Faster, better…Pedaling as fast as I can.

This is a photograph of the rare Neeld Estate Maryland Garden Rabbit in it’s natural surroundings. This one thinks he is invisible and I’m Jimmy Stuart. He’ll stick around and chat.

Marylanders Unite to boycott Terra Kettle Chesapeake Bay and Beer Potato Chips.

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Of course, someone had to complain. Next thing you know, the Gideons will be arrested and then raided.

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Best Blue Crabs in Maryland

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The 4th of July celebration has come and gone. A parade and a BBQ and games for the kids. A fun time was had by all. The neighborhood descended on Pat’s house. Our old location is now occupied by a new home under construction. The only disagreeable bunch this year were the purple martins who were more than a little upset all the humans had surrounded the bird house.

Old acquaintances were renewed and new friends were met.  The kids had a  blast with the three-legged run, the egg toss, and the piñata.  Some of us got some sun and stuck our toes in the Bay, others enjoyed the shade of Pat’s hideaway. That’s Pat on right, she rocks! I recognize Jean in this shot. She’s here with the Captain, Captain Buddy and his grand daughter. 

Now these two were discussing something important I’m sure. Maybe they were planning a ride in the golf cart around the beach or perhaps a trip to the Smith’s who own the old Odger’s place to pick wild flowers.

Our oldest visitor Vicki was 93! She was living in the neighborhood when she gave birth to Sue on the right. That’s my Eileen in the middle. The gals are swapping stories about Vicki’s ride on the jet ski when she was 90.

The big guys like my neighbor and I hung around the hot dog stand. There were plenty of condiments. The weather cooperated this year. The thunder and lightning happened about six hours later and it wasn’t too hot or too cold.

We all a blast celebrating our country’s birthday at Neeld Estate, in Calvert County, Maryland.

Resting up from the 4th.

More of the same at 1030AM EDT, July 5, from network Solutions. Philippine call center is intractable. They refuse to just deal with a complaint. I have to have the entire event repeated back to me while a script is read. This is the worst customer service I think I have ever experienced.

This was the response received yesterday. I believe all NetworkSolutions did was  wait for the server load to go down on this account without even considering my complaint that service to all of my domains using a database has suffered all week and on and off for MONTHS:

Dear Douglas Smith,

We apologize for the inconvenience you experienced yesterday regarding slow response times of your hosting account 00478A8.NETSOLHOST.COM and reported through 1-348827615.

Our engineering staff addressed the issue yesterday afternoon and we have verified that the loading times of your website have returned to normal. Thank you for your patience while we worked to address your issue.

We hope this update has been helpful. However, if you have any additional questions, or feel that the issue has not been completely addressed, please do not hesitate to email our Technical Support Department at technicalsupport@networksolutions.com or call us at 1-866-391-HELP (1-866-391-4357). If calling from outside the U.S. or Canada, please call 570.708.8788. Please refer to Service Request 1-348827615 when contacting us about this matter.

Sincerely,

MOHAMMED005

Network Solutions Technical Support

—————————————————————————-

I am supposedly a gold something-or-other customer that is supposed to get better service. All that really means is that they are poised to sell me more services. I wouldn’t consider purchasing additional services until they get their act together. These folks just do not seem to get it. So I log another case 1-349092928. Everyone in the USA is on vacation this weekend of course.

I truly believe that my advertising income on all of my sites is down at least 60% because of the loading times casued by Network Solutions engineering of theior SQL server mysqlv1 but even talking business or money doesn’t seem to matter to these people. I cannot for the life of me understand how a company like this stays in business while it claims to be a number one provider of web hosting services!? How have they reached that conclusion?

Sphere: Related Content

We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but there has been an internal server error. Please click on the back button to return to the former page.

These are caused by the database failing to respond. I have a call in to Network Solutions to find out why. Call number 1-348827615.

This has been an issue for months, especially this week. Your patience is appreciated.

Last fall, 13 young lives were lost in Charles, St. Mary’s and Calvert counties as a result of motor vehicle crashes. Serious teen driver crashes in Southern Maryland continue to occur more often than in other regions of the state.

