The best thing about Ocean City, Maryland is the old-fashioned boardwalk at the south end of town. The boardwalk stretches for over 30 blocks, long enough that a little train rolls up and down to accommodate who can't - or don't want to - walk.

The boardwalk features every kind of delicious junk food: candy apples, floss, fries, caramel corn, ninety-leven kinds of ice cream, saltwater taffy. You name it; they've got it, from funnel cakes to fudge.

At the end of the… Read More

We had guests staying with us at the beach this weekend, so I decided that we would have a cookout on Friday night instead of eating out at one of the overpriced, under-delicious restaurants in town.

Everyone loved the idea, and then I panicked, because cookouts actually mean cooking out, which means that I would have to cook, or do some reasonable facsimile of cooking.

What to do?

I chose a simple menu. I decided on hamburgers, potato salad, green salad, corn… Read More

I'm currently hanging out in Ocean City, Maryland enjoying the salt air and ocean breezes with Joe and three of my very dear friends.

I am relaxed and happy - but how else would I feel? After all, I'm in my favorite place in the whole entire world, surrounded by some of my favorite people in the whole entire world. We're eating and drinking and walking and lying on the beach and cooking out and talking and most of all, laughing and laughing and… Read More

I've been taking advantage of three days of free research from Ancestry.com. This web-based service enables you to construct your family tree. It's free to join and to construct your tree, but to do deeper research you must subscribe.

Luckily, I had enough information on my ancestors that I was able to find a lot of fascinating family data. Most of my hits came from the census records that Ancestry.com has scanned and stored.

I printed records from the 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910,… Read More

When I was little, I was fascinated with the commercials for Dove soap, because it seemed to me that anything that contained "one-quarter cleansing cream" had to be a good thing.

Well, I've grown up, and so has Dove.

Recently Dove came out with a new skin care line. They're using a clever marketing technique - rather than call a line for women over 40 "anti-age," Dove is turning the idea on its head and calling it pro-age.

I… Read More

Yesterday I helped feed hungry families.

How? Along with a group of my colleagues, I spent the afternoon at the Capital Area Food Bank, the largest non-proft hunger and nutrition education organization in the DC area. The food bank collects, sorts, and distributes over 20 million pounds of food to the hungry in the area. Where does the food come from? Grocery stores, growers, retailers, and food drives are just some of the donors. The food bank then supplies food to homeless shelters,… Read More