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< 1 minute read

October 1, 2003, 4:01 PM

And my sick Mavica (the small one – Big Mavica’s just fine) is going to get mailed to Pennsylvania in the next few days to get fixed. A shame when these things break, isn’t it?

Categories: Cameras

< 1 minute read

September 30, 2003, 7:01 PM

I forgot to tell you this in the newsletter!

I say one of the worst places to be is right below a horn, which happened to me last Thursday in Keezell Hall (someone accidentally burned their lunch).

There’s a discussion about this going on in the forums. Interesting stuff. Still can’t believe I forgot to mention it in the newsletter, despite the subject line…

Categories: Fire alarms, JMU

< 1 minute read

September 30, 2003, 5:41 PM

You may have heard of the Forgetful family (from Today’s Special). You know… Frannie, Farley, Freddy, and Flo Forgetful. I should just change my name to “Frankie” and join right in, because I’m just feeling all paranoid about forgetting something. And so far, I haven’t forgotten anything, that I know of. Somehow, I just have this fear that I’m going to forget where I parked the car today (in the parking garage at JMU), and walk all the way to my usual space in J-Lot and then realize that I’m parked way across campus from my usual space. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. I’ve just been a little paranoid about that.

Now of course, the Forgetful family takes it to a bit of an extreme, forgetting to put wheels on the car, or forgetting who their own cat is, and so on, but still, I’m just afraid I’ll forget something.

Next thing you know, I might just scream out “KEVIN!” or something like that.

Categories: Myself, Today's Special

< 1 minute read

September 30, 2003, 12:03 PM

PT Barnum once said that there’s a sucker born every minute. I wonder how many people are going to be a sucker on this one. This is a classified ad that I found in The Breeze‘s classified ads in their September 29, 2003 issue. And I quote…

Looking For a Friend? I will hang out with you for $10 an hour. Call Mike, 438-XXXX (number withheld for obvious reasons)

I have half a mind to call this “Mike” fellow up. I should call him up only to find out if someone was desperate enough to actually want to pay someone $10 an hour for companionship.

I hope no one’s desperate enough to actually reply to this ad, and I definitely hope no one actually PAYS for this…

Categories: JMU

< 1 minute read

September 24, 2003, 11:40 AM

I can’t get over that it’s fall already! The season of summer is behind us, and soon the leaves will be changing to Hokie colors (as in Virginia Tech, where Sis goes), and then falling to the ground. I never really got the opportunity to see Reddish Knob during the summer, which I meant to do, but hey – Reddish Knob during the fall could be fun!

Categories: Weather

< 1 minute read

September 22, 2003, 11:29 PM

Yeah, this is a weird one that I had last night.

Picture it, if you will. I’m in Harrisonburg, in Potomac Hall, in the pavilion room, with the 2002-2003 hall staff (which I was a part of), plus Mandee, the new hall director. In this little meeting, we’re telling Mandee all of the evils of working with Mecca, the hall director that we had to deal with (more like suffer through). Well, later in the dream, I get a phone call on my cell phone, which is rather strange, because (A) I don’t keep it on, and (B) I don’t give out the number for my cell phone. So who was the person on the other end? It was Mecca! How interesting. Mecca says, “Benjamin, why am I calling you? Why were you in there talking about me?” I got to finally put Mecca in her place over the cell. It felt good. The basic gist of it was well, what are you going to do about it? I don’t work for Residence Life anymore! I’d like to see you try! Boy, that felt good. That felt VERY good.

And just a clear reminder to the thought police (pardon, Office of Residence Life), this was indeed a dream. And a darn amusing one at that, too.

Categories: Dreams, JMU

< 1 minute read

September 20, 2003, 3:47 PM

Don’t you just hate it when things don’t work out? I’ve been having such difficulty with the photo for my upcoming “cell phone rant” quote, and as such, I’m forced to reschedule it from going up tomorrow to going up in another week. Thankfully, I have another quote ready to go, so it’s just a matter of swapping dates, but still… this was a quote I’d really “talked up” in the last week. But this is what happens when reality rears its ugly head sometimes…

Categories: Schumin Web meta

< 1 minute read

September 19, 2003, 6:13 PM

My father did keep his hands out of my camera. However, we found out that it does have to go back to the manufacturer to get fixed. Well, Big Mavica still works just fine, and that’s going to be a bit pricey to fix. But we’re going to do it, because it is a darn handy camera to have, and Dad uses it a lot for Autocross and such.

