Atholton High School Soccer

My daughter is once again playing on Atholton High School's junior varsity soccer team. She played well (left photo) in the team's first three games and scored goals in each victory including a header against Howard High (right photo). The soccer program had its annual "play day" Saturday morning, Sept. 12th. Players from both the boys and girls teams, junior varsity and varsity (above photo), played 7 vs. 7 games all morning. Each team had players from all four school teams. There was a wide range of skills and sizes, but the ball was passed around to all the players, and a good time was had by all. At the end of the morning, the parents got to show their moves (at least what was left of them), and played the high school players to a nil all draw.

End of Softball

The last game in 2008 for No Mercy, Building 2's coed team in the GSFC Slow-Pitch Softball Association, was Monday, August 4th. In some ways it was a disappointing year with many games missed due to rain, schedule byes and a forfeit. Because of a shoulder problem, I only played one game, and it seems unlikely that I will play next year. On the other hand the team did avoid being "mercied" (the other team scoring 10 runs in an inning) for the whole year, and new players were added to the roster. As in 2007, after the game we went to Side Pockets to celebrate another season.

Rafting Down the Lower New River

On the weekend of July 12th, 2008, I went white-water rafting on the Lower New River near Fayetteville, WV. The trip was engineered by MD (initials only on this blog), who convinced 15 of her friends to join the expedition. She also set me up with three people who were leaving from Columbia and had room for an additional person (me) in their van. "Claire", our virtual navigator with the sultry British accent, guided us down I-95, around "Interstate four hundred and ninety five" and toward the far reaches of Va. We had a good time on the long ride, but for some reason the van liked stopping at every Sheetz convenience store along the way.

We used North American River Runners, Inc., for the trip, and everyone camped out at their headquarters in Hico, WV (Marker A on this interactive Google map). This was my kind of camping --perfect weather, drive right up to the camp site, hot water showers, and a restaurant. For only $10, they would even set up a 2-person tent for you. All it lacked was a liquor store. Fortunately others had anticipated this possibility and were quite generous with their provisions. We were entertained at night with shadow shows on the side of a tent featuring someone's toes.

The next morning we packed up, grabbed a helmet, paddle, and life jacket, and rode in a large bus (left photo) across the New River Gorge Bridge (Marker B) and down into the gorge to the river (I believe near Sewell -- Marker C). I believe the altitude is about 550 feet (old topo map). The area is part of the New River Gorge National River (map that identifies Class III (definition) and above rapids). There was a large crowd of rafters where we disembarked (right photo), but at about 10:15 am it was our turn to go. Ominously there were about a dozen buzzards watching us from a large tree on the other side of the river. Our group of 16 was in two large 8-person rafts (plus the guide) like the one in the foreground of the right photo. The raft that I was in also included the three people that I drove down with and MD. I think only MD had ever been rafting before, but fortunately the guide (the tall man with his back to the camera toward the left of the right photo) knew what he was doing and carefully explained what we should be doing. Each rafter sat on the edge of the raft with their feet wedged under one of the inflatable tubes running across the raft. This made it easy to paddle while still being well connected to the raft. The weather was pleasantly warm, and there were enough clouds to keep us from getting baked by the Sun. I took my (very) old digital camera along in a dry bag, but only risked taking pictures a few times on the river (when there were calm stretches). KJ brought a waterproof camera, and it had to be fished out of the river once by our guide.

The first large set of rapids (Upper Railroad?) was real exciting, and at one point most of the people on the right side of the raft were thrown over to the left side. At the time I was thinking that this could be a long trip, but looking back I suspect that we simply were not quite ready. After a while, it became a standard joke as we approached more rapids to tell people to stay on their own side of the raft. Before we entered a rapid the guide would always tell us which direction to swim if we fell off. Fortunately no one in our raft ever did, but we did see two people fall off rafts going through rapids, and one large raft flipped over. A guide also fell off.

The front car is the most exciting position when riding roller coasters, and the same is true for rafting. Instead I sat in the back left of the raft where no one could easily check how hard I was paddling. For some reason, the right side of our raft was by far the wetter -- only one big wave came over the left side of the raft. Surfing was an interesting, unexpected part of rafting. After going through a rapid, we would turn around and paddle back. There is a quasi-stable position just downstream of the rock that obstructed the flow of water.

About noon we stopped for lunch at the side of the river. The guides provided cold cuts for sandwiches, salads, and cookies. Lunch also provided the opportunity to take a few photos. It took two attempts to get the group photo to the right. In the first attempt, the person taking the photo thought that she took 3 pictures, but actually was not pressing the shutter button hard enough. Fortunately someone wanted to look at the pictures and discovered there weren't any. The right photo is actually the 6th pose, and people were beginning to act up.

