Tag Archives: calvert county

8935 – Thursday

After work last night, BHK and I had dinner at the Lebanese Taverna and then went to see Talk To Me which was surprisingly better than I thought. No roles were stepped on by big names (Cedric the Entertainer had me a little worried when I saw him in the credits) Some aspects of Petey Greene‘s life were left out, but you really can only do so much in a 2-hour movie. Plot-wise, there weren’t any surprises, but the story’s path seemed comfortable with simple viability. Though it was supposed to have taken place in DC, the bulk seems to have been shot in “generic city” or indoors – I didn’t get the Capitol vibe from the location. I’m glad we opted for that over The Simpsons or Transformers… I was more in the mood for a biopic than cartoony smash-em-up or yuk-em-ups.

On the way home, BHK pointed out to me that someone stole the man atop ATW hardware… now there’s a sign. “Return the Man now – Yes it was stolen)
DSCN5901
Aww… I
hope he makes it back… I rather like the weird little dioramas up on the roof.


I discovered the Vassal game engine. That should help with development of our own games, in addition to allowing a lot of regular new ones to try! Maybe I can lure Eryx into playing Axis and Allies minis online! All of the Carcassone variants appear to be done already, too.

Other Vassal modules that tickle my interest are –


All will be sniffed over in time, I’m sure – and now, the morning brings a new day. My ride to the train station overslept, but bhk got me to the station in fine time to catch my train into the city. That’s the good thing about planning ahead and making allowances for traffic and whatnot… I’m usually in by 8am, and this way, I got there by 8:30 (the time I’m officially due to arrive.) I did miss my “arrive by 8” bus by about 10 minutes, so I spent about 20 minutes waiting for the next one. – Gave me time to take the pictures below and write the text above on my phone.

Waiting for the bus.
0802070747.jpg
0802070752.jpg0802070754.jpg
Squinty due to sleepiness and the sun in my face. I like the metro worker behind me with the long beard and short hair. The Sun was hot, and seemed overly large as it hung in this morning’s sky.


Good meeting at work today about upgrading our CMS. I like the way folks are looking to work together for a solution, rather than complain – project appears to be slated for the end of ’07, or the beginning of ’08 for testing.


Constellation Power has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to put a new nuclear reactor in Calvert county, the fourth to be applied for, nationwide, this year. There hasn’t been a new nuclear reactor built in the US since the Three Mile Island disaster, but with new tax incentives for power providers who get their applications complete before the end of next year, companies are positioning themselves to be able to take advantage of the new situation.

Are we ready for nuclear again? The US kind of freaked out after the Three Mile Island near-meltdown and the Chernobyl disaster, but with power needs proving insatiable, and with fossil fuels being subject to significant negative public attention due to global warming concerns, the timing could be ripe for an expansion of nuclear power.

Will it do anything to lower our power build? Almost certainly not. But, it might decrease dependence on fossil fuels, which can be considered a positive.


Tonight, I’m tucking in early to recoup a little extra rest.


1 year ago – paperclips, cross-dressing crooks, reading Pride and Prejudice, I predict a riot, good talking to folks, writely (now google docs)

2 years ago – sick of summer heat, paper robots!, spiffy car, where do they make balloons?, animal crackers, ADP nearly nailed, bugs bunny, heart shaped land, baron von bludd

3 years ago – sleepy, meeting, a year at current gig, 5 senses, scarecrow, codecs, game-dancing, oh danny bot, land of many colors, rain and running newtie-pic

4 years ago – bidet poll, food, vamp game, first gig paid poorly, games on the website

5 years ago – talked to rob (we never got together), baron von bludd, strange black blobs

6 years ago – rainy, Owen Ng, broken drug war link, Thunderstorm, code red, lord humongous

7 years ago – Finished HP2, started hp3, foodies, moved to the 12-8 shift at IMT Geotarget

8906 – Saturday – 07/07/07!