Categories: Cameras, Family

< 1 minute read

September 19, 2003, 12:33 PM

My father has asked for the manual for my small Mavica, in attempts to figure out what’s wrong with it. He says he might take the back off the camera.

Uh-oh.

Now I told him that since it’s my camera and he doesn’t know much about how digital cameras work inside, that he was prohibited from taking the back off of the thing, since I’d rather take it somewhere to get fixed by someone who knows what they are doing. But my father is my father. I think he’ll do what he wants.

So, that said, how long do you wager it will take before he opens it up?

Note: Bets will not be honored.

Categories: Cameras, Family

< 1 minute read

September 19, 2003, 11:42 AM

Everything’s still standing, and the only thing that got damaged was a screen on an upstairs window. It was blown off, and was damaged when it hit the ground. We’ll get that fixed, no problem. So all in all, we weathered it quite well! I hope other places in the area also did as well.

Categories: Weather

< 1 minute read

September 17, 2003, 2:58 PM

Yeah… I’d say we’re going to get hit by Isabel, all right.

Categories: Tropical systems

< 1 minute read

September 17, 2003, 11:41 AM

The interesting part about living in Virginia is that from time to time, you do end up getting a hurricane coming through. According to all the weather people, we’re supposed to see it here. I remember Hurricane Fran in 1996… that caused a lot of wind, and a lot of rain. I also remember Hurricane Opal from 1995, which came through our area along Hurricane Camille’s old path, and rumbled on through here as a tropical depression. We actually had school during Opal, and I recall strong winds, and I also remember exactly how dark the clouds were compared to normal rain clouds. But Opal didn’t rain, interestingly enough.

Now unless Isabel does what Hurricane Felix did in 1995, where it stalled offshore and then went out to sea, we’re going to see some fancy weather around here. It should be interesting…

Categories: Tropical systems

< 1 minute read

September 16, 2003, 12:31 AM

My little Mavica is messed up! The display has gone from perfect to quite over-lit to pure-white, and the flash button is causing errors. But amazingly it still shoots photos (or at least goes through the motions – we haven’t looked at any test images).

Big Mavica, which I’ve been using since last November, is working just fine. This is my old floppy-disk Mavica that’s messed up. Now is the fun of seeing if we can get the blasted thing fixed. I figure it should be repairable, and if nothing else, we can figure out how to run it blind.

So… say a prayer for my old Mavica, and hope that we get it working again, because it’s quite handy to have, since it functions as a backup camera, it’s good for little quick photos like with the “DNL” upside-down 7-Up quote from last fall, plus Dad uses it for car photos.

Categories: Cameras

< 1 minute read

September 13, 2003, 12:33 AM

My sister came up from Virginia Tech for the weekend, and so we all went out for Chinese food at this place in Staunton. This restaurant is like the fourth place to be in that particular building – maybe this one will last.

Anyways, though, the restaurant was so-so, but the fortune cookies were fun. Usually when we have Chinese food, the joke always comes from Mom: “Drop the guy you’re with and meet me by the wonton.” This time, though, I started something different at the table that I learned at LPCM a few years ago.

My fortune was, “You will win success in whatever calling you adopt.”

The way I read it was, “You will win success in whatever calling you adopt in bed.”

Everyone else – Mom, Dad, and Sis, all read their fortunes that way. Made for some very amusing fortunes, needless to say. I’m amazed that the rest of the family went along with it, but it was fun.

Categories: Family

< 1 minute read

September 9, 2003, 1:06 PM

Okay… I’m a klutz. I stop, say hello to one person, and smash into another person. Really great coordination. Thankfully, I’m skilled in the fine art of “excuse me”, “oh, I’m sorry”, and “pardon me”. Still, even better would be to simply not run into them in the first place…

Categories: JMU