"Delawarisms" Get Some National Attention

One of the blogs of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has a piece today on some of the linguistic tics unique to Delaware's political scene. The blog, The Thicket, selects a few bits from a post this week by proto-blogger Celia Cohen on her Delaware Grapevine.

In Leg Hall Lingo, Celia offered a brief glossary to help watchers of Delaware's political antics keep up with the local dialect. Many were words and phrases familiar to legislature-watchers everywhere, but a few were new to the NCSL writer, including "Thurman's Office," "Body Parts People," and the "Big Head" committees.

The legislature is a community unto itself and, like any community, it has its own customs, its own norms and its own language. Ours is not the only one with its own words, The Thicket offers a neat little lexicon: Sine Die and Other Vulgarities.

RIP: Mayor Al Stango

I've lost another Mayor, I'm afraid. Al Stango, who led Lewes for (I think) 24 years, passed away over the week-end at age 93. We lost Mayor George Smith, who followed Al in office, in 2005.

Al Stango was Mayor when I first moved to Lewes in 1987. He ran a tight town. Al was in charge and he was not shy about it. But he was effective.

When I first came here I was a reporter and news reader at a local radio station. I quickly learned that a fill-up at the Mayor's gas station on the way to work was a great way to get a fresh morning's story. Al would come out and pump your gas and if you had a tape recorder, or a curious ear, he was perfectly willing to tell you just what was new in the city of Lewes.

Al Stango was a big part of why I fell in love with Lewes. He was a character and I am thankful I got to know him.

It's a Lovely City

white and red
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

I work in Dover, Delaware, which is a beautiful place, particularly in the spring. The City manages many flower-beds around the downtown. This time of year features tulips.

These are at the intersection of Loockerman Street, State Street, and Kings Highway. They decorate a memorial with flagpole.

I wonder who in city government got this started? Who keeps it going? Whoever it is, I thank them all. I love a lunch of walking around on a sunny day with my camera and collecting images.

I'm not the only one. Dave Wolanski has been finding lovely shots around town lately too.

An Alignment of Pet Peeves

A blogger out in Ohio has touched, in a way, on a pet peeve of mine in discussing a pet peeve of his own:

In the past year I’ve noticed that the media, and sometimes city officials, use the terms Delaware County and Delaware (city) as interchangeable terms. They’re not.

I try to track news and discussion about the State of Delaware. I have deployed standing searches using Google and other tools to try to catch references to, and discussion about, the First State. I've found some fascinating things this way, but I do have to wade through far too much news about Delaware County and city in Ohio, that county just north of us in Pennsylvania, and numerous Delaware Roads and and Avenues around the nation.

Maybe we should have copyrighted the name.

Delaware, Victorious

There's been lots of reaction this week to the decision by the US Supreme Court to confirm Delaware's denial of a Coastal Zone Act permit for the proposed Liquid Natural Gas terminal at Crown Landing, in New Jersey. Plenty of news coverage and blog reactions; from Delaware and New Jersey and elsewhere. Some positive, some neutral, and some negative. I've been tagging what I find in del.icio.us.

More Delaware Boundary Monuments

I took advantage of my long drive home from Annapolis last week to visit a few more boundary monuments in western Sussex County. Inspired by finally making it out to see The Middle Point last month, I planned my drive in part by taking a look at the locations of Delaware boundary monuments using the Delaware DataMIL (zoom-in a bit on the border and select "Boundary Monuments" in the layer list).

I drove through Federalsburg and entered Delaware on Route 20 at Reliance, where one finds (what's left of) Boundary Monument 12. There's just a broken stub left and, according to the recovery information maintained by the Delaware Geological Survey, it has been moved 134 meters north of its original location (a road now covers the original spot).

From there, I worked my way north a bit to find the Oak Grove Crownstone (seen at right). This is one of the larger boundary markers placed every five miles by Mason and Dixon in the 1760s; the smaller ones they placed every mile. The crownstones have the coats of arms of the Penn family on the side that is now Delaware (but was Pennsylvania at the time) and the Calvert family on the Maryland side. This one is known technically as Boundary Monument 15.

