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Archive for May, 2008

The PopularWireless.com ship watchers AIS page now has a seasonal view of Delaware bay. Be sure to check it out.

I’m not sure why but the blog is not being crawled by the google bot. I’m not indexed. Some of my static pages are but not the blog.

When driving Anne Arundel County roads this Saturday afternoon we were annoyed by the usual high number of aggressive tail-gating morons that consider themselves immune from traffic laws. It doesn’t matter that you are going the speed limit and or a few miles an hour above it, you’re ruining their day so they are going to ruin yours.

Aggressive driving is pandemic in Maryland. We live with this everyday on every highway on every street. It is part of the culture here. Something that truly surprised me after moving to Maryland from California in 2001. Manners do not exist on Maryland’s roads. Safety is irrelevant. When people get into cars they consider themselves immortals.

What’s worse is the bizarre priority law enforcement places on radar enforcement. There were TWO police professionals in patrol cars running radar just before the traffic circle in Deale, MD this afternoon. Their position there just made no sense at all given the horrific safety violations I saw traveling the back road from Galesville to Deale. Where the heck were these guys when… Radar doesn’t worry me since I go the speed limit. I also ignore the tail gaters much to their chagrin, but I am sure these guys got their fair share of average Marylanders and none of the aggressive drivers that deserve tickets for aggressive behavior. No that takes real work.

I didn’t see one patrol officer going after aggressive drivers. Not one. I just saw two officers taking the easy approach to traffic safety at the radar speed trap. The speed trap they probably justify with statistics and traffic studies. I still maintain that despite their studies and priorities the people that drive with wanton disregard for the safety of others are not necessarily the ones driving a few miles per hour over the speed limit. The drivers that are unsafe are the aggressive drivers of which Maryland has more than its fair share a number of which followed me home that afternoon less than a car length from my back bumper at the speed limit.

I can tell you what we did see this afternoon in addition to a speed trap. At about 4:15 PM on eastbound MD Route 2 we did see a Maryland State Trooper a car length or less away from an innocent Marylander going the speed limit. No emergency lights. He just maintained that familiar intimate driving position with which we have all become so familiar.

Tail gaiting and aggressive driving is accepted behavior in Maryland. Speeding tickets are probably just a necessity to justify the existence of a traffic squad.

(At least since September 2008 we had heard that Topside closed. The latest word as of February 9 is that a new restaurant and bar will be reopening March 6 under new management and with a new name. Port Side Restaurant is casual dining down stairs and a fun upstairs deck bar with a key west flair.)

My wife and I took my sister to the Topside Inn and Restaurant, across the street from the famous Pirates Cove restaurant in Galesville, MD on Saturday May 26 during the long Memorial Day weekend. It was Linda’s 50th birthday.

I wanted a place that was unique to Southern Maryland and I wanted to eat outside. It was a glorious day. The Topside is in a very old structure. Parking is a bit tough after hours but this afternoon we found a spot in front. Walking in the front door you negotiate floors and steps that leave you wondering if you actually had learned to walk. I suppose the building’s age adds character to the experience, but please watch your step!

We were greeted immediately by a smiling waitress ready to seat us in the dark restaurant and TV bar on the first floor. I asked if there was a seat upstairs. Much to my amazement the waitress seemed discouraged and handed the menus to my sister who had walked in ahead of me and said,”Take these upstairs and they will seat you up there.” The waitress shrugged and pointed saying, “Go go that way. Around the corner.” A tall young man also working in the restaurant responded to the confusion. He took the menus and walked us upstairs. He turned us over to Sarah.

Sarah seated us in the outside deck area with a view of the water between Galesville and Shadyside. At that point the experience improved and we relaxed. Sarah took extraordinary care of us during our lunch at the Topside. I’d recommend it to anyone. We had a chance to observe the other wait staff upstairs and were very impressed at the way they kept customers happy.

My wife and sister had soups and large seafood salads. These were not tiny little salads with a few pieces of fish or crab. These were BIG salads. Each of my guests were very satisfied with their meal. I had the corn beef Reuben with optional onion rings. My sandwich was a little wanting on the corn beef and a tiny bit too oily for my taste but it was good. I’d give it a B. The onion rings were an A+ so the experience averaged out well. We completed the meal celebrating with vanilla ice cream sundaes smothered in butterscotch sauce. Sarah took the obligatory fiftieth birthday pictures.

The restaurant wasn’t crowed since we arrived well before the regular dinner rush. A few minutes before we left a guitar player/singer arrived to entertain everyone. We were not sure what he was playing just that it was rather depressing music and a little loud for us. We did in all fairness tell him when he asked that we had an open mind as to our taste in music, Well almost anything.

We didn’t order alcohol with the meal. The meal before tip was in around $65. A shade more that you you pay at the new Pantera Bread in Prince Frederick with a whole lot more ambiance. On a scale of one to five the Topside gets a four for lunch and we will be back for dinner someday and ask for Sarah. Sarah rocks.

Topside Inn And Restaurant
1004 Galesville Rd
Galesville, MD 20765
Phone: (410) 867-1321

…or at least slowed down just enough to become a pain. (mysqlv1)

Both DougWeb and PopularWireless are facing DEAD SLOW mySQL server problems again. Third weekend in a row. The AIS page looks like it can’t accept new data. Attempts to repair tables on that small database took quite a while – waiting on the database IP to finish whatever it was doing. An attempt to optimize the largest table in the PopularWireless database produced the following:

Error

SQL query: Edit

INSERT INTO `pma`.`pma_history` (
`username` ,
`db` ,
`table` ,
`timevalue` ,
`sqlquery`
)
VALUES (
‘popwireblog’, ‘wp_popwireless’, ”, NOW( ) , ‘OPTIMIZE TABLE `wp_wassup`’
)

MySQL said: Documentation
#2006 – MySQL server has gone away

So your property taxes are through the roof. Expenses are up. Life is more cautious as pennies are pinched. But then the county you live in spends a bunch of tax dollars on fireworks to open a campground in the neighborhood next to you. The transients that live there are having a nice display on your dime. Calvert County Government has NO spending discipline. Taxes and spending are out of control in Maryland and not a soul seems lit up about it except me?

Looking at the AIS screen today I see that the tall ship Pride of Baltimore is over in Cambridge, MD. Seeing a tall ship is always a good thing. You can keep track of the Pride II at her website: http://www.pride2.org/index.php and you can watch her go down the Bay on your computer at the PopularWireless AIS website and at Chesbayshipping.com!

Second weekend in a row. Database applications using the mySQL 4.0 server are toast and the SQL 5.0 server is slow as molasses.

PopularWireless Blog, BBS, and the AIS MAP are down as of 7AM Sunday. I have family obligations that I cannot cancel so I am going to send Network Solutions an email and alert them. They took 48 hours to respond to me the last time.

Woo hoo! Gold VIP program!