Blogtimore, Hon

It’s Been Six Years

2010-03-10T09:56:37+00:00

Today marks the six year anniversary of this blog.

No formal remark, but instead a few thoughts about getting past the half-decade mark.

Six years of rants and musings, without care for substance. Longer still if you count the predecessors to this site; technically, I’ve been blogging since June 9th, 2002. I found it hard to believe, but computers are mercilessly accurate when it comes to recording dates. Somewhere along the line I started writing occasional posts with substance, or so the search engines would indicate.

Things have evolved a bit since the inception of this blog. There aren’t as many rants. There’s still some silliness and quite a bit of unnecessary punctuation and the occasional run-on sentence that does nothing useful except to disguise my true feelings and love toward proper grammar. There’s more imagery, for sure, as I’ve taken a greater interest in photography of late. More technical articles, too. Less opinion about MySpace and more about the American Community Survey. I’ve discovered that I like including imagery with my posts, to make my long-winded books a little less like textbooks and more like picture books. A lot of pictures of hunger-inspiring food, according to some of my coworkers.

I’ve found that you can’t garner readership with gimmicks, contents, or giveaways, though they are fun (and no I haven’t forgotten that I still owe you a beer, DJ) and occasionally do win people over. Instead, I’ve come across a better way. Do what you do, and folks might decide to take interest. I don’t tend to focus on any one area, which probably makes this thing painful for people thinking about following me; one day I’ll be making sense and the next spouting what sounds like technical gibberish. The only consistent thing is that I keep going. Like someone famous once said, “post frequently and post often, but if you can’t, do try to maintain some ’semblance of routine.” Regardless of frequency, continuing is its own routine.

I’ve found that more of my coworkers read than I had thought, despite keeping a relatively low profile. Family too, for that matter. I’ve given up hiding it. In fact, I’ll proudly admit that I’m a blogger (and not the cop-out “I’m a writer” bit either). I’m always surprised to hear “oh, I read about that on your blog.” It feels like a miniature version of fame. It doesn’t happen all that often, but when it does it’s an odd feeling. Flattering and unexpected, so thanks to all you lurkers who have kept me on my toes with your live in-person comments.

Going forward, there’s no guarantees. I love to write, but only when I’m inspired. Sometimes that’s often, other times my mind is completely dry. But for now, I have no intention of stopping.

Similar Posts:

2010-03-10T07:13:44+00:00

This week in the City Paper I have a feature about CJ, the Baltimore R&B singer who got a Grammy nomination last year for his song with Raphael Saadiq and Stevie Wonder, and is working on a solo album for J Records. The above video is for "It Ain't Easy" off of his recent mixtape, and J is getting ready to release his official single soon.

2010-03-10T07:12:09+00:00

Getting Ready

2010-03-10T06:51:58+00:00

Things are about to change.

We wanted Liam to have a sibling, because we couldn't imagine our lives without our own brothers and sisters. For me, at least, my sister--even when we were fighting and she was throwing plates and knives at me--was the only one I could really trust. I wouldn't say it was always an Us vs. Them in our family, but most of the time, she was the only one who's made any sense to me.

And it's still like that. Even more now, when she's not trying to kill me.

So I believe that in the long run it will be great for him to have a little sister. But, you know. Things are going to change. Everything is going to change. It's scary and exciting for me and for Honey, but for him... I mean, he's just getting to the stage where things start making sense. We were driving today, and he was pointing at stuff, saying Sign, Car, Tree... The world is becoming a place he expects to know now. It makes him happy to expect things to be a certain way and then to be proven right. And everything is going to change.

So we drove downtown. We walked around the harbor for a couple of hours. We looked at the ducks, and we chased birds, and we sat on a bench and shared a greasy cup of fries, and he suddenly got up and started spinning because someone was playing the saxophone. It was a beautiful day.

I'm just going to have to learn to let go.

It's all good.

Atwater's Naturally Leavened Bread

2010-03-10T06:18:00+00:00

Atwater's has a new outpost to add to its empire, and it's located smack dab in the heart of Catonsville. Atwater's Naturally Leavened Bread is a tiny shop with a rustic feel, serving those delicious breads that made them famous, as well as muffins, cookies, pies, and other sweet treats. This isn't a full-scale Atwater's operation such as you find at the flagship store in Belvedere Square. There are soups, but they are found in a cold case and you have to take them away somewhere to warm them. As of the time of my visit, there didn't seem to be sandwich service such as there is at the other locations. This is more of a take-it-away operation at the moment, although there are a few tiny tables in the front of the store for sipping some coffee or munching on a deliciously dense muffin.

And this, my friends, is an Atwater's pear pie, a small and beautiful thing just perfect for dessert for two. Both Mr B M S and I ate it in exactly the same way - first we ate the filling (way good, though we thought it could have benefited from a little more cooking on the pears, which were sort of firm) and then we savored the crust. Why hasn't someone come up with the idea of just selling pie crusts as snacks? Because, man, a great pie crust is a fantastically delicious thing, and Atwater's for sure knows its way around a pie crust. Just serve a few crusts with some spicy whipped cream and a hot chocolate on the side? I can see that blowing the Spanish churros con chocolate right out of the water! Entrepreneurs of Baltimore, take note, hons!

Atwater's Naturally Leavened Bread is still a work in progress, with, as of the time of my visit, no printed menu, because they hadn't yet decided fully how the food was going to work at that location. The store is open Mondays through Fridays from 7 AM to 6 PM, Saturdays from 8 AM to 5 PM, and Sundays from 8 AM to 3 PM. The "Bright and Sunny" cake - a lemon pound cake with a lemon glaze - and its cousins, the tiny, two-bite lemon glazed muffins, are alone well worth the trip. And if you wanted to make a sweets hajj in that part of the world, you could start with the fantastic Sugarbakers Bakery, which is right across the street; then go to Atwater's; then (get in your car) Sweet, the bakery on Main Street in Ellicott City, and Sweet Cascades, a wonderful chocolate candy shop where all the treats are made in-house. All of these are located on the same street, Frederick Road, though when you pass under the bridge in Ellicott City the street transitions into "Main Street."

Atwater's Naturally Leavened Bread is located at 815 Frederick Road, Catonsville; open 7 days a week; phone 410.747.4120.

Pork Lo Mein

2010-03-10T05:00:04+00:00

Ingredients:
1 lb char siu, cut into 1/4 inch thick, 2 inch long slices*
2 carrots, julienned
2 stalks celery greens included, diagonally sliced to 1/4 inch pieces
2 cups shredded napa cabbage
4 oz sliced bamboo shoots
10 (fresh) shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 small shallot, sliced
1 bunch green onion, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch knob ginger, minced
2 tablespoons canola oil

for the omelet:
2 eggs
1 bunch green onion, sliced
drizzle sesame oil

for the sauce:
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon shaoxing

to serve:
1 lb (fresh if possible) lo mein noodles
1 small bunch green onion, chopped (for garnish)

Directions:
Cook noodles according to package directions. In a small bowl, mix together all of the sauce ingredients, set aside. In another small bowl, mix together all of the omelet ingredients. Pour into a small hot nonstick skillet or crepe pan. Allow to cook through in a single layer to form a sort of egg pancake. Remove to a plate and slice. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet or wok. Add the pork, ginger and garlic and stir-fry until the pork is just about heated through then push meat to the side and add all of the vegetables and the omelet. Stir-fry until the pork and vegetables are warmed through. Add the sauce and cook 1 minute. Toss with the noodles, garnish with green onion. Serve hot.

*We followed this recipe with the addition of a bit of red fermented bean curd mashed into the marinade. To make dinner a little quicker, we marinated the pork overnight on a Thursday, roasted it on Friday then refrigerated it overnight and used it to make lo mein on Saturday. This made the meal come together very quickly, there was no "downtime" on Saturday while the pork was roasting. The pork does not have to be hot when you add it to the wok.

My thoughts:

I don't think I have ever been in a American Chinese takeout joint where at least one customer wasn't eating or ordering lo mein. And why wouldn't they? You can't get more comforting or familiar than a heaping mound of noodles, vegetables and meat. Unfortunately, the lo mein found in most restaurants is a either a. very salty, b. very greasy, c. lacking many vegetables or d. all of the above. Luckily, lo mein is one of the easiest things to make at home. The most difficult thing to part is finding the fresh lo mein noodles but just about any Asian (we have the most luck at the Chinese and Korean stores) grocery or even a very well stocked "regular" supermarket will have them in the refrigerated section. Dried lo mein noodles are an acceptable substitution but the texture won't be quite the same and frankly, I don't find them any easier to find than the fresh variety. Anyway, making lo mein at home is a revelation if you've only had the takeout variety, it is fresh tasting and while the sauce tastes pretty much the same, it is grease-free.

and now a batshit white woman

2010-03-10T04:59:20+00:00

How about the Lifetime drama of this tale: buttleggin' Karla Porter, who allegedly enlisted her quinquagenarian siblings, a nephew and some random guys to help kill her husband, blamed the murder on a "black male," got found out when she tried to pay a witness to leave town, showed up at the victim's funeral with plagiarized poetry and wildflower-seed bookmarks; got arrested, pulled the "abused

TLC: Notes

2010-03-10T02:50:56+00:00

A few site-related matters to pass along:

– I’m experimenting with a version of TLC that’s optimized for touch-based mobile devices (iPhone, iPod touch, Android, etc). I installed a plugin called WPtouch that detects if you’re viewing the site that way and feeds you a stripped down version. I’ve tested it on my phone and it feels pretty good. I’m not in love, but it seems like a net win.

If you see it, please chime in with thoughts. I can easily go back if need be. Also, for everyone, if you experience any weirdness that’s new as of today please let me know about that as well. Sometimes new plugins break things that I don’t immediately notice.

– Along those same lines, it came to my attention last night that the “comment preview” function is busted. I didn’t realize that because it still works fine for logged-in users, which is me when I’m on the site. Only problem is that’s only me.

I’d like to find a way to restore it, but as of now that doesn’t seem feasible. My apologies if it’s something you miss. Know that if I find a way to bring it back I definitely will.

– On a broader level, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the overall direction for TLC going forward. I think there’s a need to return to my/our roots.

Let me draw an analogy. If we think of the whole of New Media as a newspaper, most of the other blogs are the news stories, the “notes” sections, the features, and the other kinds of day-to-day stuff. TLC, on the other hand, is the columns (that’s actually part of the reason it’s called “The Loss Column”). It’s less frequent and it’s more driven by voice. I don’t think I ever really strayed from that, but I do think I drifted. Over the past month or so I’ve been making an effort to return, even if (and this is a possibility) it comes with a hit to traffic.

This isn’t a place for daily news links or game recaps (we handle those pretty well in the comments). It isn’t a place for rants on the news of the day. All of those things are good, but they’re being handled pretty well already at other sites. To me, those sites complement TLC and TLC complements them.

In the comings months I’m going to place more emphasis on being the columnist. I’ll still provide a place to talk O’s day-to-day but the main focus will shift a bit. I expect that will include more posts that don’t directly relate to sports (such as the the “Randoms” series) and more talk about things like beer and whisky (like in the early days). I expect it’ll include more posts like the 2010 Position-By-Position series, as well (thought/opinion pieces that aren’t necessarily tied directly to the news of the day).

I’m also open to suggestions. This is your site, too, so let me know what you want to see. I can’t guarantee I’ll provide it but I’ll certainly take everything under consideration.

By the way, that picture up there is of some Field Notes notebooks. They’re my favorite by far, and I highly recommend them. Affordable, disposable, yet worthwhile in a way that’s hard to explain until you’ve bought a pack.

(photo via)

One of My Favorite Photos

2010-03-10T02:11:39+00:00

photo courtesy Morgan Miller, MOMO PHOTO
Stupid's wedding
Kansas City, November 8, 2008

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one!"
CS Lewis

One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they no longer need mention.
Clifton Fadiman

Harford’s Food Facility Inspection Violations For February 2010

2010-03-10T01:17:37+00:00

Each month the Harford County Health Department conducts routine inspections of 1,893 food service facilities. Some pass, some fail. These are their stories…

Below are all the critical health inspection violations for Harford County in February 2010:

7-Eleven Store #11614
911 Ontario Street
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.

7-Eleven Store #11629
806 Conowingo Road
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

7-Eleven Store #11630
602 South Philadelphia Blvd.
Aberdeen, MD 21001
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.