Some years back, an Eagle Scout trimmed the brush from around the Oak Grove stone and erected a small fence. A historical marker has been added as well.

I plan to try to visit as many of these as I can. There are 179 of them, but not all are very accessible. Some are buried and some are deep into private (and protected) property. I can use the DataMIL, though, to find those that are close to public rights of way. I'll try to visit, and photograph, those.

Here's a Fun Headline...

Abu Dhabi trounces Delaware in license-plate auction

Saeed Abdel Ghaffar Khouri bought Abu Dhabi license plate number 1 for 52.2 million dirhams ($14 million) at a charity auction this week. That beats the $675,000 paid recently for Delaware's Number 6.

"We wanted to be No. 1," Khouri's brother Hamdan Khouri told reporters after the sale. "Who doesn't like to be the best in the world?"

Indeed. (Right you are, Ken)

I like the implication that Delaware is a natural competitor for Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emerites.

Update (2/21/08): The car-focused AutoBlog has taken notice of the recent series of high-price/low-number license tag sales. They have a post up today about Delaware's sale of number 6. They also point to a sale, for $870,000, of the "F1" plate in Great Britain, and have a post about the car-chic in the UAE. In all three cases, the car-conscious readers at AutoBog are mostly critical of this form of investment.

Down on the Corner...

I had an opportunity this week-end to go visit a spot I've wanted to visit for some time: Boundary Monument 0, the Middle Point. This is the southwest corner of the state of Delaware, where the boundary between Delaware and Maryland turns north.

My older daughter had plans Saturday evening for a sleep-over at a class-mate's house. Because she attends the county-wide technical high school, and has since middle-school gone once a week to Academic Challenge classes at the local community college, my daughter has very good friends in all corners of Sussex County. Her sleep-over this weekend was at a farmhouse west of Seaford, almost at the state line near Woodland Ferry.

After I dropped her off, I took advantage of the sunlight and did a bit of exploring. I wanted to see the Woodland Ferry, which has recently shut down and will be replaced with a larger boat. The ferry crosses the Nanticoke River at a small old settlement called Woodland, south of Seaford.

From there, I followed a small road along the west bank of the Nanticoke River, heading downstream towards Maryland. The road got smaller and smaller, following the edges of farm fields until it turned abruptly west, crossed a marshy creek, and entered Maryland. I had planned to use the smaller roads to cut through Galestown, cross the Nanticoke at Sharptown, and head south to pick up Route 54 at Mardela Springs, and so head back into Delaware at the Corner.

I came around a sharp bend in the road to Galestown, however, and came upon a pile of dirt, a parked crane and a clear denial of entry into town. Apparently, the Spillway at Galestown Millpond was washed out, blocking several routes through town. I had to backtrack north to Reliance and head west and then south the long way around.

A pleasant surprise of this detour was a visit to Eldorado, Maryland. It included this noble church. That part of Delmarva has great wide-open fields and a slight roll to the landscape. Very impressive on a clear winter afternoon.

Eventually, I found myself rolling east on Route 54. Up ahead I spotted a small half-circle pull-off and the pavillion that protects the monument that marks the boundary. The Monument was placed by Mason and Dixon, to mark the start of the line they surveyed north and then west. They started their line at the Middle Point of a line surveyed across the center of the Delmarva peninsula by an earlier team. Their stone, inscribed with the coats of arms of Lord Baltimore and William Penn, joined several other boundary stones placed by earlier surveyors. In modern times, a Benchmark was added and officially recorded.

This is a part of Delaware 's history, and geography, that fascinates me. Part of my job is to work with the digital version of the boundaries and data that were started by Mason and Dixon, and folks like them, hundreds of years ago. Their chain of stones marking a north-south line up the peninsula is a part of the geospatial data that we rely on today and that I help to make available to Delaware's citizens.

So it was very cool to finally get a chance to go visit the first one.

Even More Delaware Blogs

Almost as soon as I posted my "really big list" of new (or new to me) Delaware blogs, I've been finding even more. This is a catch-up list.

