I now know what happens when you overstay your welcome at the Exeloo…
2 minute read
November 11, 2005, 1:47 AM
I went to Washington on Wednesday, and had fun. I explored around Washington Circle near the Foggy Bottom station, explored a bit around the Friendship Heights station, and also walked through the neighborhood along Connecticut Avenue between the Cleveland Park and Woodley Park-Zoo Metro stations. All in all, it was a relaxing day, and I got some awesome photos.
First of all, Washington Circle. You may recall that I first visited Washington Circle by accident, on my “accidental” DC trip in August. There, I discovered Washington Circle while trying to find my way to I-66 from downtown Washington, and took four laps around the circle in the process. This time, I just took one lap, for photos, all the while amused about my past experience.
Also, despite DC being a large city, it’s really a small, small world. At Washington Circle, by pure chance, I ran into someone I’d first met at Dupont Circle on September 24. Here she is then:
Continue reading…Mid-overhaul, I’m feeling fine…
2 minute read
November 11, 2005, 1:24 AM
So far, I’ve refurbished two sections of the site: the Journal (which you’re looking at), and the Online Store. The Journal’s update is one I’m quite pleased with, as it adds some functionality that wasn’t there before. For one thing, I added “permalinks” for the entries, linked as “Link to or print this article”. Those are at the bottom of each entry. For an example, here’s a link to the recent Journal entry entitled A fun day was had by all…
Notice how it’s on one page there by itself. And print it – it doesn’t run off the side of the page. It is all neatly fitted in there. At least that’s what it did on my printer.
Another fun feature I added was what I’ve heard called “bookmarks” and “anchors”. It’s used on FAQs and things like that where if you click the link, it skips you to a spot on the page. Here’s an example of this in action, click this link to the Journal entry Talk about threatening-looking weather… from August 2005.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
I voted, using the new touch-screen voting machines…
3 minute read
November 8, 2005, 5:35 PM
Today after work, I voted in Virginia’s 2005 gubernatorial election. We’ll see whether the guy I voted for ends up winning or not.
This year, things were a bit different in the voting-equipment category. Through the 2004 election, voters in Augusta County used these old, mechanical voting machines. These things were great. They were this awful institutional-blue color with plaid curtains. They looked like they came straight out of the 1950s. Those things had charm. First, you pulled the big blue lever with the red handle. That closed the curtain, and you were ready to vote. Then you pulled the little red levers to make your selection, and it made a “chink” sound. Then when satisfied with your selection, you pulled the big handle again, it made a whole bunch of mechanical noises like “ka-chink” to record your vote, reset all the levers, and then opened the curtain. Vote cast.
Like I said, I loved those old machines because they had charm. Completely mechanical. I think that the only electricity required for them was used to power the lights inside the booth.
Categories: State and local politics
I read an article that troubled me…
6 minute read
November 6, 2005, 10:31 PM
I was reading this past Saturday’s News Virginian, and an article on the front page of the paper troubled me. The article was called “Dilemma of threats on Internet”. Here’s a link to the article.
The basic premise of the article was about students’ reactions in their own online journals to an incident at Riverheads High School in Augusta County, where a 15-year-old student was given an “indefinite suspension” by school officials for an October 1 entry in his online journal hosted by xanga.com where he contemplated “a massive systematical killing of people at rhs for the soul purpose of saying that i can”.
First of all, I will be the first to say that posting such things in a public space (which the Internet basically is) was not the best thing to do. But, to avoid dwelling on should-have-dones in that situation, let’s assume that what’s done is done. It’s posted, and that’s all there is to it.
In addition, I do not take issue with the principal’s encountering the material in question in the first place. These online journals are accessible to the general public without a password, and thus I consider the principal to be well within his rights to look at these online journals. When someone posts to an online journal that is publicly accessible, including this one, that means that anyone can look at it, and I do mean anyone. To make my point, I had no trouble finding AnothrDmBlnd’s Xanga site, whose November 2 entry was the source of one of the comments mentioned in the article.