Today was pretty full of activity. In a nutshell: 2 more Zagat locations (Davis’ Pub was also in the guide) – Jalapeno’s (outstanding food – limited lunch menu, but the dinner looks amazing Tapas works no matter when) and Sputnik Cafe. (good cocktails and dessert, OK entrees) in between those two (lunch and dinner), we went for a little road trip to Gibson Island between shopping for a couch and our quest for Giant Diet Grape soda. Gibson Isle was a bit of a disappointment, with no Gibson girls in sight… worse yet, it was a private island, so no lookie-looing for BHK and yours truly, dear journal.

Today was the Wedding of Fred to Adam’s mom… supposedly lucky due to the 7/7/7 activity, but I don’t know… hopefully it’ll work for ’em, but the odds are rough on a couple who have collectively four divorces behind them already. Lots of fireworks due to the abundance of weddings so close to the 4th of July… we still have a boatload to set off for Louise and Adam’s B’day coming up next week.

We *were* successful in locating about a dozen or so diet grape sodas… we’ll miss ’em when they’re discontinued. There is something magical about purple soda that fizzes bright blue… and tastes really, really good for a diet drink. BHK will miss it more than I shall – I’m perfectly content with Diet Cream soda and Diet Cherry/Cola whatever. (Currently, Dr Pepper cherry vanilla is my fave, but BHK is partial to the diet cherry Pepsi) I wonder what medieval man would think of such stuff… too sweet by far, I suspect. I’m still amazed at refrigeration… the easy access to ice and cooling makes life so much more simple.

The couch-quest goes even on… the holy trinity of color/size/design continues to elude us.

Several Groundhogs sighted in the fields during the day, and many will-o-wisp dragonflies at twilight. Oh! that reminds me!

This friendly little guy was crawling up my sleeve yesterday – probably dropped on me from the shade tree. I wonder what sort of bug he is? He was pretty gigantic, maybe as long as my thumb, though not nearly as wide. I like his little “eye-spots” quite a lot… when I gently brushed him off into the parking lot, he didn’t flap his wings – just sort of plummeted to the pavement with an audible smack. I was worried he had been broken as a result, but he seemed perfectly content to walk away as we drove off in the direction of the Kwik-E-Mart.

0706071745.jpg

Since I haven’t uploaded the K-E-M pics yet, have some assorted pictures from the 4th.

Featured are – Bugah with a machine gun, assorted fireworks and the barge, Em, Jimmy, BHK and me, Adam, some wandering girls that know Jimmy and Adam, Flowers from our garden, assorted Bugah-fish-catches, and duckies. Not necessarily in that order. Also visible here.

DSCN5620 DSCN5614 DSCN5610 DSCN5607
DSCN5602 DSCN5601DSCN5700DSCN5699
DSCN5698 DSCN5697 DSCN5696 DSCN5691
DSCN5685 DSCN5678 DSCN5668 DSCN5667
DSCN5666 DSCN5661 DSCN5649 DSCN5642
DSCN5641 DSCN5637 DSCN5636 DSCN5635
DSCN5631 DSCN5624

1 year ago
– prepping for keys launch, first pirates sea monster, a Brain in a jar quoting Nietzsche to a Super-intelligent Gorilla, phone breaks, questions-meme,

2 years ago – busy, tiny text, hurricanes gone?, pedometer, one, london explosions, waterspoits, 48 questions

3 years ago – condo bid, There-updated, MORE vizcaya pictures, pelvic thrust stormtrooper, spidey2, @ poll

4 years ago – Frankie, restoration of library, lovejoy, danny, lj-interests, health, baby tats

5 years ago – Newt (jamacianjungle dreamed that she got to play with him!), palm entry, grim reaper song

6 years ago – wereturtle, moved into new place

7 years ago – wereturtle, moved into new placeGeotarget

8901 – Monday

Restless night sleeping, accidentally booted Newt off the bed once, but he stuck with me throughout the night. BHK was restless too, but I didn’t leg-sweep her out. Pye visited briefly, but high-tailed it after the barest commotion. I dreamt that BHK and I were hunting animals, tagging them for reference, and re-releasing ’em into the wild. A side effect of geocaching, perhaps?

Bugah & Neil went fishing – to no avail, as the water was too choppy.