• Rolfe Photography is the blog of Judy Rolfe, a professional photographer in Lewes. This one could also have been added to the Delaware Photo Blogs post.
  
• Wilmington Family Blog is by "a wife, mom, and dog owner in DE, ... also a high school teacher..."
• Don't Eat Baby is the blog of a stay-at-home mom.
• Behind The Mike is an internet radio show.
• Life in the Slow Lane is the "everyday ramblings of an aspiring economist, a stay-at-home mommy, and a one-year-old..."
• Follow His Leading is by "an Assistant Church Planter in Lower Delaware."
• Jecilyn and Treavor's Mom is by the Mother of two....
• The Day and Life of MissyMiss who is a wife and mom.
  
• And the Ramblings of "a Massachusetts native living in Delaware; a Patriots and Red Sox fan."

More Delaware Blogs

Today was gray and rainy and, aside from a run to the bank and the library and the normal kid-carting, perfect for some on-line loitering. I spent some time, therefore, poking around the web in search of more Delaware blogs to add to my ever-expanding list.

I use del.icio.us to track, categorize, and blog-roll a variety of blog-links over on the left side there. I keep a list of Delaware blogs in general, a list of (mostly Delaware) political blogs, and a list of other blogs I enjoy.

Sometimes I wonder why I've let myself get sucked into so obsessively tracking the blogs here in Delaware. The web is meant to be a global community, and much of what I do on-line aligns with my communities of interest -- geospatial data, music, the Dead, blogging itself. Yet I still like to track those blogs that focus here on the 2,000 square miles of the First State. It is where I live, I suppose, and these are the people I see most often.

So here are some Delaware blogs I found today (and a few days ago too). In no particular order. A few are just-started; an early New Year's resolution or a Christmas present to the self. Others are a months or more old and have been hiding in plain sight.

• Bring Me Up -- A series of music reviews.
• Frank's Ramblings!! -- Frank posts things he finds on his daily travels.
• Creative Rants from Nerissa -- She says it is "her page; her rants." But there's more than ranting here.
  
• Blog Avenue -- "Jen's City Blog." About life in Wilmington, I think.
  
• Clockwork Jalopy -- "...where I park my many ideas and weird views." We all need that.
  
• Bienvenue Chez Seals -- A transplanted Frenchwoman in upstate Delaware.
• Just Purge -- "Clear your mind. Cleanse your soul."
• On Transmigration -- "Gay, Happy, not quite Ecstatic, and moving on to a new life and responding well to therapy."
• Jenny Q -- A mom From Newark, Delaware. With a teen. Bless her.
• katielynn -- Newlywed woman in Delaware.
  
• Everyday Hustle and The Fine Print -- These appear to be two young friends upstate. They each have their own blog, but there are cross-references.
• Useless Entertainment -- Music reviews, from Milton, Delaware.
• Another Gun Blog -- "...a 22 year old law clerk / college student and a gun nut."
• Blue Hen Hash House Harriers -- "...announcements and write ups for the Blue Hen Hash House Harriers, a Delaware drinking club with a running (stumbling) problem."
• Object of Complacency -- A young man. I think a Delaware high school student.
• Shoreman -- Keeping an eye on the shore from the Delaware side of Delmar.
• It's All Greek To Me! -- A teacher at a (Delaware?) Greek charter school.
• along the way -- She is "a writer, a minister, a friend, a sister, a daughter, and a wanderer" who also "manage[s] a church camp and conference grounds" in Bethany Beach, Delaware.
• VibrantPolitics -- A young man in Newark closely following the Democratic primaries.
• Average Girl In Average World -- An average person. Who blogs.
• Delaware Venable -- Fairly tightly focused on religion. Right-leaning Christian variety. A retired state trooper.
  

You may notice that most of these are Blogger blogs. My cheat for today was to surf the "Delaware" tag in Blogger's profiles. I like to do that every once in a while. This time of year is usually a good time to find new blogs.

I will, of course, continue my practice of checking all of the blogs I link to each month to see if they are still active. Those with a month or more without new posts are moved out of the blog-roll and onto the inactives list. I do track their RSS feeds to try to catch them and re-add them when they come back to regular posting.

