. And with plenty of inside links that have to get updated. And of course, there are a lot of links elsewhere in the site that still have to be updated. The Journal is full of obsolete internal links. Absolutely chock full of ’em. That’s because the Journal was like the second section to go back up, and so the file structures hadn’t been determined yet. So I have to go back and fix all those links. Then I also can’t update anything related to Transit Center yet, because that site is going to undergo a total code rewrite (i.e. it’s being rebuilt practically from scratch), and nothing’s been designed yet for it.

The joys of building a Web site, no? But at least it’s not like we’re designing a completely new Web site, and have to actually come up with content as well. Content’s already made. We just have to build a new housing for it all.

It is nice to be able to show off protests again, though, since the Million Worker March is back up. That was quite an experience, and I’m glad that Google can finally pick it up again. The next photo set slated to go up is A16, directly followed by J20 and then September 24. Fun!

However, converting photo sets is not the world’s most exciting work. But it has to be done, so we do it. Then once I clear these twelve sets, I get to do something more fun – designing things. That’s because I’m moving to College Life after I finish on Schumin Web, and have to hammer it out again. Of course, then I have to convert photo sets again… (*yawn*)

Categories: Schumin Web meta

< 1 minute read

August 21, 2007, 2:15 PM

I think I might just do this whenever it rains. Just to recap, since it was raining hard when I was leaving the house, this morning, I wore my Crocs on my commute, and packed my dress shoes and dark socks in a grocery bag inside of my regular work bag. As expected, the Crocs got soaked, with a considerable amount of water streaming across Georgia Avenue in the morning. But who cares? They’re made of rubber. Then when I got to work, I made coffee, sat down, and put on my socks and my dress shoes. And the professional is ready to start working, and is all warm and toasty. No cold, wet shoes all day for me. That would have made for an awful day.

Then when I leave, if it’s still raining, I’ll switch back to the Crocs for the Infoshop walk (it is Tuesday, after all) and then the Metro ride home.

Categories: Shoes

< 1 minute read

August 21, 2007, 6:23 AM

I think today will mark the first time I’ll have had to wait for the bus in the morning in the rain. It’s raining this morning, and so this will be an interesting experience.

I think I’m also going to take a cue from some of my female Metro companions today as far as footwear goes. Some of them will make their commute in sneakers and then change shoes once they get to work. I’m thinking that with this weather, I’m going to commute in my Crocs, which I don’t care about getting wet, and then switch to my nice shoes once I get to work. The thought of spending all day in wet, nasty shoes is a bit beyond my tolerance threshold.

Otherwise, though, today’s my Infoshop day, which means that rather than going straight home after work, I swing by ye olde Infoshop after work and say hi to Maddy and whoever else is there. The Infoshop is a fun place. I’ve barely beaten the rain on a few occasions going over there…

Categories: Commuting, Shoes

2 minute read

August 19, 2007, 1:34 PM

The fun thing about public transportation in a big city is that you never know what you’re going to find people doing. I went looking for Metro videos on YouTube this morning, and I found some good ones. Of course, I’ve already shared my “Puff the Magic Dragon” experience with you, but aside from that, other people sing, and other people do all kinds of other odd things. It seems that late at night is when a lot of these things happen, though the “Puff” incident happened during rush hour.

So let me share some things with you…

Continue reading…

Categories: Amusing, WMATA

2 minute read

August 16, 2007, 7:29 PM

This morning, I got my exercise early. I’m walking down my street, I’m getting close to the corner, and I saw a large, white vehicle ahead of me at the opposite corner. It’s my bus. Immediately, my walk turned into a sprint, as I totally started booking it to make my bus (the bus was early, as it wasn’t supposed to be there for another five minutes). I sprinted across the northbound lanes of Georgia Avenue without much difficulty, and then traffic prevented me from sprinting across the southbound lanes right away. I did, however, get the Metrobus operator’s attention while I was in the median, and considering the bus was early anyway, I’d hoped he would hold long enough for me to catch him. Instead, while I was sprinting across the southbound lanes, he shut the door and started taking off, nearly running me over in the process. Nice guy.

So I missed the bus, no thanks to the bus operator. Okay, though, we’re flexible. I ended up walking up from my street to the next stop, about a quarter mile or so up the road. I figure from there, since my regular bus (though this wasn’t the regular driver) kicked me to the curb, I can either catch the next Y bus, or catch Ride-On’s 51 (whichever comes first), which skips my regular morning stop (it turns a corner there coming from Norbeck Park and Ride), but does take the next one. So I ended up taking the 51 to Glenmont, and then from there I caught the Red Line for my normal Metro commute.

Continue reading…

Categories: Commuting, Ride On, WMATA