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Maryland police said three teenagers were caught stealing signal horns from freight trains because they were using two-way radios to carry out their raid.

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Dominion Virginia Power is planning to raise customers’ rates, and utilities in Maryland and D.C. are cutting off electricity to a growing number of customers unable to pay their bills.

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A how-to on picking a Maryland blue crab, from a Baltimore native.

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See you in Santa Rosa, CA at the NoGraf Conference at the end of July. NoGraf was kind enough to invite me to this year’s event. I’m truly looking forward to it. Visit http://www.nograffiti.com for more conference information. I hope the City of Pleasant Hill and Concord will be there!

Starting Monday, Maryland will enforce one of the strictest child-passenger safety laws in the country, requiring children as old as 7 to be fastened in booster seats while riding in cars. The current state law requires children 5 and under to be in a child safety seat.

(Now don’t get me wrong I applaud the new law but it goes a long way toward illustrating a point I have made about Maryland’s approach to traffic safety. Maryland would rather mitigate the carnage than deal with the reckless aggressive driver. Adults vote, seven year old kids do not. It is easier to write a ticket for the seven year old  not in approved car seat than to put a middle-class mother or father in jail for reckless endangerment of a child in a vehicle. We see it everyday in Maryland. Looney mothers and fathers driving well over 70 with little Johnny or Mary in the front or back seat. The officers that write these seat citations will become the new heroes. They still will not have to write citations for the proximate cause of injury. Injury might even go down and statistically Maryland will look squeaky clean until the next highway crash caused by an aggressive driver. Driving in this state is a hell of  a risk but we all have our air bags, seat belts and kids  in car seats. If they can’t hurt us we can drive as we please right?)

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Policymakers entrusted with the decision on how much motorists should pay in tolls to use roads in Maryland and Virginia do not need to worry that they will ever be subject to tolls themselves. The controversy erupted last month when the New York Daily News reported on the lifetime toll-free E-ZPass transponder for New York and New Jersey…

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Washington Post article on the rise of catalytic converter thefts. Thieves are after the platinum metal plates in the devices. Thefts have happened all over Maryland including Calvert County.

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Senator you rock! I always wondered if anyone in Annapolis was paying attention to the little guy. I mean the middle class that ARE PAYING the bulk of ALL of these increases in property tax and sales tax. Where is all of the cash going Senator? Why is my familiy required to have fiscal discipline and the Calvert Commissioners and the state none?

http://www.stopmarylandtaxhikes.com/

Visit the Senator’s page and stand with him on this!

Just giving everyone who hunts at Brownie’s Beach…Calvert Parks…I had my passenger side window smashed in on 3/31 approx. 3pm when the kiddies get home from school…I saw the trash that broke my window (2)boys 15-17yrs old…a dark haired short runt & a taller lanky punk wearing a cap…both dressed in their newest gangsta clothes…

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People interested in Viking history and sailing take a voyage on the replica Viking longship called the Sae Hrafn, which means ’sea raven,’ from Calvert Marina on Solomons Island, Md.

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Tailgating in Maryland seems to be a state sanctioned sport. Citizens and police both do it. When was the last time you saw a driver with FP or FOP plates obey our traffic laws and how many times have you seen an MSP officer tailgating the driver in front of him without activating emergency lights? It’s perhaps why we only see radar traps and heavily choreographed sobriety check points instead of a real effort to deal with adult aggressive driving. We obfuscate traffic enforcement with the elements of it that make us feel good without putting the real culprits behind bars. We do what’s easiest in Maryland.

Driving to the Eastern Shore today was not a pleasure. It was dangerous. The ONLY police we saw were two Calvert County Deputies holding a radar gun in the median outside Chesapeake Beach. On the Bay Bridge we watched clueless idiots honking and speeding through a confusing UNMARKED bridge approach and toll exit. On every highway we were harassed by aggressive drivers. The ONLY exception was the community of Tighlman Island where everyone seemed to drive in a very respectable fashion.

Maryland is doing a lousy job dealing with aggressive driving. Tailgating is indeed a state sport! It might even be an Olympic event someday the way things seem to be proceeding.