Features (All)

Article - News; by Ashley Brotherton - 12/13/12

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match

AACo connects families in need to people who want to help

What if you could see the child’s face light up when you drop off a new toy? Or watch the worry slip off the faces of a family when you deliver a Christmas dinner they weren’t sure they were going to have? The Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services’ Holiday Sharing Program has been matching people who want to help families and seniors during the holidays for 32 years. Tanya Steele, the special program and volunteer coordinator...

Article - News; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 12/13/12

Lost and Found

The rediscovered Chesapeake woodcuts of Eastport’s Philip McMartin

When Philip McMartin arrived in 1963, Annapolis was still a watermen’s town with workboats coming and going. The 33-year-old journalist-photographer-filmmaker-sailor had fallen under the spell of the water, which drew him to Eastport, where he and his wife and four children lived a stone’s throw from Back Creek. McMartin was fascinated by the rugged independence of life on the water. He carved images of Chesapeake watermen, skipjacks,...

Article - People; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 12/13/12

Dispatches from the Coldest Capital in the World

Leon Tucker’s tour in Mongolia has him longing for Southern Maryland’s balmy winters

To step out into December’s minus-20-degree weather, Leon Tucker layers up “in bundles and bundles” with long underwear, thermal sweatshirts, camel wool socks and a North Face parka. This is not what he meant back home in Deale when he called himself “an outdoors person.” Mongolia is not what Tucker’s mother, Kathy Norris, imagined for the son who always dreamed of travel. “I thought he was going to take off,” she says, “...

Article - History & Lore; by Steve Carr - 12/13/12

When Marvels Appear

A winter’s wind blows water from the Bay, revealing relics from the past

On a cold winter day, with a stiff northwest wind blowing the Chesapeake Bay south toward the Atlantic, 11-year-old twins Cole and Wyatt Greene stumbled on a strange sight as they explored the exposed mudflats of Herring Bay. Buried in the mud appeared to be the remains of an old ship. A really big ship. The two boys announced their find to their mother. Back they ran with an iPhone and tape measure to record the shipwreck. It measured a whopping 129 feet by 25 feet. Nearby...

Article - Creature Feature; by Michelle Steel - 12/6/12

This Week’s Creature Feature ... Tundra Swans Arrive

These long-distance travelers migrate from the Arctic for our mild winters

The swans have landed. In November, tundra swans succeed osprey as Chesapeake Country’s big new birds. The snow-white swans average four feet in length and weigh between 13 to 20 pounds. Tundra swans travel over 3,000 miles from above the Arctic Circle in Canada and Alaska, where they make their nests and babies. Upwards of 95,000 tundra swans winter in the relative warmth of the East Coast, from New Jersey to...

Article - News; by Ashley Brotherton - 12/6/12

Father Winter Is Coming

Get help with your bills as winter blows in

As the temperature goes down, utility bills go up. The Anne Arundel County Community Action Agency wants to help. The agency helps eligible Anne Arundel Countians pay utility bills. The state is the ultimate source of funding, so you’d be getting a bit of your taxes back. Cierra Fisher, the outreach coordinator, got so few applications from Southern Anne Arundel County that she did a little investigating. After a few trips down Rt. 2 to talk with...

Article - News; by Ashley Brotherton - 12/6/12

The National Weather Service Wants You

Help map out long-term climate changes

Calling all wanna-be weathermen: You can help measure long-term climate changes with 11,000 wanna-be weathermen across the country. The National Weather Service is looking for volunteers in Calvert County’s Dunkirk area to take daily maximum and minimum temperatures and measure rain and snowfall. The Service will train and equip you. The Service has collected 120 years of data to help understand floods, droughts, heat and cold waves. The data you...

Article - News; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 12/6/12

121212

Time’s End? Or a New Cycle’s Beginning?

If you’re nervous about numbers, the combination coming up this week could give you quite a scare. So portentous is this once-a-century triple 12 that it might — or might not — coincide with the end of the world. Or was it 122112 when time stopped on the Mayan calendar? Cross-cultural shaman Paul Sivert of The Shamanic Healing Institute in Savage, Maryland, puts a more positive slant on that coincidence of numbers. ...

Article - People; by Michelle Steel - 12/6/12

Christmas Tree Roundup

Mike Callahan’s Chesapeake Driftwood Tree

Mike Callahan was searching for creative ways to trim his Christmas tree this year. The president of the Southern Maryland Audubon Society wanted a unique, nature-themed tree that he created with his own hands. When a friend suggested using what Chesapeake Bay had to offer, Callahan hit the beaches, hunting and gathering for his creation. At home, he put his hands and mind to work. Sticking with his nature theme, Callahan’s bird and owl ornaments are threaded with...

Article - News; by Michelle Steel - 12/6/12

Anne Arundel Robots Battle by the Bay

Students compete at the Battle by the Bay FIRST LEGO League robot tournament

atch robotic teams in action — applying science, technology and quick thinking — at the Second Annual Battle by the Bay FIRST LEGO League robot tournament on Saturday, December 8, in the Center for Applied Learning and Technology at Anne Arundel Community College. Students and their Mindstorm robots compete from 1:30 to 3:30pm with awards at 4pm. An international program founded by LEGO and technology entrepreneur Dean Kamen, inventor of...