Sin City Band plays Killens Pond State Park

Above: the Sin City Band as they appeared when I first met them.....

Stevie and Scott..a Delaware Institution! :-)
The "Sin City Band" old pals from Newark "days of yore", played the Killens Pond Free Concert Series Friday evening. Highlight of the evening: while chatting with Stevie "the Wonder" Hobson, a tall, stately gentleman with silver hair approached. "Hey Stevie, remember me? I was in "Rodney F" (one of the infamous dorms at U. Del.) For a split second I was 19 again. "Of course I remember you!" said Stevie. As did I, the man had fond memories of the bands first gigs at the long defunct Glass Mug Restaurant on Main Street...circa 1976, the place where I first heard them play while waiting tables as a young student. The 70's. Those were the days! Sadly, a few band members have changed through the years, but Scott Birney and Steve Hobson are hanging tough. You can listen to Scott's weekly "Roots" folk WVUD radio broadcast here. (Fridays from 9 - 11 am) A second generation spin-off from the band, The Spinto Band, has become "kinda" famous. You can read more about them here. :-)

Can this guy from New England play a fiddle or what? I wish I'd brought my video cam...

Tony on bass - replacing Bobby Bloomingdale. The newest member of the band....

Happy members of the Dover Air Force Base chapel.


"Dancin with his darlin'"

Horseshoe Crab Love

While out searching for a few select rocks on the shore of Port Mahon "beach" on Delaware's Atlantic coastline, we were instantly overcome by the nauseating smell of rotting, dead horseshoe crabs.
"The horseshoe crab is a 'living fossil': forms almost identical to this species were present during the Triassic period 230 million years ago, and similar species were present in the Devonian, a staggering 400 million years ago. Despite their common name, they are not crabs but are related to arachnids (spiders, scorpions, ticks and mites), and are presumably the closest living relatives of the now extinct trilobites"

There were thousands of the prehistoric creatures still alive on the beach as well, many spawning, some struggling, upside down, trying to right themselves before they become a meal for a hungry seagull or albatross. It is an interesting sight to see, appearing as so many discarded Nazi WWII helmets that have floated ashore after losing some huge battle.

This one got me a prize from U.S. Dept. of Fish & Wildlife! It is part of their conservation tagging program. You call in the tag number to the phone number shown and on the tag and they send you a certificate telling where the crab was originally tagged and released and a gold horseshoe crab pin! I am now officially a horseshoe crab supporter!

A Bird's Eye View of St. Michael's

Black Bird on Sailboat by Janelle Jones - St. Michael's, MD

"EXCEEDED DAILY LIMIT, ONGOING PROBLEM " Life Goes On In Coastal Delaware Despite 1000's of pounds of Valero's hazardous Sulphur Dioxide Spews

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is reporting a release via the Delaware Environmental Release Notification System.

On May 28, 2009 at 8:30 AM there was a release involving Greater Than 500.00 LBS of SULFUR DIOXIDE into the air from Valero Delaware City Refinery at 4550 Wrangle Hill Rd in Delaware City.

This chemical or substance is considered to be hazardous by the EPA.

This incident is currently under investigation by DNREC.

For more information concerning this incident, contact PAUL CLAUSSEN at 302-834-6252.

This is the final report on this incident.

Comments:
EXCEEDED DAILY LIMIT, ONGOING PROBLEM

Livingston Taylor Coming to Avalon Theatre in Easton

Livingston Taylor
May 29

A sublime guitarist and vocalist, Livingston (brother of James) shows the musical skills didn’t fall far from the tree! A crafty songwriter, he blends folk, pop and rock with great humor.

If you've never had the chance to see him, this is a great deal at only $35

www.livtaylor.com

Faux Fire Inspector Arrested at Smyrna Opera House

Here's a weird one! WTF was he doing, looking for the best places to set the place on fire or living out some phantom of the opera dream? Scary stuff here!

Townsend man charged for firefighter impersonation

SMYRNA, Del. (AP) Delaware State Fire Marshals have charged a Townsend man with impersonating a Smyrna firefighter.

