Tuesday rerun: Fact known by few

  This is a fact known by few! Do you know Rachel Scott, the marvelous ABC news reporter? She's on TV most every night and she works hard to help us understand what goes on in Washington, DC.

Years ago, she was brand new to national news and was covering one of those early presidential primaries in an ice-cold state. She mentioned on Instagram that she was freezing under her top coat and I mentioned that she ought to look into purchasing a down vest. Being a California native, she had no idea such a thing existed, but I don't think she's been that cold ever since then. Down is marvelous for keeping warm. Ask any goose!

The happy couple, Rachel with husband Elliott Smith!

But that's not the fact known by few, and you will be among the few soon. Rachel got married earlier this month, and I read the wedding story in the New York Times because I am a romantic at heart. The article talked about her lovely trousseau, which included no down garments, and all the fun she and her new husband and their friends and family had, and that crowd included singer Gene Chandler, who is her grandfather.

The happy grandpa

You cannot have listened to an oldies station for five minutes without hearing his big hit "Duke of Earl," a huge hit in 1961 that really sets the mood in a lot of movies about the good old days, and I wish they were back. Gene really did it up fancy back then! He would come out on stage with a top hat and fancy cane and cape, as any proper duke would.

I like knowing that Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty are brother and sister, and that Peter Graves and James Arness were brother and brother, and that Keisha Lance Bottoms, former mayor of Atlanta and advisor to President Biden, is the daughter of Major Lance, whose hit songs included "The Monkey Time" and "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um".

But being the granddaughter of a duke confers a certain status on Rachel, who is a  royally wonderful reporter and seems to be a very good person as well. Congratulations to her and her husband! 

Indigenous

  Indigenous Peoples' Day is a holiday celebrating and honoring Native American peoples by commemorating their histories and cultures.  After all, they were here first! It's time to recognize and pay them respect! Indigenous Peoples' Day is a holiday in Baltimore County and is observed today.

 Local government facilities, state motor vehicle branches, and public libraries across Baltimore County will close today, in observance of the federal Columbus Day  holiday. 

Baltimore County government offices, senior centers, and all branches of the Baltimore County Public Library will be closed for the holiday. Recreation and Parks indoor facilities will also be closed, except for activities operating under previously approved permits. There will be no CountyRide service today.

Sunday Rerun: C'est dommage

 A long time ago, at work, a computer guy showed me something he should not have...it was a printout of all the passwords of everyone who worked there.

He wanted me to see how many of the passwords were filthy. That was hardly surprising, given the general tone of the billingsgate in that workplace. We were told over and over to make sure that no one could guess our password, so as to make sure no one did a dirty deed in someone else's name, but I'm here to tell you, a good 60-70% of the signons were terms for favorite activities among the highly libidinous. I think they were easy to guess, but I never tried.

The other surprising thing was how many people thought that something like "BOBBYD" would be hard to guess, if your name was Bob and your last name started with a D (made-up example).  Or for the guy who hummed "Stairway To Heaven" to choose "LEDZEP."

I'm walking down memory lane as a way to get around to telling you that the French people are looking into the $multi-million ripoff at the Louvre, and they found that the most famous museum in all the world used "LOUVRE" as the password to their security system.

I mean, sacre bleu! 

Not only that, but France’s National Cybersecurity Agency first was made aware of this foolish choice in 2014, when they reported “serious shortcomings” in the Paris museum’s security systems, such as two-decade old security computer software.

 “An attacker who manages to take control of it would be able to facilitate damage or even theft of artworks,” the agency said in 2014.

But here we are in 2025, and no one saw fit to do something about the situation.

French riot police stand near the Louvre Museum's glass pyramid 

And on October 19th, thieves entered the museum, stole the nation's crown jewels, and made good their escape within eight minutes.

If only the people in charge of guarding the jewels had known!

The Saturday Picture Show, October 10, 2026

Now I'm getting mixed signals.

I thought Dakota Johnson did a fine job on SNL the other night. She brought along a friend, who brought along a birthday cake.

A guy went to an Air B'n'b that said to bring your own ladle. No need to anymore!

I really didn't think they were still in business!

Here is Celine Dion, falling down at a concert in France. She was trying to do the duck walk. She is not Angus Young.

It's almost cranberry season, so don't get bogged down! Get yours early. 

You've heard of a dog in the manger. Here's a fox in the bushes.