Half day tomorrow! North Beach Fireworks are going to be something else!

via jwz – Search for Lonesome George mate is long shot

While scientists search for a mate for “Lonesome George” — the last known survivor of a species of Galapagos tortoise — some say the effort to fend off extinction may be in vain. Even if a mate is found, George has not been interested in reproducing in the past and may not know how, former keepers and others who have worked with him said.

“He has problems … he probably never saw a female and male of his own species reproducing,” said Swiss biologist Sveva Grigioni, who worked with George 13 years ago.

Grigioni, now back in Switzerland, said she could normally get tortoises to ejaculate within minutes, but spent months manually stimulating George and never extracted semen from him.


Age is not George’s problem. He is estimated at between 60 and 90 years old, and could live to be 200 and still reproduce, scientists say.

The visual differences in tortoises from different islands were among the features of the Galapagos that helped 19th Century British naturalist Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution. Since then, the tortoises have been hunted by pirates for their meat and their habitat eaten away by goats introduced onto the islands. George, who weighs 198 pounds, was found on Pinta in 1971.

Reviewing Openads for the company’s ad server for the web. it seems pretty reputable and reliable, thus far.

Fire drill this morning was a welcome break in the day – cool outside, everyone seemed laid back and calm – helped move the rest of the time that much more rapidly. the 2pm meeting went well… lots of good information for me to ruminate over the next few projects. I really dig that I’m in an environment that will allow me to use the skills I have! (Last gig wasn’t bad, but a lot of repetition. This time, there’s a lot of room for creative thought along with brute force.

Day closed with S’mores over a fire pit, some preview fireworks, and then Bugah and I played a bit of “Destroy All Humans”. Not a bad thing.

GeotargetVisitor Map

8899 – Sunday

We spent most of the day out and about, Geocaching with the Newsoms. They’re really into it, with a little over 100 finds in recent memory. It was fun tooling around a bit and seeing what’s what. I also dropped off tinkle pig in a cache… time for her to see the world. I retrieved a toy soldier cast from civil war bullets, who will ride with Bruce Moose and Gaytor until a suitable resting ground is found for him. The cemetary caches are almost always my fave – the woods were a hoot too, but ticks are a real fear for the kids, especially since Em was out sick just recently. (Heck, nobody wants lyme disease.)

A brief synopsis of Cache visits-

Dropped off placed Hula Wyvern (Travel Bug Dog Tag) in Little Southern Maryland School [visit log]
Dropped off placed “Wajima, Japan” Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug (Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug) in Little Southern Maryland School [visit log]
Found it found Little Southern Maryland School (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Parkkin Cache (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Flashover (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Can you see the ghost?! Again! (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Relaxation for Redlights (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Book Worm (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Time is the key (Traditional Cache) [visit log]

Aftwerwards, we took a quick pitstop at Aardvarks, had an ice cream and picked up kanoodle for BHK (I’m sure I’ll be playing it too.)

Spent a little more time puttering around Solomon’s Island, went to Stoneys for dinner. (their treat! yum!)

On the road between points, I got a call from my Mom, and it turns out that Bro isn’t in a work crew, but just a rehabilitation center. Taking classes, etc. Hopefully some of the lessons will stick, but if not, at least he’s out of circulation for a while.

After that, we paused at the Barker’s to water the Mom-in-Law’s plants, and to do a little dock-walking. I paused for a breather upstairs, but before I could get my nap on, Adam and Kendall showed up to say hi and to drop off some fireworks.

Man pummels vampire peacock

NEW YORK (AP) — A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a Burger King in New York City was beaten by a man who insisted it was a vampire.

Animal control officials in Staten Island say the bird was beaten so fiercely that most of its tail feathers fell out and it had to be euthanized.

The seven-year-old male peacock wandered into the restaurant parking lot and perched on a car hood last week. Charmed employees had been feeding it bread when the man appeared.

A restaurant worker says the man grabbed the bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started stomping it. She says when he was asked what he was doing, he responded, “‘I’m killing a vampire!”‘

Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them.

GeotargetVisitor Map