Bulle Rock
320 Blenheim Lane
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Chili’s Grill & Bar
502 Baltimore Pike
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Family & Children’s Services
309 Thomas Run Road
Bel Air, MD 21015
Violation: Sewage disposal system must function properly.

Freddie’s
660 Boulton Street
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Goll’s Bakery
234 N. Washington Street
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Grand China Buffet
5 Bel Air South Parkway, Suite 1559
Bel Air, MD 21015
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.

Havre de Grace Food Mart/Season’s Pizza
866 Otsego Street
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

High’s #130
4101 Norrisville Road
White Hall, MD 21161
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.

High’s #2
4525 Norrisville Road
White Hall, MD 21161
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.

High’s #88
910 Philadelphia Road
Joppa, MD 21085
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Hing Wah Carry Out
3724 Norrisville Road
Jarrettsville, MD 21084
Violations: Food must be protected from contamination, spoilage and adulteration. Potentially hazardous food must be properly cooled. Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Klein’s Festival #244
5 Bel Air South Parkway
Bel Air, MD 21015
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.

Klein’s of Cardiff
1606 Dooley Road
Whiteford, MD 21160
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Little NY
111 South Main Street
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Manny’s Family Restaurant
1433 Rock Spring Road
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.

McDonald’s #2122
802 Pulaski Highway
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Nonnie’s Brick Oven
801 Otsego Street
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.

Ruby Tuesday #4848
1341 James Way
Aberdeen, MD 21001
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Season’s Pizza – Festival
5 Bel Air South Parkway
Bel Air, MD 21015
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Subway Edgewood
1401 E. Pulaski Highway
Edgewood, MD 21040
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Szechuan Express LLC
2931-B Emmorton Road
Abingdon, MD 21009
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Upper Chesapeake Medical Center
500 Upper Chesapeake Drive
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Villa Fresh Italian Kitchen
696 Bel Air Road, Unit 14
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be adequately. Reheated to the appropriate temperature.

Weis Markets, Inc., #193
943 Pulaski Highway
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Wendy’s #194
1604 Conowingo Road
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.

Angst: I Thought I Was Too Old For This Crap

2010-03-10T00:56:27+00:00

Paradise Circus by Massive Attack is playing.

“The Devil makes us sin but we like it when we’re spinning in his grin.”

Transformative moments are so rare as you get older. Things slow down to predictable speeds. You go to work. You hang out and read. You sleep, eat, and poop. All of these are predictable.

Just look at the math.

There are 24 hours in a day. I wake up at 6:45. I leave the house for work at 7:30. My commute is 30 minutes getting me to work at 8am. I take a small, 30 minute break off campus each day. I leave work at 4:30 and arrive home at 5pm. I walk the dog until 6 and prepare diner until 6:30. I feed the cats. The rest of the night, say until midnight is mine. That leaves 5.5 hours that are uniquely mine. If you add my 30 minute break and hour of drive time that makes 7 hours that I am not sleeping or owned by someone else. Really, the stress of a commute and my lunch break shouldn’t count.

5.5 hours.

How can one find the time to inspire themselves, feel creative, be healthy and grow in the time it takes to watch two movies?

Dunno.

All I know is I have forced myself to reprogram my brain a bit. I listen to more music and actively seek new music. I am drawing again and recently started a doodle sketchbook that I write short poems and draw my versions of people. I make sure I take at least a fleeting moment to commit a word or two to here or any number of other places like these:

Blog – Stories, Art, Music
RedNotebook – Deeply personal, diary-like stuff
Facebook – Shoutouts to my peeps (shoot me)
Twitter – General Assholery
Foobar, Grooveshark, Blip.fm – Music
Reddit, Metafilter, BoingBoing, Lifehacker, Warren Ellis – Knowledge and Sanity

Changes are coming. Hopefully some professional ones and some real-life ones are on the horizon. I know I don’t often get personal here but sometimes it is a really good place to vent. I feel like one of these dudes who only figure out how to live every 17 years:

I promise my next post will be an inappropriate picture or some story about a Baltimore crackhead trying to cross the harbor by walking on water. I promise.

Running at the home away from home (gym)

2010-03-10T00:44:00+00:00

My part of the world had a massive water main break last Saturday and we've been dealing with no or little water ever since. Schools are closed, local businesses are closed, people are lining up for county-provided water, blah blah blah. I thought it was bad that my gym was also closed throughout this dry spell but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I was forced to run outdoors in beautiful weather for three days. Some punishment. But today I actually wanted to hit the treadmill because I was due to run hill intervals, and I think hill intervals are simpler to run on a treadmill.

Luckily, my gym is part of a local chain, and they were allowing all members of my location to use any of the other locations while ours was closed, including those of us who only have a "one gym" membership. So I took them up on their offer and headed out to another location when I had the chance.

The place I went is not as new as my "home" gym, but it was nice enough and I'm not trying to judge. They have the same treadmills as the ones I run on in my gym and the place was accommodating.

But the workout was pretty difficult for me. It was 8 X 400M hills, so I did two sets of four at 6, 5, 4, and 3% incline at 7.0 MPH (~8:34/mile) with 400M rest intervals at 0% incline and at 6.7 MPH (~9:00/mile).

Not only was it difficult, but the treadmill itself made it harder because in that unfamiliar gym they are situated looking out a set of large windows, and the sun beats right through them and directly onto people running, making it extremely warm. Not only that, but there are cars parked in front of the windows too, so in addition to heat from the sun you get the glare from the sun reflecting off the cars.

To compensate, I did something I almost never do: I turned on the treadmill fans. On high. Unfortunately, they had little effect.

Outdoor race representation using some other guy to show how I felt after finishing today's indoor treadmill workout.

Even after cooling down, showering (thankfully that gym has water), changing, and rest I'm still worn out.

And now I'm grumpy too. So good night.

Fun House

2010-03-09T21:41:27+00:00

Linda, our son Jameel, Tracy his girlfriend and I ate in the Fun House restaurant at the Visionary Art Museum. The service was excellent if a little slow. The waiter was friendly and apologized for any delay. The waiter knew every dish and was able answer all our questions. However the food was just so-so. I was not impressed. It was not bad but it was not top notch. It cost over $100.00 for the table, which is not bad, but I can get wonderful food not just so-so for the same price. I ordered the Wild Boar done three ways. For me it arrived in one way- dry and tasteless.

P.S. Linda enjoyed the food. Not the best, but good. She also liked the atmosphere. I thought the atmosphere was over done and too obvious.

I've Unlocked Your Mama on Foursquare

2010-03-09T20:27:55+00:00

Saw my first Tea Party sign yesterday. In Hampden. I know, crazy, right? Oh, what's a Tea Party? It's when you hate black Presidents.

I had fries in Five Guys downtown, and I was thinking, "I wish I had Foursquare so I could unlock this place," and then I realized I had no idea what it meant.

Still a few mountains of dirty ice scattered around the city. Remember those crazy ice storms? Remember we all woke up at 4am because of the THUNDERSNOW? Or did we collectively imagine all that?

Speaking of Hampden, Hey, Golden West, more pictures of Jesus eating dinner, less dead animals on the walls, OK?

Oh, and I was in Port Discovery last week. They have a model of a Royal Farms there, complete with a gas station and some groceries. Very realistic, but just not sad enough. Where are the old people standing in line for the lottery? Where's the junky leaning on the door? It didn't even smell like chicken wings!

Extreme Locavorism

2010-03-09T18:36:13+00:00

Or maybe....this......

The comic comes from the brilliant mind of Natalie Dee.

Passport to the World, Philadelphia Flower Show 2010

2010-03-09T17:06:22+00:00

Balloon created and designed from all flowers, both fresh and dried

It's that time of year when I make my annual trek to the Philadelphia International Flower Show. This year's theme, "Passport to the World", showcased incredibly beautiful botanicals from several different countries as opposed to just one, which has been the case in past years. The countries included: India, South Africa, Brazil, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore. They each featured their prized local flora in unique settings. Vignettes ranged from intricate and detailed such as India's magnificent temple scene; while others chose to focus soley on the flower's individual character, like the tulip fields of the Netherlands.

The show began last week on February 28 and continued until the following Sunday. There were record crowds this year, most likely due to a welcome warm weather pattern after such a fierce winter of the east coast. People came from all over the country and as well as the world; the Philadelphia show is the biggest of its kind in the United States.

The show began last week on February 28 and continued until the following Sunday. There were record crowds this year, most likely due to a welcome warm weather pattern after such a fierce winter of the east coast. People came from all over the country and as well as the world; the Philadelphia show is the biggest of its kind in the United States.

In between the exotic world displays sat magnificent annual spring scenes which were provided by local area landscaping companies. Most of the bulb flowers were in full-bloom, filling the large room with mixture of earthly fragrances. We attended the Friday before the show's last weekend, which is usually around the time some flowers start to become overly-ripe or faded. Even with some blooms visibly fatigued, we still caught the fragrance buzz: the intoxicating aroma steered us away from our dismal memories of shoveling 80 + inches of snow, and led us to fields of cherry blossom trees, lilacs and witch hazel.

The local designer displays were the most unusual of their kind this year. Each consisted of hip, industrial scenes and cutting edge designs. Cargo storage containers filled with a variety of unusual flowers created an arresting vision with the juxtaposition of full-bodied, sensuous blossoms against steel walls.

The white flower room was one of the most original displays at the show. Shelves and buckets of flowers were knocked over and askew, creating the illusion of a floral delivery truck accident or a passionate tryst in the cooler. It was a recipe for passion and back-room sex... ok, maybe too graphic? Sorry... but it was a scene so brilliantly executed, we could barely turn away.

Things cooled down around the corner where we were greeted with an artic array of calla lilies suspended from ice boxes and nerine lilies popping up from mounds of artificial snow. Thousands of phalaenopsis orchids were arranged in many places making the snowy scene a bit tropical, but still enticing.

The women's garden club arrangements were more modern than in past years, incorporating flowers and greens from the featured foreign lands. Some of best examples were minimal and striking, using long stemmed tropicals in shorter, cropped designs.

The floral/botanical jewelry section, which is always one of the most popular sections, delivered some of the most creative designs yet. There were bangles and crowns in a variety of periods and styles, all fit for any woodland faerie princess. Each piece lists its elements, which was incredulous when looking at the finished product.

Sample botanical elements used to create some of the jewelry

Bangles created and designed by Mimi Favre

After studying such intricacy, we were ready for the simpler things like the cactus/succulent section. I find this area to be one that attracts either horticulturists or enthusiasts who grew up with these rare, unusual forms. My east-coast friends ended up passing this by, while I captured some of my favorite pics. Although not always 'simple', I find that cacti are very enticing, despite their alien/insect appearance. They certainly pull you in with their textural paradox.

On the way out, I spotted some perfect Lady's Slippers. I never get tired of looking at these orchids; they personify "the woods" to me. I only wish they grew wild in my messy little backyard forest.

The last row of plants had this odd looking fellow, I didn't catch his name, but was taken with his onion-like bulb and hairy stems. Again, a bit alien but very cute.

The only complaint was that the lights surrounding the displays were piercingly bright-- they were so strong that taking pictures was near impossible. The pretty white orchid tree was just too over-exposed to include in this post.

Flowers as fashion

In all, this year's show was very creatively orchestrated and imagined. Known as the "Best Flower Show in America", The Philadelphia International Flower Show more than delivered with its diverse multi-cultural displays, gardening seminars and endless shopping... even a non-gardener could find inspiration and beauty. If you missed it, go next year and bring LOTS of film. It's one of the nicest ways to spend an early March day and get a head start on your gardening plans.

The best things in life are sometimes very small~ I.F.S.

ALL PHOTOS BY THE INTERNATIONAL FLOWER SPY

TRANSPORTATION PROVIDED BY: THE WINE BIN

Direction.

2010-03-09T16:14:06+00:00

Aside from a few new bike lanes here or there as part of Operation Orange Cone, there hasn’t been anything new to bike on in Baltimore for quite some time. Even the new shared bike and bus lanes downtown need some refreshing. One small victory was gained in the deep mid-winter on the central bikeway [...]

Tuesday quickies

2010-03-09T16:12:15+00:00

Gasoline Alley, 3/9/10

In order to keep their iron grip on their last remaining pool of paying customers — old people — newspapers are spreading the lie that consuming print media sates your hunger because it supplies you with nutrients as well as information. You should totally be spending your money on the paper rather than cat food, seniors!

