13.6mm; F/3.6; 1/80s

Victoria and  Stacey in 2004.  Victoria was the flower girl in Stacey and Mike’s, our good friends. The late afternoon ceremony made for great post-ceremony photo session.The ceremony was at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis.   I like the contrast of the white dresses and gazebo and the green green spring colors behind.

Image Settings n/a (when I find 'em, i'll post 'em)

I took this shot in January ‘08 from the scenic overlook on MD450 near the Old Severn River Bridge overlooking the Naval Academy to the left across the river.  I was experimenting with exposure time.  The ring of lights in the foreground is the WWII memorial, the trail of red lights is rush hour traffic headed into Annapolis.

the women responsible for making me a better twitterer.

mary mccarthy + jennifer gerlock – 49 west, annapolis, md.

last week i met up with two fabulous + funny women – mary mccarthy + jennifer gerlock - for a quick shoot for maryland life magazine! the article spotlights moms who blog + tweet and these witty women are bloggers (and mamas!) extraordinaire – check them out!

mary :: www.pajamasandcoffee.com :: twitter.com/marymac

jennifer :: www.hipasiwannabe.com :: twitter.com/mammamania

and stay tuned for the article in maryland life!

I cannot express how excited I am for Thanksgiving to come!  I’ve been pretty busy lately — I have 2 research papers left to do, a French paper, a paper for Death and Dying, and a final political science paper.  Needless to say, I’m buried in work and cannot wait for Thanksgiving Break.  Only one more day left to go!  I’m looking forward to going out on Wednesday night with my high school friends.  Every year, my high school (Upper Darby HS) has a football game against Haverford HS on Thanksgiving morning.  It’s also known for being the alumni game of the year…where I get to see all my friends from high school and former teachers.  Afterward, I always have dinner with my family.  Then there’s BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING!  That’s right — my mom and I are some of those crazies who go out at 4am to shop.  It’s a tradition and I love doing it every year!  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because there’s always good food, good family and friends, and good football!  It’s not overly commercialized or mass-marketed.  There’s no stress involved.  My biggest pet peeve?  When my holiday gets overshadowed by people who decorate for Christmas and play Christmas music before Thanksgiving even takes place!  It’s not fair   But alas, I’m still looking forward to the best holiday of the year.

In other news, Temple Football just won their 9th consecutive win this past Saturday against Kent State, making Temple’s overall record 9-2!!! HOLY COW!  I cannot explain how exciting of a time this is for Temple students!  I personally am very excited because it’s been so long since Temple Football has been bowl-eligible and since we’ve had such a good record.  As of now, if Temple beats Ohio University this Friday night, then they’re going to the MAC Championship on December 4th in Detroit!  This also means that the band will travel with the team — so I’m super excited!  But mostly, I’m holding out hope that Temple gets invited to the International Bowl in Toronto in January!  I would love that –  I’ve never been to Canada!  Either way, I’ll be sure to post more updates as soon as I find out!  Keep your fingers crossed for Temple Football

Also, I posted a video in one of my previous posts of Temple’s Diamond Marching Band playing Sum 41’s Fat Lip, with rapping and dancing!  We just found out the other day that Sum 41 posted our video on their official website!!  How cool is that!?!  Check out their website: http://www.islandrecords.com/site/artist_home.php?artist_id=259.  The video is right on their homepage!!!!  Props to us!!  If you don’t feel like it, I’m copying the video below this paragraph so you can see it!  The video is from the Temple vs. Navy game in Annapolis, MD.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Annapolis Jaycees – Annual Holiday Hanging of the Greens Project (Annapolis)

Volunteers are needed for Hanging of the Greens in downtown Annapolis from 8 am-3 pm on Sat., Dec. 5 2009. Volunteers will work in teams of 5-10 on assigned sections of buildings to wrap Christmas lights around greenery and hang the greens/lights along with wreaths and ribbons. Volunteers are encouraged to bring wire cutters, ladders, and pickup trucks. Breakfast and a mid-day lunch will be provided. The Jaycees will also light the city of Annapolis Christmas Tree on Sun., Nov. 29th at 6 pm. Setup starts at 3pm Concession sales start around 5:30pm, program starts at 6pm with tree lighting sometime between 6:45pm-7:00pm. See Web site: www.annapolisjaycees.org.

Welcome to Ciminelli’s Landscape Services, Inc.

Business Philosophy:

Ciminelli’s Landscape Services strives to provide their customers with quality landscape construction and maintenance as well as friendly and responsive customer service. They run our business with integrity in all areas and design and install landscapes that meet the needs of their customers.  The goal is to enhance and beautify homes as well as solve any existing landscape problems. They provide respectful working conditions for our employees and allow for opportunities to grow with the company and maintain long-term employment.

Specialty:

Landscape renovations and construction with craftsmanship using natural stone as well as pavers and other manufactured products.

Address:  1052 Bayard Road, Lothian
County:  Anne Arundel
Phone:  (410) 741-9683
Website:  http://www.ciminellislandscape.com

Review: Carrol’s Creek Waterfront Restaurant

410 Severn Avenue, Annapolis
410-263-8102
CarrolsCreek.com

When to Enjoy:
Lunch: Mon.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
Dinner: Mon.-Thurs. 5-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 5-10 p.m., Sun. 3-8:30 p.m.
Sun. Brunch: 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Expect to Pay:
Starters: $5-15
Entrées: $21-30
Desserts: $7
Wine by the glass: $7–16
Wine by the bottle: $24–340

After many years of dining in Annapolis and the surrounding communities, visiting new restaurants and proven gems, I somehow find myself returning to a favorite place according to the mood of the day or who will be dining with me. Carrol’s Creek has always been on my list of favorite places to dine, and there is nothing like introducing an old favorite to someone who has never been there. My companion, Celia, whose palate has contributed to my evaluation of various establishments for the past several months, enjoyed her first Carrol’s Creek dinner with me recently.

Carrol’s Creek has a wonderful history, taking its name from Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence, who was born in a mansion that still stands beside the creek, and a map dated 1781, which indicated present-day Spa Creek as Carrol’s Creek (missing the second “L” in the name). Jeff Jacobs, the owner for 25 years, has added a strong dining establishment, noted for its excellent cuisine, to the Annapolis waterfront. But the decor is certainly to be noticed as well: a dining room with elegantly staggered levels, cherrywood furniture, subtle lighting, blue table candles, and large windows offers a contemporary atmosphere with a splendid view of Annapolis and the bustling creek. The bar at the front of house is a well-designed room with wall wine cellars; a raw bar; and a very modern, intimate feel.

