Year 2009
2009 was a pretty good year. I replaced my Kodak digital camera, which I considered to be subpar as far as photo quality was concerned, with a Canon PowerShot SX10 IS. Duckie continued on in its intended role as my waterproof camera. Over the course of the year, I encountered and was involved in a lot of things. Some of it was covered in photo sets. Some was covered in the Journal. And some of it was never covered at all, but still deserves mention.
Thus this is the annual “cleanup” photo set for 2009. It’s stuff that, for whatever reason, I never discussed, but feel is worthy of inclusion on Schumin Web. So let’s see what happened in 2009…
On January 2, I encountered this little gem at Sanzone’s Italian Restaurant in Stuarts Draft. In this case, lunch was starting at $425 – ah, just kidding, make that $4.25. Always remember to properly punctuate, because for $425, that had better be the best Italian food I’ve ever seen…
This burned out van, five days before the inauguration of President Obama, certainly caused some confusion at the office where I work. While our building was unaffected, the smoke traveled, being visible on the far side of the building, and led one concerned person inside our building to pull the fire alarm. While the car fire was definitely legitimate, the fact that it happened so close to the inauguration raised a few eyebrows nonetheless.
At Judiciary Square station on January 28, I noticed an unusual elevator outage message. In this case, the signage indicated that an elevator was out at Vienna (an Orange Line station), and so people should go to Medical Center (a Red Line station) for shuttle service. That made no sense, considering the distance between the stations, and that West Falls Church is usually the shuttle destination when Vienna’s elevator stops working. I believe it’s more likely that the elevator was out at Bethesda, which is right next to Medical Center.
A sweater that Mom got me, and had sent to my work. Not a bad-looking sweater, though I can’t attest to how it feels, because I still haven’t worn it, unfortunately…
When I got the Canon on February 17, I did the initial acceptance testing for it at home. This involved using the camera in various lighting conditions, and my house makes a good testbed for it, because I can adjust the lighting as needed. I would do further acceptance testing on a railfan trip the following weekend.
This is my house on a typical day. It’s not the neatest, but it works. It is worth noting that my dining area table is always cluttered like that. If it’s clear, you know I have something special going on.
Yes, my blender actually does say, “Yes, it blends!” on it. Then at right, that’s my cease-and-desist letter from Scientology. I specifically took photos of the letter to see how legible it would be in the shots. Turned out that it did quite well, unlike the Kodak, which did not resolve the text of the letter very well at all…
This was the testing for the camera’s video function. The songs I’m singing are from Today’s Special. And no, I’m not quitting my day job to become a singer. Don’t worry.
On March 19, on the way to Funk the War 7, I noticed this sign on a pull station at the JCPenney in Wheaton. It said, “Fire alarm system out of service”. That’s a little disturbing, don’t you think? More disturbing was that this sign actually was posted for months, believe it or not…
Speaking of Funk the War 7, the chalk markings that were left in Dupont Circle during that march were still there nearly a week later, seen here on March 25. Pretty nice, if you ask me…
On an April 4 trip to IKEA with Mom, we again noticed the round bed. Question for you: Who would actually want to sleep on a round bed? Seems a shade strange to me, but I suppose someone does…
On April 26, before joining the World Bank protest, I stopped to smell the tulips. There were some absolutely beautiful tulips in bloom in Dupont Circle, and I hope to convey how wonderful they were in these shots…
During 2009, the water tower next to Glenmont station was being repainted. At times, the water tower was covered only at the top, and other times, seen here, it was fully covered. It was quite strange to see the water tower covered like this, though. It kind of looks like something sinister in a movie, but in this case, it’s just painting…
I spotted an additional, hand-painted sign added beneath a stop sign on Gerties Lane, south of Shenandoah Acres in Stuarts Draft, on May 3. The sign reads:
NO trespassing, bikes, sightseers, hunters, or parkers.
THIS MEANS YOU!!
Property owners and guests only.
KEEP OUT.
You always wondered if signs like this existed in real life, didn’t you? There you go, I suppose. One exists in Stuarts Draft. According to Google Earth imagery, Gerties Lane continues beyond this sign, with several homes along the road. I don’t know if the road follows a private right-of-way or not beyond this point or not, but that would certainly affect whether the person who hung this sign had the legal right to do so.
The tower at Shenandoah Acres in Stuarts Draft, in its final incarnation as home of the Pink Zipper slide, seen here on May 3. The end of the slide normally would be closer to the water, but the lake’s water level was lower than where it would normally be when the facility was still in operation (Shenandoah Acres closed in 2004). This tower previously held a cable ride, where guests would hold onto handlebars and slide down a long cable from the uppermost level. This is likely one of the last pictures of the tower ever taken, because the tower was demolished later that year.
