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| There is going to be another presentation of the plan to extend the Little Paint Branch trail from where it currently ends on Cherry Hill Rd., near the Home Depot, to take it up the hill to Sellman Road and over to the Beltsville Community Center. I attended a similar meeting several months ago, so I don't know if this is a repeat of the same thing, or an update. I hope it's an update with good news about progress on the project. ( Here's the flier about the meeting.Collapse ) | |
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| There should be a new Aldi grocery store at the intersection of US1 and St. Mary’s Street by the end of 2013. Montgomery Road should have sidewalks, at least from US 1 to Sellman Road, but possibly all the way to Powder Mill Road. The Brickyard, which will be a “neighborhood” adjacent to the Muirkirk MARC station, should be well underway by the end of the year. | |
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| Two nice hiking trails 10 miles away from Beltsville are the Northwest Branch Trail, which is on the south side of the stream by the same name, and the Rachel Carson Trail, which is on the north side of the stream. The trail has several access points with parking. The grade change is gradual and the steam is within sight for most of the walk. Yesterday, we parked at the trail head at Burnt Mills West Park on Rt. 29 and walked west. Today, we parked at the intersection of Kemp Mill Rd. and Glenallen Ave. (there is parking for the trail) and walked east. Here is a map made with the My Tracks app for Android. I started the tracker when we were almost at the halfway point of our walk. We walked a little less than two miles, round trip. | |
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| Approximately two weeks ago, I was driving down US1 south and I needed to turn left on to Rhode Island Avenue. I noticed that the left turn signal was out. All the other lights on the same piece of hardware were working, so I assumed a bulb was burned out.
Fast forward to yesterday. I had been out of town for a week on vacation. I drove through the same intersection and noticed the light was still out. When it was still out this morning, I visited the web site of the State Highway Administration. I spent some time looking around the site and determined that the two Contact Us links on the home page, one of which is in the left column and the other is in the right column, were what I needed. The links lead to a form that goes through the usual types of communications SHA receives. Reporting a burned out bulb was easy to find. I received a confirmation e- mail regarding my submission at 8:37 a.m. I received a "case closed" e-mail at 1:37 p.m. I drove back through the intersection on my way home from work and had a look at the light. In fact, it was repaired.
I'm not sure what to think about all this. Was I really the only one to complain about a left turn signal at a fairly major intersection being dark for at least two weeks? My husband thinks the light had been out for three weeks. For the record, I am NOT faulting SHA for not knowing the light was out. PG is a big county. My husband and I both have "routine maintenance" involved with our jobs and I am very sympathetic to the fact that we actually need and appreciate people who let us know that something isn't quite right. I guess it's possible that I was the first proverbial squeaky wheel. I have considered that SHA had it on a To Do list and just didn't prioritize it until someone hollered. I'll never know the back story.
The turn signal will probably be working when I drive through the intersection tomorrow. There is no sense in jixing the situation by declaring that the light IS fixed and working.
According to the National Weather Service, there is a 70% chance of a thunderstorm tonight and "some storms could be severe." | |
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| "Why you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder!"
"Who's scruffy-looking?"
―Princess Leia Organa and Han Solo | |
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| The McDonald's on US1 in Beltsville, across from the Chestnut Hill shopping center, has been torn down. The corporation must own the land. Even the foundation is being rebuilt.
The storm of Friday, June 29, 2012, hit Beltsville hard. There was no tornado, but the destruction was equally unpredictable. My parents, who live on the border with the town of Adelphi, lost power for a week. I live in the Calverton neighborhood, and we never did lose power.
Today has been consumed by wondering about the difference between influence and power. | |
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| Mary Lehman will be at the Beltsville Academy (the elementary school) on Wednesday, March 7, from 7 - 9 p.m. The title of the meeting is "Planning 101." She will review several projects in District 1 which are currently under review by the Prince George's County Planning Department. Have you ever seen those orange and white signs announcing an upcoming planning board hearing? Those are the kinds of things she will be talking about. If you are interested in planning and zoning matters, I recommend visiting PGPlanning.org . I think it is nicely organized. I saw a sign for an upcoming planning board hearing about a property across the street from High Point High School, so I visited the web site to try to find more information. I was able to find it easily. It turns out the American Legion owns the property and they want to build 17 townhouses on the site. Three acres will be set aside for a new building in which the American Legion and the homeowner's association for the townhomes will meet. | |
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| I recently read an article on Lifehacker.com about a browser add-on called Do Not Track Plus. I decided to go ahead and install it, just to see what it is all about. I've kept an eye on the little box on my menu bar that shows how many trackers have been blocked. Guess what web site has a high number of trackers? Livejournal. I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep the add-on installed. I just revisited the Lifehacker article this morning. There are several good suggestions in the comment section for avoiding trackers. The main change that I have made in my Internet use lately is that I sign out of web sites, instead of staying logged on to them as I surf the web. | |
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| My cat is sick.... again. We came home from work today and he had barfed all over the place. We regulate how much food he gets, so I'm not even sure how he managed to hit so many different places. We have made the decision to keep him downstairs, basically for the rest of his days. It's a large area and we are down there a lot of the time, so it's not like we are shutting him in a closet. He's 15 years old and we're not sure how much longer he will be with us. He made it through a vet appointment last Wednesday, at which Dr. Prowell gave him a shot of anti-nausea medication. She said he didn't have a fever and she didn't feel anything unusual in his abdomen, so that was that. I feel terribly guilt for thinking this, but I wish she had felt something. I can't justify euthanasia if he's just an old cat with an upset stomach.
The decision of when to "let go" of an older pet is so hard. | |
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lavidamd