Although the rapids provided the thrills during the trip, most of the time was spent just floating down the river. We really did not paddle that much. In several of the stretches between the rapids, we were encouraged to jump off and float down the river near the raft. It was great fun, and in a couple of places you could even float through wimpy rapids. The water was surprisingly warm, but still refreshing.


Toward the end of the trip, our guide suggested that someone "bull ride" the final set of rapids, and we volunteered MD. Holding a rope attached to the front of the raft and sitting precariously on the front (like the person in the right photo), she rode into the rapids. Fortunately she had the good sense to fall back into the raft instead of forward into the river.

Near the end of the trip we floated under the New River Gorge Bridge (HDR photo), which we had crossed several hours earlier. It is an amazing structure whether viewed from its deck or from the river 876 feet below (right photo). When finished in 1977, it was the longest steel arch bridge in the world, and it is still the second highest vehicular bridge. It is closed to traffic the third Saturday in October every year for the New River Gorge Bridge Day party. Last year 155,000 people showed up to watch BASE jumping (YouTube video) and rappelling down the bridge. For comparison, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk draws about 50,000 people.

Just downstream from the bridge, a large rock provided an opportunity to jump into the river. It seemed like a good idea in the raft, but not so smart from the top of the rock. Since there is no easy way back down the rock, in you go (right photo).

We left the river a bit downstream of the large rock and piled into another bus at about 2:30 pm. We had traveled about 6 miles on the river and dropped about 300 feet in altitude. With fortunate timing, it started raining very hard just as the bus headed up the side of the gorge and then back to the campground. After a quick change into dry clothes, we started the long trip back to Maryland.

Field of Sheets

In honor of (energy) Independence Day, the citizens of Columbia, Maryland, decided to dry their sheets and blankets using solar energy on the shores of Lake Kittamaqundi near the Town Center.

Field of Pipes

While riding past Howard Community College today, I saw an interesting collection of pipes (lower photo) in a pit next to a large building currently under construction. I later saw the sign (above photo) on the other side of the construction site announcing this as the Medical Pavilion at Howard County. The new building at the right of the photo is between HCC and Howard County General Hospital. The pit has been dug (the dirt is in the background), and the large plastic pipes nearly cover the exposed area. All the black pipes are connected on the right side. The yellow and black pipes are carefully aligned, but not yet connected (the merging of two photos creates what appears to be a bend in the pipes). The pipes have been partially covered with gravel, and the large pile of gravel toward the left of the photo suggests that the pipes will be completely covered with gravel later. The pipes are made in Winchester, Kentucky, by Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc., and shipped as half-cylinders so that they can be efficiently stacked.

When I returned two days later, the pipes were almost entirely covered. I now believe that this is an elaborate drainage system (e.g., a weeping tile as suggested by BP). There appears to be a storm drain in the far right corner of the field with a concrete silo leading down to the pipes.

Goodbye for a Year

One of my co-workers will spend the next year at NASA HQ as a detailee -- essentially a temporary work assignment. To mark this occasion properly, the usual crowd took her to lunch at Sir Walter Raleigh and then shared a few drinks after work at Chevy's. In addition to those in the picture, at least six other people stopped by to wish her well.

Atholton High School Graduation 2008

Atholton High School's 2008 Commencement was on May 22nd at Merriweather Post Pavilion (left photo). My son was one of about 300 students celebrating their graduation from high school by walking across the stage to be congratulated by Janet Siddiqui of the Howard County Board of Education and Atholton's principal Marcy Leonard (right photo). He not only got his diploma (lower left photo), but was recognized the previous day for his participation in First Robotics and the Atholton Robotics Club (lower right photo).

Atholton High School Botball 2008

My son's high school, Atholton High, competed in the Greater D.C. Regional Botball Robot Tournament on May 3, 2008, at Ritchie Coliseum (left photo) on the U. of Maryland College Park Campus. There were about 50 teams -- mostly from high schools in the region, but also a few from middle schools and clubs. The goal was to build two robots (or in a few cases only one) from a kit of parts that would autonomously knock some pieces off the table and move other pieces to the desired part of the table (right photo). There was a story about a solar flare endangering the space station, and the robot has two minutes to deploy (knock off the table) the satellites (blue cups) and solar sails (little paper umbrellas), move the crew (orange poms) to the orange square, and the plants (green poms) to the green square. The robot can also connect the two modules (tables) by setting up the pathways between them (knock down the hinged pieces of wood). Before the match, the students set up the robots in the proper position, and then had nothing to do during the match except possibly catch a robot falling off the table. Turning on two light bulbs signaled the start of the game. (As a result no flash photography was allowed, which led to rather long exposures of about 1/15th of a second for my photos.) There were three seeding rounds in which only one team was on a table, and then double elimination rounds in which two teams competed in a head-to-head match. The first Atholton team (with mostly seniors) had a series of problems and lost their first two elimination matches (left photo). The second team (with mostly juniors) only built one robot, but it would consistently deploy all the satellites and solar sails and move all the crew and plants on their side of the table to safety (right photo). They won their first two elimination matches. The right photo below shows the board at the end of the second match. Note that there are no cups left on their (right) side of the table, and all the poms have been moved to the squares. They eventually finished 6th.

