2010 Photos Online

2010 Photos Pt.1

2010 Photos Pt.2

2009 Photos Online

My photos from 2009 are now online at Picasa Web Albums. They're split into 5 albums. They seem to be out of order somewhat - I noticed Thanksgiving comes after Christmas. I'll try to get in there and fix that.

Here are the links:

2009 Part 1  (Colleen's 49th Birthday to Easter)

2009 Part 2  (Karen's 50th to Stepanie Huber's Graduation)

2009 Part 3  (Honfest to OC)

2009 Part 4  (OC to Daytona)

2009 Part 5  (Daytona to Christmas)

2007 Pictures Now Online

2007 Pt.1

2007 Pt.2

2007 Pt.3

2007 Pt.4

2007 Pt.5

2007 Pt.6

Weekend at the Museums (And A Bar)

Natalie and I got ourselves some culture this weekend.

Saturday we went to the Walters Art Museum to check out the jewelry exhibit, "Bedazzled". Cool stuff. The pictures you see of the jewelry don't do it justice. You have to see it in person. Later on, we went out Mom and Dad's for Mike's 51st birthday party. Even Tommy and Matthew blessed us with their presence.

Sunday we headed downtown to the open house at the American Visionary Arts Museum. A weird thing happened on the way there. We got a late start, so it was a little bit before 1:00 PM by the time we got down to Baltimore and St.Paul street. The Ravens were in town and the pre-game show was on the radio. The announcer said there was going to be a fly-by of 4 F-10s in a few minutes and just as he said that, they came roaring across the Inner Harbor, heading towards the stadium. The current exhibit at the museum is "The Marriage of Art, Science and Philosophy". We should have stopped in the sculpture barn for the free food as soon as we got there. By the time we got back there, after going through the main building, most of the food was gone. We did get a bagel and a bottled water. They have a great gift shop there with all kinds of unusual stuff. It's like a dollar store on acid. After the museum, we stopped at a bar called "Little Havana". We really liked it. It's a Fells Point kind of place, right on the harbor. The beer selection was good and the food was great. We split a Cuban Sandwich and an order of chimmy changas. Even the side dishes were good. Mine came with plantains and rice with beans. We ate every crumb.

Click on the picture of the pencils carvings to go to a City Paper article on the AVAM's show "The Marriage of Art, Science and Philosophy".



Below is a slide show of some of the jewelry in the Walter's Bedazzled show.

Streetcar Museum and Chelsea's 1st Birthday

Busy weekend...

Saturday, Natalie and I drove up to Taneytown with Leslie and Carol for Chelsea's 1st birthday party. Chelsea is Natalie's grandniece, Melissa's daughter. The party was at Pam's house. It was fun, we had a good time. On the way back we stopped at Baugher's Restaurant to get some local apples. First we stopped at Baugher's Orchard but the place was packed. I think they were having a chili cook-off. There was a live band and all kinds of stuff going on but we couldn't find a place to park, so we left and stopped at the restaurant closer to Baltimore. It's a combination restaurant/produce stand. We bought a big pumpkin and a bunch of different kinds of apples - Red & Golden Delicious, Staymans, Empire, Jonagold, Liberty, Ida Red, Mutsu, an old-style kind of Golden Delicious and others. We got 10 pounds all together and they won't last a week. They were great.

Sunday there was free admission to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, part of Free Fall Baltimore. I went by myself, Natalie wasn't interested and Tommy and Matthew are too cool for everything. I really liked it. I rode on two streetcars but missed riding the open car which looked really cool. Oddly enough, a lot of the them had destination signs that said Overlea and Gardenville. They must have known I was coming. The museum is on Falls Road, between Pennsylvania Station and Hampden and is right across the street from the Jones Falls. After I checked out the main museum building and rode the streetcars, I walked north on Falls Road to one of the museums workshops, past a huge cable car pulley. Baltimore once had cable cars, so did a lot of cities, but only one city still has them - San Francisco. By the side of the workshop was a burned-out railroad car. I crossed the street and walked back to the museum on the Jones Falls Bike path. It was nice until I hit a stretch of water with a heavy smell of raw sewage. Ah, that's the Baltimore I know.


Photos from the Baltimore Streetcar Museum Website and the Web.