Our waitress, Christina, was very cordial. She informed us of the evening’s specials promptly after we were seated. For a little more adventure than usual we broke from the traditional first, second, and third course approach by enjoying mostly appetizers throughout the meal.

“The cumin spiced lamb rack, served with lime goat cheese and toasted hazelnuts and drizzled with a cilantro cream sauce was fantastic!”—Gilles Syglowski

We started with a creamy black bean soup that had a very nice Southwestern taste, but perhaps could have been just a touch thinner. We moved on to share a Carrol’s Creek salad, the best salad we have had in a long time. Fresh, tender mixed greens with walnuts, dried cranberries, blue cheese, and tarragon-raspberry vinaigrette were more than enough to win us over.

In keeping with our theme we chose two more appetizers that were more substantial. Definitely attractive, they revealed Chef Brian Price’s culinary talents. First was the cumin spiced lamb rack served with lime goat cheese and toasted hazelnuts and drizzled with a cilantro cream sauce. It was fantastic! The lamb was perfectly cooked and the accompaniments married with the chops perfectly. The second was a pepper-crusted beef tenderloin carpaccio with a marinated artichoke and mushroom salad, toasted focaccia, and fresh horseradish aioli. What a wonderful dish: the garniture of artichoke was delicious and the beef was smooth, tasty, and perfectly marbled.

For an entrée to share Celia and I were undecided, but we thought we had already enjoyed our serving of red meat. So we finally opted for the special fish of the day: roasted codfish and shrimp with a coconut cream sauce. The cod was very well prepared and served atop rice. The whole plate was very nicely presented, and our request to have the sauce on the side was graciously accommodated. When we blended forkfuls of plump fish and shrimp with the sauce, the dish came together wonderfully.

Finally, for dessert we shared a tremendously delicious butterscotch crème brûlée, which was very rich and smooth, and the flourless chocolate cake, which was divine— superb.

The glass of French Pinot Noir J. Dubois wine paired well with the entire dinner: good body, rich color, and fine aroma. Carrol’s Creek has an award-winning wine list that is constantly improved upon and adjusted to meet the demand of trends.

Geneva, a manager at Carrol’s Creek for nearly 15 years, was delightful to chat with. She graciously told us about the wonderful Sunday brunches; the bar specials, such as extended happy hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays; and half-price wines on Wednesdays. She also emphasized the bargain of the prix fixe menus offered for dinner and lunch and how popular they have become. If you’d like to stay in touch with Carrol’s Creek and learn more you can join its mailing list or the Frequent Diner Club.

Great food, great place, great people, and Annapolis on the water—what a wonderful time!

Gilles Syglowski is a certified executive chef, a certified culinary instructor, and a food service consultant. He is a graduate of the Lycee d’Enseignement Professionel Hotelier in Metz, France. He is currently the assistant general manager of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. Mr. Syglowski has more than 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry.

Small businesses will suffer under their latest financial burden: The cost of rising unemployment itself.  States are being forced to increase state taxes on companies to pay for unemployment insurance claims.  Because small businesses create about 60 percent of new jobs, it could hamper the economic recovery as employers are already squeezed by tight credit, rising health care cost, wary consumers and a higher minimum wage.  (read more Omaha World-Herald)

I’ve been going through John’s e-mails and decided to look at his archived files.  It’s interesting to see the things that he saved.  I’ll share some that I find interesting.

He included the text of the article from The Capital

FIVE HURT IN AREA ACCIDENTS
By ERIC COLLINS, Staff Writer

A car caught fire after plunging down a 60-foot embankment outside Annapolis and a speeding driver caused a chain-reaction crash on Route 50 in separate accidents overnight that sent five people to area hospitals.

The first crash occurred about 10:25 p.m. when a 2002 Volkswagen GTI heading west on Aris T. Allen Boulevard went off the road for an unknown reason around a right curve, spun around, hit a curb and flipped over the guardrail past Chinquapin Round Road, according Officer Charles Ravenell, county police spokesman.

The car plunged down the embankment on its hood before landing upside down and catching fire, police said.

Though passenger Brandon Blank, 17, of Crofton was able to pull himself out before losing consciousness, Owen Boyle, 18, of Crofton was trapped in the burning vehicle, according to Lt. Frank Fennell, a county Fire Department spokesman.

A county police officer quickly arrived and headed down the steep terrain of loose rocks and dirt to reach the car and extinguish the blaze, Lt. Fennell said. The name of the officer was not available.

Soon after, about 33 county and city firefighters responded with ladder trucks, fire engines and ambulances and rigged a hoist and pulley system to raise Mr. Blank up the embankment and swing him over to the road, Lt. Fennell said.

It took firefighters about 30 minutes to free Mr. Boyle, who was disoriented and unable to move from the waist down, Lt. Fennell said.  Both were flown by state police helicopters to the Shock Trauma Center at University Hospital in Baltimore.

Mr. Blank was in critical but stable condition this morning while Mr. Boyle was in serious condition at the hospital, a spokesman said.

“Had the police car not got there and (the officer) extinguished the fire, it could have been much graver results,” Lt. Fennell said.

Police shut down portions of Aris T. Allen Boulevard for about 90 minutes during the rescue, he said. Police were still investigating the cause of the crash this morning.

John had saved the e-mail for himself and sent it to me.  I don’t know if he had sent it to anybody else or not.

I’ll give you one guess as to who everyone turned to when they decided to rig the “hoist & pulley system.”

Our engine wasn’t on the initial dispatch, but the paramedic unit was included on the “rescue” assignment with apparatus from the county stations (Engine, Truck, Rescue, 2 paramedics).

Upon hearing the report of the accident, which occurred about 1/2 mile away from our station, our Battalion Chief placed himself on the call and responded.

Our Chief and the paramedics arrived in the area first, followed by the Chief, Engine & Truck from (county) West Annapolis (40) which was about two miles away. Once they located the car, and saw the situation it was in our Battalion Chief immediately called for our Engine. Eventually, our Tower Ladder was also called from Taylor Avenue.

When we (the engine) first arrived, I was assisting the paramedics in carrying equipment down the slope to the car. At the same time, the other crews top side were lowering rescue equipment & lights over the side of the bridge with ropes.

Seeing the situation, I had already made up in MY mind that a vertical haul of a stokes was the easiest & safest way to get the guys up out of there- what with the angle of the slope, the limited access to the slope top-side, and the unsteady footing (several folks nearly killed their selves on the concrete bridge footing, which was covered with a sandy soil and offered no traction.)

Once I had delivered the equipment I made my way top-side, as the rescue crews were coming down to start the extrication. It’s really kind of funny how it all worked out…

By the time I made my way up, somebody important had already decided that they were going to do the haul system. There were rope bags and various hardware laying about. I think they were starting to move the aerial into place as a high point over the edge of the bridge.