Chief Deputy State Fire Marshal B. Scott Bullock says 19-year-old Shawn Evans is charged with criminal impersonation and criminal trespassing. He was arrested Monday and has been released.

Bullock said Evans told workers at the Smyrna Opera House he was there to inspect the fire suppression system. Evans allegedly dressed himself in fire department apparel.

But opera house officials notified the state fire marshal's office who began an investigation.

Evans doesn't have any local fire company memberships.

Information from: The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal, http://www.delawareonline.com

Emergency Management is "Nice", But So Are My Eardrums (what is left of them)

After what seemed an interminably long day ( 6 hours total round trip) stuck in Baltimore beltway traffic in the freezing cold rain I finally made my way back down Rt 13 to Kent County, Delaware. As I decompresssed and tried not to skid into a tractor trailer on the slick, rain drenched road home, I thought to myself..this has been one of the absolute most stressful days of my life. My head hurt. My neck hurt. Oh man, I thought. This weather isn't for beast or man. I'll be glad when this day is over! And then IT HAPPENED. A siren went off. Oh my god! What is going on? I looked in back of me. A few cars started veering off to the side of the road, and so did I. Suddenly, I realized this was not a normal, everyday siren. My ears started to hurt. The sound was beyond anything I had ever heard before. It was deafening...all encompassing. I felt my brain was rattling. I lost sensation in my body. I began to panic.. "Oh my god!" I thought. "This is the Salem Nuke Siren! This is it! What am I going to do?" I looked around and realized...no quick exit out of here dude! There was nothing TO DO! *#^%! I resigned myself to the searing pain in my ears and to whatever was about to happen next. This, all in the matter of seconds. Then, just as suddenly as it started, the siren stopped. Wham! Silence...or more like a dull ringing. I was in stunned pain and disbelief. I was on the side of the road now, and looking to see what other people were doing. They were continuing on their way. Wow! I wondered...was I the only one who heard this so loudly? I called my husband, who was en route behind me by about ten miles. I said "a siren just went off louder than I have ever heard! My ears hurt! There has got to be something wrong! It sounded like maybe the nuke plant siren or something! What's going on...can you call someone and find out?" He promptly made a call to someone he knows at DEMA. Sure enough! Typical of my luck I just just happened to be driving by a Delaware emergency Management siren in Middletown just as they were conducting a quarterly annual evening emergency siren test. Gee, wow! So at least I have my explanation! That sucker really hurt! I am surprised that in all my years I have never had the pleasure of that experience, and I am wondering how others who live close to it deal with it. Surely the wildlife near that siren are blown off their perch and deafened. But I shouldn't whine, as this is supposed to be a good thing, to help people in case of an emergency, right? The only other thing I have in my life to compare with this is the night in 1979 I got lost on the Harrisburg, PA beltway while en route to visit a friend in Clarion, PA. Just so happens it was the same exact time of the partial core meltdown of Three-Mile Island! Only back then, there were no sirens. On my loved ones graves, I am not making this up! Is someone is trying to send me a message from the great beyond or am I just lucky?

So, let me see if I understand. According to what I have been told, should there be a nuclear emergency at the Salem, New Jersey Plant, the 135 decibel siren will sound for three solid minutes. If you live within earshot of this siren during said emergency, I believe there are two things you can count on. !) You will most definitely have major permanent hearing loss, and 2) you will be so close to the radiation spilling out of the nuke plant that the only thing you can hope for is to swallow some Potassium Iodate (aka Iodine) pills), try to get in your car and drive due west as fast as you can (which I am guessing will not be very fast as thousands of other people will be trying to do the same thing) So what is the point? Alternately, you could bend down, place your head between your knees and kiss your *%$ goodbye. Man, I don't mean to be a downer, but if my ears weren't still smarting from that siren I guess I wouldn't be quite as crabby. Such is life in the nuclear age, right? I guess that is why I look with such longing at paintings of people and places from the Victorian era. But of course we all know they had their own existential demons.