This doodle, at left, is one I did after a coworker agreed with my description of their dentist’s office as “the Wal-Mart of dentist’s offices”. Note the fact that no employee can be found (in typical Wal-Mart form), and the patient is screaming in pain, probably because Wal-Mart would skimp on the anesthesia to keep prices down. I later colored it in and added a proper department sign, to make its Wal-Martness complete.
May 16 was one of a few “lost raids” from 2009. Anonymous raided, and for whatever reason, I never gave it any coverage in the Journal. In May, Scientology was having an off-site event at the Washington Plaza Hotel on Thomas Circle. Thus we went off-site, too, from the triangle across from the Fraser Mansion (still the home of FCDC at that time) to Thomas Circle, and raided. It certainly felt strange setting up in Thomas Circle, but we managed.
Seen at the raid, have you ever seen an animal with a “lion cut”? We spotted a dog with just such a cut walking around DC with its owner. Interesting, but I don’t know if that’s the doggy fashion statement that I would want to make.
And then this was the weather that was coming in as we were finishing up our raid. Big storms were coming. We finished our raid just in time, and got out of there as the thunder started…
On May 30, my birthday, Mom came up for the weekend. We hit up the National Museum of American History down on the Mall. This marked the first time either one of us had been there since the facility had reopened following a multi-year renovation. So we would see a new museum, and we had fun…
One of Mom’s favorite things to do with statues of people that you can get all around is to pretend like she’s interacting with them. This works best at wax museums where the figures are colored realistically, but it still worked here, and Mom and I had a blast posing these shots.
That’s kind of scary to see this car in the Smithsonian. I remember riding in a few of these when we lived in Arkansas…
The statue of George Washington, intended for the Capitol, was exactly where it always has been, even since before the renovation. Considering that the terrazzo flooring was the same here, I wonder if they didn’t just cover George up and renovate around him…
The fire alarm pull stations at the museum. The one on the left was new and prevalent, having been installed during the renovation. I spotted the one at right in an exhibit hall, and unfortunately, I don’t remember where in the museum I spotted it. But that old alarm pull has to be at least fifty years old, easily.
General Norman Schwartzkopf’s uniform from Operation Desert Storm. I was nine years old when that conflict broke out, and I remember getting him confused with Arnold Schwarzenegger back then. Schwartzkopf, Schwarzenegger… you can kind of see where I might do that at age nine, no?
This was an exhibit giving an example of streets named for US presidents. My challenge to myself was to figure out which cities that these signs all came from without looking at the key. The Fillmore Street sign (top right) is definitely Philadelphia due to its distinctive shape. The Garfield Street sign (second from bottom, right) is likely Arlington, Virginia. Can you figure any more out?
I was a bit shocked to see this sign, from the original “A16” World Bank/IMF protest back in 2000, in the Smithsonian.
Mom pretends to give a speech from something resembling the White House’s “Blue Goose” podium.
After finishing at the Smithsonian, Mom and I swung past the White House on the south side, which was a bit of a treat. Nine times out of ten when I go by the White House, you see, it’s along the north side, which faces the city (the south side faces the touristy part of DC). This, behind the tree, is the Obamas’ organic vegetable garden.
On June 6, I met up with my fellow DC-area Wikipedians, where we went to dinner at Bertucci’s in Foggy Bottom. That was a particularly fun meetup.
After the meetup, however, I received word that Anonymous was having big issues over at the Org. During a flyer-hanging raid, Scientologists allegedly physically assaulted HT, forcefully removing her mask, and punching her in the stomach. So after the meetup, instead of heading home as I had originally planned, I headed over to Dupont in order to see just what in the name of Xenu was going on…
As you can see, the alleged assault turned what was a simple flyering into a full-blown flash raid!
HT was still around, too, and still wearing the Guy Fawkes mask that was forcibly removed from her face. As you can see below, the mask was removed with enough force to cause considerable cracking and buckling.
And as for the Org? Curtain Tech. I know, big surprise. They hide from us.
The cops questioned Scientology spokesmodel Sylvia Stanard about the whole affair. I presume that Sylvia is biting her lip in this photo because she’s having trouble coming up with a believable lie to tell the police.
(I know, as much as I wish this was a photo of the cops arresting Sylvia and taking her off to jail, it’s not. One day, perhaps…)
“Ethical people don’t assault” was chalked on the sidewalk – an important message, considering how much emphasis Scientology places on ethics.
Yes, we were out in force, with You Found The Card cards, signs, and chalk.