Categories: School, Security, Virginia local news
It’s GOT to be around here SOMEWHERE…
< 1 minute read
November 5, 2005, 8:21 PM
I am taking a break from hunting for a moment to speak to you now. For the last hour, I’ve been hunting for the CD that contains the original for this image of a Wheelock MT horn/strobe. I want to use it for the photo feature. Why I can’t find it, I don’t know. I obviously knew where the CD was on June 14, when I uploaded it to Wikipedia. As I mentioned, I don’t know why I cannot find it. I’ve practically turned this place upside down looking for it, too. It’s got to be around here somewhere.
And by the way, if you’re reading this, and that photo of the MT is in the photo feature, that means I found it.
Categories: Photography, Schumin Web meta
This is the quandary I am in…
2 minute read
November 4, 2005, 1:26 AM
Since March, as you may know, I’ve been running a photo feature on my main page. You may recall that this replaced the quote article that previously occupied that space. And ever since the photo feature was launched, I’ve only displayed vertical photos due to the vertical nature of the page’s design.
Now, however, I also want to display horizontal photos, since I have a whole bunch of those that I want to show on the main page, but the space as currently designed won’t allow it.
I want to make two versions of the main page – the current one for when a vertical photo is the feature, and a second one for use when a horizontal photo is the feature. In addition, I don’t want to make the photo feature a pain to update with two versions of the main page. That’s a lot of what killed the old quote. It had become a colossal pain in the butt to update because it was such a complicated process. So we’re trying to avoid that. Thus I don’t want to just simply have two versions of the main page saved and just upload the one I want. That adds an extra few steps to the process. Right now, it’s just some image work, one upload, and then an update using an online form.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
Happy Halloween!
2 minute read
October 31, 2005, 6:41 PM
What a fun Halloween I had! I spent it where I’ve spent every single Monday for a very long time – work. However, they let us dress up for Halloween, and I had a real blast, too.
This year, I dressed up as The Thnikkaman, which is a variation of Bubs, who runs Bubs’ Concession Stand. All in all, it comes from homestarrunner.com. I love the site, and Thnikkaman was easy to do, too.
All I did was wear an orange “Athletic Works” shirt, my usual black jeans and chucks, and then accessorized it all. I bought some green felt and safety-pinned that around my waist. That made that strange green section on Bubs’s outfit. Then to go from just plain old Bubs to The Thnikkaman, I borrowed a pair of sunglasses from my sister that resembled the ones that The Thnikkaman wore in Strong Bad Email #97. Then to finish the outfit, I printed a red “TH” on paper and pinned that to my shirt. And thus we have Thnikkaman. Check out my costume:
Categories: Halloween, Homestar Runner
I really need to do something about getting a N-E-W C-A-R…
2 minute read
October 30, 2005, 8:30 PM
Yes, we’re spelling it out. You see, every time I talk about the C-A-R on here, I have some sort of mishap with the Previa. But let me tell you, though… that car is a trooper, but parts are starting to go. The radio went in 2000. The air conditioning died in 2002. At some point, a panel on the interior of the door broke loose. The cruise control started a slow death in 2002 or so and now only works when it feels like it. I also recently got a crack in the windshield. And as you saw not long ago, I had to do a quick-fix on a wiper blade (which still works like a charm).
And now, I have no heat. Absolutely NO heat. Last time I got heat out of the car was on April 16 of this year, when Sis and I went up to Washington DC for A16, and needed heat (and didn’t get heat until halfway up there because we accidentally forgot to switch it over to heat). Then the warmer months came along and I didn’t need the heat. Now it’s cold again, and I have no heat at all. I really need a new car, but since I can’t afford that, I’m going to have to get it repaired. And that means that I’m going to have to call around to find out who will be willing to look at it and such to get it fixed.
And my rule about going to local businesses is that I don’t like going some place where everyone who works there is someone I went to high school with. I don’t like getting called “buddy” by people I never particularly cared for. I prefer to go some place where the people don’t all know me – makes me feel more like a customer.
Categories: Halloween, New car, Power Rangers, Toyota Previa
A fun day was had by all…
10 minute read
October 27, 2005, 11:48 PM
Now that I’m back home, I’d like to tell you about my surprisingly eventful day in Washington on Wednesday. As I mentioned before, I spent much of the day railfanning with my friend Matthew Tilley. The day was “surprisingly” eventful for two main reasons. One was an incident at New Carrollton, and the other was an incident at Ballston.
