Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 4 – Two Domes

Of all these countdown posts, this one has been the hardest to write because I don’t want it to come across as boastful, when in fact it’s actually quite humbling. For the past nine years, Mrs. Link and I have been incredibly fortunate to work in the respective hot spots of our chosen professions; medicine and politics. We have been surrounded by competence, challenged by genius and educated by life experiences that cannot exist anywhere except the epicenters of activity where we spent most of our waking hours.

I’m talking, of course, of Mrs. Link earning an MD and PhD from Johns Hopkins Medical School while I worked in the United States Congress. The letterhead for each institution features their respective famous domes, a feature that I have always found aesthetically symmetrical.

I doubt either Mrs. Link’s or my own experiences in these places could be condensed into a single post, so I’ll try to explain in three categories.

Activity

Johns Hokpins is the hospital you fly to if you have a rare or exotic disease, or are in search of a rare or exotic new treatment. As a result, Mrs. Link didn’t just learn about the most interesting and challenging medical cases from textbooks, the saw them first-hand after attending lectures by the very doctors that were on the cutting edge of new cures.

In the mean time, how many people can say their daily activities are often the subject of heated debates on broadcast and cable news, newspapers, blogs and social media? When the country was debating health care, it was my job to help shape that debate in a small part of world. I realize this probably sounds boastful. And I’m not going to lie, the exposure of the job was gratifying. But instead of making me feel like a big shot, the scope of what I was involved with was truly humbling. It made me appreciative of the opportunity to participate, and drove me to leave it all on the field every day.

People

One of the great things about a place like the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus or Capitol Hill is that it tends to attract ambitious, intelligent, hard-working people. Any one (or even two) of those traits is fairly common in a person, but I’ve found that the presence of all three is truly rare. As a result, Mrs. Link and I have been honored to associate with some of the most incredible people in the world – and I’m not just referring to the big name doctors and politicians. At every level – fellow medical students or researchers or co-workers and even a few interns – the quality of people in our lives over the past nine years were self-selected to be the best of the best.

Why does this matter? Perhaps it is appropriate to quote a French maxim from late 16th century, as quoted by George Washington in his Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, Rule # 56 (ca. 1744): “Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for ’tis better to be alone than in bad Company.”

Prestige

Okay, fine. There’s an element of ego too.

Look, if Hollywood wants a shortcut to indicate a doctor is smart and effective, they drop in a line about them having attended Johns Hopkins (if they’re a lawyer, it’s always Harvard). Similarly – but with a less positive connotation – when Hollywood wants a shortcut to indicate the current suiter for the lovable loser’s love interest is a smart, well-connected socially acceptable catch, they give them a job in politics (often on Capitol Hill). Of course, the audience usually ends up rooting against the political guy, but that’s an artifact of the current feelings about politics in general, not individual participants.

These shortcuts work because they invoke preexisting social biases about these respective institutions. Those biases shaded interactions we would have with strangers when we told them where we worked. I’m not going to lie: that was cool.

For most of the last decade, Mrs. Link and I reveled in the activity, people and prestige of our lives between Two Domes. It was amazing, and I don’t think either of use would change a thing. That being said, being a part of a team driving that action requires a massive dedication of time and energy. 12-hour days were regular. 80+ hours weeks not uncommon. We both got used to being on call all the time – weekends, holidays, after hours. It’s the price you pay to work so close to the fire.

And, ultimately, it’s not a schedule that supports the life we both want for our family. The Two Domes are a huge part of our time in Maryland; a part we’ll both miss. But we’ll miss it with the nostalgia of a country song. Neither of us will be looking to recreate the Two Domes in our new lives.

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 5 – Ecodiversity

No, I’m not talking about biodiversity or the scores of different types of environmentalists on the East Coast. I more or less coined this term to describe the phenomenon of being in close physical proximity to a wide variety of extremely different human ecosystems.

To illustrate, it will help to once again draw on my experience growing up in Montana and going to college in Cali. Both Montana and Cali have essentially two primary human ecosystems. In Montana, it’s western Montana (mountains, hiking, skiing, larger towns etc) and eastern Montana (farms, ranches, space, tiny towns, etc). In California, it’s northern California (forests, hippies, weed, etc.) and southern California (beaches, surfing, palm trees, etc). There are, of course, variation within these themes, but when whether you’re in Burbank, Oceanside or San Diego you know you’re in Southern California.

Out here, it’s different. Areas were settled and map lines were drawn at a time when a horse was the fastest mode of conveyance between places. As a result distances were much smaller between disparate cultures. In the same way that Europe squeezed 47 countries and 23 primary languages  into a space roughly the size of the United States, the East Coast squeezes 21 diverse states into the same area that the West Costs divides into just 3 (and let’s be honest, Oregon and Washington might as well be the same state).

In the short drive across Maryland, there are any number of fully developed subcultures, each somewhat isolated from the others: sailors, gang bangers, longshoremen, Amish, stockbrokers, artists, hipsters, students, preps and even rednecks (complete with trucker caps and hyphonated names). Contrast that with California and Montana which were settled after the train was invented. The spaces are larger, and the cultural diversity is much more evenly spread across the region.