Wherever this hotel is, I want to stay there someday so I can hear them call my name every time they answer the phone.

Yankees fans seem to feel that just because they show up wearing Yankee caps and Yankee jerseys, they are also Yankees. My advice: when you go to a game, sit there and watch the professionals play, and keep your hands to yourself.

 A long time ago, a friend of mine who happened to be a Baltimore City police officer told that I should look at the year and expiration month of a car stopped ahead of me at a light or whatever. She said I would be surprised at how many thought they could just drive around with expired tags and just get away with it. This picture was taken the other night in Baltimore City.

Classic Peanuts

 

Between the daily editions and the Sunday strips, Charles Schulz posted 17,897 original "Peanuts" comics over the years.  At the time this one appeared in our daily paper on October 4, 1969, I thought it was and always would be the best one ever, and nothing ever changed my mind about that. 

The words Charlie Brown said to himself sounded like every one of the good old country music songs that I loved since I was Charlie's age.  What I didn't know back in the pre-WWW days, was that Schulz was a big country fan, even naming the "boneless cat" Faron after his favorite male singer, Faron Young.

Just swap out the gender and this strip works for anyone who's ever been lost in love. I just hope that Charlie wound up with the little red-haired girl for real. 

The Ride

 Remember those Canadian wildfires this past summer? Let me tell you about Patricia Robinson and her story in the fires.

Ms Robinson is 90 and she had been traveling alone by plane one day from her home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to see family in Kelowna, British Columbia. Her family had paid for her trip as a gift for her big birthday.

She didn't get far. Less than an hour into the flight, the pilot came on the intercom with the news that the airspace across Western Canada was closed because of the smoke from the fires, and the plane was turning back to Calgary.

Picking up her luggage, she chatted with two guys who were in the same stranded boat, if you will: disappointed fellow flyers Quinn Sedmak, 48, and Tanner Salewich, 45. At first, all of them were booked on later flights that same day, all of which were cancelled because of the smoke.

So....

Sedmak found a reasonable rental car, and Salewich said he was down for the drive. Then they invited Robinson to come along, and she was up for it.

“What kind of crazy 90-year-old would be getting in the car with two strangers?” Robinson said. This kind: the kind who said, “I really didn’t want to spend the night in Calgary or go back to Saskatoon,” said Robinson.

Then she texted her family to let them know she’d be driving to the family gathering with two strangers she met on the flight. 

“It didn’t even occur to me what they might think.”

That is my kind of person!

“I wasn’t concerned about it at all,” she said. “I just totally trusted them both. I had no qualms about it.”

Leaving the Calgary airport at dinnertime, Sedmak, who has driven this trip "countless times" took the wheel. Salewich sat shotgun to navigate and Ms Robinson got in the back, riding shotgun shadow and remembering drives along the same roads years before with her late husband.

 

Quinn Sedmak, Patricia Robinson and Tanner Salewich

They got her to her family after seven hours of stories and listening to comedy. “They were very kind and considerate and polite to me all the way,” Ms Robinson said. “It had to come from somewhere, so I’m giving their moms the credit.”

Yes, we're told to be careful and don't go off with strangers, but sometimes, I think you have to trust your fellow humans. 

 

Nepo coach

Ms Carlie Irsay-Gordon is the granddaughter of Robert Irsay, the eldest daughter of Jim Irsay, and the sister of fellow Colts co-owners Casey Foyt and Kalen Jackson. She is the CEO and calls the shots after all is said and undone.

She found a Colts cheerleader outfit from the 1950s.

Just her bloodline is enough to make me shun her. Her great-grandmother, mother of Robert "Bob" Irsay, once said that Big Bob was "the devil on earth," and that was before he took our Colts and moved them to some hellhole in a state with towns such as Gnaw Bone, Toad Hop, Floyds Knobs, and French Lick.

She does have people running the team, but she has decided to cosplay as some sort of supercoach. She struts along the sidelines with a hat on and a headset with mic, and is seen taking notes and pulling on the sleeves of the real coach when she has a question or a suggestion. 

Now, a lot of people say she has every right to do as she wishes, since she inherited the team upon the passing of her drug-riddled dad Jimmy.  And I agree. It's her football, so to speak, and she can do with it as she wishes.

And her supporters say she is doing what every business owner should be doing - keeping a close eye on the family moneymaker and learning the game from the ground up.