Mary Worth, 3/9/10

“I mean, she didn’t love you so much that she wasn’t sleeping with other people, but, uh, free spirit, yeah. Plus I imagine that her career as a Minnie Pearl impersonator was really taking off then, so she couldn’t afford to settle down.”

Crankshaft, 3/9/10

And that’s when Pan and Jeff knew for sure that Crankshaft’s rambling diatribe over dinner the previous week, in which the old man had vowed to “track down and murder each and every one of those mouse-eared bastards while they sleep,” was no idle boast. The police couldn’t stop him. The army couldn’t stop him. They would have to take care of this themselves.

2010-03-09T15:22:30+00:00

Justin, Guru's nephew and my Grandnephew, has released an important and clarifying video concerning strange and possible illegal behavior of Solar, the so-called producer. It is a powerful eyewitness document. It is a must see video. Click here for the video.

Solid Gold

2010-03-09T15:20:40+00:00

"That guy over there? He's wearing an Olympic gold medal," the bartender whispered to Josh and I.

We were having a late-night Monday-night post-trivia drink, Josh and I, and he immediately leaned over to me and whispered, "This is why I go out on week nights."

"Should I ask him if I can hold it?" I asked the bartender.

"Sure, he's totally cool. He's been talking to people about it all night."

Josh and I approached the man that I would later learn is Steve Holcomb, who led the American Olympic bobsled team to victory this year for the first time since 1948. Not only did he let me thoroughly manhandle his medal, he was kind and outgoing and clearly just fine with the attention.

"It's got teethmarks on it," he joked.

Once we'd gotten our fill of completely molesting an Olympic gold medal (which, by the way, is incredibly heavy), we ambled back to our bar stools.

"He was so nice about that!" I said to Josh.

"Well, I imagine if you're wearing your gold medal out to a bar, you don't mind people asking you about it," he said. Touche.

"I have met the cast of The Wire in here," the bartender said, "and I will tell you that meeting that guy was so much cooler to me."

There is something pretty amazing about meeting someone who's a celebrity because of a pretty kick-ass victory. I've met film and television stars (including the Epic Subway Ride of 2002 when I got into an argument with Katie Holmes back in the day when she was more Pieces of April and less Batshit Crazy), I've met politicians and musicians, and somehow I was more floored by holding an Olympic gold medal worn by a guy who brought his team to victory. He's famous because of a hefty accomplishment.

This isn't to say that actors and musicians are somehow less worthy of idolatry or that their talents rank somehow less than that of an athlete, but it is worth pointing out that Olympic athletes are famous for not being famous. They're not professionals, they do it because they love the sport. And there are thousands of people who can claim celebrity for being an actor or a musician, but there's only a handful of gold medals out there.

And, holding that heavy piece of metal in my hands reminded me that there are so few material objects in the world that can sum up an entire career. A medal, an Oscar, maybe. Something so iconic and blatant is rare. To me, it will be a book. And rest assured if I can figure out a way to get a silky blue ribbon attached to it, I'll sure as hell wear it out to a bar, and I'll sure as hell let people touch it.

almost there

2010-03-09T13:52:32+00:00

The baseboards are fixed. They look lovely. In addition to fixing the baseboards that needed fixing and installing the ones they hadn't gotten to yet, yesterday the flooring people installed the flooring and baseboards in the master bedroom. It is very, very strange to wake up and swing my feet over to a real floor.

We're moving our office tonight, and they're coming back tomorrow to do the very last bits - the guest room and finishing off the stairs. And they're going to clear up some of the dust, which is why I'm going to wait to take a picture until then, so you can all see the floors in a relatively clean state. Much prettier that way.

The need to replace the front door has moved to the top of our list of priorities, as the old one is set very low - so low, in fact, that right now we can't use it, as it would scrape the new floor. It's also practically falling apart, so we knew we needed to replace it anyway. But the giant piece of cardboard protecting the floor in front of it is pretty unsightly, and we need to be able to use it at least once in a while even if we do normally use the back, so we're bumping it up to the top of the to-do list. Don has to write a paper for one of his graduate school classes this weekend, but I'm hoping that next weekend he and his dad might be able to replace the door. We went to the store last night and picked out a lovely door, so the decision-making part is done.

Other things to do as soon as we can: window trim and crown molding. More on those later, I think.

Not guilty

2010-03-09T13:21:19+00:00

Alleged Crips member Elliot Wilkes, aka "Shitty" was found not guilty of killing Gary Wills, even with seemingly compelling eye witness testimony.

Saval Deli's St. Patrick's Day corned beef and cabbage eating contest

2010-03-09T11:46:00+00:00

Where to go in Baltimore for shepherd's pie

Do you love corned beef and cabbage? How about enough to participate in a eating contest?

Eat your way through plate after plate of Saval Deli Corned Beef and Cabbage to win! Or come support those who think they can eat their way through plate after plate of Saval Deli Corned Beef and Cabbage to win!

1st Place- $300 plus 4 passes to The Comedy Factory
2nd Place- $150 plus 2 passes to The Comedy Factory
3rd Place- $50 plus 2 passes to The Comedy Factory

Email eatingcontest@savalfoods.com for more information.

Sunday, March 14, 2010
5:00pm - 6:00pm

Burke's Restaurant
36 Light Street
Baltimore, MD

For more info: you can subscribe to email notices, email me at AIBR.Blog@gmail.com, find me on Facebook or follow me on twitter @BmoreRestaurant- check out my review map or my review list

Warm up with Tango wine tasting at Mt. Washington Tavern

2010-03-09T11:39:00+00:00

It may have been windy and brisk outside but the Mt. Washington Tavern wants to help warm you up with a fireside wine tasting featuring a new wine line, Tango Tango.

This is the 1st of quarterly wine tasting events being held at the Tavern and conducted by seasoned wine guru, Rita Blackwell of Wine Express. For this tasting Rita has selected a fascinating group of wines from Argentina called Tango Wines. Be amongst the first to taste these wines and meet the owner, Michael Clark. Enjoy fun wine trivia games and prizes while you swirl, sip and savor.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 from 6:30 – 8:30pm

Tickets are $25/person and may be purchased at http://missiontix.com. Ticket price includes wine tasting and light fare.

Mt. Washington Tavern
5700 Newbury Street
Baltimore, MD 21209

For more info: you can subscribe to email notices, email me at AIBR.Blog@gmail.com, find me on Facebook or follow me on twitter @BmoreRestaurant- check out my review map or my review list

Hardwood Flooring

2010-03-09T10:30:54+00:00

Hardwood flooring is the single most dramatic upgrade you can make to a home given the time and cost of installation. Hardwoods work in almost any design and in just about any budget. Hardwoods are versatile. While some species, cuts, and finishes turn an informal room into an elegant showpiece, others can transform a bar area into a rustic, western-style saloon.

The web is chock full of resources on hardwood floors. With some diligence, you can learn which hardwood floors are the hardest, what types of hardwoods are best for kitchens and baths, and what’s the best hardwood to go with cherry cabinets.

You can also find out that while hardwoods don’t add appraised value to most homes, they do add sales appeal, which can translate into real dollars at closing.

Even with all the available information, we think another resource can’t hurt — one that brings much of the information into a single place, with added information from our personal experience.

We’ve installed numerous hardwood floors in the past, and we’re about to tackle the job again in an upcoming project. So this series will be a lot of fun for us to write. In fact, with each article, we’re going to come back and update this index. Since we’ve already written a number of articles on the topic in the past, those are linked up below.

Pretty ambitious? We think so. But where would we be without ambition?

So stay tuned this Thursday for our first installment. Here’s a preview of all the articles to come (and some with links already written).

Wood Floor Basics

Engineered vs. Solid Hardwood Floors
Domestic vs. Exotic Hardwood Floors
Prefinished vs. Stained Hardwood Floors
Hardwood Flooring Thicknesses
Tongue and Groove Hardwood Floors
Where to Buy Hardwood Floors

Tools

Hardwood Flooring Tools (Overview w/ Recommendations)
Inexpensive Hardwood Flooring Nailers
Finish Nailer & Compressor Combo Kits
Using Cleats vs. Staples in Hardwood Installations
Fixing a Jammed Hardwood Flooring Nailer
Rent vs. Buy a Hardwood Flooring Nailer
Professional Grade Hardwood Flooring Nailers

Installation

Basic Hardwood Flooring Installation Instructions
Hardwood Flooring Subfloor Basics
Hardwood Flooring over Plywood or Oriented Strand Board (OSB)
Lay Hardwoods Perpendicular or Parallel to the Joists
Install the First and Last Hardwood Boards in an Installation (Special Instructions)
Install Hardwood Flooring on Staircases, Stairs, and Steps
Installing Hardwoods under Door Jambs and in Other Trouble Spots
Acclimating Hardwoods Prior to Installation
Installing Baseboard Molding
Installing Quarter Round or Shoe Molding
Dealing with Obstacles in Hardwood Installations
Installing a Toilet on a Hardwood Floor

Finishes, Stains, and Seals

Best Hardwood Flooring Finish
Aluminum Oxide vs. Polyurethane Sealer

Hardwood Flooring Costs

How to Get Free Hardwood Flooring Samples
Hardwood Flooring Cost by Square Foot
Average Hardwood Flooring Cost by Job
Hardwood Flooring Labor Installation Cost

Care and Maintenance

Hardwood Floor Cleaning Instructions
Polishing Hardwood Floors

Refinishing Hardwood Floors

How to Refinish Wood Floors

Hardwood Flooring Style

Installing Hardwood Flooring in a Kitchen or Bathroom
Light vs. Dark Hardwood Floors
Hardwood Flooring Wood Grains
How Sunlight Affects Hardwood Flooring Color
Painting vs. Staining Quarter Round and Shoe Molding
Selecting Baseboard Molding

If you think there’s another article we should write, let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure to include it!

(photo: right about me)

2010-03-09T07:32:42+00:00

My bones wish to escape
and run along an alien expanse
to collapse from the heat
in a cartoonish heap
to sleep
oh to sleep

- Sparklehorse, “Box Of Stars (Part One)”

The worst feeling I had upon learning of the death of Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, by suicide on Saturday, was the total absence of shock. The first paragraph of everything written about him while he was alive tended to mention his 1996 near-death experience after an overdose of anti-depressants, and his music often communicated a deep, fragile sadness. So it wasn’t so much surprise to get over but numbness as it sunk in how much I loved his music, how much he’ll be missed.

I really liked the band’s debut single and only charting U.S. hit, 1995’s “Someday I Will Treat You Good,” but didn’t get around to picking up an album until I heard some interesting things about 1999’s Good Morning Spider, which ended up being a real object of obsession for me during probably the hardest 6 months of my teenage years. That album is still a masterpiece to me, 17 tracks where no two of them feel similar enough to render one or the other redundant, and the whole messy assortment adds up to an improbably satisfying whole. And of course I went back to hear “Someday”’s parent album, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and it was nearly as good, and I’ve come to kind of marvel at the fact that this band, whose career started on a major label and had no indie cred-building early records, could be so brazenly lo-fi, and never get dropped despite never being particularly popular.

My fanatical adoration of those two albums hasn’t really dulled over time, although I think Sparklehorse itself kind of lost its luster for me -- his label finally made Linkous hire an outside producer for 2001’s It’s A Wonderful Life, and the Dave Fridmann polish just made all the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev comparisons retroactively hold more weight and made Sparklehorse less the singular, distinct entity they were in my mind. I’m happy for the guy that he got to collaborate with so many other artists he liked, including heroes like Tom Waits, but none of that stuff got to me like the weird shit he came up with on his own at his home studio, Static King. I never even heard that Dark Night of the Soul record, because of my general aversion to both Danger Mouse and all-star collaboration projects. I also resented the fact that he so rarely toured that when I missed the D.C. show on the last leg of the Good Morning Spider tour, I’d end up waiting almost 8 years for him to play the Baltimore/Washington area again, despite the fact that he was from just a few hours away in Virginia (although the show I finally saw was great and heavy on Vivadixie songs). I know he was more successful in the UK, but I remember being totally galled that he'd tour there and then just play perfunctory New York/L.A. shows in America when Wonderful was released.

