You know you’re from the [Shenandoah] Valley if…
< 1 minute read
September 6, 2005, 8:06 PM
I found this on a friend’s AIM profile, and I was laughing out loud at it. I’ve lived in Stuarts Draft for thirteen years now, which means that most of my life has been spent in this area. Some of it is just SO true, while other parts of it are a stretch. So here goes.
You know you’re from the valley if…
- You think the traffic on 340 at 5pm on a Friday is a major traffic jam.
- If you go to Wal-Mart and you see at least 10 people that you know pretty well.
- The smell of manure makes you homesick.
- When people ask where you’re from and you never give the specific town… but somewhere about 30 miles away (Charlottesville,
Harrisonburg). - When you’re showing an outsider the town, they’re shocked that so many people wave in
passing… even though you don’t know half of them. - Two words POTATO GUN.
- If you remember shopping at Roses or skating at TRB’s in Waynesboro.
- If the Stuarts Draft Fireman’s Lawn Party and parade was a must.
- If you remember when 340 (through Stuarts Draft) was a two-lane road.
- You had a heart attack when we got TWO Wal-Marts!
- “Bring your tractor to school day” was a regular part of spirit week.
- You went to the Frontier Culture Museum for a field trip every year in elementary school.
- Wright’s Dairy Rite, a movie, and Wal-Mart is the ideal date.
- “Stuarts Draft” is pronounced as one word.
- You’re driving down the road and you smell cow manure, you don’t roll your window up, you just breathe it in.
- One of the cliques at your school was the “Aggies.”
- Your parents had the same teachers in school you did.
Interesting, no?
Categories: Amusing, Stuarts Draft
Never underestimate the power of a man and his blender…
2 minute read
September 6, 2005, 7:41 PM
Today was interesting. After work, I attempted to recreate one of my favorite Mr. Smoothie drinks, the Lemonade Limeade Freeze, at home.
How was it, you ask? Tart. I did it just like I’d seen the people do at Pentagon City time and time again. Juice from lemons and limes, ice, sugar, and water. However, I’m guessing that the “water” isn’t just water, but really some sort of special Mr. Smoothie concoction that’s a trade secret (which I am of course not privy to).
So I went in the kitchen and tried it, adjusting to taste. To save some trouble, instead of squeezing real lemons and limes, I cheated and bought the juice in a bottle. So I mixed it all up, first in a glass, and then in the blender. Juice in the glass. Add water. Throw that in the blender. So far so good. Next I added the sugar directly to the mix already in the blender. Okay. Next, I went to the refrigerator, set the ice dispenser to “crushed”, and got a big cup full of crushed ice. Since it looked too “wet” in there, I added some more. With me so far? So I have lemon juice, lime juice, water, sugar, and crushed ice in the blender.
Continue reading…Categories: Food and drink
Do I remind you more of Gingy, or Marshie?
3 minute read
September 4, 2005, 9:44 PM
A customer today at work said that I reminded her of Gingy, the little gingerbread man from Shrek that Wal-Mart turned into their little mascot when they dressed him in a blue vest for a few commercials. May I remind you for a moment:
Categories: Advertising, Homestar Runner, Walmart
Mom got into the newspaper…
< 1 minute read
September 2, 2005, 4:38 PM
It’s an article in The News Virginian on Friday, September 2 about SOL writing testing in middle schools, and how the middle schools in Augusta County made the mark for the most part.
And here’s the picture with the caption:
Lauren Campbell and Clay Agee, sixth-graders at Stuarts Draft Middle School, read stories they wrote for a homework assignment to language arts teacher Jane Schumin. (Rosanne Viscuso/Staff)
And here’s a link to the News Virginian article: Middle schools make mark
It’s really neat seeing your mother’s name and photo in print in the newspaper. And in her room at SDMS, no less.
Categories: Family, Virginia local news
The weather held out, though it looked likely to rain at any moment.
9 minute read
September 1, 2005, 11:43 PM
My trip to Washington DC on August 31 was a good trip, though I was expecting some rain to keep me indoors for much of it. If that turned out to be the case, I was going to go explore the Crystal City Underground (by the way, here’s an interesting article about Crystal City’s future). But it turned out that the weather would hold out for me, and so things went differently.