And then come people such as I, saying that in 1976, Ted Turner, having bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team (with his own money, I hasten to add: he didn't inherit anything but a million dollar-debt when his father died) and finding it hard to watch so many losing games, put on a uniform and managed the Braves for a game. They still lost, and the next morning, cooler heads prevailed, and Ted was back to watching the games from the owner's booth.

I don't care for anyone whose name includes "Irsay" in any form. She does run the place, but just as I wouldn't want to be having brain surgery and having some new owner of the hospital donning surgical garb and peering into my noodle, Ms Irsay does not need to be parading around on the sidelines while people are doing the work they have trained all their lives learning to do. That diminishes their authority. She can take notes like the rest of us do while watching the Colts: half asleep in a recliner. 

What matters more

 Everyone was talking about Usha Vance almost taking a header while coming down the staircase off a helicopter at Joint Base Andrews yesterday. She was toting her  10-week-old infant Alec Neel Vance in a baby carrier. Fortunately, she did not fall, and no one was hurt.

SLOTUS grabbed the banister to right herself, and got back on both feet in no time at all. Listen, I have no truck with her or any member of her family. But she is a fellow human being, and being one of them myself, I cannot figure how the two Air Force airmen who were standing there with their arms at their sides, and the Marine who was saluting, did not make a move to be there to help.

 Now I saw people on social media saying, "oh you have to understand, there is a strict military protocol in these matters and they are duty-bound not to drop that bearing in any circumstance." 

But here I am, private citizen, saying that makes no sense, especially in a day and time when very high ranking gov't officials use the coarsest gutter language in the high gov't office and no one even looks askance at it any longer, and people of great importance carry on unsanctified congresses with people not their spouses and everyone just shakes their head. Man, woman, child, male, female, I believe we help someone who's about to fall especially when they have a baby in their arms. 

What good is protocol if that woman or the baby had been injured?

 

Camping!

Just as I was planning to spend a week hiking a rugged island in the middle of Lake Superior, I read about what happened to Craig Berg, and I changed my mind. From here on in, all my rugged hiking will be done on rugs.

Berg is 70, still a young man, and he left in August to traipse around Isle Royale National Park. It did not go well. 

A park ranger told him, “If something happens to you, it could be several days until somebody finds you.”

That alone would be enough to make me change my mind and stay home. I hate to be alone.

But Berg thought he'd be ok. He had a satellite-capable phone with a mapping app. 

This reminds me of all the people who told me over the years, "I'll be ok...I have four-wheel drive!"

So off he went, and then on Day Four, disappointment set in. He lost his way on what he called "a poorly marked trail," winding up in a swamp. He fell in the muck, drenching his clothes, bag and food. His boots came off but he found them, and you can just imagine how great it feels to put your hooves back in wet muddy boots. And his phone was sucked into the morass beneath his muddy feet.

Lost somewhere in the 207-square-mile island’s network of trails, he began hollering, "Help! I'm lost!"

He estimates he hollered those three words more than 10,000 times before embarking on the worst 11 days of anyone's life. He wandered in the woods, eating some freeze-dried food and drinking the worst water he ever tasted. 

Meanwhile, back at home, his wife Debbie was scared witless, of course, as her thoughts ran to what would happen on that island and images of moose and wolves danced across her thoughts.

Then Berg spotted a pair of kayakers 11 days after he’d gone missing.

When they came ashore, he told them his story and they were surprised to see him, having planned on simply seeing moose walking about. 

So, thanks to heaven for sending two kayakers. They told Berg they wanted beer for their trouble.

We have our priorities.

Sunday Rerun: Body Hacks

 

I found this list...and wanted you to see it.

 You know what they used to say; you can fool some of the people all of the time, but this is a list of ways to fool your body. Having lots of time on my hands, I roadtested them for you last week when we were stuck in the house with the weather outside being all frightful.

Here are the results of that trial. I pretended to be nervous, so I pinched my nose (1). It doesn't say for how long, and soon enough, I ran out of breath, so I got nervous for real, about the heartbreak of asphyxiation. But my nose said "no" when I went for another pinch.

I thought of something that would make me anxious, and that was the tendency of so many people to confuse "eager" and "anxious" ("I'm anxious to see what's in that Amazon box") - when you know very well it's the set of canvas shoebags you've had your heart set on, so you're eager, not anxious.  So I put my hand on my heart and took slow, deep breaths (2). Peggy thought I was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and changed the Music Choice to the John Philip Sousa Channel.