Even though the county had a ladder truck and a rescue squad there with rope rescue equipment nobody on the units had any idea what really needed to be done. They knew they wanted to haul the guys up, but that was it.

There were discussions held about using the aerial as a crane, using the winch from the rescue truck… The county Battalion Chief said, “No, we’ll use a haul system.”

The truck & rescue squad guys asked if the county’s HEAT (Hardly Ever Activated) technical rescue team was on the way.

“Nope.”

Then my buddy Craig Moore, who was driving our engine, used to work at the Naval Academy with Phil Smith, and was in the Rescue Tech class the city made me take (for the third time), shouted out “I know who can do this… He’s your rope guy right here!”

It was like everybody there turned towards me… Battalion Chiefs, Captains, Lieutenants, Firefighters… And said simultaneously “Tell us what you want to do.”

From that point on, I was the man.

I talked directly to the county Battalion Chief one on one and made sure we were on the same page… We would rig two stokes baskets for a vertical lift in a horizontal position, using the aerial as a high point change of direction. We would set up a z-rig to haul with, anchored to the rear tow hitches on the rescue squad.

“Tell us what you need.”

I sent Craig Moore up the ladder to rig the CoD pulley, I had our Tower lieutenant (who had also been in the Rescue Tech class) rig the anchor & back end of the Z-rig and I threw together the front end of it.

As we were doing this, some other guys hand lowered one basket over the side of the bridge.

“Come here for a second. We’ve got two stokes, but only one lifting harness.”
“No big deal. Just use webbing to make one.”
“I’m not following you.”

I threw out four rolls of webbing…

“Just tie these in loops, you know, with a water knot and make the harness-”

John

“I’m not following you…”

So I demonstrated a water knot real quick…

“Oh… I gotcha. I can do that!”

… and set the county rescue squad lieutenant & his guys to work making a lift harness for the one stokes basket that didn’t have one…

By that time, the first guy was packaged and ready to be lifted. The haul system was ready to go, but we didn’t have a safety belay in place yet.

“Don’t worry about that! We need to get this guy up!! Pull! Pull!”

And with that from the county Battalion Chief, some guys grabbed hold of the haul rope and started backwards at a near run.

Oh well, too late now…

As they started, Craig called me over from on top of the ladder, and as I looked up at him I saw what it was he wanted- When he rigged the change of direction he had also put a Gibbs ascender in line. (He realized later that he didn’t need to.) He had it on the load side of the pulley, and when the system tension, and pulled the webbing over towards the bridge, all of the weight of the rope was held by the Gibbs, and the pulley was dangling free. The Gibbs was acting as the CoD, and there was nearly a 90° bend in the rope…

We exchanged ‘don’t let it break’ looks with each other, and I told him to make sure he fixed it before the next patient.

Luckily we only had about a 20′ pull to work with, and the haulers weren’t able to get too far. “Hold what ya got” I said to them as the Tower lieutenant called me over.

When he had rigged the rear end of the Z-rig he didn’t have a Prussik minding pulley to work with, only a regular round one. Plus, there was only one size prussik available, so he had only wrapped one on, and When the haul team hauled, he didn’t hold the prussik in place and it had pulled through the pulley.

“That’s okay,” I said and checked to make sure the haul team was okay holding the weight of the stokes. I told the Lt. to remove the prussik and retie it. Then I explained that he’d half to mind it on the next lift.

“C’mon this guy is hanging in mid-air!!”

The chief’s were getting anxious. I walked up to the county battalion chief gesturing “calm down” and explained the problem we had run into.

“It’s going to take a minute to get it fixed, and it’s going to take a while to haul this guy up ’cause we’ve only got a limited pull, so we’ll have to pull & reset, pull & reset.”

‘OK’ he nodded.

“How’s this?”

I was called over by the rescue squad crew to look at the second stokes basket they had rigged. It looked pretty good, and they had done a pretty good job of balancing it out. I had them tighten up one leg of the system a bit, and then went over to check on how the prussik retie was coming.

The Lt. said he was ready to go. I reset the system, checked to make sure everybody was ready, and gave the word.

We chock-a-blocked again, reset, and on the final haul brought him to about 6 inches below the level of the bridge when our knot reached the change of direction. The Battalion Chiefs, and Captains which had all been peering over the edge grabbed hold of the basket like it was going to fall, and began trying to lift him the rest of the way.

Our Battalion Chief, who isn’t a young guy, yelled to me with a ‘I can’t lift this guy’ desperation in his voice “Don’t just stand there help lift this guy.”

“Just hold tight Chief, he’s not going anywhere.”

I got the county chief to have the aerial raise up slightly, which cleared the basket, and we lowered him to the roadway by backing off on the haul system.

As the top-side medics moved the first guy to the ambulance, Craig redid the change of direction. Then I held open the haul system, and we lowered the second basket down, as I did a quick visual on the rope to make sure it looked okay after running through that Gibbs.

The second pull went very smooth, now that everybody knew what was going on, and we had eliminated the friction at the CoD. With the aerial being a little higher now, we were able to pull the guy clear of the bridge ourselves.

They moved the second patient out of the way, and- because the first two hauls were so much fun- decided they would use the stokes baskets to raise all the equipment up from below.

Two more lifts and we were done.

The county Battalion Chief came over to tell me ‘thanks’ and ‘well done’ and we did a quick critique between the two of us.

“Was what we did okay?” he asked.

“Well, we should’ve had a safety line and at the beginning we rushed too much and I wasn’t able to do a check of the system before we started lifting. Had I been able to do that I should’ve been able to catch the problem with the Gibbs & prussik.”

“Were you comfortable with the way we had it, without the safety?”

“The only thing that made me uncomfortable was the way the rope was running through the Gibbs on the ladder. Beyond that, I was happy… With a single person load… We were within the limits of the system… Since everything turned out okay, it was fine.  Luckily the rope didn’t break.”

“Well, I really appreciate your help.”

“Anytime Chief.  Hopefully, never again.”

Major Problems Encountered:
- no safety belay.
- mis-rigged gibbs at change of direction.
- there was only one size prussik, so only one prussik was wrapped.
- no check of the system before use.
- I’m not sure if/how the patients were secured in the stokes.

The whole scenario is a good example of what happens when you don’t practice what you’ve learned. Obviously, everyone there (all career) had had Rescue Technician which included training in exactly what we did. It was clear as I went along that the ‘awareness’ was there, they just needed help unlocking the knowledge from the back of their brains.

We (the engine) was placed in service and we returned to quarters. When our Battalion Chief got back he couldn’t stop saying how much the county appreciated what we did.