But on the way, up, I got quite an unpleasant surprise:
Finding “Waldo” in my old photos…
< 1 minute read
August 30, 2005, 8:44 PM
I was really excited to find out that the photo of the soldier that was prominently featured in a photo in the Day of Activism photo set was actually Casey Sheehan. From there, a little research led me to find that Cindy Sheehan, along with others, were at the funeral-style procession. I also was able to positively ID the photo – that is Casey Sheehan in the large photo. His name is easily read on his uniform in the high-resolution original photo.
I’m just amazed. Makes me look at “Day of Activism” a little differently now, since now I find that someone who has become a bit of a household name was at the same event as I was, and even possibly appeared in some of the photos.
Wow.
Categories: Activism, Schumin Web meta
Talk about threatening-looking weather…
2 minute read
August 30, 2005, 5:15 PM
If only I’d known about it ahead of time…
2 minute read
August 29, 2005, 5:18 PM
The talk in both local newspapers (the News Leader and the News Virginian) this weekend was about two political demonstrations on back-to-back days in Staunton in front of the Augusta County Courthouse.
On Friday at noon, an anti-war demonstration went on. The group was demonstrating in support of Cindy Sheehan’s demonstration in Crawford, Texas. According to this article in the News Leader, about 25 people demonstrated in front of the courthouse. The demonstration was sponsored by the Virginia Anti-War Network. The Augusta Coalition for Peace and Justice was also represented there.
At Friday’s demonstration, there was a group of four people across the street carrying Bush campaign signs. These were the counter-protesters. According to the same article, James Waltz, a recent Riverheads High School graduate, and one of the counter-protesters, said that the anti-war demonstrators are “really on the fringes.”
Categories: Anti-war, Virginia local news
Wheee, back to the salt mines again.
2 minute read
August 28, 2005, 5:36 PM
So far, we’ve spent two days back at work post-vacation. Saturday and Sunday. Everyone was glad to see me, and actually was questioned a couple of times on whether or not I really actually went to the beach. Why? Because I came back home from the beach the same color as I was when I left. And that would be a pasty white color over most of me, and then a little bit browner over one side of my arms (and slightly more pronounced on my left arm due to the “driving tan” effect).
Why did I keep my original color? Because I was really careful with my sun exposure for that very reason. I did not want to come back with something like what happened last year – where I had a huge sunburn, with a white spot on my chest shaped exactly like Big Mavica (seriously!). So this year, we took a lot of precautions. First of all, I made sure to either cover up or lotion up. On Tuesday, when it rained all day, and I did the strip, I didn’t use sunscreen (due to an oversight). But I did keep covered. When it was raining, of course I used the umbrella. But even when it wasn’t raining, for those brief periods when the sun was out, I still used the umbrella. And I remained pasty-white.
Categories: Myself, Virginia Beach
Tuesday may have been a wash, but things still went quite well!
3 minute read
August 25, 2005, 10:39 AM
Tuesday was mostly a wash, unfortunately, with rain causing me to scrap most of my outdoor activities. Sad. But I did get to peruse the strip, and got “part 2” of the holier-than-thou attitude of the management of the Holiday Department Store at the corner of 19th and Atlantic (diagonal from my hotel). I photographed a sign on the door of the “boy’s stockroom”, which is just as bad as the one I got last year on the back door about boxes. The writing is readable, and I shall transcribe it when I get back home (I’m at the library again).
Anyway, though, the strip was good, and I made a discovery. To discover the strip, you really only need to walk maybe six blocks in either direction from your hotel (if that), because the strip repeats itself. You have a few classes of stores on the strip. Stores that sell souvenirs and beach crap, stores that offer henna tattoos, oxygen bars, little convenience stores, and restaurants for seafood or pizza. Then they start to repeat. Seriously. Even the same stores. I went a ways south on the strip, and found another “Holiday Department Store”. I found three “Sunsations” stores. It all repeats.
Since it was still raining quite hard by the time dinner came around, I pulled out the umbrella and took a walk down the strip in search of the food that struck my fancy. I walked a LONG way south and didn’t find anything exciting. Not wanting to walk all that way back, I took a VB Wave trolleybus up to about 24th Street and then walked south again. I found a seafood restaurant, and had dinner there. Quite enjoyable, though I hate restaurants with mirror walls. I don’t like looking at a mirror image of myself eating while I’m eating.
Categories: Anti-war, Photography, Travel, Virginia Beach
Vacation: So far, so good, but it’s raining today.