I’ve always been wary of the rock’n’roll impulse to romanticize depression and self-destruction, to the point that I’ve developed kind of an aversion to most sad bastard bands. Sparklehorse was one of the few that really connected with me, though, partly because there was so much more going on in his lyrics, so many ineffable and arcane turns of phrases that contributed to the overall atmosphere of strangeness in his records (that each of the first three albums contained a reference to Captain Howdy, the little girl's name for the devil in The Exorcist, was always a subject of interest to me). In my review of the last Sparklehorse album, 2006’s good but underwhelming Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, I described some of the sonic elements I loved so much in his music as: “Ghostly halos of distortion and static hover over practically every instrument and vocal track, making even the most pastoral bed of lap steel and pump organ sound like a raw nerve.” In an age when it costs nothing to make crystal clear recordings, lo-fi so often sounds like a pose or a lazy default to me, but Linkous made his fuzzy, inscrutable productions sound as meticulous and deliberate as any slick industry producer's handiwork.

The last time someone whose art I cared greatly about did something like this, when David Foster Wallace committed suicide 18 months ago, I wrote about how I was disappointed that someone whose work spun so much beauty and profundity out of their personal problems could give into them instead of continuing to fight and create new things. I’ve never dealt with depression, real depression like these guys had, and when things like this happen I almost feel guilty for enjoying their art, like I was a tourist in the sadness they lived with all the time. And I feel guilty for wanting good things for them partly to satisfy my own worldview. I don’t want the tortured artist cliches to ring true, but also I want those guys to win some happiness for themselves after all the great things they’ve given me and their other fans. Elliott Smith’s death felt much the same way -- it was too on the nose, to obvious, something for detractors to snort and make obvious jokes about. At the time of Linkous’s death, the main page of Sparklehorse’s official site linked to a fundraising page for the family of Vic Chestnutt, another singer-songwriter whose music communicated a deep sadness and fragility who took his own life in December. Maybe these guys just weren’t made to last into old age, maybe they held on longer than they ever expected to, but for the rest of us it just feels like a waste, a huge and unnecessary loss to the world that could’ve used more of them.

A lot of Linkous’s lyrics lend themselves easily to an epitaph in a situation like this (“it’s a sad and beautiful world,” “all I want is to be a happy man,” etc.), but I think I prefer to remember those lines from “Box Of Stars (Part One)” above, which are the complete lyrics of that beautiful 33-second song. Maybe he finally escaped, and is off sleeping in a cartoonish heap somewhere.

Home Stretch for the Consent Decree

2010-03-09T05:54:47+00:00

Lawyer: Principal Skinner, "The Happiest Place on Earth" is a registered Disneyland copyright.
Principal Skinner: Oh now, gentlemen, it's just a small school carnival.
Lawyer: And it's heading for a great big lawsuit. You made a big mistake, Skinner.
Principal Skinner: Well, so did you. You got an ex-Green Beret mad.
[Skinner finger-thrusts the first goon in the Adam's Apple, then kicks the lawyer in the chest; they both go down groaning; as the second goon runs away, Skinner picks up the lawyer's briefcase and flings it; in the distance, it knocks down the goon]
Principal Skinner: Copyright…expired.

--The Simpsons, “Lisa the Beauty Queen” (10/15/92)

------------------------------

With neither a bang, nor a whimper, it was more like a whisper around the Puzzle Palace today.

First there was the rumbling of rumor, then the email went out to everyone, which also involved a link to a press release. It was over an hour before it appeared on the Sun’s website. (The Inside Ed blog still hasn’t picked it up yet. Nice job, guys. Where the hell is Sara Neufeld when you need her?)

The short version: the Vaughn G Consent Decree is over.

The longer version: it’s almost over. If City Schools can keep its nose clean for another two years, it’ll be over for good.

The Consent Decree, which got started back in 1984, came about because there were allegations that the Baltimore City school system wasn’t providing for Special Education students. Some students weren’t getting their services, some students weren’t getting identified in a timely manner, and so on. So a lawsuit was launched, and a Consent Decree was entered. Under the Decree, which has been monitored by Judge Marvin Garbis, the Court would monitor Special Education activity until the school system met with a set of “Disengagement Outcomes”.

Only twenty-six years later, everyone agrees that there has been “great improvement and collaboration” among the parties, and an agreement was hammered out that will end the court monitoring as of July 1, 2010. The Special Master’s office will be dismantled, and the City will have to answer only to the Maryland State Department of Education, as all districts in Maryland do. There are still a few issues to be dealt with, such as discipline (suspension of students with disabilities), supplementary aids (always a hazy topic) and make-up of missed services, but from where I stand they’ll be fairly easy to address.

It was kind of weird, but somehow I expected something—I’m still not sure what—to happen at the Puzzle Palace. But everything was quiet. Maybe even a little quieter than I’m used to. It was business as usual. This, to me, was pretty monumental, and maybe that was the problem. It’s been part of the status quo for so long that nobody really knows what to do with it yet. I mean, look at the picture on the left. That one was taken before the news was announced. Now look at the right: that was taken after the news was announced. Can you see a difference?

I did a little research and, so far as I can tell, it’s a rare school system in the US which has completely exited its Consent Decree. New York City has been under one since 1972. That’s not a typo; it’s been thirty-eight years. Chicago got out of one last year related to segregation; that one went for twenty-nine years. San Francisco had one that started in 1983 and was allowed to simply expire in 2005, so that doesn’t really count as “exiting”. Washington, DC, is just getting underway with one that started in 2007. Los Angeles is going on fifteen years, now. Hey, these things take time. I’ve always thought it was kind of like Moses and the Israelites wandering the desert: we had to wait for the previous generation to die off before things would change enough to make it work. And it was practically like that: most of the people who were working in the system when the Consent Decree began are long retired.

If nothing else, this is going to mean Big Bucks for the system. City Schools had to pay for the Special Master, had to pay for practically everything for both sides—including the attorney fees—whenever a Consent Decree-based lawsuit was filed, had to pay gazillions in Compensatory Services (which will probably still happen, though at a greatly reduced rate of incidence), had to pay for the extra audits and whatever else it’s had to deal with. This is literally millions of dollars that don’t need to be spent anymore.

So, it’s Kudos to the Special Education teachers, to the related service people, to the IEP Chairs, to the people in the Special Education office, to the parents who advocate for their children, to the principals who supported all these efforts, and to just plain everyone for a Job Well Done.

2010-03-09T05:35:00+00:00

Say Wut - Streets of Baltimore (Horsemen Entertainment/Unruly Records)

Say Wut's latest mix features a lot of his popular recent tracks, including "Go Off Wit It," "Back On My Grind" and "Shawty Tear It Up." I listed the title track in my Club Beat rundown of the best tracks of 2009, but for the most part I can't say this stuff is my favorite Say Wut material. He's definitely consistent but in my opinion he's been more inspired in the past, and some tracks he does a lot of vocals himself, which has never been his strong suit. Still one of the best producers out, though, and always worth checking for.

Say Wut - Streets of Baltimore (mp3)
This is the whole 30-minute mix, since it's all on one track.

Metapost: Wayback machine comments of the week!

2010-03-09T03:52:44+00:00

Your COTW momentarily, but first, some items of note! Last week I noted that one might need to (horrors) leave the house and go to the local library to find old soap opera strips, but faithful reader AndyL has another suggestion: the omnipotent Google! Yes, our cybernetic overlord has scanned back images of newspapers, allowing you to see things like Judge Parker from 1963, Apartment 3-G from 1967 (did someone just get acid thrown in their face?), or Mary Worth in 1962. (You may have to scroll around a bit in order to get to those strips.)

Also, faithful reader fillmoreeast offers evidence (cribbed from here) that many of your favorite comics characters once hawked high fructose corn blobs, including (shudder) Marvin.

What A Guy is apparently a comic from Reiner and Hoest, the same people who brought you the Lockhorns. I have no idea what it was about, but I hope it was about some little kid who just always goes around kissing everyone’s ass, proclaiming “What a guy!” about anyone at the drop of hat. As an aded bonus, fillmoreeast points us to another Google-indexed historical moment, this one from 1988, in which a Lakeland Ledger reader from Tampa writes in to complain that her beloved “cute” What A Guy has been replaced by some newfangled thing called Calvin and Hobbes, which she calls “OK but very uninteresting.”

And on that note, here is your totally interesting comment of the week!

“Petey’s pretty flagrant with his web-slinging there, but good job to him for not blurting out, ‘IT WAS SPIDER-MAN AKA PETER PARKER.’” –He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus

And your runners up! Also funny!

“Mark Trail: “Ummm … people who punch out a Senator get arrested pretty damned instantly. You ‘expressed concern’ to the wildlife office? I can hear Leonard Nimoy in panel three saying ‘Most illogical.’” –ignatz

“It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Peter that none of these costumes comes with a mask. Which is why ‘Mary Jane Watson’s husband climbs a building in a wizard suit’ is bound to be number 1 on YouTube tomorrow.” –BigTed

“How is that broom hanging from the rack? Is the hook part of the prop? Now all Peter needs is a fake mustache and a spinning bow-tie, and he’s all set to unleash some vaudeville justice.” –bman

“I’m less concerned about Mark talking to Mr. Spock than I am that Boss Hogg is apparently a U.S. Senator now.” –BRWombat

“Is it possible that Batuik is going to impose his own version of Chekov’s Law of Economy in Narrative? ‘If you find a gun in the first panel, it must be completely forgotten by the third, to make way for more suffering and disease’?” –Calvin’s Cardboard Box

“I didn’t know that they sold Lockhorn dolls?! It even comes in a ‘What has two thumbs and hasn’t had sex in forty years?’ pose.” –LUJBEM FEJF

“Panel 1 from A3G is golden. Look at her face! Poor Tommie, moping through life in the shadow of one roommate and the all-encompassing eclipse of the other, has just had her last and final hope of at least a normal life — that age comes hand in hand with wisdom — crushed by the wisest and most honest person she knows. It’s powerful, tragic and, at the very centre of the issues at hand, takes place during someone else’s storyline. Now let’s watch as the story writes itself from here as Tommie’s crushing depression begins to suffocate her, but only in the throwaway Sunday panels most papers don’t even run.” –Black Drazon

“Also, just to make Gunther’s month complete, he let his subscription to Needy Loser magazine expire! Go figure!” –Marion Delgado

“It’s good to see Mark consulting the Romulans on political matters. They served him well in providing a wife.” –migellito

“I think if you were to tell Tommie that ‘life isn’t fair,’ she would be genuinely surprised to hear it. ‘Golly, I always thought it was! Hmmm. Now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense. Explains a lot, really, like my string of failed relationships or the fact that I share an apartment with the modern-day Lucrezia Borgia.’” –Joe Blevins

“Dawn can’t wait to see the crushing disappointment on Wilbur’s face; it’s like Christmas, only with tears!” –True Fable

“Re: Wilbur (advice columnist) and Toots (slacker/drifter), methinks I detect the mayo-smeared fingerprints of the vast international Sandwich Lobby in the comics. Is nothing sacred? (Other than, perhaps, Baconnaise.)” –mvg

“If it’s 1960, why aren’t the ladies sipping sherry? It’s obviously after 9 a.m.” –shermy glamrocker

“A rare early Family Circus panel depicts the prequel to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? with a hydrocephalic Dolly in the title role. Note the audience of matronly drag queens she has invited into the living room, to the horror of her mother.” –Doug Starr Twinkle

“Ok, if faced with the fill-in-the-blank ‘you’re a ___ couple if you can wear each other’s jeans,’ I’d have said gay. Why is Pluggers insulting my people like that? (Obviously I meant that as a gay, not as a monstrous suburban furry.)” –edp

“It’s heavy … but I like it. I could probably crush an esophagus pretty easily with this. Now cough up some real money, you hippie.” –Taquelli

“GT: GO Ñ!” –Red Greenback

“Toots’ plan to remain hidden will fail because 1) Sarah has no way to conceal the skateboard, 2) June will detect his life signs with her tricorder, and 3) Abby just took the only food he’s had in days. He’ll be found out by nightfall (aka ‘late May 2010′).” –Ed Dravecky

“Strangely enough, Peter Parker has hit upon the perfect costume for a Miami super-hero: ‘Raving at an all-night beach circuit party in an angel costume, mild-mannered Rafi Aguilar was transformed into the Amazing Guardian Angel when he took ecstasy laced with radioactive ketamine!!” –teddytoad

“I find it strange that Mr. Prisoner has a checkbook in prison, where the barter system is the accepted mode of paying debts. Sam should have held out for $100,000 worth of cigarettes and/or blowjobs.” –Rusty

“Be careful with your addictions, Wilbur. Sandwiches are comforting, but they’re a just a ‘gateway’ food. Soon, you’ll begin experimenting with wraps, then pita pockets and gyros. I only pray you’ll seek help before you find yourself drawn helplessly into the dark underworld of paninis.” –Perky Bird

Big thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar! And here is where we would give thanks to our advertisers, were there any to thank! To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot — and how you could be the launch advertiser for our new RSS feed sponsorship — click here.