Everybody in the city was happy, mostly because the county tends to thumb their noses at us, and look down on us as a lesser department. Our rescue squad tends to never be called out into the county, due to a past incident (from what I’m told) where they had a serious wreck with extrication in the county and the crew that arrived from the city wasn’t even able to get the Hurst tool set up.

So hopefully this will help dispel some of the stereotyping… Although we still have a fair share of morons in the city who are worthless.

Anyway, I don’t want to jinx myself, but there could very well be a citation or commendation coming out of this, which, while on one hand would be nice, is also kind of funny because it wasn’t anything special that was done.

But, in a department that has a history of giving out medals to people who do silly stuff, most of which is administrative paper pushing, it would be nice to get one for actual doing something related to “firefighting.”

After John had passed away, I had called Chief Smith and asked him for a copy of any recognition that John had received.  I thought it would be important for Nathaniel someday.  John has some of the originals, but I don’t know where they are and I don’t know if he saved all of them.  When I met John, he had all of his plaques for having over 100 calls proudly displayed in his room and he had newspaper clippings from all of the fires he’d been on.  At some point, he took the plaques down and threw out the clippings.  I tried with no avail to convince him to keep the clippings.

In the file that I was sent, I found

Annapolis Fire Department Exemplary Performance Award

is awarded to

Firefighter John P. Smith II.

This Exemplary Performance Award is awarded to Firefighter Smith for his actions on September 29, 2002.  Firefighter Smith did an excellent job of engineering the setup and operation of a “Z Rig” rope rescue.  The operation successfully hoisted two badly injured men from a gully sixty feet below where their car had landed after going over a guard rail.  Both men survived due in no small part to Firefighter Smith’s actions.  The “Z Rig” rope rescue is a complicated, rarely done operation that could have easily gone wrong.  The Battalion Chief noted that the operation could not have gone any better.

The Annapolis Fire Department commends Firefighter Smith for his commitment to the community and the fire service.

Signed

Ellen Moyer- Mayor

Edward P Sherlock Jr- Fire Chief

I don’t know how big of an honor it is to receive an Exemplary Performance Award.  But I do know that years later, and even at John’s funeral the call was discussed.  John started with AFD in 2000, so back in 2002 he was still one of the “newer” guys, back in 2002.  I know he thought it was cool that everybody looked to him.

John loved doing rope rescue.  He was a pro at knots and riggings.  He loved when Cecil County had their rope rescue team.  I don’t know if they ever went on any calls, but he certainly enjoyed practicing and training.

I always was impressed with John’s rope talents, as I lack the talents to even tie a simple safety knot most of the time.  A figure 8 is about as technical as I get and usually I have to tie it wrong once or twice before I get it right.  Poor Nathaniel… hope I can figure out how to show him to tie his shoes when he’s old enough.

In very little time, it was all over the news…..The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force,sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality under the Department of Health and Human Services, has released a new recommendation that women should not receive yearly mammograms under the age of 50, if they they have no family history of breast cancer or other specific indicators that make them high risk.
Just when all the middle-aged American women have been so well trained to feel it is our responsibility to ourselves and our families to be screened, we’re being told something different. That maybe all those screenings are creating too much anxiety and costing too much time and money compared to how many lives are saved. The study talks about all those false positives…. those times you get the written notice or the phone call that asks you to come back for a second look… hinting that maybe they missed something. Oh yes, those sleepless night and your pounding heart as you wait in the little cubicle while they look at those second films another time. (Not that the technician is going to tell you anything.)
I’m the queen of false negatives. For two years I was on a six month call back for screening. I’ve had numerous ultra sounds and ultimately the MRI. The good news is that although my mother had breast cancer and lived another 35 years beyond her cancer diagnosis, I have so far managed to dodge the bullet and I am thankful. So thankful that despite all the nail biting I don’t necessarily mind all the testing, when I have so many friends who are breast cancer survivors and another dear friend who never lived to celebrate her 4lst birthday.
So what does this all mean and how should it affect all women? We owe it to ourselves to ask more questions of our physicians and to remain ever vigilant. The study talks about using resources to develop new methods of detection. What is on the horizon? What do our local medical professionals think? Visit WhatsUpMag.com

This whole housing search thing? Yeah, it sucks. My budget is limited for the cost of living in Annapolis. I don’t want to spend more than $1000/month on rent and utilities. Reasonable? You would think. Until you try to find somewhere [nice] in the area.

I started out with just complexes, but soon realized I couldn’t do that because I can’t pay $1500/month for a teeny one-bedroom or in some cases, a studio. Thanks anyway.

Then I moved to the newspapers for separate apartments in private houses. The problem? They were all teeny tiny, awkward living situations, didn’t have private entrances, or were just crappy.

Next was Craigslist. For apartments and/or roommate situations. Contacted several. Saw a few. Nothing fitting my needs. The major problem with this (aside from the freaks on Craigslist – look forward to a post about that soon)? Everyone in Annapolis has pets. About 7/10 people you pass on the street will be walking a dog. I’m not kidding. My issue? I’m allergic. Cats are lethal. Literally. Dogs are OK, but the dander gets to me after a while. So I’m striking out there.

This past weekend, I checked out complexes again, hoping that seeing them, the agents might give me a better deal than their literature suggests. Well, that was true. I fell in love with one complex and was offered a pretty good deal on it. But after coming home and running the numbers, I still can’t afford it and live comfortably (aka not paycheck-to-paycheck).

There is one option with this complex that I’m pursuing. Remember my Friend Crush / Work BFF? She lives in the same complex. Actually, she lives two floors below the apartment I looked at. We joked around on our friend date that we should just get a two-bedroom apartment together. Yesterday, after running the numbers for that possibility, I mentioned it as an actual option. And she’s considering it. We’re going to go to the leasing office this week and see what’s available. We could each save about $400-500 per month by doing this, so I’m hoping it works out. I was hesitant at first at the idea of living with a coworker, but we do not actually work together on anything. We see each other once a day for maybe 10 minutes, if we’re lucky. So I don’t see that being a problem.

With this in mind, I came back to my desk after a mind-numbing meeting today (of all the things I like about Work Crush, his meeting facilitation skills are NOT included) to find a link to this video in my gchat from Friend Crush/Work BFF with the message, “This will be us if we move in together.”

Watch. Laugh. And know that it is true.

Downtown Annapolis, MD is, for the moment, fulfilling my desire to seek out exotic lands with her beautiful lines, history, and layers of brick.  Until my passport is used again, I am exploring various backgrounds and lighting options around the area for future photo sessions.  Usually I prefer the funky colors of the old buildings but felt these shots look more dramatic in black & white.

{sweet baby} james, lifestyle photo session – annapolis, md.

