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< 1 minute read

April 21, 2004, 9:56 PM

I think that the Previa is going through a bit of an identity crisis lately. As you know, the Previa is now mine, and I’ve also mentioned how I had to wait to put the temporary plates on the car, since they were cardboard, and it was raining cats and dogs outside.

So anyway, yesterday, the weather was nice enough to change the license plates. So I unscrewed the screws on my old leaves-style “CITY PLZ” plates (it stood for “City Please”, a holdover from my directory assistance days), and removed them. I preserved one plate, scrubbing it clean with the dish sponge and some dishwashing liquid. It now is on the bulletin board in my room as a memento.

So after pulling off my old plates, I put on the cardboard temporary plates. And that was it for last night. I might as well have procrastinated a little longer, as you will see…

So fast forward to today. I get the mail, and what’s in the mail? My real plates! Say hello to “SCHMNWB” on my car now. Plus I have some very cool plate frames, with my Schumin Web logo on top, and my URL in red on bottom. I custom-designed it for myself.

So anyway, honk if you see me driving around.

Categories: Toyota Previa

2 minute read

April 18, 2004, 9:13 AM

I love using words that have generally fallen out of use sometimes, and rube is a favorite of mine.

And I certainly did run into quite a rube today after work. I went up to the Blue Ridge Parkway after work to kind of gather my thoughts and such on one of the overlooks. It’s nice up there. It’s dark, it’s peaceful, and it’s quiet.

Then this fellow showed up at the overlook. God knows how many tattoos this guy had, plus he’s driving an old beat-up Ford Bronco (big thing). And he’s got the radio cranked up loud. He parks his car at my overlook. That radio is still turned up loud.

What a rube. How unsophisticated could he be? We came up to the parkway in part for the quiet! You could just tell by how flamboyant tattoo-man was with his music that he wouldn’t understand the idea of turning it down, so that unfortunately was the end of my night on the parkway, since his music was that much of a disturbance. A shame, indeed.

Continue reading…

Categories: Blue Ridge Parkway, Family, Some people

2 minute read

April 17, 2004, 12:14 AM

I have come to the conclusion that Wal-Mart could schedule me just about any weird hours that they want, just as long as I can have those weird hours for a few days in a row. For instance, this Saturday, April 17, marks the third day in a row that I will be working 2 PM to 11 PM. And then Sunday I do that schedule again. It’s nice because it gives me a chance to adjust and get a routine. Just like if I work 11 AM to 8 PM, I like to do that for a few days in a row, which I actually did last week. I think I could even do the 7 AM to 4 PM shift just fine, if I had it more than one day at a time. Usually when I work an early-morning shift (yes, 7 AM is early for me), I get it for like one day, and that is usually surrounded by evening shifts.

What gets me all screwed up is when my work schedule is all over the place, working early morning and late evening in the same week, often on adjacent days. I try to come to work fresh as a daisy every day. Of course, I shower with soap and all that, and would do no less, since I place a high emphasis on grooming and looking good, making sure that when I pass through those sliding doors in the morning that everyone looks at me and admires how nice I look and smell.

But when I say “Fresh as a daisy” in this case, I mean feeling it. You know how it is. Some days, you just are kind of dragging, and need a few swift kicks to get going. Other days, I am just light on my feet, and just all sunny and really exemplifying our happy-face mascot.

And consistency is what keeps me running full-steam-ahead.

Meanwhile, I’m still working on uploading the forums to their new location on my site. Same forums, but at a far more convenient URL.

Categories: Walmart

2 minute read

April 15, 2004, 1:00 AM

A customer actually did ask one of our associates that one time (not to me). But that’s besides the point.

You see, I have found a non-sexual vibrator. Let me tell you about my experience with my cell phone today. I went to DC as planned. I was planning to meet up with Dad midway through the day, since he was coming up to DC as well. Well, I was concerned with being able to hear my ringtone (which is Sakura Saku from Love Hina, a Japanese anime cartoon) on the Metro, with all the other background noise from trains and people and such. So I set it to ring and vibrate.