Life Goes by and the House Stays the Same

2010-03-09T02:22:53+00:00

I should be full of stories of completed work on the house. But I'm not. Little things have been done. Even less has been documented.

At this point, we are in wedding prep mode. Or rather, the Queen is in wedding prep mode. In less than 3 months we'll be hitched and swooping off to Guana Island followed by a nice jaunt around the islands. Life is good. We even made time for the annual theme party. This year's theme was the Jersey shore. As usual it was a blast.

If you care to see more carnage, check out the slideshow. All this and landscaping needs to be finished in the back, crown molding to be hung, and a ton of other miscellaneous other tasks requiring attention. Life has switched gears for now but I'll soon be back in the swing of renovations.

P.S. I think I finally have the formatting fixed. I'm glad to finally have all my links back. :-)

County Executive Craig Kicks-Off Census 2010 in Harford County

2010-03-09T01:35:26+00:00

From Harford County government:

(Bel Air, MD) – - Harford County Executive David R. Craig, joined by members of the Harford County Council and the Harford County Census 2010 Complete Count Committee, today announced the start of “U.S. Census 2010 – Harford Counts”. The “U.S. Census 2010 – Harford Counts” campaign is coordinated by the Department of Planning and Zoning.

“The census is critical to Harford County, the State of Maryland and our nation. The census is used to help determine how many seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as boundaries of legislative districts and much more,” County Executive Craig stated. “Obtaining a complete count of all the people living in Harford County is our goal,” Craig stated.The United States Constitution requires that every ten years a national census be tallied. The census is a count of everyone residing in the United States, including people of all ethnic groups both citizens and non-citizens.

Census questionnaires will be delivered or mailed by the U.S. Census Bureau to all households this month. Census workers will also visit households that do not return questionnaires. Census Day is April 1, 2010. Questionnaire responses should represent the household as it exists on that day. More detailed socioeconomic information will be collected annually from a small percentage of the population through the American Community Survey.

The 2010 Census is comprised of only 10 questions and is one of the shortest census questionnaires in history.

The U. S. Census Bureau is prohibited by law from sharing an individual’s census questionnaire responses with anyone – including other federal agencies and law enforcement officials.

Each year the federal government can allocate more than $400 billion to states and local communities based in part on census data. Additionally, census information helps determine the locations for schools, roads, child-care and senior centers and much more.

These improvements have a significant impact on the quality of life for a community.

“With the help of the Harford County Department of Planning and Zoning and the Complete Count Committee, the U. S. Census Bureau has a far greater chance of obtaining an accurate count of people currently living in Harford County,” remarked County Executive Craig. “I encourage everyone to take time to participate and complete a 2010 census form to help ensure that “Harford Counts” in the U.S. Census for 2010,” Craig stated.

For more information regarding the “U.S. Census 2010 – Harford Counts” campaign, contact Daniel Rooney of the Harford County Department of Planning and Zoning at 410-638-3103, Ext. 1374.

“Guys and Dolls” Scores Big at Seabrook

2010-03-08T21:15:41+00:00

TINTON FALLS, NJ – A group of exceptionally talented residents and staff from Seabrook known as the Seabrook Performers Theatrical Group gave the community two sold-out, solid performances of the famed show “Guys and Dolls.” The shows left the crowds mesmerized and thoroughly entertained as they watched and listened to Sky Masterson, Sergeant Sarah Brown and Nathan Detroit during the age of Damon Runyon in New York City.

Lindo Meli, Seabrook resident and producer and director of the show said, “The show is about people in New York – tourists, cops, crooks, gamblers and all kinds of people. The flavor of this show gives you a feel of what city life is really about. Our production was a great one filled with energy and quite a few surprises thrown in for good measure.”

The Seabrook Performers have also put on other shows over the past year, including “Arsenic and Old Lace” and the original show “Six at Seven-Thirty.”

About Seabrook: More than 1,400 people live at Seabrook, an Erickson full-service retirement community that promotes a vibrant lifestyle. Erickson Retirement Communities is one of the leading national developers of full-service retirement communities. Headquartered near Baltimore, Md., Erickson has built an innovative network of communities that combine a maintenance-free active lifestyle with an ever-expanding host of amenities, social activities, and wellness and medical centers, proven to improve both physical and mental health. In 2008 and 2009, Erickson was named by FORTUNE as being one of the Top 100 “Best Companies to Work For”® and Seabrook was recently named the 14th “Best Place to Work in New Jersey” by NJBIZ Magazine.

For more information about this story, please contact Tony Ciavolella, public relations manager, at 732-918-9100 or 732-425-4635.

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Beach House – Teen Dream

2010-03-08T20:58:33+00:00

The Baltimore duo Beach House’s first two albums were fairly popular on an indie level, and made a good number of year-end lists. But that all seems like a prelude now to the massive reception that the band’s Sub Pop debut, Teen Dream, has enjoyed since its release in January, as one of the most [...]

Wee-cycle Mart comes to Perryville Outlet Center March 12-14

2010-03-08T20:55:53+00:00

It's Wee-cycle Mart time again. Organizers are already setting up for this weekend's sale in the old L.L. Bean store at the Perryville Outlet Center. They're accepting items for consignment through noon this Wednesday. The photo above is from last year's sale and here's the info they sent me on this year's event:

The big children's consignment sale is scheduled March 12-14th at the Perryville Outlet Center (old LL Bean Store). The last Perryville sale proved to have the highest sales despite early doubts from the Bel Air moms! Yes, not only did the Harford County moms consign GREAT stuff (over 25,000 items) at the sale but they came to the sale in droves! Some even came back all 3 days with friends! We are once again offering a 5% discount up to $5 if they bring a toll reciept dated that day! Saturday's MomsFest is starting to become a favorite of the moms with a FREE baby photo contest, free childcare (if you have to bring those kids) and over 20 vendors that support moms! We also give out goodie bags to first 500 moms and a punchcard on Sat where moms can get an extra 6% off for stoopping by some of our vendors!

More info about consigning, volunteering and shopping at the sale: www.wee-cyclemart.com

You can follow Wee-cycle Mart on Facebook and Twitter.

Here's a cute video they made of themselves setting up for last year's Harford County sale:

This post was sponsored by Wee-cyclemart.

For more information on sponsored posts e-mail BANV at stacey@belairnewsandviews.com

This

2010-03-08T20:36:55+00:00

I’d read that the first few years of marriage can be an incredibly difficult adjustment, but my experience has been exactly the opposite. Much of the anxiety (not all, but most) that use to plague me has evaporated and dissolved. The unspoken question of where things are going has been answered, and answered in the best possible way. The wedding to-do lists have been burned in a mental bonfire and the few tiny disappointments of the wedding process and the actual day are all but forgotten (except for the rain that drove our lovely terrace cocktail hour indoors, I’m still a teensy bit sad about that). All that remains of the hours spent planning and organizing are memories and photos, enhanced by the rose-colored glow of nostalgia.

Aside from the additional pieces of jewelry on our left hands, our lives together didn’t change all that much. We merged our car insurances and our cell phone plans. I visited the social security office and got a card with a new last name on it. Other than that, things stayed the same.

And yet, everything shifted. I used to suffer immensely from a feeling of having no footing and no direction. I felt like a waste of potential for having a job instead of a career, for not being interested in law school or business school or anything, really, that didn’t occur on the weekends. I drifted, unable to make myself choose a direction. And while I still work at the same job, still live in the same house, still have the same life, essentially, I don’t feel like I’m drifting and searching anymore.

It used to drive me crazy when people would ask when we were going to get married already, as if it were any of their business. People mean well, I know, but these questions are obnoxious. It made me almost as angry when near-strangers would ask how the wedding plans were coming only to voice disapproval at whatever response I gave. What do you mean you don't have a florist booked? What do you mean you haven't had a bridal shower? There is always an undercurrent of impatience in those queries, and I always felt like the last thing I needed was to have some outside party insinuate that I was doing things wrong. I expected to feel the same way about the meaningless “how’s married life” question. But I don’t! I don’t mind it at all. Married life is awesome, I happily reply.

I don’t know exactly what it is. The sense of permanence, of groundedness. I still worry about lots of things. I worry about the economy, I worry about money. I worry about asteroids hitting the moon and I worry about how writers of Lost are possibly going to wrap up all those crazy parallel universes. But I find immense comfort knowing that whatever happens, we’ll still have this.

And this, this life together, is exactly what I've been drifting towards all these years.

Drunken Noodles (Pad Kee Mao)

2010-03-08T18:18:34+00:00

I’ve been promising my mom that I would post this recipe and, after many weeks, here it is. If I could eat only one cuisine for the rest of my life, I’m pretty sure it would be Thai food. The salty-tart-spicy-sweet flavors are so satisfying and there are so many vegetarian options that I would never get bored. Recently, instead of going out for Thai, I’ve been making it at home and with great

Maybe they have the heart of a warrior, but probably also the mind of an idiot

2010-03-08T18:15:33+00:00

A while back, I mentioned that I signed up to run the mid-atlantic Warrior Dash in October in lieu of running Muddy Buddy this spring because it conflicts with my spring half marathon. In addition to signing up for the Dash, I became a fan of it on Facebook in order to keep up with any details and such. I also started to follow it on Twitter.

Today, the Warrior Dash people posted this to their Facebook page:

We understand there are some Warriors who thought unlimited free beer was being served during Warrior Dash. We never meant to be misleading about this in any way. Our only goal is to make sure every Warrior has a fun & memorable experience at the race, if you were under the impression you received unlimited free beer at the event we’d be happy to offer you a full refund. Please email info@redfrogevents.com by 3/15/10

Um, ok. I might have seen something about beer on the sign up page or the web site or something, but never have I seen any race offer UNLIMITED free beer. One or two, yes. Enough to drown a hippo? No. I know the Warrior Dash is supposed to be a big celebration of testosterone and manliness (even for the chicks), but for $65 you're not going to get a race with obstacles and all the cost that comes along with that, AND free gear (t-shirts and hats and such) AND UNLIMITED FREE BEER. I know people are stupid and have an unreasonable sense of entitlement, but come on.

Interested, I delved deeper. Here is some of the feedback the Warrior Dash people are dealing with right now about the misinterpretation of "free beer" meaning "ONE free beer" and not "UNLIMITED free beer:"

You know that no one is going to take you up on this offer... its the principle! You're already making money off everyone by charging $65, but why try and make more by selling tiny $4 beers afterwards when it's going to cost you .25 cents a beer? Why not offer $1 beers, you'll still be making money and pissing less ppl off!!!

This is like complaining a beer at an NFL game costs $8 when it only costs the team a buck. The funny thing is that the Warrior Dash people invite people to bring their own coolers and their own beer, which is something you can't get away with at an NFL game.

The website was pretty misleading. I'd say the "free beer" was definitly part of the reason I signed up. It seemed like the event was more about the party/revelry afterwards. I don't know what kind of warrior can handle only one beer after a three mile run or would look down on someone that could. Weak sauce, warriors.

Takes "weak sauce" to know weak sauce, friend.

This event was marketed as a party and beer was to be included (it does only say one free in the rules). I think the biggest problem everyone like me who enjoy's a nice cold beer is having is that they have yet to even hint at what they will be charging for the other beer that you can only get from them. Not allowing ppl to bring their own for the party is BS, what event isnt better with tailgating anyway. The event will be fun regardless, however I, like most of the other BEER drinkers, just prefer to not be ripped off like they get us at concerts and ballgames. 5000 participants equals 300K income and by the time they add conssessions your probably looking at 400-500k minus the cost of operations (mostly volunteers) so yes a little clarity on the price of a beer would be great!

Oh, dear god. So it IS ok to get ripped off for beer at a football game but not anywhere else, even though it states clearly in the Warrior Dash fine printery that participants get ONE FREE BEER by this guy's own admission? I wonder how offended he'd be to know just how much worse he's getting raped for concessions at concerts and ballgames than nearly anywhere else in the world.

As for me, I'm not much of a drinker. But after crawling through mud for 3+ miles I probably would enjoy a frosty cold beer (unless it's some pisswasser like Michelob Ultra). Emphasis on the "a."