There are a small number of Delaware-based blogs that I find that I choose not to link to. These tend towards the virulently racist and anti-semetic. As a general rule, I don't link to blogs that feature collections of fascist iconography. Call me intolerant. It's my blog-roll.

Delaware State News: Off-Line

Independent Newspapers, Inc., wants me to pay $145 a year to view the contents of the Delaware State News on-line. Up until today, INI had offered a limited selection of local news stories in an ad-heavy, if not terribly exciting, web 1.0 format.

No longer.

This morning, their old "news" link led to a statement that one can now read the ENTIRE newspaper on-line. If one subscribes. And that some local news will still be included in their Newszap forums.

I didn't see any news in the forums, so I sent an e-mail to the auto-contact link they have. Here's what I got back (in part):

Thanks for your email. To be honest with you, we reached the conclusion that we could no longer give away our newspaper content for free. We are proud of the work our staff members are doing and believe we’re making a difference for thousands of people every day.

We hope you will consider purchasing an e-Subscription, which will give you every page of every edition of the newspaper in an easy-to-read format and with full search capabilities. To make this option more attractive, we have an introductory offer of 2 years for the price of 1, which we think is a great deal!

I think it's a form e-mail. I sent my question in to two separate contact links and got the same e-mail back each time. I followed the link they sent and, after a bit of searching, and working my way through a name and address data collection page (Harrington J. Millworthy, IV, at your service), but eventually I found the Subscription Rates page (above left).

I guess that 2-fer offer means I could get two years of the e-paper for $145. That's very generous, but still probably not of interest to me.

As part of my job, I scan a variety of news sources for items related to land-use planning and to geospatial data uses. Until now, the State News has been one of those sources. But given the low volume of news I usually found, I don't know that it is worth it to subscribe to an online version of the printed paper. Someone who gets that paper the old fashioned way is likely to let us know if there is ever anything worth looking at.

I don't think this change will do the State news much good. The News Journal offers a relatively complete edition on-line each day. I think they have too many ads, but understand they have to pay the bills. The Cape Gazette also offers a paid "full content" version but does post the main news of each week for free.

The New York Times tried a pay-only premium portion of their site for a while, but scrapped that plan this fall (remember Times Select?). In part, I think, they ended Times Select because people simply ignored the content that they would have had to pay to see. As a result, no one referred to it. No one linked to it. It ceased to be a main part of the discussion.

So, for now at least, I say so-long to on-line content from the Delaware State News.

Gee, Thanks for the Help

About.Com has an entry this week-end about our little state of Delaware from Jenny McKinney & Patrick McKinney. Jenny McKinney is a certified retirement coach. She and Patrick McKinney, a manual auditor for a major insurance company, take a look at Delaware, this week's state in their "Where to Live After Retirement" series.

Retirees are often vibrant and interesting people. But I'd like to think we can attract some young folks too.

It Has Been a Colorful Fall

With the return of some sunshine today, I made an effort to capture a photo of one of those bright red or yellow trees that we've been seeing the last week or so.

Somewhere, there's a tree with leaves that have turned so deeply they shine like rubies. It stands alone in a field or someone's yard with darker-hued and taller trees ranged behind. The sun hits it square causing the leaves to flash crimson against a deep green background.

I know it is out there, I just need to find it.

On my way to Dover this morning I was ahead of schedule. I took the opportunity to turn right at Milford Neck and head towards Thompsonville and South Bowers. I found a few spots that hinted at what I was looking for. But not quite.

I took a walking lunch in Dover. When clouds were out, the wind was cold and raw. The sun came out, though, and made a brisk walk comfortable. I found a few street trees that came close.

The yellow tree at one end of the old Green (right) might also be a candidate.

I didn't find the exact tree I wanted, but had a good photo-walk. I met a squirrel who suspected me of planning to steal his winter stash of nuts. I finally got a shot of the cross atop Wesley United Methodist Church; I've been looking for the right angle for some time. And I caught a nice image of the flag that flies at the memorial at the junction of Kings Highway and State street, just off of Loockerman Street.

