Warning in Baltimore

Well, that was a heck of a trip. I spent the better part of a week in Baltimore tracking down ancestral information for a client. No, I don't usually hire out my services for genealogy studies but this one piqued my interest. If the right relative was found then my client could have claimed a nice piece of land. As it turns out, I was unable to do so although I had a nice tour of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. I even hunted down an old birds-eye view map of the city from 1870 and got a great glimpse of the old Madison Avenue Grounds baseball field. Of course, that inspired me to catch the Red Sox - Orioles game that night. It was like Fenway Park at Camden Yards! A horde of Red Sox fans were there... but I digress.

Before I left, I was feeling a bit discouraged so I walked down to the site of Edgar Allan Poe's grave at Westminster Hall. I walked the entire ground and witnessed an interesting collection of people. Two men were sitting on a grave marker eating lunch and two other men were traipsing around the small cemetery with expensive video camera equipment. A small family stopped in at the Poe monument and make a quick exit. I approached one of the crypts, noting the rusted keyhole in the iron door. I reached my hand out, tempted to touch it when one of the cameramen called out, "I wouldn't do that."

I spun around and he approached me. With a tripod slung over his shoulder he whispered, "If don't know what you're doing, you don't want to make the spirits restless. Behind me, a tree branch fell to the ground just in front of the crypt's door. I jumped and stared at the keyhole, again tempted to touch it.

The cameraman walked off shaking his head. "You've been warned."

Rain Out

It drives me nuts when the Red Sox get rained out but it drives me absolutely insane when a Red Sox - Yankees games gets rained out. I'd made a mad dash to get home, too, burning through a couple red lights just to get back home and catch the game. What a waste of traffic violations.

Under normal conditions I would have gone to Tanner's but I need to take an important phone call at my house. It's one of those calls in which you don't want the person on the other end hearing the ambient noise of a bar in the background. No, I really don't want to go into the nature of the call at the moment. The loss of the game is enough.

I can't even take Alex out and toss the ball around for the time being. It's raining here as well but I was holding out that it hadn't reached Boston. That was silly of me. So... I spent some time in the Sox chat room coming up signs to make for Johnny Damon should we get lucky enough to make it to a Sox - Yankees game this year. A few of the guys came up with some really good ones, but I think a sign showing how much money he's made over the years would be appropriate. Really, when you've made millions upon millions of dollars how many more cars do you need? Well, Coco is younger and seems to have a nice upside to him. We'll see how it pans out.

Ah, there's the phone...