2 minute read
August 23, 2005, 10:25 AM
So far, vacation has been pretty good. I went to Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant on 21st Street again last night for dinner, which was, as before, a great experience. Then I went down to the boardwalk and did a lot of night photography, which went really well. I even met a couple from Pennsylvania who showed great interest in my work. I gave them the address to the Web site, and so who knows – maybe they’ll see some of the photos I showed them on the camera on the Web site.
So I had wonderful weather coming in. I made all the stops I intended, and a couple more. Breakfast went without a hitch, and then I stopped at the Patrick Henry Mall as planned. Turns out that’s not the mall that I was thinking of. They had mostly System Sensor horn/strobes, and the mall I was after had Edwards. But we did find the mall later. But I’m not there yet.
Before leaving that area, however, I stopped at the Wal-Mart in Newport News, where one of our Waynesboro people transferred. And I found our former coworker Carliqua running register 33. Since it was slow, we got to catch up for a few minutes. It was good to see her again.
Categories: Homestar Runner, Travel, Virginia Beach
Packing up for a nice vacation…
3 minute read
August 21, 2005, 9:13 PM
I’ve got my suitcase all packed up, and all I have left to do is to properly pack Big Mavica, unhook my alarm clock and my cell phone charger, and put together my entire toiletries kit. Not too shabby. Then over here on the Web site, I’m going to change the photo feature to an image from last year’s trip to the beach (the black-and-white photo of the woman in Dupont Circle was deliberately held longer than intended to time this next feature), and then I’m going to put a vacation message on the updates list.
All in all, I’m excited! And I think that everyone at work knows that I’m going on vacation. I told everyone, and even was nearly counting down the minutes until 4:00 (which is “quittin’ time” for me). I also jokingly told a few more coworkers I’d get them some sand as a souvenir. And then other coworkers were saying it’s going to be so quiet around the store without me for those five days.
Also, I had one of those priceless moments at work today. In a slower moment, a coworker needed a CSM. They ultimately needed to page over the squawk box for them. So they dial the number to page, and thought they were paging. What do we hear? A voice without amplification. So I said, “I don’t think you got it.” So they try again, and they still don’t get on there. So I give it a try. I dial to page, and I’m live on the PA system, and successfully deliver the page. I hang up, and turn to the coworker: *raspberry*. Yes, I couldn’t resist doing the old “Bronx cheer” there, giving them the raspberries. They knew I was being silly, and so it was all good.
Categories: Schumin Web meta, Television, Travel, Virginia Beach, Walmart
What on earth happened here?
2 minute read
August 20, 2005, 6:10 PM
Categories: Homestar Runner, Walmart
You know what I need to do…
< 1 minute read
August 19, 2005, 6:32 PM
You know what I need to do? I need to get a big banner, and wrap it around my car. The banner should say, “I’m going to the beach!” Then the most important part would be finding some school buses full of kids to fly that banner past.
What can I say? The kiddies got three months off. I get this little vacation. If I were to actually pull the above stunt off (and there is no chance in hell that I would), it would be quite fun. Nothing like rubbing it in their faces. And four (count ’em – FOUR) days in Virginia Beach while the children back home sit in school hearing from every one of their teachers about how to evacuate for a fire drill.
This is what we call the benefit of not having children. Once the children get back to reality, I get to leave reality for a few days. Of course, I’ll probably look like a lobster when I get back, but it will be worth it.
Categories: Virginia Beach
I just added an extra day onto my vacation…
< 1 minute read
August 19, 2005, 4:24 PM
I just added another day to my fabulous Virginia Beach vacation that’s coming up in three days. Now, instead of leaving Tuesday and coming back Thursday, I’m leaving Monday and coming back Thursday. That means that I have Friday to be back at home, and then on Saturday, back to work. So thus it’s going to be a four-day vacation instead of three. Very nice, indeed. So all in all, life is very good. Get some time away from work and home, in order to kind of, like, chill out in a different setting for a few days. And maybe get a nice tan or something.
Of course, getting a tan kind of reminds me of what Strong Bad said in Email #77 about the suggestion that he should turn over to cook evenly: “What? Who wants a tan on their back? There’s no abs to accentuate.”
And if nothing else, maybe I can get something like what happened last year: a sunburn with a blank spot on my chest shaped exactly like Big Mavica.
Categories: Homestar Runner, Travel, Virginia Beach