Now I keep my cell phone in my right front pocket when I’m out and about. So there I am railfanning on a Rohr train, on the Blue Line between Pentagon City and Pentagon. Next thing you know, I feel this fierce vibration on my leg, and Sakura Saku starts playing. Let me tell you, I nearly SCREAMED when that thing started vibrating on me. That’s definitely one way to wake up a 28-year-old rail car. I’m sure the other passengers would have really appreciated it if I’d let loose with a scream. As it is, I jumped up from my railfan seat when that thing went off on my leg.

Needless to say, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever put my phone on vibrate again.

Continue reading…

Categories: Cell phone, DC trips, Retail, Walmart, WMATA

< 1 minute read

April 13, 2004, 4:18 AM

It is official! The van is now MINE and MINE ONLY! So now to just figure out when to start cleaning it up/out. Since now that it’s mine, I need to take some serious ownership in it. I also need to put the new temporary license plates on it, and take off the old ones.

Yes, temporary plates. I actually have “multi-use” tags right now that are made of cardboard that DMV issued me. I have yet to put them on, since I’m waiting for either time in the garage, or some nicer weather. Either way, since these are cardboard, I don’t want to mess ’em up putting them on the car while it’s all soggy. Thus to give them a fighting chance of survival until my real license plates come in (customized, as always), I’ll put them on while the car is dry.

Then once the new plates come in after a few weeks, off with the cardboard tags, and on with the new! And also by then, my new license plate frames should have arrived, which will make it all just look really smooth.

So that’s the highlight of my day yesterday, making the car mine in title, and ordering my new license plates.

And next up? Another DC trip. I enjoy those.

Categories: Toyota Previa

3 minute read

April 12, 2004, 4:33 AM

My goodness, I hate mornings! But that’s what my day’s going to be today, as I have to work the 7 AM to 4 PM shift at the Service Desk. I don’t know what it is about me, but I’ve never been able to handle the mornings like I do the afternoons and evenings. I so can’t stand mornings. I’m no good before at least 10:00. Those 11 AM to 8 PM shifts on the Service Desk have spoiled me. Thankfully, though, I don’t get these early shifts that often.

Also, I had an interesting thing happen to me last night. I was investigating a troublemaker on the forums, and was zapping some rather obscene posts that this individual posted. All of a sudden, the posts reappeared, plus the forum went out of maintenance mode (which basically turns off the boards temporarily), which I put it in while Entangled Web moved me to a new server.

Turns out that while I was working, the DNS change, which usually takes a couple of days to propagate across the Internet, reached me while I was working on the forums. Thus I went from my site on the old server to my site on the new server. And in an area that made it through just fine.

The forums weathered the move just fine, but you know one thing that didn’t? The main site. Now before the DNS change reached me, I had made a small change to the splash page on only the new site (changing the © date to 2004, which I’d been meaning to do for a while) so I would know that it had cut over. Turns out I didn’t need to. The site looks like a bomb hit it! Basically what happened is when they moved my site, they didn’t get it all over there in all the right places. So now I have to fix it all up and get it running right again.

Continue reading…

Categories: Schumin Web meta, Television, Walmart

2 minute read

April 11, 2004, 12:09 AM

Well, today was an interesting day. The day before Easter in Waynesboro reminded me of just before Christmas in Staunton. Totally slammed. My father even commented to me when I got home that he drove past Wal-Mart and it looked like we were mobbed. My reaction? “You’re not kidding!”

On the Service Desk, our line was “out the door”, curling out of our little cave and out to near the restrooms. And that’s with three of us on there. Talk about busy.

And I also got to be a cart pusher for about an hour and a half. I, along with a cashier, helped one of our regular cart pushers with clearing the lot. I’d done it once before, and helped show the cashier (who’d never done it before) how to use our cart machine (which basically pushes a long line of carts automatically). And so in showing her the ropes, I tell her, “Make sure you’re not standing in front of the cart machine when you start it up, and don’t get in front of the cart machine to stop the carts. It will knock the wind out of you.” And the biggest offender when it comes to doing that is me. Without even thinking, I’ll be standing in front of it, staring at the machine, and start it up with the remote control, and have to quickly get out of its way. Or we’ll be taking it with a line of carts to the next cart corral to load them onto the machine. Without even thinking, I get in front of it to try to stop it, quickly realize I’m going to get run over, and then quickly get out of the way again. I nearly got the wind knocked out of me by that thing today, but I managed to get away in time. Yeah, I can be a great example sometimes. Watch me tell you how to use the cart machine safely, then watch as I show you how I learned the power of that cart machine. But we got the job done, and I managed not to get killed while doing it.

