After finishing strong in the boys' 3200 meter, Kyle Graves looks over his shoulder for the competition. The Good Counsel runner won the boy's 3200 at the Lake Braddock Invitational with a time of 9:17:33- beating second place Colin Taylor of West Springfield HS by over 15 seconds. Lake Braddock Invitational, Springfield, VA, 4/16/2010
Many, many track & field photos to go through from last night’s portion of the Lake Braddock Invitational this weekend– but here’s a fun one.
Although rampant antisocial flamage is probably the biggest reason more blogs are disallowing comments, spam posting is definitely in the running. Both are symptoms of people not having infinite hours in the day to police an increasing population of spammers and trolls. A comment on my most recent blog post- consisting of one photo of a bird in a bush:
“I enjoyed the article and thanks because of posting such valuable confabulation improved of all of us to conclude from, I stock up it both cost-effective and communicative and I method to established it as commonly as I can.”
[spamdunk]
That sentence doesn’t even mean anything! Even if it were a rough translation from someone struggling with English- it still wouldn’t mean anything!! I refuse to give the poster even negative press by identifying them, or copying the linkback in the post. But I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about comments here.
I’m really happy for comments and discussion on my blog- criticisms, comments, discussions are more than welcome! If you’ve something to contribute, and you happen to link back to your site, that’s one thing. But bots randomly spewing out word clusters in hopes of bumping search enging ratings, all the while adding nothing constructive in return, are going to create a toxic environment here pretty fast.
Currently, I’m trying to take the middle ground by moderating comments from new posters. Akismet has been great about nabbing the spam to date. Unfortunately, this means your comments may not show up with the blazing speed that makes the internet so attractive. I’m not moderating for pro- or anti- opinions, just for clear and unabashed spam. Thanks for your understanding. I’d like to thank the Academy and Akismet for wordpress for bringing this particular literary gem spam comment to my attention.
A northern mockingbird feasts on berries from ornamental bushes planted in a storm drain island. Mount Vernon Square shopping center parking lot, Alexandria, Virginia
blue house
When a house is foreclosed–
or abandoned–
or just plain unwanted—
nobody shovels the front walk.
When only one house across the street from us was empty, it was a bit easier to go around with the camera and shoot foreclosures as it is now that there are two empty houses facing us- the whole process is a lot harder, with it emotionally closer to home.
This particular house hasn’t been lived in since 2002, when it was purchased by someone who tried to flip it- but failed spectacularly. It has since changed hands several times. A property search through the county web page shows the current owner as a bank in Florida.
Some shots from the Maryland side of Great Falls, at the Chesapeake and Ohio NHP.
With all the rain and meltoff, the Potomac river's pretty high and fast right now.
Mather Gorge, below the falls. Still plenty of evidence of river churn
I spent some relaxing time sprawled out on a rock in the sun. Nice of the moss and lichen to share!
Along the canal between locks 17 and 18- This great blue heron spent some time staring down the "Big Eye," aka my 80-200mm zoom.
My most surprising sighting of the day was this little bat, flitting back and forth along the canal. I can only guess looking for the bugs, but it's really not been warm enough for them, yet.
Here are a few more shots from December’s blizzard- finally enough snow on the ground to take the cross-country skis out!
Two days after the snow, the trail into Huntley Meadows was packed and icy. A whole lot of visitors came through the park, both big and small.
Temps in the morning were in the low teens, it didn't get out of the 20's all day.
Once I got off the main trail, there was a nice cross-country trail beaten out by skiiers before me. The deer liked it, too.
Silver beech trees hang onto their leaves as long as possible, they look so lovely in the snow!
Pointless bench
luminous beech leaves
Oh- is THAT what happened?
With it getting up into the 50′s and a clear sunny sky this morning, we thought it would be a good idea to get outside, and get some sunlight on the back of our retinae, and hit the trail around Huntley Meadows Park.
King Rail near the boardwalk
At the visitors’ center, we added our log of a king rail sighting to several others. Whether the other entries referred to this one or a friend, we have no way of knowing. But clearly, it’s ‘king rail’ week at Huntley Meadows!
Running around in what seemed (to us) to be a completely random walk- I'm sure at least it knew what it was doing.
And a shout-out to the crew at the Computer Learning Centers Partnership in Hybla Valley- we found your geocache!
CLCP Geocache
Record snowfall for the DC area in December today. The former record had been 12″, informal readings in my yard were almost 19″ at around 4:30pm.
19" or so inches today.
You say there’s a car under there, huh?
Hmm.
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