My energy levels range from somnambulant to near-hysterical, so I splashed cold water on my face while taking a brisk walk (3) to bring up the recycling tub. It being 13° at the time, little flecks of ice were forming on my chin and cheeks by the time I got back, so I energetically grabbed a warm towel.

My nose is stuffy at all times. I think my adenoidectomy needs to be redone. But I tried putting an ice cube on the roof of my mouth (4) but unfortunately it came too close to the Vicks Vapoinhaler in my nose and suddenly everything tasted like peppermint patties.

I don't know what it means, not to be able to sleep (5). I did try blinking rapidly, but I wound up straining an eyelid muscle, and it's the darndest thing, getting an Ace bandage on that!

Maybe the people who put out that list need to try a different test pilot.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 3, 2026

The homeowners asked online what to do with this architectural error. I say, make it a tiny stage for Junior to practice his oratory skills on the subject of poor house design. 

It is October and time to trot out the Halloween Snoopy decorations! 

What happened here was, all the years of glue holding advertisements to the billboard provided a perfect breeding ground for mushrooms!

Just think - these leaves, and several trillion like them, will soon be on your front yard. And the side yard, the back yard, and the driveway. And the porch.

There's no sign-up sheet, just go! or should I say just went?

I wondered what happened to the querulous woman and the sassy cat. I see, they wound up on this guy's calves!

You know, there will be some who come in and ask for the Oil Change Latte!

Just tell the kids they're for keeping Dad's cigarette package dry, and hope he doesn't go in and ask for one that fits a Camel.

If you've been fortunate enough to go to Amish Country, you've seen this sort of sight...the hoss burns oats, not gasoline...

Looks like the KMart where you used to get that popcorn and an Icee, right? But look at the quarter by the door...it's a perfect model!

Shplish Shplash

 

Do you enjoy going through a carwash? Not the little squirty kind, but the Big Boy with the spinning brushes and the water jets and the foamy foam and then the liquid hot wax, all topped off with a final rinse and super blower to dry you off.

Well, the car. But you might be wet inside if your equilibrium was rattled by that feeling that the car is moving forward (but it isn't). You might have even spilled your Big Gulp over that.

Well, someone had a great idea up in Detroit, and no, I don't mean the Ford Pinto. Up at the Fast Splash Car Wash, they've got hobblin' goblins all over you as you and the Biscayne move on down the line. They tap on your window, try to open your doors, and cackle like demons  - and that's while you're still in line!

 Come this time of year, Fast Splash takes those giant brushes and mitter curtains (those flappy things that shimmy and shake all over your Gremlin to get the road crud off) and turns them into a hell of a frightful scrubdown.

They have whole chain of these carwashes - 260 of them from Alaska to Wyoming, seasonally re-named "Tunnel of Terror." The marketing manager behind all these spooky suds is Joel Fullmer, with Tommy's Express, a car wash chain out of Holland, Michigan.

"This is going to be the biggest year we have for this," says Joel Fullmer, who says they have a ton of these carwashes in California, but that he first heard of them in Virginia and Florida.

Well, of course, Florida...

"Our car wash is known for being bright and open, not the claustrophobic brick tunnel feeling," Fullmer says. "But for this event, we black out the windows, we turn down the lights, we run fog machines. Our team members will dress up in costumes." 

Not surprisingly, Fullmer himself has dressed as a ghoul and worked the line. Remember, he's in marketing. It's his job to scare up business.

Slice of Life

I have to tell you, I love bread. This goes back to my A&P days when, under the trade name Jane Parker, the store sold really good bread, old fashioned sandwich bread, and the wrapper called it "a hearty, firm-type loaf." 

I think that awkward wording about their fine products contributed to the A&P's demise. I mean, who calls their bread "a hearty, firm-type loaf," for crying out loud?

Sometimes, I'd rather have the bread than the sandwich. I like rye and sourdough the most - anything but that spongy white Wonder bread nonsense.

And when I'm at Lidl or Aldi or Weis, I don't mind shelling out a little extra for my toast, if the bread is good.

But I have to draw the line at this bakery just recently opened in New York City's chi-chi Soho neighborhood. The bakery is called Rye, and the question should be, "Rye are you willing to pay $60 for a loaf of bread?"

But that's the ticket price, and according to all up there, people are breaking their neck to get a loaf or rye sourdough advertised as having just four ingredients:  water, flour, salt and time.

