A note to my fellow journalists across the country: Stop with the cicada noise, already. I'm amazed—and I'll also admit a little bit embarrassed—by the attention my online, print and broadcast colleagues are giving to this year's brood of cicadas. I'm beginning to wonder if the first over-the-top cicada story of the year came from The Onion and no one caught on to the satire and repeated the story—there seems to be a lot of that going on lately. As I've read alarmist story after alarmist story, and heard alarmist broadcast after alarmist broadcast, I kept telling myself, "Someone will come …

Did you know the Baltimore Blast is headed to the MISL championship series for the third year in a row, and that championship series begins Thursday? Neither did I. (Until, obviously, I received the information via an MISL press release). So I'm sitting here, feeling sorry for the Blast, a team that routinely makes the playoffs and has five MISL championships to its name. The team's most recent title came in the 2008-09 season (no having to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the most recent championship for this team!). While the Blast lost in the finals in 2011 and 2012, this is the sixth …

Baltimoreans are famous for going into panic mode at the mere mention of the word "snow." The battle cry of "milk, bread, toilet paper" is heard across the land and hoards descend upon local grocery stores, wiping shelves clean of the time-honored storm staples. Sometimes it actually snows; sometimes it doesn't. But that's not the point. Folks were prepared to defend castle and family; the homestead would stand to see another day. Patch associate regional editor Bryan Sears provided me with a hardy laugh-out-loud moment today when he posted on Facebook a picture of three lawn chairs staked …

I'm an avid reader, and during the winter months I can chew through one every couple of days. I just finished Deep South, an Anna Pigeon mystery by Nevada Barr. Long a fan of Barr's work, I was pleasantly surprised to find the book in a bag of books given to me recently by my friend, Sandy Becker-Thorn. Barr, a former National Park Service ranger, sets her Pigeon mysteries in national parks in which she has worked. As a former recreation and parks professional, I enjoy that connection. My reading aside, Baltimore County Public Library officials have recently released the system's most …

I love Christmas music and I'm not ashamed to admit it. And I'm not a Christmas music snob—I listen to it all. I have some very musically inclined friends who are a little snobby about their music; if it isn't classical music or traditional folks songs from across the globe, it's junk as far as they're concerned. Me? I like it all. And I get to indulge in it all this time of year, thanks to radio stations that play Christmas music around the clock from before Thanksgiving to just after the big day. I listen to a Baltimore station at home and a Washington station in the car, so I get a fair …

I realize I'm getting older—I get slapped in the face with that hard, cold truth every time I pass a mirror. And I realize that death is an inevitable part of life. But I'm no more prepared to be losing members of my high school class at the age of 55 than I was at the age of 18, when Carol "Shelly" Schreiber became the Kenwood High School Class of 1975's first member to slip the surly bonds of earth. Less than two weeks after the graduation speeches that included the typical "the world is your oyster, the sky's the limit, win one for the Gipper" sort of inspiration, Shelly was gone. It was …

The Wendler brothers of Edgemere are at it again. Scott and David Wendler, who live next to each other on North Point Road, have been making the neighborhood smile for years with their creative and extravagant yard displays that pay homage to a variety of holidays throughout the year. In May, I published a picture of the "Endless Summer" car, laden with every piece of summer and beach equipment known to mankind, that ushered in Memorial Day weekend. In the many years that I have paid attention to the displays, Scott and David have built a movie theater (complete with a box office manned by …

Neither my heart nor my sleep patterns can take too much more of the heart attack baseball being played by the Baltimore Orioles. But that said, I get a lump in my throat everything I simply think of the fact that the Birds are still playing baseball on Oct. 12. Who would have thought it at the beginning of the season? On April 10, I published a column about the clean slate that every new baseball season presents to all baseball fans, but especially to the long-suffering fans in Baltimore. I wrote about the promises made, year after year, about this year's crop of youngsters, and the fan …

Dear Dundalk Patch Readers, Effective today, which happens to be my one-year anniversary with Patch.com, I am taking the first vacation I've had in that year. I will be out of the office until Monday, Oct. 8. In the interim, if you have any Patch requests that need immediate attention, please email Associate Regional Editor Sean Welsh at sean.welsh@patch. com. In my absence, I would appreciate it if you keep being the fabulous Dundalk Patch supporters that you are. Keep reading, keep posting your Calendar of Events items, announcements and photos, and keep sending in news tips. I'll return in…

Today is the first day of school for most local K-12 students. To make me feel even older and more removed from my own school days, I did a little math. Today's new freshmen are members of the Class of 2016. Today's new kindergartners are members of the Class of 2025. I don't know about you, but when these kindergartners graduate, they will do so 50 years after I graduated from high school. It just doesn't seem possible. I have a relationship with my school days that I'm sure many—if not all of us— have. Some school memories, including some from first grade (I'm so old my school—Mars Estates …