On the Metro coming back from the impromptu raid, we spotted this in one of the ad boxes on Breda 3119. Someone had taken the advertisement that was in there, flipped it around, and wrote “DON’T TRUST WHAT YOU READ” in big letters on it. The smaller text says, “That’s what she said.”
Due to the limitations of the Photography set format, I was unable to show the videos from the UNITE HERE picket in Crystal City. This kind of completes the picture, truly showing the energy that this action projected…
“Up with the unions, yeah, yeah! Down with the bosses, boo, boo!”
Demonstrators block the street en masse, before the civil disobedience action begins.
Demonstrators participating in the civil disobedience sit in the street with arms locked.
Two demonstrators are arrested as part of the civil disobedience action.
The final demonstrators are arrested.
August 15 marked another “lost raid” that I never wrote about in my Journal for whatever reason. The theme of the August raid was victims of Scientology, which involved our drawing outlines of bodies on the sidewalk and then placing signs on or near those outlines. Pretty fun times.
Enturb draws an outline around Anyman (left), and the finished product (right).
Before this raid got started, some of the Anons trolled the Real World house, which was located just up the street from the Fraser Mansion. This was done strictly for the lulz, and then the signs came back for our real raid.
Various signage that we carried at this raid.
Chalking the sidewalk, with the theme about remembering the dead.
The results of our chalking…
Hunter poses with his girlfriend, both holding signs remembering victims of Scientology.
More displaying of the victims-of-Scientology signs. One person taped it to her back, while I posed with a sign.
In what I would consider to be quite fitting for the theme of our raid, a zombie walk group passed by the Org as we were in the process of packing up.
Down in Dupont Circle station, Colimarm pretends to hitchhike from the platform.
At Metro Center, we ran into two of the zombie walk participants, who were more than happy to pose for the camera, in character.
On August 21, I posed for the camera on my office Mac with water bottle lids on my fingers like it’s bling or something.
On September 10, on the way to Whole Foods, I encountered this truck loaded with porta-potties, which I found slightly amusing. Obviously, they know where people ought to go if they need to go…
While I was at a training near Philadelphia in late September, I stayed at a hotel with an indoor pool. Since I had my camera equipment along with me, I took Duckie into the pool with me to use Duckie for what it was intended for: underwater photography. So I went swimming, taking various shots underwater in both the pool and the hot tub. I soon found, however, that holding the camera still was more of a challenge than I had expected. The movement of the water tended to make the camera rotate when it was sitting on something, ruining my shots. But nonetheless, I had a lot of fun, and got a good amount of exercise swimming around the pool getting the shots. Some of these photos remind me of the photos from Robert Ballard’s 1986 expedition to the Titanic, catching various things on the bottom, particularly with the photos of the drain cover and the pool light.
I also got some video footage of the hot tub jets in action. Pretty neat, no?
Swimming around the pool.
On October 25, while waiting to meet up with Isis and Cubby to photograph in Arlington Cemetery, I got to observe some of the 2009 Marine Corps Marathon in progress. These two law enforcement officers, representing Arlington County (left) and the FBI (right), were a bit over the top. Are the big guns really necessary for this sort of event? Really?
Afton Mountain, seen here on November 29, certainly looks different from when I photographed it in 2003. The Howard Johnson’s has lost its cupola and its sign, the Skyline Parkway Motel is gone, and now the roof over the tourist information center is starting to deteriorate.
And yet another testament to the trashiness of Wal-Mart. I made a pit stop at the Wal-Mart in Manassas, which had recently moved to a new building. This tablecloth was sitting on a shelf with the note saying “SERVICE DESK please do not send any merch to claims without UPC”. So rather than send it back to claims where it belonged, it ended up back on the shelf.
This picture and note appeared on the white board in my office at work one day in November. It was definitely amusing, but none of the usual jokesters around the office claimed it. I later moved it to the wall, and it’s become part of the permanent decor.
On December 30, I took a drive through Waynesboro on Route 250. It’s kind of interesting to see how things change. First of all, Roses returned to its old location in Willow Oak Plaza in late 2009, after having previously gone out of business at that location in 2001. That was a shade odd on two fronts. First, I’m surprised that the shopping center never found a tenant to fill that spot in the eight years it was vacant (of course, would you really want to locate your business in Waynesboro?). And secondly, that Roses jumped in and filled it again struck me as odd. I’d figured that they’d written Waynesboro off for good, but now they’re back. Go fig. The sign is different, however. While the logo is indeed the same, the old sign was white and was lit from inside. The new sign is black, and is backlit.
Then on the other hand, the Food Lion on Route 250, also in Waynesboro, closed down. This, however, was well-known ahead of its closing, as this location was replaced by one a few miles down the road in Fishersville, with a store that definitely doesn’t look like any kind of Food Lion that I was used to seeing.