Continue reading…

Categories: Walmart

< 1 minute read

April 9, 2004, 9:46 PM

Okay, let’s talk about all-time dumb thing. I had to get a new box cutter today at work. Why did I have to get a new box cutter?

Promise not to laugh?

I dropped it in the toilet.

So that was embarrassing. I must be the first person in Wal-Mart history to have to get a new box cutter because their old one fell in the toilet. It literally fell out of my vest pocket while I was using the facilities.

Meanwhile, a customer cut me off as I was coming into the parking lot today. A coworker, who once nicknamed me “Reckless” after I inadvertently cut him off one time in the lot and also “Crash” after I managed to run one of the electric sit-and-shop carts into a wall while I was parking it after a customer finished with it, got a tremendous kick out of it because it was the whole idea of “what goes around comes around”. So I was amused.

Otherwise, I’m trying to figure out this new control panel that my host gave me. I think I’ll get it figured out eventually, but it’s going to be fun in the meantime figuring it out. Fun…

Categories: Walmart

2 minute read

April 8, 2004, 11:13 PM

Somehow, people can smell when there’s only one of us on the Service Desk, and so as soon as it’s only me on there while the other person goes to break or something, everyone and their mother decides to come to the Service Desk with a return, a list of a bazillion money orders, and a few MoneyGrams. And of course let’s not forget people cashing payroll checks, too. Lots of stuff.

Meanwhile, as plans currently stand, the van will be MINE by Monday! That’s right, MINE! No longer will it be my parents’ car that they let me use. Now I will own it outright.

I’m talking this car:

Continue reading…

Categories: Toyota Previa, Walmart

< 1 minute read

April 7, 2004, 2:14 AM

April 6 also marked the first time I broke out the sandals for the 2004 season. My sandals are Earth Shoe brand, which I bought in 2002 in the Dayton Wal-Mart.

Why 2002? I bought two pairs of sandals for that year, and only used one. Then in 2003, because of all the rain we had that summer (it was a LOT of rain), I never wore sandals that year. So thus for breaking out the sandals, I pulled out these two-years-in-reserve sandals. They still look good, and you can’t tell that they’re from two seasons ago.

And I, being the geek that I am, wore socks with them today. Yes, socks. But hey, socks help keep sandal odor away, and that can smell really foul. And additionally, if I can keep sandal odor away, that means I can get away with not having to buy sandals mid-season.

Categories: Shoes

< 1 minute read

April 7, 2004, 12:43 AM

I had an interesting evening. After a Risk Control Team meeting and a cashier meeting at work that I had to attend on my day off, with three hours in between them, which basically shot my whole day, it was nice to have a change in evening activities.

Basically, after the cashier meeting, my friend Katie (who works with me) and I went over to her house and basically just visited for a while, and I also got to meet her mother, as well as a friend of theirs. Then Katie and I went out to this Chinese restaurant in Waynesboro on Main Street next to El Puerto. All in all, we had a good time. Then after that, we went back to her house, looked at some Strong Bad Emails (I made reference to the “Thnikkaman” at work once, and so we looked at that), and then noting the number of pop-ups on her computer, cleaned out some junk on her computer.

I don’t know what it is about me… a computer has an issue, it’s like something itching. I’ve got to fix it. So now all those evil pop-ups are gone. Especially when one of them said, “Decide who wears the handcuffs tonight!” That was a surprise, needless to say.

So all in all, it was a fun evening, with two friends hanging out for a few hours. And it’s always nice to be able to get away from work, too, since even after a day at work, I flip on Nick at Nite, and there’s a Wal-Mart commercial. So it was nice to have a change from the usual.

