Monday, January 26, 2026

Harper's Ferry, West Virginia



First picture is looking roughly east into Virginia and Maryland.  Third picture is Jefferson Rock, visited by Thomas Jefferson himself.

Sunday, January 11, 2026

Inside Ravens Stadium


A relative got some tickets for a PR event at Ravens Stadium.  I've actually never been there, even for a game, and it was a fun time.

Kind of a curveball blogging-wise, but interesting to see the operations of a place like this.

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

South Mountain National Battlefield



The Battle of South Mountain was a series of engagements that took place just before the Union's costly victory at Antietam to the west a few days later.  It's a nice little park but maybe not the best example of a walking battlefield.  (Try Antietam!)  It also overlaps with the Appalachian Trail.

Marty Supreme: Wut I Thunk (Spoilers)

Timothy Chalamet is great as a 1950's ping-pong hustler who dreams of something greater.  The script doesn't do him favors though, as this thing is way too long.  Tyler the Creator is also great in support.  The thing this ping-pong movie needed though?  More ping-pong and fewer shootings and stabbings.  It really didn't need a body-count in general.

Three wooden, not foam, paddles out of five!

Monday, January 5, 2026

"words that bloom forth like flowers"

"They arrive unperceived at first, and the children
 Rush toward them, but the joy is too bright, too blinding, 
And man shies away, even a demigod hardly knows
 What to call them, they who approach him with gifts.
But great is the courage they bring, their joys fill
 His heart, he hardly knows what to make of this wealth;
He fiddles around and he wastes it, almost thinking the unholy holy,
 That which he kindly and foolishly touches with his blessing hand.
The heavenly bear this as much as they can; but they
 Themselves then come in truth, and men grow accustomed to joy
And the day and beholding those manifest, the faces of those
 Who were named long ago the One and the All, and who
Filled the silent breasts deeply with contentment so free,
 And were first and alone to satisfy every desire.
Thus is man; when the wealth is there, and a god himself
 Provides him with gifts, he won't see it and remains unaware.
First he must bear it; now, though, he names what is dearest,
 Now he needs words, words that bloom forth like flowers."

Friedrich Hölderlin, Bread and Wine stanza 5, trans. Nick Hoff