Go get 'em Terps!

Maryland vs Duke, ACC Tournament Semifinal. At stake is a berth in the championship game on Sunday but more important for Maryland, a trip to the NCAA's is on the line. Maryland beat NC State and Wake Forest so far in the tournament to get to the semifinals. After the Wake game I've been online reading a bunch of folks who say Maryland (20-12) is in the big dance. I'm not so sure, so a win over Duke would be huge.

The Terps are in the ACC Tournament Semifinals for the first time since 2004, they have the talent to beat Duke and either North Carolina or Florida State in the title game. Doing so means they pop that "tournament bubble" they are on and they'll kick the damn NCAA Tournament door in as ACC Champions. They can do it! Believe Terps!

What A Busy Saturday!

Beginning at 9:30 AM today we took Benjamin to see horses at a field near our church, the library, the park and McDonald's for lunch. After a two hour nap, we went to a 4th birthday party for one of his day care pals at a bounce place. After that we went out for a nice, quiet dinner. Monday Benjamin is trudging and playing through show and a few days later he's running around in 70 degree weather. Hopefully Spring will be here for good soon. In less than a month Benjamin starts outdoor mini soccer. We got a little practice in today at the park.










"Push me higher Daddy!"






A little dodge ball action


Yes, the shot dropped!


He's a righty.

George Pelecanos: The Way Home

I was surfing around Amazon.com tonight looking for books for Benjamin when I saw that one of my favorite author's George Pelecanos has a new book called The Way Home coming out May 12, 2009. Amazon didn't have a description of the book so I surfed around and found this on VJ Books.

How far will a father go to save his son? That question is the beating pulse beneath George Pelecanos's spectacular new novel.

When Thomas Flynn leaves his son, seventeen year-old Chris, at Pine Ridge, a juvenile prison near Washington, D.C., his heart is broken but his mind is made up: Chris will have to pay for the mistakes he's made. Inside, Chris is exposed to kids from a different D.C. than the comfortable one he knew-- one less remote from the street fights, car chases, and marijuana deals that got him here in the first place.

A decade later, Chris and the friends he made at Pine Ridge seem reformed. Chris has a job, thanks to his father, a girlfriend, and his own apartment. But when he and the others are inadvertently caught up in a burglary, old habits and worse instincts rise to the surface, threatening this new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With the drama, compassion, and urgency for which Pelecanos is celebrated, The Way Home travels the streets of Washington, D.C. and tells the story of its people, and the tensions that always linger just out of sight, circling back again and again to that clapboard house on Livingston Street where Thomas and Chris Flynn's rocky relationship moves from distrust and scorn toward a flawed, but real, redemption.

George Pelecanos website.

City Paper A Pelecanos Dictionary: Coming to terms with D.C.'s most site-specific author

Enjoy!

March 2, 2009 Snow Day

Yesterday was a snow day for Benjamin and Weena and here are some shots Weena took of Benjamin enjoying the day outside.

February 1979 Snow Storm

A friend from high school on Facebook mentioned the President's Day snow storm of 1979 so I did some digging in the archives and came up with these shots I took.

If I can recall correctly we missed a weeks worth of school.

Washington Post Weather Gang talked about it last year here:
Huge Snowfall Shuts Down D.C. Area


From the front porch. Great sledding on Corbin Drive that week!


Dad, after telling me the "Our schools never closed" and "I had to walk ten miles to get there in a foot of snow" speech that every Dad told their kid ;)

I think he closed with "put your @*#&^@ camera down and get out here now."

Dad's 44 in this pic and I was 17 then.


From the driveway.


Here's our back yard. I think I had some beer stashed in the bushes