Sweet little Grason. He was such a cutie. Check his newborn pictures!  Thanks Krista, you guys were awesome.

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It’s pretty frightening if you start thinking about what might happen if we had a bioterrorist attack and the entire population needed to be innoculated quickly.
It wouldn’t happen in a planned and orderly manner.
Those with power and connections would receive the immunization, and those without…well, it would depend on the county they live in.
We’re pretty lucky to live in Anne Arundel County with a Health Department that uses reasonable common sense.
Rather than making people stand in line, they advertise when innoculations are available and invite citizens to make appointments or limit the clinic to a specific target group. This week on Tuesday November 17th, the Health Department will be giving the shots to babies free of charge between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
In this instance it will be a walk-in clinic, a H1N1 flu shot clinic for babies and toddlers (6 months to 35 months old) in the Lower Level Conference Room of the Health Services Building, 3 Harry S. Truman Parkway in Annapolis. Appointments are not required for the Baby and Toddler H1N1 Flu Shot Clinic
No other age group will be vaccinated at the clinic. As the Department of Health receives more H1N1 flu vaccine, more clinics will be scheduled for targeted priority groups.
Last month I scheduled an appointment for my 16 year-old to receive the flu-mist innoculation which was available. I repeated dialed into the Health Department appointment phone line until I got through, while doing other work at my desk. I feel sad for all those people who stand in line for hours in other parts of the country, trying to get a a flu innoculation. It does, however, provide all of us who see those long lines waiting for shots as well as those waiting for free health check-ups that are being offered around the country with a sense of the turmoil our health provider system is currently experiencing. While many vocal individuals seem strongly opposed to some kind of national healthcare safety net for those of us under the age of 65, it is evident that our system is not working for many Americans.
What do you think? Comments….
Re: The H1N1 Flu Shot—
The priority groups, currently recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the H1N1 flu vaccine are: pregnant women; people who live with or provide care for infants less than 6 months old; health care and emergency medical services personnel; people 6 months through 24 years old; and people aged 25-64 who have chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.
Currently the H1N1 flu virus is considered to be widespread in Maryland, as well as in Anne Arundel County. More than 30 cases of H1N1 flu have been confirmed positive in Anne Arundel County. The actual number of reported cases does not reflect the extent of spread in the County because many people recover without needing medical care.

Friday was my one-month anniversary at work. Awwwwwwww. I know, right? Big deal. Also the day that I finally got my nameplate on my cube. Awwwwwwww. I feel like a grownup forreally realz now. I don’t care if that sentence just negated the grownupness, it’s there.

This week was actually kind of perfect. I finally made it to a happy hour, had one day off (holla to the vets!), got complimented on my work, actually had work to do for three out of four days and got to hang out with my Friend Crush outside of work.

Yes, a Friend Crush. You know what I’m talking about. When you meet someone, or even when you just kind of see someone around occasionally, and you look at them or when you’re talking to them and you think, “Oh my gosh, we need to be best friends right now. I can’t stop thinking about being friends with this person. Please let me be your friend!” We’ve all been there, right?

Well that’s how I felt about the first girl I was introduced to on my first day of work. She seemed really chill and was funny and really sweet. But with the way my work is set up, I don’t really see any of my fellow grantees during the day very much, particularly if we’re all busy, so the Friend Crush was kind of stagnant for a while. But on Tuesday, I finally made it to happy hour and I friend crushed really bad.

We had planned this happy hour for the week of Halloween, but it got rained out so we finally did it this past Tuesday. It was a ghost tour pub crawl, where were going around to different landmarks in the town (some of them being pubs) and telling ghost stories there. There were eight of us in the group, including my boss, Work Crush, Friend Crush, two other female coworkers, one male coworker (for now he will be J) and his roommate (who, by the way, could play Eric Bana’s brother or son…total dreamboat…and he works for NASA as a rocket scientist…move over, Work Crush…).

ANYWAY, during this pub crawl/ghost tour, Friend Crush and I started bonding. We’re both kind of pansies when it comes to scary things, so we were skeptical about the ghost stories, but luckily J was just making jokes about it all and he was making us laugh so much we forgot to be freaked out. By the end of the night, everyone was a little tipsy and/or drunk (I was coming off of being tipsy, still had to drive the hour home!), we had inside jokes and we had laughed off all the alcohol we’d imbibed and the food we’d consumed (which for some was more than others…like J, who ordered potato skins AND french fries as his meal). I went home feeling happy because I finally felt like I was beginning to form real relationships with these people and it all felt natural.

The next day, while we were all off work for the day and simultaneously sitting on Facebook wasting our lives away, I took the plunge and friended the group from the night before. I was previously skeptical about friending coworkers, but I decided there are some I’m OK with. And then Friend Crush wrote on my wall, “Um can you move to Annapolis now so we can hang out all the time? OK thanks…” So YAY Friend Crush seemed to be mutual! Just like a regular crush, it can be a total bummer when a Friend Crush is one-sided, so I was excited!

On Friday, while I was taking a break from doing some work and sitting on gchat, I saw that Friend Crush’s status was “Who wants to go to Navy’s last home game with me tomorrow????” I thought, “Hmmm…I’m going to be down here tomorrow anyway with my mom apartment hunting. Maybe after I can just meet up with FC and then my friend I had dinner plans with could meet us down here and drive me home after…hmmmm.” So I proposed the idea and it was accepted and I was super excited about our Friend Date! We both instantly changed our gchat statuses to “So excited for the Navy game tomorrow with [insert other person's name here]!” And then Work Crush called us out on it and said it was like reading a 13-year-old’s AIM away message. SO WHAT?! At least I’m not putting up the lyrics to Colbie Caillat’s “Falling For You” to express my feelings for him. THAT would be 13-year-old on AIM.

But back to the point of the post… after apartment hunting with Mom, I met up with my friend (I have to come up with an alias for her asap, but nothing is coming to me right now) and then we waited to hear from Friend Crush. Met up with her and headed to the game, ogled midshipmen in their uniforms, made friends with randoms, watched some football, made some really inappropriate comments about the plebes, contemplated stealing cute children, laughed our asses off and generally had a great time. We left after the third quarter was over because we were starving and stopped at J’s house in hopes of seeing the Eric Bana lookalike roomie. Hung out for a few minutes laughing it up with J, got really excited at the thought of Eric Bana being in the shower upstairs, and then headed to grab dinner downtown.

So we went to this amazing sushi place. Where we got literally a BOAT of sushi.