I'm still looking for the shot that means "Fall, 2007" to me.

Lighthouse Update: "Honey, I'm Home!"

Michael Gabriel had his first look this week at the Delaware Bay Lighthouse he bought from the federal government this fall. According to a story in the News Journal this morning, the California lawyer made the trip out to Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse on Thursday, accompanied by a Delaware man who once helped run the lighthouse for the Coast Guard.

News Journal photographer Gary Emeigh was along for the ride, and it's likely that reporter JL Miller made the trip as well, though his story properly reads as if there was no reporter along. It's a well-written piece. The News Journal offers a nice little slide show of Gary Emeigh's photos; there are some neat shots in there.

It looks like there might be a bit more work involved in making the Lighthouse habitable, but it does look possible. He had his contractors (Delawareans, as is right and proper) along with him and they're already planning repairs and improvements.

One question that I think may yet be unanswered is will Mr. Gabriel pay property taxes on the lighthouse? And, if so, to whom?

This may seem overly bureaucratic of me, but the question came up earlier this fall in a discussion with some of the folks who manage parcel mapping for Kent County. Their job is to maintain property maps for all parcels in the county. And they wondered whether or not they would need to add a new, small, perfectly round parcel out in the Bay.

It looks fairly clearly like this lighthouse is within the Kent County portion of the Delaware Bay; the county doesn't end at the shoreline, it extends out to the state line which runs down the center of the bay at that point. The Bay has traditionally (I think) not been parcel-mapped because it is state or (in parts?) federal public subaqueous land.

It might be the case that the lighthouse will be treated as an owned structure on leased or public land. In that case, does Mr. Gabriel pay a land-rent to the state or the feds? Or does he own the small portion of Bay bottom that his lighthouse rests on?

If it is the case that this is a private in-holding out in the Bay, and a parcel needs to be added to the Kent County Cadastral database, I can see the Kent County parcel data stewards having to answer endless questions from data-users about a "mistake circle" outside of the County.

One of the things I love about Delaware is the never-ending series of fascinating challenges and puzzles presented by a state with such a long and complicated history. We're a funny little state, but we're never dull, not if you keep your eyes and ears open.

Here's (Hopefully) Good (State) News

Delaware.Net President John McKown has a post up on his Building Better Web Sites blog announcing that his company has won a contract to re-do the web site of the Delaware State News.

It's about time. I'm not a huge fan of the News Journal's site (too busy, too blinky, and with too flashy-move-y thingies, though it is getting better). But the Journal's site is head and shoulders above the current State News site. At least the News Journal posts its stories by day and by section and provides archives and some sense of order.

The current State News "News" section for Central Delaware, for example, includes a headline and teaser that suggests that Milford has a CompPlan meeting "tonight."

City looks at comp plan
MILFORD — City planners will meet in special session at 7 tonight to begin revising Milford’s comprehensive plan.

It's only when you click through that you realize that that headline has been up there since September 12. That meeting is already over.

That's just one of several gripes. But what's important to note is that the State News is not a terrible newspaper. They have some decent reporters and do a respectable job covering Downstate Delaware.

I'm hoping that Mr. McKown and his team can bring some on-line order to the News.

Looks Like I'll Have to Make Friends With a Lawyer/Author from California

Michael Gabriel is the guy's name. He has bought Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse that I was tempted by back in August.

When I spotted the government's on-line auction of the lighthouse the bidding was at $40,000. It eventually went for $200,000 after a flurry of last minute bidding-up by Mr. Gabriel and some other person.

Gabriel, who also bought and is refurbishing a lighthouse in the Chesapeake Bay, plans to add a desalinization system to provide drinking water, a marine sanitation system to handle waste, and he plans to find a way to provide electricity to the site. At his other lighthouse (what a curious phrase), he's using a windmill system to provide power.

Obviously, Gabriel is a rich man. And a man of vision, who likes lighthouses. I'm sure we would get along famously. Don't you think?

A Walk At Cape Henlopen

The staff at Cape Henlopen State Park re-opened the Point at the Cape this morning. I knew I had to head out for a wander when it re-opened, so I was rolling through the fee booth just at 8:00 a.m.