Categories: Computer, Katie, Walmart

< 1 minute read

April 6, 2004, 12:05 AM

This was a day where I let my organizational skills shine. That Service Desk was looking fine. Everything was arranged in shopping carts and ready to go when I left.

And I came up with the best term for the Service Desk area. It’s a cave. See, in Supercenters, recall that it’s a gymnasium-style ceiling. So the ceiling is very high. So then you go into my little cave, and it’s a lot lower ceiling. So it really does seem like a cave. And I’m the monster who lives inside that cave, hehehe.

Still, my bosses when I was an intern at the Office on Youth last summer said I had great organizational skills. Today, I proved them right beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And Tuesday I am off. Off is good. Means that I can do everything I always wanted to do but couldn’t because I have work.

Still, next week is when I next go to DC. This week is just whatever. And I don’t mind it, because I’m going to hit up the Chatter Bus tomorrow, among other things.

So that ought to be fun. I love coffee.

Categories: Food and drink, Myself, Walmart

< 1 minute read

April 3, 2004, 9:37 PM

It hadn’t even been a week, and already I got my tax refund from my state taxes. Filing online certainly has its benefits. And it’s harder to screw up than the regular tax forms. So it’s a win-win!

Now all I have to do is take it to the bank to deposit it. Always a good thing. Since I’m not paying $3 for Wal-Mart to cash the check. Not happening. Easier for me to just bank-card it.

Still, I’m glad to have gotten it so fast! I could always use some extra money.

Categories: Internet

2 minute read

April 2, 2004, 11:41 PM

In taking the advice of a friend, I went and bought a six-pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade after work. And it’s pretty good. It tastes like lemonade, but has a little kick. So far, so good.

Meanwhile, I’m in pursuit of some new pants. As you know, I’ve stayed the same size for about five years now. And so I don’t have to buy new pants because I outgrow them. Instead, I buy new pants because I wear out the old ones. And considering I have some pants I bought in 1999 and still use, plus replacements in between, they’ve done quite a job for me. And now I’ve worn out enough to make it where I need to get some new ones.

I went to Casual Male in Roanoke, and tried out a lot of pants. Different sizes, different styles. I don’t want jeans, but I also don’t want dress pants. I actually tried out some cargo pants that I really liked, but we had a slight problem when it came right down to it. If they were the right waist, they were the wrong length. If the length was right, the waist was wrong. We figured out what the magic combination would be, but of course they didn’t have it in stock. Quite frustrating. So now I’m trying to figure out what to do next. I want something that will be able to take some abuse, be comfortable, and look good. Probably will find another Casual Male location or find another store that has what I’m after.

Continue reading…

Categories: DC trips, Food and drink, Retail

2 minute read

April 1, 2004, 11:57 PM

Wow… I haven’t written to you all since Tuesday morning.

Anyway, I have to say that I was successful in my eradication of the virus on Sis’s computer, which was W32.Pinfi. With over 3,000 instances of it, someone really did a number on that machine. But we got it all cleaned up, and she’s back online. Thank goodness. As it is, I was working on her computer until 1:00 AM, and didn’t get home until almost 4:00. That was a LONG day.

And I found out that we missed something on Becky’s computer, which I fixed on Monday night in Harrisonburg, as the W32.Welchia.B virus reappeared. Seems we missed something. So we’re going to make another trip up to fix that. And meanwhile, I’m going to do a little research to find out why the blasted thing came back.

Meanwhile, pouring the candy from a broken bag of chocolates into the trash reminded me of an oft-repeated dream I’ve had. From time to time, I have dreams that I’m at work. Now in these dreams, I know I’m clocked out, because I don’t have to go into work for a while. So with that, I then think, “I’m working off the clock, how did I get into this?” and “I’m working off the clock! I’m going to be in so much trouble!” Etc. The dreams tend to revolve around the fact that I’m working at the Service Desk, and doing so off the clock, and how did I get into this.

Continue reading…

Categories: Cell phone, Computer, Dreams, Family, Walmart