We stuffed our faces with $69 (yes…) worth of sushi, they dared me to eat a roll that I had dropped in some super hot chili sauce, I did, I died, I drank 18,000 glasses of water, we left four pieces uneaten, we threw chopsticks on the ground, we made our waiter laugh at us, we quoted movies (hence the title of the post), we bonded, we formed more inside jokes, and then we left. And walked outside to the glorious sights of midshipmen EVERYWHERE. Which led to us driving around a traffic circle three times to ogle them and honk at them and laughing hysterically the entire time. Mmm living in Annapolis is going to be nice.

It was an absolutely perfect day. And by the end of it, we had decided that we were new BFFs. We’ve planned out the next year of our lives with trivial tasks such as movie nights, finding men to make out with, a couple sporting events, convincing midshipmen to break the rules, etc.

Now that Friend Crush has possibly escalated to Work BFF, I’m even more excited to move to Naptown.

Tell me about some of your friend crushes! They are usually such great stories!

PS – I’ll update about the apartment search probably tomorrow. It’s getting complicated…

The Ford Fusion has been a sales hit over the last year, hitting a record 151,000 sales this year to date. Ford Motor Company has acknowledged that the popular 4 door passenger car has set a new annual sales record which was previously set at 149,552 units back in 2007 before the big dip in the economy.

Overall the automotive industry’s sales are down almost 30%. “To actually have a vehicle that can sell in this economy is amazing,” states David Wilson Jr. Vice President of Preston Automotive Group. According to Detroit News, a big boost in the Fusion sales were accounted from the increase in sales of the Fusion Hybrid which now accounts to 20% of all Fusion sales. Also according to Ford Motor Company an estimated 60% of sales were from consumers who have been converting from Toyota and Honda to the Fusion hybrids.

Maryland and Delaware Ford dealer Preston Ford has seen a definite increase in sales for the 2010 Fusion and Fusion Hybrid models. Starting today Preston Ford has begun their quest to be the #1 Ford dealer in the country. As a part of their quest they have increased their inventory of Fusion and Fusion Hybrids to meet the demand of the areas consumers. Preston Ford has named their quest “The Top 100 Sales Drive.”

For more information about Preston Ford please visit Maryland and Delaware Ford Car and Truck Dealer or http://www.prestonford.com

By the way, I went sailing for the first time recently. And because I’m hardcore I went sailing when it was raining and cold. That’s because I’m a man and real men have a bit of hardcore sea dog in them. But enough horn-tooting and let me tell you what it’s like to go sailing if you’ve never been before. I do hear that it’s better in fair weather but even with the elements conspiring against us it was a marvelous blend of the miserable and exhilirating.

Dressed halfway with the boat in the background

I got a random call from my seasoned sailor buddy Rog Mahal asking me if I wanted to fill an open spot on a boat, knowing full well I’d never sailed. This came with the caveat that I make a weight limit. I was immediately suspicious because other activities that involve weight limits – like boxing and wrestling – come packaged with broken faces or nasty diseases. In any case, the weight limit didn’t matter nor did the drive to Annapolis at 8 in the morning – on daylight savings day no less, the best day for sleeping in the entire year. On my way over, I kept giving dirty looks to the heavens with their dark clouds showing no sign of letting up the downpour. But I gallantly strode on cause, you know, I’m hardcore like that.

Lesson Number One of sailing is to stay as dry as possible. Which means don’t wear jeans and a t-shirt. Thankfully, I was provided some slick gear but had to make do with my old Adidas, leading to an uncomfortable lack of feeling in my right foot halfway through the first race. Borrowing some fancy waterproof socks fixed the numbness and made me confident I would be keeping all of my toes at the end of the day. My Big Bad Wolf (the rollercoaster) hat (with ear flaps) was looked upon with disdain so I had to use alternative headgear. Gloves would have been useful but my hands got used to the cold eventually. PS – chap stick comes in handy.

That's me to the right by the mast holding the boom in position

The races themselves were exciting because half the time I didn’t know what was going on. Sitting on the side of the boat, I look out at a sea of other boats and had no idea how we were doing until the very end. That makes things more interesting. The near-crashes, the mid-race course changes and angry skippers get the old hemoglobin flowing as well. Maybe if I were a little more experienced it would have been even more fun but there was a definite element of enjoyment in two basic principles I followed: don’t fall off and don’t mess up.

Waiting for the magic words - "Heartily!"

Another great aspect is the camaraderie. It’s just great having the skipper curse your name and desecrate your gods during the race and then be all chummy when all is said and done. And, hey, he got me a t-shirt so I must have done something right. After all, the day I raced we finished 13th and 9th – which, by the way, was the best the boat did all weekend. I’m not sure if I did anything positive that was statistically significant or if I have the God-given gift of providing ballast, which, by the way, was my main job. One of three, as follows:

1. Provide ballast

Basically, the boat is tipped over to one side so precariously that everyone has to be on the other side to prevent the boat from falling over. When the skipper decides to tack – which just means turn right or left – he says some jargon to prepare you and then something like “Heartily.” Upon that Pavlovian keyword, the idea is to duck so as to avoid the big-ass boom pole swinging toward you, scramble to the other side and sit your ass back down. Doing that about 30 times in a couple of hours and you’re covered in bruises the next day. When you’re going with the wind it’s called jiving (I think it’s with a ‘v’ but might be ‘jibing’) and you have to loosen some random rope.

The blue sail is the spinnaker - soon it and I become one

2. Push the boom pole

This part sucks. When you go with the wind, the spinnaker sail comes up and then the unlucky Number Five (which is what I call my position – I can’t remember the real name but it was dumb) has to make sure the boom pole stays forward. This means keeping your arms up for a long time cause you still have to be sitting. Boring and tiring.

3. The Human Pole

Great name and definitely an exhilarating experience. When it’s time for the spinnaker to come down, the bowman detaches the metal pole that connects it to the mast. But while that’s happening someone has to act as the pole for the spinnaker. That someone is Number Five. Being the Human Pole entails grabbing on to something on the boat, leaning most of your body off the boat and holding the end of the spinnaker so that 1) it doesn’t fly away and 2) still catches wind optimally. It’s really a lot of fun balancing the concepts of staying on the boat and keeping your shoulder from separating. You keep doing that for a few minutes until someone yells more jargon at which point you throw yourself back on to the deck and start pulling the sail back. At least that’s what I did.

You might be shocked at how I think any of this is enjoyable especially when considering that the weather was pretty much mixed rain all day long. But it was enjoyable. It’s taxing on the body, it’s precarious and it was effing cold but there’s a constant adrenaline rush and flurries of pure undistilled excitement. Despite the fact that at least 10% of the sailors out there were female, it made me feel like a man. If I were married, I would have gone home, ordered the wife to make me some meat and potatoes and bacon, cracked open a six-pack and watched football the rest of the day. Right after I stopped shivering.