Christina was with me; she's been my frequent beach-combing partner. Christina likes to gather shells and pebbles and I like to gather photographs.

The Point of Cape Henlopen juts out from Delaware into the Delaware Bay and towards distant Cape May, in New Jersey. The Park staff closes the Point each summer to allow the rare Piping Plover a peaceful place to mate and nest and fledge out a new generation. Once the birds move on, the beach is re-opened to wanderers and to "mobile surf fishermen" who drive out on the beach in their trucks and vans to fish from their tailgates.

We weren't able to make the full trip around the point. A part of the Bay side of the point remains closed for a few remaining nesting pairs and to allow a rare plant a chance to grow a bit more. That, in effect, doubled our walk.

I found myself adding pictures to my "Distant Ships" collection. There were two ships coming in towards the Bay from the south. And another headed outbound past the lighthouse. The Pilot Boat was headed out to meet them, making its way through rough seas.


There were also several headboats (group-charter fishing boats for which anglers pay "by the head") and two sailings of the Cape May/Lewes Ferry.

The beach was somewhat empty when we started out. There were just a few truck-born anglers on the beach and a handful of other beach-combers. Things got more crowded by the time we returned to the Point parking lot, after two hours walking.

We found seashells and plenty of pebbles. Some of the shells were worth collecting, including a nice partial conch. We found driftwood and beach grass and some wildlife (both alive and dead).

Christina spotted a tiny, nearly translucent Ghost Crab skittering away from us in a panic. I took his picture when he paused; you can see his little stalk-eye staring up at me.

It was a nice walk. I got a good photo collection out of it. With the rest of the Point due to reopen on October 1, I plan to head out again a few times this fall.

"Hello, Daily Delaware"

The person (or persons) blogging on Daily Kos as Delaware Dem has started a new, Kos-style Delaware political blog: Daily Delaware.

This should be interesting.

I've been toying with going back to more political content here, but I can't find much interest in myself to write about political things. It may be that we're too far from the actual primaries. And yet, I'm growing sick of the partisan bickering that has taken over so much of the political blogosphere in Delaware of late.

There's still a sense of camaraderie among the red and blue bloggers in the First State, but I'm seeing cracks. It feels like we're starting to stray from examining and solving problems towards "gotcha-style" stories and name-calling. Maybe I don't trust myself to rise above it?

In any case, I do take an interest in what's being said, even if I'm reluctant to wade-in very much myself. So I'll add Daily Delaware to my blog-roll and to my Google Reader and see what develops.

Sometimes You Just Want to Get Away From It All

The federal government's General Services Administration is selling Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse and I think it would be nice if someone bought it and let me stay there when I want to.

Sure, I could buy it for myself, but I have enough trouble with the upkeep on my land-based house.

Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse is in the Delaware Bay about three miles off Bowers Beach. Somewhere out here.

It was built in 1876 and lacks modern everything. But it is damn cute.

The current bid stands at $40,000. Bidding closes on August 17. C'mon people...

When I first saw this, I sent an e-mail (half-serious) to an old friend who works in State Parks suggesting that the State buy this as a part of our Parks system. I was not surprised to learn that the folks over there gave this property serious thought, but have decided to pass. That probably makes sense; the maintenance challenges and the difficulty of making it "visitable" outweigh the coolness factor.

Of course, if someone does make the opportunity available, I'd love to spend a day and a night out there.

Wouldn't that be neat?

Yay!

At 10:35:20 p.m. today, Senate Bill 89 passed in the Delaware House of Representatives. It now goes to Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner for (I hope) her signature.

I have been working over the last two years to get this legislation, AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 29 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO GEOSPATIAL DATA, enacted. It formalizes the Delaware Geographic Data Committee, the community of geospatial data users I have worked with for many years. It adds a high-level Executive Committee and sets out some serious goals and objectives.

This brings Delaware closer to the standard for state GIS Coordination set in the NSGIC Fifty States Initiative. It will mean more work for me, but it is work I welcome.