I met up with Matthew Tilley at Rosslyn Center, where we’d previously agreed to meet. Not finding him right away, I looked outside the door, and saw a person matching his description outside. The person pulled out their cell phone. I had a feeling that mine would be ringing shortly. Not wanting to be detected, since I knew what I wanted to do here (you’ll see), I quietly stepped outside the door and waited. My cell phone went off as expected. “Hello?” Matthew says, “Where are you?” I replied, “I’m right behind you.” He turned around and hung up the phone. We ended up sitting at the tables on the first floor of Rosslyn Center for a few minutes before starting out, talking about what Metro and what we were going to do for the day and such.
Then we started out. Blue Line in the direction of Franconia-Springfield. We went as far as King Street. There, we got off, and I discovered a strange object on the platform:
What a fun time!
< 1 minute read
October 26, 2005, 5:25 PM
I had quite a fun time in DC with my friend Matthew Tilley today. We went railfanning, since he’s quite the Metro buff as well. We met up at Rosslyn, and then rode to Huntington via Arlington Cemetery with a transfer at King Street, then rode back up and transferred to the Blue Line again at L’Enfant Plaza, rode out to Morgan Boulevard and Largo Town Center, rode back to Stadium-Armory and transferred to an Orange Line train out to New Carrollton. Then we rode back in, and we parted company at L’Enfant Plaza. All in all, a fun day. We rode the trains, and also walked around at a number of stations. The Exeloo, however, was closed. A shame.
Meanwhile, now I’m at the Infoshop, where I’ve got a small notice posted to hopefully get some people to contribute to WikiProject Anti-war.
And next up: Pentagon City! This has really been a fun day, and I have lots of stories to tell you (particularly about our time at New Carrollton). I also got some beautiful photos today, and hopefully they’ll all come out like I want them to.
I’ll bet you had no idea that the Blue Line ran to Staunton…
2 minute read
October 23, 2005, 6:59 PM
Yes – in this very strange dream that I had, Metro runs to Staunton, near where I live. Specifically, Staunton Mall. And specifically, the Blue Line.
In this dream, Mom and I were at Staunton Mall at night. We were out shopping, and I discovered that there was a Metro station at Staunton Mall. It was an elevated station, with side platforms similar to Eisenhower Avenue or West Hyattsville. So while Mom was telling me to hurry up and such, I went up and visited the station. Somehow, in this dream though, I wasn’t on the platform. I was in the trackbed. There were no “third rails” in the trackbed, for some reason. Go figure. After I’d crossed from one track to the other, Mom shouted to me that I was in the tracks and what if a train was coming. That’s when I decided to climb up onto the platform opposite where I originally was (which I was now standing next to). Then I noticed something to my right:
Categories: Dreams, Staunton Mall, WMATA
Good morning!
< 1 minute read
October 22, 2005, 4:57 AM
Good morning… I have the house to myself this weekend, and thus I will be spending it going to work and taking care of the dog. The parents are going to a wedding in New Jersey this weekend.
To get to New Jersey, they took I-81 to Carlisle, followed the road that connects I-81 to the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76), and then took the turnpike to the Schuylkill Expressway through Philadelphia into New Jersey.
And discussing the non-connection between I-81 and the turnpike, my father still insists someone must have gotten paid off to create that, despite my insistence that it’s related to rules on use of funds at the time of construction. Basically, the rule in place at that time stated that if you’re going to use federal funds to build a direct connection serving a toll road, then the toll road must cease collecting tolls once the bonds are paid off. Otherwise, the toll authority must fund the direct connection themselves. Or, as happened here, they can simply not build a direct connection between the two highways.
This, by the way, is also the same set of rules that created the better-known non-connection west of here between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-70 at Breezewood.
Still, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get Dad to realize that no one was paid off in creating the non-connection at Carlisle. When I told him that it was about rules unrelated to the specific project in question, he said that it was probably the rulemakers who got paid off.
So there you go. It’s like Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Thus non-connections.
Choosing a new color scheme is like looking at color swatches…
< 1 minute read
October 21, 2005, 1:25 AM
I’m working on the preliminary stages of a site redesign, and as with every year, I start with writer’s block before suddenly getting inspiration.