2006 Photos Online

2006 Pt.1

2006 Pt.2

2006 Pt.3 Ocean City

2006 Pt.4 Daytona Beach

2006 Pt.5 Christmas

(2007 Photos coming in 2009)

Caledonia Watercolor (PSP Script)

Camping at Caledonia

Went camping at Caledonia State Park near Gettysburg in Pennsylvania this weekend. Mike, Matthew and I left about 1:00 PM in his van. We took 83 up to York and then west on 30. It was pouring when we left and it poured all the way up there. It was a miserable ride (about two hours). It was still raining when we got there. Ken was already there, in his nice, dry pop-up. We decided not to set up the tent but to sleep in the van that night. We did set up the screen tent. A few years ago, I cut big pieces of plastic to close in most of the sides. This time I used those big metal clips you use with papers instead of clothes pins and they worked a lot better. We did manage to start a fire. Good thing Mike brought dry firewood from his garage. For dinner, we had crab cakes that Mom made. Bob and Bunny came up late that afternoon. They decided not to set up their tent too but to sleep in Ken's pop-up instead. Matthew slept all the way in the back of the van, Mike slept on the bed and I slept behind the front seats. It rained hard all night and the little windows at the top of the van leaked all over me. I ended up sleeping sitting up in the front seat. I actually slept pretty good. In fact, Bob woke us up around 10:00 AM because they thought we were dead or something.

Saturday was a nice fall day. We decided to go on a hike. Here's a hint - never let anybody who runs 50-mile marathons pick the path you're going to hike on. After that ordeal, the day was pretty much over. We went back to the campsite and made dinner - New York strip steaks and potatoes cooked on the fire with canned corn on the side. Good stuff. Saturday night we just hung around the fire, drinking beer and making smores until Matthew got hit in the eye with a hot ember. We managed to get a couple of specks of stuff out of his eye but it didn't help. He was miserable. Ken had a first aid kit and we bandaged his eye up and decided to wait till morning to see how it looked. I stayed up and drank a couple more beers after everybody went to bed. There was a full moon out and when the clouds broke up it was like day time. We slept pretty good in our old Montgomery Ward tent on the air mattresses we got from Uncle Ed (Schultz).

Matthew's eye didn't look good in the morning. It was glued shut and crusty with puss. I used Mike's cell phone to call Natalie to let her know she had to take him to the hospital as soon as we got back. We packed up and left right away. It was another nice day. I would have liked to have hung around and done something while but we had to get Matthew some help. On the way back, Mike found out from Jocelyn that a tree limb had fallen on his car back home and dented his roof and broke his rear window. What a vacation.

Road Trip To Frederick

Washington Monument

Natalie and I went out to Frederick today. Our first stop was the South Mountain Creamery. They make they're own cheese and ice cream. We got some Farmer's Cheese with Walnuts and Black Pepper, Gouda with bacon and onion and some Havarti. It was all good but I think we liked the Farmer's cheese the best. We went to Washington Monument state park our little wine and cheese picnic. Nice place but I don't think you should have to pay $3.00 to get in. Maryland's park system is horrible. It would have been free in PA. The monument itself was pretty cool. There were a lot of bird watchers at the top of the monument. Nice day to be outside, sunny and just a little cool.

From there we went to the Barley & Hops Brewpub in suburban Frederick. It could have been anywhere - a generic place in a generic area. And the beer we had wasn't very good either, red ale that had no hops taste at all. Definitely not a place to go out of your way for. After that, we headed into downtown Frederick. The whole area was packed with people and we missed Brewer's Alley on our first pass - the sign is hard to understand, but we found a place to park easily and walked back to the block it was in. The place was packed. Lots of pretty girls in fancy dresses, maybe some homecoming dance thing. We both liked the IPA's we got and they were only $3.00 apiece. The building used to be an opera house. We definitely want to go back there when we have more time and money to spend. We got back around 8:00 PM.

Ocean City 2006, Pt.1

I finally got this movie online. It's been split in two.

Ocean City 2006 Pt.2

Ocean City - Saturday

Packed up, said our goodbyes and hit the road by 10:00 AM. We wanted to get our telescope pictures but things didn't work out. We saw Jean and her gang there and she told me their printer wasn't working. We got set up at a terminal then Natalie started feeling faint so we had to leave before we had a chance to check out the scopes. We went to BJs for lunch before we left town. I had the soup - Cream of Roasted Pepper with Crab, and a fish sandwich. Matthew had a teriyaki chicken sandwich, Tom had a Buffalo chicken sandwich and I think Natalie had a club. We split an order of potato skins. Tom didn't seem to like his too much but everything else was good. Traffic on the way home was moderate, it probably took us about 4 hours. Things slowed to a crawl after 404 merged with Route 50 and it was bumper to bumper, stop and go on the bay bridge. We also hit a traffic jam at the junction of Route 97 and 100. The next day we read in the paper some idiot had hit a tow truck driver on the shoulder. We stopped at Dundalk Veterinary Hospital on our way home to pick up Otto .

Ocean City - Friday

My turn for dinner today - the traditional chili. A better day on the beach but it was still windy. We did the telescope picture thing early and just hung out out for the rest of the day. Nelson and Haddy were there. A bunch of us walked over to the bay side to see the sunset. Natalie spent a lot of her night packing.

