Fall Break Wrap-up

Thursday: Drove out to Lusby, MD to a VRBO house in the Cove Point community. Walked out to the Cove Point Beach before having dinner at Atomic Seafood (1 lb of steamed shrimp and 1 lb of snow crab legs).

Friday: Met my parents at Calvert Cliffs State Park for a 1.8 mile one-way hike out to the beach. Found no sharks' teeth in spite of grandpa's heavy-duty homemade sieves. Dinner at the VRBO home -- mac and cheese for the kids and bulgogi bi bim bap for the parents.

Saturday: Went to the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, a wonderful find. Looked at a lot of marine life, went on a pedal boat, and up into a lighthouse. Dinner at Salsa's in the evening, which was disappointing (it tasted like "Mexican food for white people").

Sunday: One last walk down to Cove Point Beach in the morning, then check-out. Biking around Solomons with lunch at Cryptic Pizza, then headed home to Sterling!

Fifteenth Anniversary Day

As anniversaries pass, and senility robs us of our wedding memories, we'll always have the photographic evidence to fall back on.

Other posts in this series: 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Sick Day

I'm out of commission with a nasty bug I caught from Ian, so in lieu of an update, enjoy this picture of the cozy beach house we'll be spending Maia's Fall Break in soon!

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2024 album.

• Events
  • Had Kenny & Sofia's family over for dinner (burgers and dogs) on S 9/1.
  
  
  • Visited the grandparents with the kids on M 9/2.
  
  
  • Family dinner at Bungalow Lakehouse on T 9/3.
  
  
  • Solo dad dinner at Local Provisions on W 9/4.
  
  
  • Date night (hike at Bazil Newman Riverfront Park followed by dinner at City Tap) on F 9/6.
  
  
  • Game afternoon with the Smiths on S 9/7.
  
  
  • Solo dad dinner at Local Provisions on W 9/11.
  
  
  • Got my COVID+Flu double tap on H 9/12.
  
  
  • Dinner at Chi & Sena's house before they leave for Abu Dhabi on F 9/13.
  
  
  • Rebecca went on a work bike ride on the W&OD on S 9/14. Date Night at Vino Bistro.
  
  
  • 45th birthday dinner at Ford's Fish Shack with the family on S 9/15, where Maia was adventurous enough to try the snow crab legs off the kids' menu.
  
  
  • Went to the HOA meeting on W 9/18.
  
  
  • Went to a brief Hampton University Marching Band performance at Park View HS on F 9/20.
  
  
  • Went to the Claude Moore Fall Festival on S 9/21, which was packed to the gills unlike the more sedate Spring Festival. In the evening, Marc and Rebecca went out for Indian food while the rest of us had Chinese at home.
  
  
  • Solo dad dinner at Local Provisions on W 9/25.
  
  
  • Rebecca took my mom and the kids to Capon Springs for the weekend on F 9/27. Solo dad dinner at Miller's.
  
  
  • Dinner with my parents on S 9/29 (boneless country-style pork ribs).
  • Doctor's appointment on M 9/30.


• Projects
  • Spent the month converting old Finale music files and purging dozens of ancient school assignments.


• Consumerism
  • Enjoying the new factory sim, Satisfactory, this month.
  
  
  • No amazing new shows, movies, or music.

September's Final Grade: A, growing old with grace and ease.

Review Day: Salute the Dark by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Salute the Dark is the fourth book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series, It is a definite high point, offering a strong, exciting convergence of all of the threads introduced so far.

Although Uctebri the Mosquito-Kinden has finally claimed the feared Shadow Box, it comes at a time when the Wasp campaign may have stretched itself too thin, undermined by personal machinations of its Generals, growing alliances in the Lowlands, and unrest in several key border cities. Stenwold Maker and his allies scatter across the world to put their fingers in different parts of the proverbial dike, hoping that the combination of all their efforts will be enough to turn the tide. Meanwhile, the tortured Tisamon strikes his own path, never certain if his so-called destiny stems from a hidden influence tipping the scales of his guilt.

There are some unusual pacing decisions in this book, with some key events essentially happening off the page or in an abrupt paragraph while other battles and duels are stepped through in exhausting detail. This makes time pass in fits and starts, but the payoff of the steamrolling conclusion (the last third of the book) makes it all worthwhile. And, while the convergence of threads and the nullification of a main threat seems at first to be too neat, the final chapter organically introduces a brooding threat without feeling like a cliffhanger.

I enjoyed the development of all the main characters, but none so much as Thalric and his volatile relationship with the Wasp Empire. Besides characters, I also liked the deepening complexity of the Wasp Empire as more than a unified monolith, and the ongoing evolution of war technology underpinning the story. I was on the fence about the series after finishing Book 2, but Book 4 cemented my appreciation ? it's definitely worth reading the first four books even if you go no further.

Final Grade: B+