Ticket to Ride

Sarah and I have been treating our chilli peppers quite badly of late. On cleaning the deck, we left them alone in the garden just below the deck and forgot about them for a month.

It turns out that the plants do better away from our careful green fingers. Before moving the plants back, we were amazed to find our best crop of chilils yet:





Last night, we had some of these in our burgers. I wonder if this strategy will work with other plants in future?

We also played a game of ticket to ride whilst watching some movies last night. It was close, but I pulled ahead with 10 extra points, based on some risky additional routes at the end of the game:

San Diego

I headed out to the West Coast this week, for a conference in San Diego. After the rain, it was great to be in a place full of sun. I decided to stay on East Coast time, and found myself getting up early and going for a run at sunrise, when the city was very quiet:




I also took the city tram to explore a little :



I got back home Wednesday, and after recovering, Sarah and I went toDC to see the Lego exhibit at the Building museum. It was cool!

Then came the Rain...

After the earthquake and the hurricane, then came the rain. This week it rained, a lot.

On my way home on Thursday, I have never seen so much water falling out of the sky. I made it as far as our road in my little Fit along the main roads, going through ever bigger puddles following SUVs and hoping Tribble could make it. As I drove up our road, just by the school, I realised one of the drains had blocked, with road ending results:




I saw an SUV get through this, but the water completely covered it's wheels. Tribble would probably not have been a happy car in these situations. So, I parked in the school, got out my brolly, and walked the rest of the way.

On my way, I saw evidence of a drain that was still working:



Luckily, most of the rain was on the roads or running into storm drains, so I made it home safe (but bedraggled). Once the rain stopped, it cleared up pretty quickly, we think it was just raining so hard the drains just couldn't take the flow.

After this, we were further thwarted today as our kayak rental place by the lake was closed for flood repairs!

Cleaning the Deck

This long weekend, Sarah and I did some exploring of local towns, looking at Havre le Grace, by the Cheasapeake mouth, and Newmarket just down the road. In Havre, we found a really cool comic/toy figure shop, and loads of antique places.




We also cleaned our deck this weekend, sanding the worst bits and scrubbing off much of the grime and dirt. This was well timed, as the rain is currently washing away the cleaning solutions and grime. Once it dries, we will seal it, and hopefully can leave it for some time!

Hurricane Irene (Mk 2)

It was a gusty and rainy night as the hurricane came past us to the East, but we awoke with power, lots of leaves and small trees strewn on the ground and about 2 inches of rain from the night:



I went on a run this morning, and some of the trees around our lake are down, but mainly it's only branches and leaves that have fallen. Here is a photo off one of the trees by the lake, which the storm snapped in half:



It's still raining some, but this afternoon is forecast to be lovely. Now we are left with the happy task of eating all the food we panic bought as the hurricane approached. French toast and bacon this morning!

Hurricane Irene

It has been an exciting week in Maryland. We had a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia, and I am writing this as Hurricane Irene works it's way up the East Coast.

Both Sarah and I felt the earthquake, and there was a significant amount of shaking, but it luckily did very little damage.

We have spent the day doing DIY and watching the weather channel as the hurricane moves up the coast. It should pass to the east of us, with strong winds on the coast. We're currently watching our local news, and a poor reporter at Ocean City being covered in an awful sea foam, which they definitely didn't have in Virginia.

It's raining here at the moment, but not too hard. Here's a satellite, picture from the weather channel:

Ticket to Ride

Today, Sarah and I played Ticket To Ride, the railroad building game across the US. You have to plot connections between cities to achieve certain long range routes.

This was our first game, I was Blue and Sarah Black. It was close, but I was lucky to complete the Portland to Nashville route and win. The game would have been different if I didn't find out where Nashville was just before the end.