And the truth is that I'm not sure what the FAQ said about beer -- free or otherwise -- or when it said it. What I am sure of is that the Warrior Dash always mentioned the freedom people have to bring in coolers and their own refreshments. So to me, this is all about getting something for nothing (again, $65 for a race, premiums, etc. is not enough to also pay for people to get hammered).

So I'm starting to think the warriors in this dash are more likely to be kittens than lions. I just hope they like being a mat for me when I run over them going through mud pits and such.

Something refreshing!

2010-03-08T18:00:47+00:00

This is an amazing organization run by the Moore family. Dr. Andrew Moore, his mother and two of his brothers are continuing the tradition that his father set so many years before: to provide the community with quality healthcare.

Developed for the "working poor", Surgery on Sunday has helped over 1,500 patients and offers free healthcare and surgical procedures for those without health insurance or financial means to cover necessary medical expenses.

If you're interested, I strongly recommend everyone to look into aiding or donating to this organization! At a time where our economy is in a meltdown and trying to rebuild itself, there is no better way to help our fellow neighbor, friend, family and loved ones by establishing an access to the healthcare that everyone deserves to receive.

one step forward...

2010-03-08T16:46:24+00:00

I don't have any pictures today. Hopefully I will a little later in the week, but I was too busy to take any this weekend. We suffered a little bit of a setback on Friday, when we came home from dinner to discover that the baseboards had been installed in a hurry and had some pretty major issues - issues enough, in fact, to prevent us from moving our office downstairs as planned.

Essentially, the drywall in the office didn't go all the way to the floor. The drywallers assured us that it wouldn't be a problem, as the gap would be covered by the baseboards. While this is in theory true, the problem is that since there wasn't any drywall there, there wasn't anything to support the bottom half of the baseboard, and when the installers tried to nail them up, they wound up slanting inward at the bottom and looking all kinds of messed up. That was the major issue - there were a few other trouble spots that I think came from the installers doing the baseboards last, late in the evening and kind of in a hurry to finish.

So we called the flooring guy, who promised that a) he'd come out today and inspect and b) they would fix everything. He's not here yet, but his crew is, and they're already taking off the slanty baseboards in order to put some support behind them. They're also working on the master bedroom - they're perfectly willing to move the furniture in there around while they work, so we don't even have to move it ourselves. We do still have to move the office ourselves - they don't want the responsibility of moving our computers and all of the jewelry supplies - but it's a relief not to have to move the bedroom back and forth.

We plan on moving the office on Tuesday night (Don has class tonight until late, alas) and hopefully we'll still be completely done with the floors and baseboards this week. And I have to say - the baseboards might have been a minor issue, but the floors themselves look amazing. We were able to have our gaming group over on Sunday! It's an auspicious start.

Where’s That Camera? And a Giveaway!

2010-03-08T15:59:11+00:00

I’ve been working on about 3 projects at once. Why do I do that? Anyway – the latest is a sleeping bag for my son, and I know I took a picture of the progress – but where did I put that camera?

I’m almost done, so I’ll just have to show the finished project instead of the progress. I also have plans to write up a tutorial.

And now on to the giveaway. I have an extra copy of One Yard Wonders! 101 projects for one yard of fabric!

Awhile back, I had hoped to have time to submit something for this book, when I first heard about the idea. No such luck – I ran out of time.

So … for this giveaway, tell me what project you wish you had time to make. I wish I had more time for “selfish sewing”. I want to make myself more clothes, but I find that the needs of my house and my son seem to come first.

1) Let’s keep this open until noon EST on Friday, March 12th.

2)In your comment, please make sure you fill in your correct email address so I can contact you.

3) And unfortunately, I’m going to have to limit this to the United States due to postage rates.

4) After the deadline, I will choose a random number to pick the winner.

Thanks everyone - I love to hear from you and check out your websites!

La belleza oculta en los rincones de Mexico

2010-03-08T15:08:19+00:00

I went for the second time to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This trip I went for some serious meditation and relaxation. The last time was to brush up on my Spanish at the Instituto Allende where I ended up not relaxing. I was too worried about my inability to master the plus-cuam-perfecto, also known as the franken-tense. I guess you could say I was tense about the tenses.

This trip was going to be different-- I was going to do all of the things I passed on my previous back to school field trip. As our plane touched down in Leon and I boarded the bus to take us up into the mountains, I noticed something was wrong immediately. For starters, there was no green. All I saw was brown colored dryness, so much that I could make out mosaic patterns on the ground. There was a lacking in floral life...the spectacular purple infused jacaranda trees weren't so spectacular, as a matter of fact they weren't anything. It was very disappointing, I mean I had just left a gray Baltimore for in search of some serious color...but so far, nothing.

As we made our way up the mountain to San Miguel, things became a little more verdant. When we arrived, I spoke with the house-keeper where I was staying and asked her if this was the dry season. She said not really, but they were experiencing a fierce cold-snap that was lingering longer than the Mexicans expected. Not exactly music to my ears when I had just packed all my shorts and tank tops. Gracias a Dios for the endless shopping that was waiting for me downtown.

After I smothered myself in arroz con pollo, 2 Tecates, 3 tee shirts and multiple layered socks, I decided it was time for some flower spying. I pulled out my super-spiffy digital and started snapping away at some succulents and bougainvillea on our balcony that had managed to survive the chill. I was in mid-snap when the worst possible thing for me could have happened-- the camera shut down and died. I mean really died, like no funciona, es muerto, cabron- dead. Batteries not required dead. It was gone. This bothered me more than the cold weather.

I screamed for about an hour and my friend suggested the Guadalajara Pharmacy for a new one. So I went and a very nice Mexican lady helped me out, only problem, I had no idea what she was talking about when she started to ramble about "la carta Sim". But I figured it out when I left. No I didn't, you bloggers can smell a lie-- I had to call my techno-buddy-pal Keith back in the states for some expensive roaming advice. Once he explained it all to me, I went on my way back home, but first I stopped by the Instituto for old times sake. Peeking into the atrium, I was dumb-struck by two very green enormous displays of foliages with Belles of Ireland. There was one in each corner and they were at least 6-7' tall. I hadn't remembered them when I was there before. I realized something special was going on, it looked like a wedding.

It was the perfect opportunity to scope out some serious flowers and watch how they do it South of the Border. Who knows, maybe I'd learn a trick or two. I quietly tip-toed into the courtyard where I spotted a lone floral designer taping oasis bricks around a very branchy tree. She was using household tape it looked like, not the davee tape we use here, which I thought was odd. I watched her for 10 minutes before I got up the nerve to introduce myself. I told her I did the same job in America. We did some light shop-talk and as I noticed she was able to talk and work without losing her concentration--not an easy task to master on a wedding day set-up. Especially when talking to a person who speaks Spanish like a 5th grader.

I asked if I could snap some pictures whiles she worked, no problema, she said. She was was constructing these amazing white floral clusters, which eventually created a serpentine shape around the limbs and trunk of the tree. I thought they should have been in floral cages, it would have been much easier, but quien sabe? Maybe she knew something I didn't. Only two white flowers were used: saponaria and stock. And it was beautiful. She was doing this to about 4 trees, and it took her a very long time on each tree. Unbelievably, she did this alone- I never saw another designer. It started to make me nervous and I wanted to help her, but knew my place. I would have jumped at the opportunity to help her design if she had asked.

She eventually finished her work-just barely, and I couldn't have been more impressed or nervous for that poor girl. Meanwhile, I met the Mother of the Groom who told me lots of details about the wedding. It fascinated me watching the whole event get set-up and come together.

It was different in some ways from what I am used to doing and seeing in the states. For example, I have never seen a plastic chavarie chair, or heard of a reception lasting 8 hours which is the average in Mexico. !Que loco! And it was a medium sized wedding by Mexican standards, however, it was pricey according to the Groom's Mother, Car. (BTW-- the 'plastic' chavarie chairs fooled even me)

The budget was 250,000.00 pesos, which would be about 25,000.00 US dollars, still pretty cheap for a wedding this size. And you could tell these were educated, wealthy Mexicans who weren't playing--they wanted it upscale and they got it. Very serious planning for a very sophisticated group. But guess what?!-- they shoot off fireworks after dinner ends as well as throughout the reception as well. I could hear them from the house where I was staying up the hill. And they weren't lying-- the reception lasted until 3:00 a.m. I heard that too, as well as some of the worst D.J. music in history, including a Grease soundtrack and endless Ricky Martin tunes. Thanks to their loud celebration, I got no sleep that night-- I ended up curled in a ball in the farthest corner get away from the awful music. As bad as the noise was, I got some great pics while spying in the corner of that courtyard.

Muchas gracias y felicitaciones, Car. A great spying day indeed.

Locale: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Flowers Shown: White stock, saponaria, white dendrobium orchids, white cymbidium orchids, white iris, blue hybrid delphinium, blue and green hydrangea, Belles of Ireland, bear grass, calla lilies.

All Pictures by: International Flower Spy

This little guy in the corner is my homage to Senor Ricky Martin himself...La planta loca

ACC Tournament Odds

2010-03-08T13:07:00+00:00

This post sponsored by Sportsbetting.com, the best place for sports betting online

That’s right, it’s Championship Week, and the Terps actually have a chance to win the ACC Tournament this year. I couldn’t find the odds posted yet, so here’s my uninformed take on what the odds should be.

Virginia (50-1) – They looked decent on Saturday and gave the Terps a scare, but the Cavs have lost 9 in a row and would have to face Duke in the second round.

Boston College (45-1) – It’s sad to see Al Skinner’s squad playing this badly, where they have to battle UVA for a chance to get slaughtered by Duke.

NC State (45-1) – The Wolfpack don’t have any easy games in the Tournament. To win, they would likely have to play the top 4 teams in the conference according to the Sagarin ratings.

Miami (40-1) – A couple years ago it looked like the Canes might be building a decent basketball program.

North Carolina (20-1) – The only reason the odds are this low is that you never want to turn your back on a wounded bear. The Tar Heels’ pride was severely damaged when they got blown out at Duke, and the tournament is just down the road from Chapel Hill.

Georgia Tech (15-1) – The only team from the ACC left on the bubble, the Yellow Jackets would have to do a lot to convince the Selection Committee to either take a 7th ACC team in a down year for the conference, or to leapfrog Virginia Tech or Wake Forest.

Wake Forest (10-1) – The Demon Deacons have played their way into the NCAA Tournament, but I just don’t see them making the semifinals of the ACC tourney.

Clemson (7-1) – Clemson has fallen off a bit after starting the season incredibly hot, but they are still a very good team. The second round matchup with FSU should be a great one.

Florida State (6-1) – The Seminoles got a bit screwed with the scheduling, as they’ll have to face a tough Clemson team in the second round, but they’re in the NCAA Tournament and have a good enough team to make a run.

Virginia Tech (4-1) – The Hokies have been playing good basketball lately, and they’ll be fighting for convince the NCAA Tournament Committee that they really deserve to be in.

Duke (Even) – It pains me to do this, but the Blue Devils have such are always so good in the ACC Tournament, especially when it is in Greensboro. It would be an upset for any other team to win.

Maryland (2-1) – If any team can knock off Duke, it’s the Terps. They showed last week that they can play with the level of emotion necessary to slow down Duke’s prolific offense.

A Colocated Server as The Commons

2010-03-08T11:18:33+00:00

I own and operate the server that hosts this blog.

In the world of NearlyFreeSpeech.net, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud, all of which are more fault tolerant, why would I bother running my own?

Because it allows me, my close friends and family to do whatever the heck we what. It gives us options.

If someone needs a new module loaded on the web server? No problem.
If I want to idle on IRC for days, leaving processes running? No sweat.
If someone needs a place to park a couple gigabytes of photos while upgrading a PC? Not an issue at all.
Need to park two dozen domains that you’re keeping alive for the friend of a former roommate’s cousin? Why not?
If a friend needs a proxy tunnel to get past his employers outdated firewall rules? Happy to help.

So long as I’m technically capable of doing it and I’m not going to get arrested or sued, it’s cool with me. Personally, I like having a shell prompt at my disposal that isn’t tied to or restricted by my home ISP. I also like helping young and aspiring people set up an Internet presence without having to dump a lot of money into it; nothing sucks more than having to pay for hosting on a project that just doesn’t pan out, at least here the costs can be minimized.

Best of all, the users here all trust each other. No one is going to go rummaging through their data.