Ocean City - Thursday

I went to the beach today - very windy and partly overcast. Everbody else seems to have ended up down at the boardwalk. Natalie and I went to Reflections for dinner. We split escargot and a salad for an appetizer, along with two orders of their great bread. We both ordered specials, Natalie had some kind of seafood pasta and I had tuna topped with crab in basil sauce. Everything was great - even the vegetable medley side dish and my baked potato. For desert, we split a piece of mocha chocolate pie.

Ocean City - Wednesday

Most of the men went boating on the Pocomoke River today. I spent the day on the beach, but the weather wasn't a very good. It was OK early but it got very windy as the day wore on. Natalie went shopping. After dinner we had a birthday party for Judy. She had turned 43 on August 7th. Later, Natalie and I went out for a few drinks. First, we drove up to Fenwick Island but they had closed for the night. They roll up the sidewalks after dark there. We ended up at Shenanigans on the boardwalk at 4th street. We had a blast, even though things started out rough. The kitchen was closed, even though they are supposed to have bar food late, so no stuffed pretzels. Then, the frat boys arrived and surrounded us, ordering shots of Jagermeister and being obnoxious. But we moved to better seats and the live music started. A guy named Sean Fleming was playing. I guess he plays solo early in the week, then he has a full band later on. He was good, just him with a semi-acoustic guitar and a little electronic bass drum for accompaniment. They also had the Orioles game on from earlier in the day that they were re-broadcasting. It was fun, even with all those people from Pittsburgh. We stayed to closing time and then went back to the condo. A lot of people were still up and it ended up being a very late night.

Ocean City - Tuesday

Took a break from the beach today. Natalie, Matthew and I went to West Ocean City. We had lunch at the Harborside. Natalie and I used to go there when it was the Stumblin Inn. It doesn't look all that different. The food was good. I had little neck clams and they were really little, like those mussels Jim got from behind the convention center. On the way back we stopped at Fish Tales in the Bahia Marina for a drink. No fish came in while we were there. Jean made tacos for dinner.

Later on, the three of us went to the boardwalk with Mike, Mitch, Little Mitch and Alex. We parked at the inlet and wondered up to 2nd street and back. The kids got on some rides and we hit Marty's and Sportland. I had the three food groups - Thrasher's French Fries, Love's Lemonade and a Dumsers Chocolate milkshake.

Ocean City - Monday

Another great day at the beach. Scott and his family came over and sat with us. The Ravens played a pre-season game that night and we were all supposed to meet at the Galaxy rooftop bar to watch it. We had to sit at a table and use a waitress. They had one TV with the sound turned off . We left after one drink. Natalie and I had been to the place years before after it had just opened, we may have even gotten a drink at the downstairs bar. We didn't like it then and the rooftop bar didn't change our minds - it's a yuppie hole. Mike Evans stayed at the Galaxy and Mom, Mike, Natalie and I went to BJs. Mike drove Mom back to the condo after the first half and walked back to BJs to watch the second half. I watched the Orioles on another TV. The Ravens won but I can't remember what the Orioles did. Karen and Steve ended up watching the game at the Salty Dog.

Ocean City - Sunday

The weather was great today - not a cloud in the sky. We spent the whole day on the beach. There was quite a crowd there - Aunt Colleen, Uncle Tony, Patrick and Nelson, Uncle Howie and Aunt Dolores, Sandy Huber, Steve Huber and his family (except Shawn). Jocelyn and Molly got in from Fallston later in the day. Spent the evening hanging out on the porch. This was the night that was supposed to be the best for seeing the Perseids Meteor shower. I walked up to the beach and saw a few but it wasn't very spectacular.

Ocean City - Saturday

Left for OC about 6:20 AM this morning. We stopped at Holly's for breakfast, as usual. I got 2 eggs, sunny-side up, with scrapple. They must give you more than 1/2 pound with your meal. Tom got cream chipped beef and Natalie and Matthew got BLTs. Traffic started getting heavier after we left Holly's, even that early in the morning. We got to 78th street in OC a little after 10:00 AM and hit the beach. The weather had been overcast all the way down but it was bright and sunny on the beach. We got settled in and everbody else arrived at different times through out the rest of the day. Natalie and I walked over to BJs for a drink later that night. They had Natalies favorite soup - Cream of Roasted Red Pepper with Crab. Great stuff.

Friday's at the Walters with Natalie

Natalie and I went down to the Walters today to see the Quilts of Gees Bend. It was pretty interesting. After that, the plan was to stop by the house and pick up Otto and head out to my parents house. We were going to leave the dog there while went to Ruby Tuesdays and used the gift certificate Natalie got from her sister Carol for Christmas. But the weather looked bad, real bad. We ended up just going to Red Brick Station for happy hour and $1 roast beef sandwiches. Then we picked the dog up and headed out to my parents. It was overcast and misting for the rest of the night.