Rocking the adidas and providing ballast

]]> http://bluecrabyoyo.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/sneak-peek/ Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:10:17 +0000 sthorsvik http://bluecrabyoyo.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/sneak-peek/

Sneak peek of an idea I am in the process of developing entitled the: “I Spy Annapolis Project”.  Annapolis, Maryland is filled with a ton of interesting design aspects and colors.  The goal of this project will be in the spirit of a scavenger hunt, taking some great images of places in and out of local shops, bars, and landmarks in which participants will try to guess and locate them all.  Obviously there will be a fantastic prize for the winner.  If you like this idea please feel free to comment below by guessing where some of these pictures are from.

“Why do they have to keep their eyes facing forward Mom?” my sons ask. We’re watching the film, Annapolis, about the Naval Academy.

“They have to keep their focus,” I answer my boys, though what do I know of soldiers. My best guess is that the “Mid-shipman” is trying to see if he can provoke the plebes to react, testing their strength in the face of anger or fear.

As a “liberal” family, we don’t typically watch movies about soldiers, but we are heading to my father’s new home in Annapolis for Thanksgiving so I thought this dvd would lend a nice sense of place.

As a young teen, I lived on the army base at West Point where my physician father was stationed. I watched soldiers run in the woods behind my house in the heat of July in full fatigues with heavy backpacks and boots.

I saw their heads shaved in the courtyard outside the barracks, and I was there when the first women were admitted to the Academy. I watched soldiers march on winter weekends in the cold snow, paying off demerits. I saw them faint in summer pageantry. I knew that plebes couldn’t date. I’d eaten in their mess hall and saw that there were hoops to jump through even before you got your food.

Despite my Army upbringing, I don’t get war. I’d like to see the military do something else with their talents and resources.

I know the whole question of war and peace is not perceived to be that simple, but I did stumble upon something that shed some light inside of my own troubled heart.  It came from the question my boys had asked:

Why do they have to keep their eyes facing forward?

That question stayed with me all evening, and was there again waiting for me in the morning when I woke.   Within it, I began to understand something more about military training.

The idea of “facing forward” teaches presence to what is right in front of you–without letting yourself be distracted by whatever else is going on inside of you–fear, anger, exhaustion and no doubt, self-doubt.

In this way, I realized that military training was very Zen, although I’m not an expert there either.

Despite spewing insults, assaulting weather and pain, great fatigue, and whatever else the human mind can conjure up in the form of suffering, soldiers are required to remain present to the task at hand.

How they carry this type of presence into the battlefield, I don’t know, but I’m sure it serves all who do. With deep presence, there can be no resistance, no fear, no need for escape.

But I wonder, what of that quality of presence can they salvage from their experience? What, if anything, are they able to bring back home?

From what we know of veterans, they simply can’t remain present to all they saw or did or endured. They turn away. And in that action they reap heaps of punishment on themselves, as their own drill sergeant. Or they become their own enemy, and take their own life–or the lives of fellow soldiers.

But what if they were able to keep looking forward? What if their training included such presence after the task at hand? What would come of that?

Great healing I suspect. IN being present, even to that which horrifies us, we release and soften and accept, and then all there is… is love. This truth is echoed in the lives of soldiers who “live” to share their story and fight their way toward peace. And in that discovery, each offers his voice to those who proclaim the futility of war.

With this clear vision, the soldier’s amazing ability to focus could be taken into the world in service–in the kind of service, that she doesn’t have to turn away from when she comes home–in the kind of service that he can look in the eye without shame or hatred–in the kind of service that can change the world, one heart at a time. One soldier at a time. One pair of eyes looking straight forward at a time.

I recently viewed the premier of the film, Taking Root, a documentary about Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan activist, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental action in her country.

In the great breadth of her life’s work on behalf of the land and the people, Wangarii convinces the military that their job as protectors includes the land–and so they too join her campaign planting trees.

This opening of thought and service is just a drop in the empty bucket of terror, but this is how change is watered.

As I revisit this piece of writing following the rise in military suicides, a child of our own arrives in Iraq. He’s not a biological son, but a son of my community, a young man I watched grow up.

Joseph was brought to this country from Africa as a young boy and has now been sent across another sea as an American soldier. I know his beautiful spirit. I know “some” of his pain. He lost most of his family in Ethiopia to AIDs. As a child, he watched both parents and his grandmother die.

Though Joseph was welcomed with open arms into our tiny rural community, he faced racial hatred when he went to highschool in the neighboring town.

Perhaps becoming a Marine after graduation was his way of finding place. I know that his childhood dream was to return to his native country and help the children there. He wanted to buy a farm and raise cows, like those he tended in his family farm in the mountains of Ethiopia.

But America doesn’t fund those kind of dreams–not for teenage boys.

Instead we train them to kill others in far away places and then expect them to return “home” and live as if it never happened.

The same crimes perpetrated abroad would land Joseph in jail in the states, and it is he who will have to come to peace with that discordance.  And it is WE, who hold the responsibility of sending our children to such places of anguish outside–and inside– of themselves.

And so the military will hire more therapists and increase spending to support soldiers with their mental health or their missing limbs or lost comrades or visions of death and suffering while the rest of the country will worry about our incomes and the economy which relies so heavily on perpetuating this machine of hopelessness and cruelty.

My invitation then is for each of us to find a soldier’s strength–to face forward in our lives and do the work that needs doing. And to let that work be of service to others–the kind of service that lends itself to other “drops” of change… until the bucket is tipped over, and we have watered a lush new world.

Kelly Salasin, November 2007 & 2008 & 2009

Hey Guys,

We left Montana in search of more rapids and lakes to SUP and we ended up meeting up and staying with our friends from Govan, Saskatchewan. It took us about 14 hours to drive from the buffalo ranch to the beautiful farmlands of Canada with only a few paddles in the shallow rivers to keep us amused. While we we were up there, most people were very surprised about what we were doing on our road trip and thought we were crazy…(which isn’t all wrong). Most of the people we were with had never seen SUPing before, so T.J. and I hopped in our board shorts in 30 degree weather with snow on the ground and put our boards in the agricultural dugout and paddled around. Most everyone was speechless but pretty amazed at how easily we glided through the water. We said our goodbyes to all of our friends (Bob, Noreen, Jim, Jared, Rocket, Danita, and Ryan) and started our journey to the east coast. After 2 days of driving, we stopped off in Annapolis, Maryland to say hi to Gene and John from Backyard Boats. They were kind enough to show us there store and all their products and ended up taking us on a very fun and historic paddle through the river and around the famed “Ego Alley.” Everyone was walking around the harbor asking us lots of questions and stopping to take pictures with us. It was good to see this part of the country with the leaves changing colors and seeing the different water sports in the harbor but we were ready to get to the outer banks and have a chance at some waves. So, we hopped in the car for another 5 hours and ended up on the outer banks that night…….