The server has moved around a bit in the last ten years, mostly to accommodate physical moves of its maintainers. For a few years it lived in dorm rooms and on-campus apartments, leeching bandwidth from RIT (and at one point mirroring content for College Humor, back when it was in its infancy). When I moved to Maryland the server was the very last thing to be packed, powered down mere minutes before being transported 402 miles by car before being booted up atop a video editing rack at an Annapolis-based media company. After a year or so I moved the server again, this time into the basement of a coworker. And there it’s been for the last couple years, without issue. It’s happy there.

Since the move to Maryland, bandwidth has a monetary cost associated with it. So does power. So I ask the folks who use the server to pitch in if they can. A few cases of financial hardship aside, most everyone does. It isn’t the cheapest thing out there, but it isn’t expensive either; some users just have a basic hosting configuration, while others really milk it for all they can. I think most people are content to pay a little more to have their data on a system whose owner they know and trust.

This server represents the commons. A community. Compared with a commercial hosting provider, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Decorative Shelving to Add Style

2010-03-08T11:00:38+00:00

Decorative shelves are a great way to add interest and function to any room. As I have slowly decorated my house, I have used mirrors, pictures, fabric wall hangings. But I found that I had other small items I wanted to incorporate into the space without adding clutter. I found shelving to be a creative solution.

Choosing Decorative Shelves

Material:
The material of the shelving, whether glass, wood, or metal should be a reflection of the already existing color and decor present in the space. I chose white, painted wood shelves to incorporate more light into the space. Also, the two rooms, Izzie’s and the powder, have a soft, fresh look, so glass and metal shelves would look too cold and darker, stained wood shelves would appear too formal. Also, consider what items you will be putting on the shelf – wood shelves are sturdier and can hold more weight.

Brackets:
There are many styles of brackets to choose from once you choose the material of the shelf. Brackets can be decorative, basic and functional, or hidden entirely. I have found that decorative brackets can make shelving look more unique and can help to integrate the shelf into existing decor. Do not feel trapped into sets of shelving and brackets sold together; if you don’t like the look paint them or make your own!

Style:
The combination of material and brackets can create very different looks and again, should reflect the style of the room, whether it is modern, rustic, or whimsical. Step back and assess what feel your room has before purchasing. Even take a picture and bring it with to the store to ensure the shelving will compliment your existing look. If your room is more modern, with bold colors, consider glass shelving with geometric brackets. If your room is rustic, consider bulkier, unfinished wood shelving with iron brackets.

Design:
Once you have chosen the shelving and brackets that will fit with the style of the room, consider the number and size of the shelves, spacing, and arrangement. For smaller spaces, use fewer, smaller shelves. For larger spaces, increase the number of shelves and the width between them. Play with the arrangement – assess how the spacing and location of the shelves will draw your eye and open (or close) up the room. Also, think about what items will be placed on the shelf – the item should not be proportionally too large for the chosen shelf. If taller items are to be placed on the shelf, remember to increase the space between the shelves if another shelf is placed above.

Price:
Shelving can be a great way to use and organize already existing nick-nacks and collections. It is also a cheap alternative to expensive art. Home Depot, Amazon.com, and Ikea all have great shelving options and varying prices to meet your price bracket!

What do you think? How have you used shelving to add a creative flare to your space?

The challenging task of separating the Billys from the Cals.

2010-03-08T05:37:03+00:00

Easily the most difficult part about coaching is making cuts. It's so difficult, in fact, that some years, I've barely made any. However, I had a huge group try out this year, and I had to cut 15 kids on Thursday night from the baseball team, a greater amount than ever before. Even that just got the numbers down from 42 to 27, and really I should cut a few more to get down to 22, which is how many jerseys I have.

I cut a lot of great kids, many with some baseball skills; this year, even the 9th graders can play a little bit (I'm keeping two of them and cut a few seniors, in fact). But I just can't keep them all. It's actually tearing me up pretty good right now, not made any easier the more I learn about them. [...] The only solution I can think of is to have a practice squad, but I need someone to work with them, and it's kind of a thankless job because there are no teams to play and we are really restricted in equipment and space.

So, it's been a rough week, but also a good week - I really do love getting back out there on the field with these kids. It's a good team this year, potentially a really good team, and I've coached the mainly-upperclassmen team for a number of consecutive years now. I know the kids well and really, not to sound cheesy, care about them. It's such an interesting mix, quite a bit more of an interesting mix than any of my classes, which are separated pretty markedly (the highest-ability 12th graders, and a particularly wiggly group of 9th graders) into two types. Not so the baseball team - kids range from 14 to 18, great students and students I have to be on every moment, well-behaved kids in class and kids whose teachers are constantly in touch with me about tardies and texting. Yet they all are already forming into a cohesive group. I do love this.

Yet every season, I am blown away by the time commitment of it - I'm literally at school for 12 hours every day, and often then get kids home, and arrive home myself well past dark and plan two lessons for the next day. This Wednesday, I was feeling that pull of supreme irritation that comes from not sleeping (remember my diagnosis of Chronic Sleep Disorder from earlier this year? I had pretty much fixed it, but not this week), which this week came from being over-worked and also from thinking about these cuts.

Today, I decided to google myself and went to the ratemyteachers reviews about myself. I only have 14 reviews, and all are mostly positive, except one really negative one about four years ago - and that one smarts still. But the latest one said something along the lines of, "Good teacher, really nice guy, really laid back, but needs to find more time for his students".

It was oddly shocking. I certainly have some weaknesses as a teacher (it takes me too long to return papers, I haven't figured out a good way to do drills this year with my 9th graders, I have the occasional dud unit like the recent Native Son one that was a snowday-fueled surface romp instead of getting into in-depth analysis like I would have wanted to - perhaps I was too much of a slave to my schedule), but devotion of time is not one of them.

Rachel's French Onion Soup

2010-03-08T05:20:00+00:00

Ingredients:
4 lbs yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced
2 quarts beef stock
1/3 cup vermouth
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
6 sprigs thyme (tied together)
2 bay leaves

to serve:
bread rounds (day old slices of a baguette or artisan white does well)
shredded Gruyère (I used cave aged Gruyère)

Directions:
Heat the olive oil and butter in large skillet or saucepan. Add the onions. It is okay if they are mounded high in the pan, they will cook down quickly. Cover and cook the onions until just beginning to soften, stirring occasionally so they cook evenly. Stir in the balsamic and remove the lid. Cook until the onions are caramelized, stirring very occasionally, about 40 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the vermouth. Add the stock, salt, pepper, bay leaves and thyme. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and thyme. Bake the bread and cheese on a baking sheet for 5 minutes at 350 and transfer them to the top of the soup. Alternatively, divide the soup among oven safe bowls. Top with a slice or two of bread and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 10 minutes at 350. If you have broiler safe bowls and a roomy broiler, top with bread and cheese and broil until the cheese melts.

Note: I wanted to speed up the dinner process so I caramelized the onions and deglazed the pan in the morning and then refrigerated them until I was ready to make dinner. You could do this the night before if desired. Follow the rest of the directions as written about.

My thoughts:

I don't see French onion soup on menus very often anymore (too '60s?) which is shame because it is one of the few soups that can pull off being elegant and rustic at the same time. Luckily, it is easy to make at home. It is slightly time consuming, there is nothing difficult about the recipe. Caramelizing onions is a hands off activity for the most part and you barely need to stir the soup as it cooks. There are a lot of variations in recipes for the soup: everything from using sweet onions (not needed, yellow onions a quite sweet once caramelized, no need to make candy) to including apple cider (ew!) and a lot of different cheeses. I created this recipe to make my own ultimate French onion soup, one that is very flavorful but not too rich. I dispense with the sugar many recipes call for and use balsamic vinegar to help along the caramelization process while adding to the depth of flavor. I am also fond of floating a slice of bread on the top of the soup rather than broiling the whole thing. Same flavor, maybe slightly less cheese and no need to buy broiler safe bowls.

Shouting Out Requests and Turning the House Upside Down

2010-03-08T04:06:31+00:00

Last night I had a dream that took place underwater. Also, there was a chase scene.

This weekend I saw my cousin play music in a bar on Houston street and was surprised and delighted that so many of his friends from college all came out to see him. A lot of them drove for hours to shout the name of one song over and over again. Two Stories, Two Stories! TWO stories!!! I didn't know what they were going to do once he finally sang it. What does one shout now that they've played the song you were so loudly requesting?

I kind of feel that way in life, I guess. Nic and I are both shouting WEDDING! HOUSE! Wedding! HOUSE! and through the loudness of it, it will be hard to imagine what it will be like once our song is played. What will we be shouting for.

We turned the house upside down looking for my w2s from last year. I probably placed it carefully in between the pages of a long -forgotten book to mark my place, or just as likely I tore it up into tiny pieces and baked it into a pie. Who knows. I lost my wallet recently (stress related, you think_ and well ...wait, i should tell you that I'm fairly sure that the way i lost my wallet is that . OK. this is one of those things, that just makes sense if you know me. no. wait. this sort of thing doesn't make sense at all . OK, i think i put my wallet in someone Else's coat pocket. yup. just slipped it right in there. I distinctly remember bowling, and thinking, my goodness, I'm going to loose this wily wallet if i don't put it somewhere safe -- so i placed it in my coat hanging up on the hook. At the end of the night, when it was time to find my coat, it was no where near that hanging up coat, it wasn't even hanging up. So, it's true. it would be a crime if i was pick-pocketed, but no...I put-pocketed it. Think of that surprised stranger though. boy did I get them.
Anyway, i needed to find my passport to have some id after this whole wallet debacle and i searched the apartment high and low for that, too. ( are you getting the impression that i might be disorganized or stressed?) and after several days, and an impromptu trip to Baltimore, I found it in some old purse. Today I checked that same old purse, just in case my w2 might have found its way in there.

Wouldn't it be great if you just had a bag in your house where lost things showed up?
that sock
that earring back
the remote
your keys
all the entries of this blog i didn't keep up with.

2010 Orioles Position-By-Position: CF

2010-03-08T03:01:32+00:00

There’s a lot to like about this team, as we know. A lot of talent, a lot of potential. Several guys with both to spare. But if I had to pick just one who most embodies the next era of competitive Orioles baseball, it’s Adam Jones.

No disrespect meant to Brian Roberts, Nick Markakis, or any of the other talented players who figure to form this club’s nucleus for years to come. It’s just that Jones is unique among them for that rare combination of skill and personality that often — not always, but often — paves the way to superstardom.

I followed him more closely than any other player this winter (thanks, Twitter) and came away impressed. He works hard, keeps himself in great shape, has a great attitude, and he gives a damn about the game and the team. But you’d expect any great player to have those attributes, right? There’s something else about this kid. Something that can’t be quantified but which is nonetheless very real. Charisma, confidence, leadership, presence. Whatever “it” is, that’s what Jones has.

That wouldn’t mean much in the hands of a guy who can’t deliver on the field. We know, though, that Jones has that end more than covered. He’s a beast out there. The intangibles just make him that much more valuable.

I expect giant things, starting this year. I expect the All Star-caliber production to continue, and I expect him to grow into the kind of attention-generating personality this team has lacked for so many years. When the wins start coming and the fans make their way back to the park, they’re going to fall in love with this guy. Much in the same way that most of us probably already have.

(photo via Keith Allison)

Food Ethnography on a Budget: Allergen-Free I: Classic Yellow Cake with Velvet Frosting

2010-03-08T02:45:00+00:00

It's been quite a while since I've ventured into the kitchen specifically for the purpose of my food ethnography. I've been quite busy with the start of the semester and, as everyone from new York City to Raleigh to Charleston, WV, will understand, I've been even busier shoveling snow. So I have not had much time to concern myself with ciorbăs or banana wines and such. But even as I have new ideas for projects, I now have the time to ease my way back into kitchen anthropology. Now there's a new turn of phrase.

Sorry, the next paragraph gets somewhat science-y, but it'll end soon.

An ethnography, as any anthropologist or sociologist will tell you, is the study of a culture. But cultures don't have to be related to country, ethnicity or geography. They can be any "subculture" - for example, the Baltimore blogging community, in part because we share some of the same norms - ideas about blogging, subjects (in this case, things related to Baltimore). I could go into the science of ethnography, but you came here for food, not a social science lesson.

I went through that mini-anthropology lesson to explain the subject for my next food ethnography. It isn't an ethnic group or a national cuisine, but a community tied together by a way of eating. A way of eating that most of us, fortunately, do not share.