The co-owner of this breadatorium, Tim Auer, says they have to charge 60 simoleons because it's a big loaf for sale in a pricey area.

“First of all, it’s a lot of bread,” he says. “It’s about 3.3 pounds, and we not only sell the whole loaf for $60, but we also sell half a loaf or a quarter of the loaf for either $30 or $15.”

“The price is also the result of all the efforts and costs that went into this, whether that’s importing the organic rye flour from Austria or baking it right here on site on Lafayette Street,” he adds.

And the time aspect, Tim? 

“You need to ferment the rye sourdough,” he says. “You need to feed it every day. That takes about 24 hours before you can use it again. Then you need to make the dough, ferment the dough, shave the bread, ferment the dough again, bake it, and then you have to let it rest.”

“The thing with rye sourdough bread is that when you take it out of the oven and try to cut it right away, it’s not going to work well,” he continues. “You’re going to basically rip it apart while doing so. It’s a bit like cutting dough. ... And so, it needs to rest for at least eight, but more about 12 hours, before you then can actually sell it or eat it.”

Sell it? Eat it? For 60 bucks, I might have to frame it!

Freeeeee Birrrrrrrd!

Our doorbell here at the Lazy 'C' Ranch has not worked for a while, which works for me. People going door-to-door selling steaks, siding, and political candidates push the button and sashay away broken-hearted because that push caused no noise to sound inside. I could replace it, but I find that a silent doorbell works just fine for me. Our friends know if we're home and they give their knuckles a workout to let us know they're there too.

By the way, shout out to the Amazon woman deliverer who was kind enough to carry a heavy box up onto the porch and inside the door to help Peggy out the other day. 

Anyway, this all leads to me saying that maybe you should always see who's knocking on your door. Especially if you work at a marine research facility in Florida.

Because, the other day at just such a facility, there came a knockin' at the back door, and someone went to see who was it, and lookie here:

This brown pelican was tapping at the door with its beak, patiently waiting to be a patient. It had not been a good day for him or her. Fishing line was wrapped around its right wing, a fishhook was stuck there as well, and a dozen cactus spines were stuck in its left foot.

This is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research facility, and Annsli Hilton, a University of Miami research associate who works there, figured someone had dropped the bird off for help. But no! That pelican needed help and knew just where to go to get it!

There's a basin a quarter mile away where lots of pelicans hang around, so this feathered friend walked that distance for help.

The business of this facility is the study of fish and sharks, but the staff brought its new friend right on inside. A biologist held the bird by its belly and its beak, so that others could have access to the injuries.

It only took about five minutes to fix him or her up (although the staff said it seemed like an hour) and then someone carried it back to that basin, where it stretched and flapped its wings for a bit, and then flew off to do whatever a happy pelican does on a nice September day.

And everyone who works there had a cool story to share over dinner! 

 

A maize maze

Corn was important to Dolly Parton's family down there in Sevierville, eastern Tennessee - her "Tennessee Mountain Home" that she sang of. It was one of the crops that helped her Dad put food on the table for his large family.

They were not rich, as you know, but Dolly had a little dolly as a girl. Her mother made a doll out of a corn cob and used the shuck to make the toy a little dress, and Dolly was as happy as could be with that simple dolly.

All that is why Dolly was always pleased that people took the making corn mazes at this time of the year, and now, I see that many communities are making Dolly-themed mazes. In fact, as of now, the total is 20!

This is one I just read about in South Carolina, down near Enoree, with a maze in Dolly's image that was actually planned long before God called her home. And - good to hear - a portion of the proceeds will go to Dolly's Imagination Library, which gives books to kids. What could be better?

The organizers say if you don't find your way out in an hour and a half, they will send the "corn cops" in to help you out!

Lose Some, Winsome

Even if you aren't into football, just as a human being, you have to be interested in the tragedy and triumph of a young man named Tyler Loop, whose job it is to kick footballs for the Baltimore Ravens football team. 

How fast things can turn! This past January, Loop missed what would have been a game-winning field goal against the dreaded Pittsburgh Steelers. The 26-24 loss gave the American Football Conference title to the Steelers, denying same to the Ravens.

It must have been an awful off-season for Loop. How many times do you think he played out that final kick in his mind? And lots of people were screaming for the Ravens to find another kicker.

But they didn't. And yesterday, in the third game of the new season, Loop came through against the Dallas Cowboys in a game played a Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Once again, it came down to the final play, and this time, Loop made the points, hitting a field goal from 56 yards out for a 34-31 Ravens win.