Saskatchewan Farmhouse

Welcome to Alberta, Canada

Then welcome to Saskatchewan, Canada

TJ and Bob Walker in front of the dugout

Showing the Canadians how-to-SUP

Looks like the Snow Geese have good numbers this year

Canadian Dugout

Rocket, Bob, and Jared: Looking at us like we are crazy!

Bryce: 3 Monsters deep

Hobie SUP'n in Madison, Wisconsin

The drive through a long, rainy country

SUP'n in Old America

Bryce and John (Backyard Boats) in the harbor

Bryce heading into "Ego Alley"

Board Cam on the East Coast

Thanks Backyard Boats!

Note: After reading, check out my film at http://bit.ly/3H9GIv 

The early autumn evening sun defended against the chill,

When I left the struggle on the soccer field and climbed the amber hill.

I made my way past the parking lot, the picnic table and then,

The white picket gate swung open and reverently I stepped in.

Gray tombstones at crazy angles stabbed at retreating light,

The earth was soft and spongy, the weeds had conquered height.

I scarce could know that evening, to another century I was bound,

When at first I did encounter, the Soldier by the Playground.

“Samuel C., son of Daniel and Isabella …, who fell at …Gettysburg … July 2, 1863,

In the twenty-second year of his age, striking for home and liberty.”

Gettysburg! Long ago, far off, brought home for me to find!

Now sounds of the soccer field, trailing off, merged with battle sounds in my mind.

And then I wondered, pondered, questioned which flag he would prefer,

If he could return to join us and with history confer.

Did he fight to save the Union or for the South his life forego?

Here, in the border state of Maryland, I’d possibly never know.

Been away for awhile, doing some more research and writing some stuff for a local publication. More about that at a later date.

The band is taking a little brake, wih the holidays coming. We’re planning on recording a new demo, getting a fill in bass player (The trek from NJ for Tommy is getting rough), and coming out fresh in the new year.

Here’s the last track from “Ghostly Tales of Annapolis and Beyond”. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read about it, listen to it, and buy it. It’s available at CD Baby, ITunes, Amazon, and whole bunch of other places.

The fundraising effort for the Goshen Farm Preservation Society has taken in over $2700. Very cool.

Track 14

NO MORE SAILIN’

Two famous seafaring ghosts are said to haunt the area. Captain William Kidd (1645-1701) was hired as a privateer by the English. He sailed the east coast of America, the Indian Ocean, and the “Pirate round”, hunting pirates and enemy ships.

Unfortunately, he was saddled with a crew of miscreants and eventually committed at least one act of piracy, and even that event is questionable. Along the way, he threw an ironbound bucket at William Moore, a gunner on the ship. It was a good throw, hitting Moore in the head and fracturing his skull. He died the next day.

During the return voyage, Kidd learned that he was wanted by the crown. Feeling confident in his political connections, he returned home anyway. He was promptly arrested, and eventually sent to London for trial. His political cronies had no further use for him, and left him to his fate.

Found guilty of murder and piracy, he was taken from Newgate Prison to the “execution dock”. They hung him, but the rope broke. So they hung him again. It took that time. He was gibbeted and hung over the Thames river, where his rotting corpse would serve as a warning to anyone else thinking about crossing the empire.

He reportedly hid treasure everywhere from Nova Scotia to Japan. Some of his loot was actually recovered on Gardiners Island in New York, by the colonial Governor Bellemont, and sent to England as evidence against him.

The tale associated with this area is the appearance of his ghost on Gibson Island. Legend has it that Kidd hid some of his treasure here. One story has it that a man had a dream about the loot, buried under an old oak tree on the island. When he and his friend went to search for it, Kidd appeared, and scared the bejeesus out of them. They of course ran, and never returned.

I haven’t found any proof of Kidd ever coming this far up the bay, but it is not out of the question.

John Paul Jones (1747-1792) was the “father” of the American navy. His most famous exploit, of course, was his fight against the British ship “Serapis”, and his statement “I have not yet begun to fight”.

Finding himself unemployed, in 1788 he became a rear admiral in the Russian navy, fighting against the Turks in the Black Sea. He was very successful and was even awarded The order of St. Anne, but politics and jealousy caused him to quit and return to France in 1790.

He was found dead in his apartment on July 18, 1792. The cause of death was reported to be a severe brain tumor.

He was buried in Paris at the Saint Louis Cemetery, which belonged to the French royal family. Four years later, France’s revolutionary government sold the property and the cemetery was forgotten. The area was later used as a garden, a place to dispose of dead animals, and a place where gamblers bet on animal fights.

To some back in the States, this was not a fitting situation for our first naval hero to spend eternity in. In 1905, Jones’ remains were identified by US Ambassador to France Gen. Horace Porter, who had searched for six years to track down the body using faulty copies of Jones’ burial record.

On January 26, 1913, the Captain’s remains were re-interred in a lovely bronze and marble sarcophagus at the Naval Academy Chapel  in Annapolis.

His ghost reportedly wanders the Academy grounds from time to time. He was allegedly pickled in alcohol for preservative purposes upon his burial in France. I wonder if it’s his intoxicated ghost, simply trying to find his way back to the chapel.

Now imagine these two old seafaring Scotsmen, stuck here on the brown water of the Chesapeake for eternity. One, a proud and decorated naval hero, ultimately buried in grand fashion on sacred ground. The other, a luckless privateer, who seemed to end up in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. The noose didn’t even work correctly. In the final indignity, his corpse was left in a cage to rot, under the constant glare of the local Londoners.

Kind of a ghostly odd couple.

While Republicans may have succeeded in winning the states of New Jersey and Virginia in yesterday’s election, the Democratic party is alive and well in Annapolis. Despite citizen unrest with the large city budget and the series of difficulties that have ensued in the management of the downtown Market House (departing tenants, lawsuits, and a dysfunctional cooling system for the building) , the voters gave their support to the Democratic party contenders in the city of Annapolis. It appears that the liklihood that a certified City Manager form of government be considered by voters is soon to fade into a distant memory. And what about that proposed 4.5% tax cap? Well, that will become a distant memory as well, unless there is a grassroots successful petition drive that manages to put these questions on the ballot to enable voters to directly decide pro or con.
Josh Cohen will be getting right to work in the next week to select his transition team and choose some of the key managers to help run his new administration. It will be interesting to see if he selects any of the former candidates to help create diversity of viewpoints in the new administration. For a rundown on the election results go to WhatsUpMag.com