One year ago today, a 5.8 earthquake centered near Richmond, Va., affected much of the East Coast. You don't need me to tell you that East Coast earthquakes are quite rare. Yet we've had two in the past couple of years, and I missed them both. Sort of. The first one, a couple of years ago, came and went with the explanation that the tenants on the second floor of the building I worked in were doing some work. Only after it was confirmed as an earthquake did my colleagues and I say, "Oh, so that's what that rolling thunder-like noise was." Last year's event, which was confirmed as a 5.8 …

In case it snuck up on you (or you didn't know about it in the first place), let me be the first to tell you that today, Aug. 10, is National S'Mores Day! I was rather disappointed to learn that S'Mores Day is not on my company's official holiday list, but there's always time to lobby for that. In case you were never a Girl Scout, or never went camping, a S'More is a confectionary treat made from graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate bars. The usual technique is to roast the marshmallow over a campfire, and then create a sandwich with layers of the gooey marshmallows and a few chocolate…

I have to admit I've been pretty much glued to the television coverage of the London Summer Olympics. I've been buying print copies of newspapers— something I admit to have basically stopped doing, as embarrassing as that is, given my profession— and I've been surfing the Internet in search of the quirky, the obtuse, the fun, the satirical and the funky of Olympic coverage. And there's plenty of it out there. Want to see a gallery of the tattoos of Olympians? Here you go. Pundits have offered up their casting choices should the life of Michael Phelps ever make it to the big screen (though I …

I've never been a celebrity groupie and I've never really idolized anyone in the public arena. And the older I get, the more I realize I've never heard of most of the new pop culture "celebrities" being talked about in the news and entertainment world. But when I heard that artist LeRoy Neiman died last week, I instantly thought of my brief encounter with the man who once chatted with me for about 10 minutes as if I was the only person on the planet. And, I'm ashamed to say, I had that conversation not knowing who he was. The scene was the 125th running of the Preakness Stakes in 2000. I was …

I'm a big fan of the philosophy of "you won't know unless you ask." On Tuesday, I was doing some advance coverage of Wednesday's shipment of cargo cranes to the Seagirt Marine Terminal—an action that would temporarily close the Bay and Key bridges to traffic. The m/v Zhen Hua 13, sitting low in the water and loaded with four, 14-story, state-of-the-art cargo cranes, was scheduled to arrive at Seagirt late Wednesday afternoon. Members of the media were invited to the marine terminal to get the story, and were also encouraged to gather at Sandy Point State Park to shoot photos as the ship …

In the name of public service, I thought it was important to let you know that today is National Donut Day. I apologize for the late notice, but you still have several hours to celebrate—and I'm sure that no one will be offended if you have your own personal nod to the doughnut with your Saturday morning coffee. As frivolous as National Donut Day sounds on the surface, the recognition is rooted in something quite serious, according to the National Donut Day website. Donut Day was started in 1938 by the Salvation Army to honor the women who served donuts to soldiers during World War I. …

I've been enjoying what I think is a greater number of cardinals this year than I recall seeing in past years. And because of some behavior I observed earlier this month that piqued my interest, I have actually done some reading about their habits and mating traditions. I was photographing a male cardinal that was feasting at a feeder in a friend's backyard. He would eat for a moment, fly off, then come back almost immediately and repeat the cycle. At first, I thought my presence at the sliding glass door was making him skittish. Then I wondered if perhaps male cardinals assist in raising the…

  It's an extremely busy time of year, with proms, weddings, picnics, cookouts and any number of outdoor projects vying for our time and attention. Most of us are booked to the hilt, and few of us need anything extra thrown at us. Teachers probably feel the strain more at this time of the school year than any other time, so I wanted to make sure I thank the kind and dedicated folks at Dundalk Elementary School. When I announced that I would publish Mother's Day essays contributed by Dundalk Patch readers, I also thought it would be great to involve local students in that effort. A friend put …

Now that baseball season is in full swing, Dundalk native Nancy Cook wants to paint the town orange. Recognizing how important the "12th man" is to the Baltimore Ravens, the longtime baseball fan wants the 10th man to step forward and embrace the Baltimore Orioles will equal love and enthusiasm. She wants her beloved boys of summer to feel just a small slice of the love shown for the Ravens. And she wants that love to be showered upon the Birds sooner rather than later. "I want to start Orange Wednesdays," she told Dundalk Patch. "The Ravens have Purple Fridays, and I don't want to interfere …

Ah, early April—the one time of year when Baltimore Orioles fans can (usually) say the team is in the hunt. For at least the past 15 years, the promise of spring and the results of "winter rebuilding" are all we Bird fans have had to hang our baseball caps on. We've heard it all before—the stories about rebuilding, about rosters filled with "youngsters," and about how, this year, things really will be different. I half-listened to the opening day game on Friday, but made it a point to get up from my desk and watch as the team was called out onto the field. Without exaggeration, I recognized …