They're calling it the Redemption in Rio, and I'll be there is not a happier young man in the air as I write this and the Ravens fly home on happy wings.

The whole thing reminds me of the faces of comedy and tragedy that dramatists employ to show the range of how things can go on this mortal coil. You're not meant to lose every time, and it stings when you do.

You're not going to win every time either, but it sure takes away some of that sting when you do!

 

 

Sunday Rerun: Yeah Yeah Yeah

 

Above, the picture from the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album, showing the Fab Four in the picture that led to so much speculation.  You see, the license tag on the Volkswagen parked all crazy behind the band reads LMW 28IF, which played into the rampant speculation (sparked by a bored all-night disc jockey*) that Paul McCartney was dead, slain in a bloody car crash, and he WOULD have been 28 by now IF he had lived.

Another part of the rumor was that The Beatles were dressed for a funeral. John Lennon is dressed in white, the color for mourning clothes in Eastern religions. Ringo Starr is in black, the Western funeral mufti.  George Harrison is in denim, the traditional cloth for mourners among people whose idea of a proper vacation was a week in Twitty City. And McCartney is barefoot, because in some cultures, they bury people without shoes. I am taking my fireproof Rockports with me.

Well, Paul's still around, at 77, and so is that white VW. I don't know if it's the exact car in the other picture up there, but Volkswagen took a picture of a white Beetle (!) at the same place on Abbey Road to plug their new assistive parking technology in an advertisement.

The real car belonged to someone who lived in the neighborhood and did not park so well, but they sold it in an auction in 1986, and now that car can be seen at the Autostadt Museum in Wolfsburg, Germany.


* That DJ was Russ Gibb, who took a call from someone in October, 1969. That person told him to spin "Revolution 9" on the Beatles’ White Album backwards.  The words “number nine, number nine” were said to come out sounding like “Turn me on, dead man.” Play the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever" backward and you hear John say, “I buried Paul.”

And the classic example of that puckish Beatles humor came when someone from their office called to tell Paul he was reported as dead, and the cheeky bassist replied, "Oh, I don’t agree with that.”

All this happened after The Beatles stopped covering Larry Williams ("Bad Boy", "Slow Down", and "Dizzy, Miss Lizzy") and Carl Perkins ("Honey Don't", "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" and "Matchbox") songs and began Taking Themselves Very Seriously ("I am he as you are he as you are me/ And we are all together" are actual lyrics in "I am The Walrus") which is always the part where I reach for the remote.

Did you know that if you take any Kanye West CD and hit yourself in the head with it, you will hear voices singing, "Some people will buy anything"?

The Saturday Picture Show, September 26, 2026

 

This is the gravesite of Frances Bavier, the actress who played Aunt Bee for so many great years on the Andy Griffith Show. Bee was great at everything around the house, so the one episode known as The Pickle Story (Season 2, episode 11) shows her one weakness in the kitchen: every time she tries to make homemade pickles, she gets what Barney calls "kerosene cucumbers." Fans have taken to leaving jars of pickles, homemade and otherwise, at the gravesite. I think Bee would be pleased if someone rounded up the jars now and then for the hungry among us.

Wasn't it great the other night, after the final Orioles home game, that First Baseman and Most Valuable Oriole Pete Alonso led them back on the field to doff their caps and thank the fans? No, it was not a great season, but just wait 'til next year!

Oh give me a home on the open range!

I might have to rethink my options for Halloween this year. I had my heart set on being a minion, but maybe ET suits me better...

Dig this getup for the Renaissance Fair! Maryland-themed all the way, and we DO have the coolest state flag of all!

1950 on Broadway in New York City. Right out of "Guys and Dolls" with the orange juice and 15-cent slices of pizza. 

For those of us on the city water system: the drought is forcing the city to start siphoning in some Susgquehanna River water into our spigots. So that's why, if your coffee starts tasting like Havre de Grace soon...

Baltimore City made a poor decision to sell old "battle tested" police car parts to souvenir collectors. Not wise. Someone will attach this door to their Explorer and go around playing Adam-12 one day....

Someone far smarter than I (and there are millions) will come up with the idea to sell a tin that's half Danish cookies and half sewing notions - buttons, threads, and what not. The best of both uses!

A chicken fulfilling his destiny of getting to the other side! Which is where Popeye is waiting to serve him.