Let’s drink a big soda and ride the Yellow Line!
< 1 minute read
October 9, 2003, 12:42 PM
Metro finally got a public restroom in a station! A self-cleaning restroom has been installed at Huntington. What this means is that every 30 minutes, the restroom closes up and cleans itself. Interesting idea… I wonder if it catches on. I also hope that it’s really totally clean after the guy before you has done his business. Hmmm…
And they installed it at Huntington, too. Huntington Station shows up in some of my “Urban Comparison” pictures way off in the distance. Finally, this will give me reason to go to Huntington and ride the inclinator there.
But not before first having a BIG soda…
What part of “crosswalk” do you not understand?
2 minute read
October 9, 2003, 12:33 PM
The joys of driving through campus in the middle of the day… JMU students walking, JMU students running, JMU students mingling… all just fine by me. Then we have the problem:
JMU students crossing the street.
First of all, they’re totally obnoxious when they have the stop signs, and thus the right of way. You can find yourself sitting at these random stop signs throughout campus for minutes on end while everyone crosses the street. You really have to duck and dodge to get through, let me tell you, all the while trying not to run someone over.
Then there’s the painted crosswalks without stop signs or traffic lights. Crosswalk means we know to expect pedestrian traffic through that area. That still doesn’t mean that you can dart out in front of cars. And the pedestians think we have to stop for these things. I overheard one girl on the sidewalk say, “Thank you for stopping!” as I drove past without stopping. I’m sorry, but if there is no stop sign or traffic light, I don’t have to stop unless it would be unsafe to keep going (i.e. if some idiot is in the street already).
Continue reading…I love it when things come together.
< 1 minute read
October 9, 2003, 1:29 AM
I do so love it when things come together. With the help of “STN 2” on the CafePress boards, I got a new set of ASP code up and running on my Online Store. I don’t know about you, but I think it looks really good. I also took the opportunity to make a few other changes on there to enhance the appearance. And it took maybe an hour tops to do the conversion and testing, testing it in a “test-stoer” directory (I mistyped and decided to leave it, since it was a test folder, after all). So take a look, let me know what you think… you know. All that good stuff. And buy some Schumin Web merchandise – the thongs are still there.
Categories: Schumin Web meta
Is it Friday yet?
< 1 minute read
October 2, 2003, 11:20 AM
Is it Friday yet? No? Still Thursday? Drat… I need Friday to be here, because Friday is my workday at home. Work on JMU stuff, as well as personal stuff. And trust me, I will be busy that day, I can assure you.
Meanwhile, we’re getting, as I understand it, a big mass of arctic air coming through here, which will make the weather a lot colder lately. As it is, I broke out my Schumin Web sweatshirt for the first time this season today.
Categories: Weather
Sick Mavica going to visit the shop…
< 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
And the worst place to be when the fire alarm goes off is…
< 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
“Sometimes, I think you must be related to the Forgetful family, Mr. Crenshaw…”
< 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
They say a sucker is born every minute…
< 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
Fall has fallen…
< 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
You want to talk about a strange dream…
< 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.
Don’t you hate it when…
< 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
And he kept his hands off of it…
< 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.
It is now time to place your bets
< 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.
And the verdict is…
< 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
We’re definitely getting nailed…
< 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