This year, keeping in mind that the look I choose will be the one that the site wears for its ten-year anniversary, I have been looking at silver as a possible color. I’m not too keen on using gray as a main color, but I’m hoping to artsy it up a bit and add some more color to it to balance out the grayness of it – though silver is a nice color.
You know what this reminds me of? Going through all the color swatches in the paint department of Wal-Mart or Lowe’s looking for the proper color of paint for various paint jobs I’ve done in the past. After a while, you just start to get numb to it. This is how you can tell I’m not cut out to be a decorator. Blue is blue. This is blue. I also consider this to be simply blue. And after a while, they all kind of start to look the same. And this is also why it’s not a good idea to start obsessing over colors over an extended period. Short sessions are good before it gets mind-numbing.
Still, though, I’m not going to be able to tell you the difference between “Bondi Blue”, “Azure”, “Cerulean”, “Cornflower”, “Dodger”, “Denim”, etc. I lump them all into “blue” and say “that one”.
But the interior decor metaphor goes on, as I choose a color scheme to carry the site to the big 1-0 mark and pick something that isn’t going to make me want to retch when I see the finished product…
Categories: Schumin Web meta
I can’t believe it’s been a year…
2 minute read
October 17, 2005, 3:43 AM
I can’t believe it’s been a year, but it has. Right now, one year ago at the time of this writing, I was just leaving the house to head to Washington DC to attend the Million Worker March. That was quite a day. I met Jess for the first time at the Million Worker March. I also consider it the moment that I became part of the DC activist crowd, because it was at the Million Worker March that I first met a number of people that I later got to know more extensively at other protests and at the Infoshop. Speaking of which, this was also the first time I’d ever been to the Infoshop. Jess introduced me to the Infoshop for the first time after the Million Worker March.
I just can’t get over that it’s been a year, though. That was also the only protest I’ve been to where something didn’t go wrong either on the way up or back. Since on the drive to or from protests, I usually have something weird happen to me. My very first protest, on April 12, 2003, I got a speeding ticket on the way up. June 5, 2004, I soaked the undercarriage of my car on the exit ramp for Vienna, which caused the car to strain at 25 mph for the final little bit to the station. October 2, 2004 (Day of Activism), I got sick and threw up at a rest area near Manassas (most likely due to nervousness). Then October 17, 2004 was the Million Worker March. Nothing. Since then, on January 20, 2005 (J20), I had an awful time coming home due to snow. Then on April 16, 2005 (A16) with Sis, the car initially didn’t want to start up in the morning (it performed fine the rest of the day). We also forgot to turn on the heat, and wondered what was wrong with the heat because it was still so cold in the car. We figured out that we’d never turned the heat on (despite thinking we had) about halfway to DC. Then on September 24, 2005 (September 24 Protests), I nearly got physically sick again on the way up.
Still, that day was something. It was the most fun I’d had all year in 2004. The whole thing was just like a dream, and I was honestly sad to return to real life after it. And let me tell you – I will never forget that day.
And how am I celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Million Worker March? I’m going to work. It is Monday, after all.
Categories: Activism
It’s done…
< 1 minute read
October 14, 2005, 11:57 PM
Finally, my September 24 photo set is finished. Three weeks from shooting to completion. Of course, this means that now I don’t have to look at my photos from September 24 for a while. For let me tell you… when you do a photo set, particularly a large one like September 24 (121 photos plus 14 movies), trust me when I say you can get tired of looking at the photos.
But I’m quite proud of the set. I covered the Mobilization for Global Justice’s feeder march, I covered the ANSWER/UFPJ march, I covered the Freepers, plus I met up with Mom after it was all over.
Now the next photo set in the hopper is from my vacation to the beach. I’m also working on some anti-war stuff for Wikipedia, and some stuff about the Metro, also for Wikipedia.
I also have the 2005 redesign to think about, and I can tell you this – it’s getting later and later every year. The annual redesign was originally in September when I first started doing redesigns annually in 1999. Then it was moved up to July in 2001. Then 2004’s was in October. Now, since I have a backlog of photo sets, and since I generally like the way the Web site currently looks and operates, I’m thinking about doing a very minor redesign on the site, mainly to correct any shortcomings on this design that turned up in the year we’ve had it.
Categories: Anti-war, Schumin Web meta, World Bank