Swift Team Meeting

Note: Location markers can be found on this interactive Google map.

The 2008 Swift Team Meeting was at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (Marker D) on February 4th and 5th, and it was followed by a UVOT team meeting the next day. This post chronicles my after-hour activities. I took a non-stop flight from BWI very early on Sunday, February 3rd, to allow some time for exploring the Las Vegas area. I had originally planned to leave a day earlier to spend a day in Zion National Park, but after monitoring the temperatures for a while, I decided that it was likely to be too cold to enjoy Zion. At check-in I managed to change my seat to a window seat in front of the wing, but it was cloudy almost all of the way to Las Vegas. The clouds finally lifted as we crossed Lake Mead, and there was a brilliant rainbow all the way into the Las Vegas Airport. The photo was taken about 10 miles NE of Hoover Dam looking NW (Marker A). Las Vegas was at the edge of a powerful storm crossing Utah that caused scattered showers in the area (snow on the local mountains) and high winds that closed the airport for a few hours after I landed.

It was Super Bowl Sunday, which is a big event in Las Vegas, but the Strip was pretty quiet as I drove up to the Treasure Island Casino to pick up tickets to Cirque du Soleil's Mystère show for Tuesday night. Conveniently, all the big casinos offer free self parking as an inducement for gambling. I had no interest in gambling, but I was eager to try the thrill rides atop the 1,149-foot Stratosphere Tower. A call to the hotel revealed that only one ride was operating, and worse, when I got there, all three rides were closed because of the wind. I then checked into the Alexis Park Resort Hotel (Marker C), which is located between the Strip and UNLV on Harmon Ave. With a few hours of daylight left, I headed toward Hoover Dam (Marker B) . Heightened security at the dam since 9/11 has reduced access, but I managed to park just across the dam on the Arizona side (left photo) and walk across the top of the dam back to the Nevada side. There is a large band of lightly colored material all around the edge of the lake (visible in the above photo of the rainbow) that is the result of decreased snow in the Upper Basin of the Colorado River. The water level has not been this low in 40 years. Downstream is the start of a spectacular bridge (right photo) over the Black Canyon section of the Colorado River that will be the key element of the Hoover Dam Bypass. The two pillars in the photo support the deck of the bridge, and the start of the long arch across the canyon is at the base of the pillars. When finished in 2010, the new $114-million bridge will be 2000 feet long and tower 900 feet over the Colorado River about 1600 feet south of the dam (picture). As dusk fell, I headed back to Las Vegas in time to watch the end of the Super Bowl in the sports betting arena at the opulent Bellagio Hotel. There were hundreds of people jammed into the large room with enormous monitors covering one wall and the lines on all sorts of exotic bets on the Super Bowl covering another wall. People were screaming during the final game-winning drive by the Giants, and the crowd went nuts when Plaxico Burress caught Eli Manning's pass in the end zone to win the game (YouTube video). The casinos lost $2.6M because too many Giant fans bet against the heavily favored Patriots. After the game I toured the luxurious hotel including its gorgeous (photo) Botanical Garden. I finished the evening by catching one of the free circus acts (a woman on a ring hanging from the ceiling) at Circus Circus and then a quick run to downtown Las Vegas for the Fremont Street Experience.

I made a second run at the Stratosphere Monday evening. A call to the hotel revealed that two rides were operating, but again when I got there all three were closed. Later that night I made it to the coaster at the New York New York Hotel about 30 minutes before it closed. Normally your ability to ride a coaster is limited by the long lines, but here the frequency was limited by the short lines because the coaster would not run until there were 10 riders. I quickly realized that skipping the first opportunity meant that I could have the coveted position in the front car on the next run. I didn't realize that the next ride would require a wait of about 30 minutes. I declined a rather personal offer from another rider to trade seats and enjoyed a good ride with a spectacular view of the Strip.

Tuesday night four of us went to see the 9:30 show of Mystère. We got there early enough to watch the goofy Sirens of TI pirate show outside the hotel (Marker E). Mystère (YouTube video) was wild and wonderful with all sorts of strange things happening in a beautiful setting. After the show we walked across the street to the luxurious Venetian Hotel to have a drink. We missed a chance to get into the Tao night club without waiting in line, but we enjoyed some refreshments outside the Tintoretto bakery (photo) on a faux Venetian street complete with a painted sky. We skipped the gondola rides, but it was a fitting end to a strange trip.

New Year's Eve Party

We spent New Year's Eve hosting a party for our daughter and about 25 of her friends. Many of the girls showed up early to help prepare for the party and pose for the usual pictures.