Food Ethnography: Allergen-Free Community
Located: Everywhere
Number of persons living with food allergies in the US: about 12,000,000 *
Number of emergency room visits in the US: about 30,000 per year, with about 200 deaths per year *
Some common allergens: gluten and wheat, milk, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, shellfish, seafood
Some common ingredients: gluten-free flours, xanthan gum, non-dairy non-soy replacements for milk, butter and yogurt, sunflower butter, egg replacer
Number of allergen-free restaurants in the Baltimore area: 0, though there are many stores where one can find ingredients for an allergen-free kitchen, such as Whole Foods and most natural food markets.
Number of allergen-free restaurants in the DC area: 0, but see above
Kind of like: vegan cuisine (from a baking perspective at least), but even stricter
* source of statistics from sources quoted by Wikipedia, "Food Allergy"

Though I am quite happy to have no serious food allergies (just a minor allergy to walnuts), I was interested in seeing how foodies with food allergies eat. One enticing cookbook for this project comes from Cybele Pascal, whose Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook has become the source for at least this part of my current food ethnography. Robert Eitches, who contributes a foreward to Pascal's cookbook, points out that food allergies are, disturbingly, on the rise:

The nation has seen a mysterious rise since the 1990s in the number of children with food allergies, now estimated to be three million, or one in every twenty-five children. In the past decade alone, the prevalence has increased by 18 percent. (Eitches, in Pascal pp. vii-viii)

Michael Pollan kept popping up in my head as I read on, as it became clear that the increased processing of food is at least one culprit.

Out of most allergen-free cooking, baking seems to me to be the most difficult to do, because it is so dependent upon butter, milk and eggs, and often uses ingredients that incorporate tree nuts and soy by-products. So this is the basis for this food ethnography: not just allergen-free foods, but allergen-free baked goods. My "Bible" for this project: Cybele Pascal's abovementioned cookbook.

The whole basis of baking for people with allergies is baking with none of the following:

milk or dairy, including butter (NOOOOOOOOO!)
eggs
wheat and gluten - it ALL must go
soy, too - nothing related to soy, soybean or tofu in any way
anything related to peanuts or tree nuts (this does not include coconut, though a very small handful of people will be allergic to those)
sesame

Certainly, few people have all of these food allergies at the same time. Many people are simply lactose intolerant (that would be the majority of humans, by the way). Many others suffer from celiac disease, making them very sick upon contact with wheat or gluten or anything containing them (gasp! no beer!).

You might think "Well, why not just go vegan? Problem solved!" Not so fast: there is nothing inherently non-vegan in wheat or gluten in and of themselves. It's just that most things that contain them also contain animal products. Plus, if you have an allergy to peanuts, tree nuts or - GASP! - soy, you can kiss the peanut butter, the walnuts, macadamias, pecan pies and anything and everything containing tofu goodbye. To live with all these allergies, one has to live with a diet that to me seems far more restrictive than that of your average vegan.

That said, it's definitely possible to eat well, even to bake well, on a diet free of all the things I've mentioned above. But if you also have a shellfish allergy on top of everything else, you can probably scratch Maryland crabcakes off the menu, since pretty much everything inside is an allergen for those with lots of food allergies. And if the day comes when I can no longer eat Maryland crab cakes... Well, I'm only speaking for myself here, but just shoot me.

Note: this allergen-free baking is not exactly budget-friendly, unless you don't do a whole lot of it. There are a few extra ingredients that cost a good bit of money, relatively speaking. But on the plus-side, unless you plan to bake a lot, most of those ingredients may last you a while. That $9 bottle of xanthan gum, for example, would probably last a regular allergen-free baker for a few months, which ain't bad. It's probably going to last me a few years, which is even better.

The dish: Allergen-Free Classic Yellow Cake with Allergen-Free Velvet Frosting

To find allergen-free baking ingredients on a budget, you pretty much have to shop around. Some will be surprisingly close, even surprisingly cheap. But other essential goods will not. To make a simple yellow cake - Pascal's recipe for the classic version, which looks a lot less yellow before going into the oven than coming out - you will need the following ingredients that most allergen-proof bakers don't have on hand. Except me, because now I do:

Instead of Wheat- and Gluten-Filled Flours -there are many flours that have no gluten in them - rice flour, millet flour, quinoa flour, potato flour, tapioca flour, etc. The problem is that you can't really bake by simply replacing wheat flour with any one of these unless you really don't want it to turn out. Instead, you must mix and match some flours together. After much trial and error, Pascal came up with a flour mix that she likes for most of her baking: 4 cups superfine brown rice flour, 1 1/3 cups potato starch (she is adamant that it be potato starch, not flour), and 2/3 cup tapioca starch/flour (these are interchangeable).

After doing a little math, I figured out the ratio: 12 parts superfine brown rice flour to 4 parts potato starch to 2 parts tapioca starch/flour. While any brand of tapioca or potato starch will do, she recommends Authentic Foods superfine brown rice flour, or if that cannot be found then use Bob's Red Mill or Ener-G. She advises against Arrowhead Mills' brand, which is too gritty for her tastes. I couldn't find anything called "superfine brown rice flour" so I settled for the regular kind. Being on a budget, I did in fact go with Arrowhead Mills' brown rice flour. She was right: it was a bit gritty. But at $3.50 per bag, I had to settle. I paired that with Ener-G's potato starch (about $4) and Bob's Red Mill's tapioca starch (again, about $4). While this alone totals about $12, the only thing I would have to buy a lot of would be the brown rice flour. The others are used in small enough quantities that they should last a bit longer.

Instead of Eggs - The cashier at Whole Foods recommended Ener-G Egg Replacer ($6, surprising, it was cheaper here than anywhere else). This is not a full-on egg substitute. It only replaces eggs in baking.

Instead of Milk - Apparently, you can use non-dairy milks in baking. I just went with Rice Dream ($1.79 at Wegman's)

Instead Butter or Soy-Based Substitute - Spectrum's Organic All-Vegetable Shortening ($6.50) is a must. It tastes nothing like butter, but it works as well.

Instead of Yogurt or Soy-Based Substitute - I had no idea that Turtle Mountain's Soy Delicious also made a non-soy yogurt: So Delicious' coconut milk yogurt ($3 for a large container). The plain one does indeed have a coconut aftertaste.

And to bind it all together - The one final thing that must go into all allergen-free baking is xanthan gum. This is what binds everything else together, and this is what helps a gluten-free baked product act gluten-y. It is also precious, as it is almost impossible to find for under $10. I found a bottle of Now Foods brand of xanthan gum at the Natural Market in Timonium for $9. But as I said above, it will last me for a long while.

Along with these ingredients, I also needed

fresh lemon juice (the lemon was $1)
baking soda and double-acting baking powder (check and check)
granulated sugar (this is allergen-free, not diabetic-friendly) and salt (got that too)
vanilla extract (I had that, but I checked later and it said it was indeed processed in a plant that processes soy and tree nuts. So, ironically, this cake ended up being unfit for an allergenic eater after all.)

The complete assortment of ingredients

The one thing that I most noticed while assembling this cake was that it has extra steps that a basic yellow cake doesn't usually have: assemble the flour (normally done ahead of time), Then whisk together the dry ingredients. Then mix the coconut milk yogurt and lemon juice. Next cream the shortening, etc. Eventually, after alternately beating the yogurt and flour mixtures into the shortening-sugar-vanilla-egg substitute mixture, the batter was ready to go. On a nice side note: you can eat as much of the raw cake batter as you want since it has no raw eggs ready to make you ill.

After 30 minutes or so the cake was done, and ready to cool down. Something else caught my attention: neither of the cakes rose. Instead they were very flat in the pan. I'm not talking cookies here, but all the same, they didn't need to have the tops trimmed off.

Upon trying the un-frosted cake, I can only say that the flavor was somewhat unexpected. It was mildly citrusy, probably due to the lemon juice. But it also had a flavor I can't really describe. This probably comes from the rice flour. I can't put my finger on it but upon eating it I could definitely tell that this was not a wheat-based cake. It's not a flavor I'm used to, and it's not one I really want to go back and try again. But it's not one that I wouldn't eat if put in front of me. That and the coarseness of the Arrowhead Mills brand of flour (remember, the author warned us) make this cake one that I'm not sure I can finish.

The finished cake. I've never been that good at frosting cakes, and the bottom layer broke on me. This sometimes happens with me and cakes.

But I will say this: the frosting is quite lovely. It isn't buttery, but it's not meant to be. And again, the basis for this so-named Velvet Frosting is the same soy-free palm oil shortening that I used in the cake. The recipe almost parallels a Domino Sugar recipe I use often for Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, but with palm oil shortening in place of the butter, and rice milk instead of the cow milk. Again, this may be wonderfully safe for a person with allergens, but it'll kill a diabetic! There is so much confectioner's sugar in this recipe. To make it, just cream the shortening and add confectioner's sugar - at which point it ends up very crumbly. Next, add the vanilla, lemon juice, salt and rice milk. You have to cream it for a while, and after several minutes it takes on a lovely consistency and is easily spreadable. In fact, I may wind up using Pascal's Velvet Frosting recipe for full-on wheat, milk and butter-based cakes.

Yes, allergen-free cake!

To make a long post short, if I did develop a gluten or soy allergy, I am glad I now have some experience making a gluten and soy free vegan cake. It can be done, people! But admittedly, it is something that takes some practice. This was my first try. Next up: another foray into the strange new (to me it's new) world of allergen-free baking.

Note: It just hit me that this is my 1,234th post!

I (Still) Remember Running.

2010-03-07T20:54:50+00:00

There are certain things that bring memories to the surface: music, food, old emails, journals, photo albums, etc. There are times when submerging yourself in the past is necessary, and times when prior melodramatic rantings make you laugh, make you cringe, make you relieved that in spite of what you felt at the time you are finally Grown Up. Other times, however, there is only one word that adequately summarizes the act of reveling in the past: masochism. As someone with a disease that precludes most of the activities that I enjoyed for the first nineteen years of my life, I'm generally cognizant of this and know that -- when I'm in a funk -- I should not watch a track meet on TV, or go to one of my student's cross country races, or look through pictures of myself prior to 1997. There is one aspect of this, however, that no matter how much I try, I cannot control: the weather. Track is a spring sport, and even though I was officially diagnosed with MS in the fall of 1997, there is no time of the year that hurts as badly as the first few days of spring. I have lived through twelve springs since I last ran, and you would think that with the passage of time it would get easier. At the very least, I hoped to feel less raw over time. This, unfortunately, is not the case.

There are countless things I cannot do anymore. Most of these are things that I grieve silently on a daily basis: putting my pants on in less than twenty minutes, reaching items off of a tall shelf, hanging my clothes before they are wrinkled beyond recognition, and -- though it might sound unfathomable to a healthy person -- I truly do miss vacuuming, cleaning toilets and mopping the kitchen floor. These things, though, connote a certain level of dull (though mostly manageable) pain, and the pain is generally superseded by an ugly level of guilt. Things that I no longer do are things that other people now do for me, and I cannot seem to accept -- despite continued reassurance from friends and family -- that this is okay.

Nothing, though, nothing at all compares to the grief I associate with running. My friend Eric asked me once (a few years back) if I remembered what it felt like to walk. The answer was, surprisingly, no. He and I both agreed it was probably preferable to forget. Why then, I wonder, do I still remember how it felt to run? I can still feel my heels strike the rubber of the indoor track, and feel my quads burn through the last 100 meters of an 800. I remember the moments between "Set" and the gun, when I'd take a half step forward, lean forward over my right leg and silently repeat the mantra "I can do this and I will do this". I remember my high school track coach telling me he wanted me to run so hard that as I rounded the turn towards the final stretch I wished he would shoot me to put me out of my misery. Let me be clear, I have no delusions: running hurt, and there were days (lots of days) when I whined and complained and wished I had one iota of the hand-eye coordination that other sports necessitated. But I didn't, so I ran. And though it occasionally made my muscles burn and my mouth taste like blood from the overuse of my lungs in the cold weather, it became part of my identity.

I've heard that people who lose limbs still have occasional phantom sensations: an itch, a twinge of pain, the sense of hot or cold. Running is my phantom sensation. When I face the window and close my eyes tightly, I can still feel it. I can feel the miracle of my nerves making my muscles contract when I want them to, and feel the impact of the ground beneath my feet. When I open my eyes this memory knocks the breath out of me, and it's all I can do to remind myself, in a totally different context, that I can do this and I will do this. But there are no words: it is so damn hard.