This is just a fancy way of saying that everything is really close together out here. In practice, this means Mrs. Link and I can wake up, decide what sort of mood we’re in – beach, mountain, city, water, river, etc – and make it happen by simply pointing the car in the right direction and drive. Take, for example, the following locations broken down by radius. The significance of this list isn’t that there are lots of different place, but that each place is totally unique. 30 minutes in one direction and you’re in a beach-town atmosphere, 30 minutes in a slightly different direction and you’re slinging dope for Stringer Bell on the mean streets of Baltimore.

Radius: About 1 Hour’s Drive

Baltimore – Kind of like Disneyland – Inner Harbor Land, Federal Hill and of course You’re Going to Get Stabbed Honkey Land.

Washington, D.C. – A one industry town like Hollywood except the currency is power not fame.

Annapolis – Like a beach town meets a mid-western lake town. Artsy and laid back – the antithesis of the D.C. rat race.

Harpers Ferry – Bustling with history, bound by the Shenandoah River on one side and the Potomac River on the other there are plenty of adventures to be had in the water.

Ski Whitetail, Liberty, Roundtop – Three mosquito bite ski hill with a lot of man-made snow.

Catoctin Mountain State Park, Rock Creek Park, B&O Canal, Gunpowder Falls State Park – Any one of a number hiking options a short drive away. Each has a slightly different flavor, but I group them because they’re all trail-based hiking.

Radius: Within Half a Day’s Drive

Shenandoah National Park -Mrs. Link and I spent a lot of time driving back and forth to day-hikes in Shenandoah National Park. It’s a long way to go for the mountains, and the mountains aren’t quite up to par with the Rockies, but it’s a totally different vibe than D.C., Baltimore or even Maryland hiking.

New York – Mrs. Link and I only went to The Big Apple once while we were out here – it’s not really our bag. But it was there, if we ever had the inkling to return.

Philadelphia – Such a cool city, again with such a different flavor than B’more or D.C.

 

Assateague Island State & National Parks – I see your Annapolis and raise you camping on the beach with wild horses.

Monticello – Thomas Jefferson’s house.

Williamsport – One of many small towns we visited while we where here, this one stands out because it’s also the location of the Little League World Series.

Radius: Within One Day’s Drive

New England – Lighthouses and cool accents. We managed an epic 3-day adventure that took us from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Georgia – It’s there. Savannah is gorgeous.

Ohio – Fight on!

White Mountains – While I freely talk smack about the Shenandoah Mountains as mountains, the White Mountains in New Hampshire include the Presidential Range. They are no small things – able to stand up to a significant amount of what even Montana has to offer.

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 6 – Seasons

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”
-  George Santayana

My love for seasons is philosophical. Unlike weather, seasons are tied intrinsically to the passage of time. Without seasons, the most observable unit of time is a day. But 23 hour 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds is sliver of time. It provides no space for reflection, so time passes essentially unnoticed they way distance would be lost if you only stared straight down at your feet. Days run into weeks and years that become drumbeats in a routine march toward oblivion.

Seasons mark a longer beat. They offer perspective of the passage of time. They actually remind you that time is passing, like the mountains on the horizon getting closer and falling behind. I think one of the worst banalities of adulthood is the risk of monotony. As long as you are in school, seasons don’t matter as much because time is marked by the passage of a school year. But once you enter the real world, there is no more summer vacation to mark the passage of time. You forget. Time speeds up.

But Seasons do more than mark the passage of time. They also provide spice (there’s a reason it’s called seasoning). As they advance through their annual choreographed improvisational dance like a celestial Who’s Line Is It Anyway, each season has it’s bitter and it’s sweet. And each flavor plays off the others to make the whole year better. The long days of summer are all the sweeter because they contrast with the short days of winter. The crisp autumn wind is refreshing after the sticky summer heat.

I grew up with Montana’s four famous seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter and Construction. My blood was thick. We do crazy things like wearing shorts to school in in freezing weather and frosting. Then, I moved to Southern California where there are two sort-of-seasons – wet and dry. My blood thinned and before I was done, I was shivering in weather below 70. I know… I’m not proud of it. While I always had school years to mark time in SoCal, the years slipped by quickly. I can’t help but think that one of the reasons Southern California living is so much more laid back than it is on the East Coast is that the absence of seasons reduces the sense of urgency.

Maryland has four distinct seasons. That’s not to say you ever knew what to expect – this year, for example, we had virtually no snow at all. Compare that with 2010 when we had multiple blizzards and ice storms. But as a rule, each season had it’s pluses and minuses. Each minus was complemented by another seasons plus.

Winter

The Good – Fondue dinners; snow sports like sledding and skiing (although Mrs. Link is still learning, she got very good at skiing); Christmas somewhere warm (usually); fires in the fireplace; big snow storms; grilling on the deck.

The Bad – Short days (going to work in the dark and not getting home until after dark); outdoor activities are harder to pull off; feels long,  you can get a little stir-crazy.

Spring

The Good – Trees bloom beautifully; fresh, bright colors; still too early for insects; perfect temperatures; perfect weather for running outside; grilling on the deck.

The Bad – Pollen (resulting in some of the worst hay fever in the world); rain because something has to help everything turn green; short (I swear there were years where the time between bitter cold and sticky hot was 1 or 2 weeks).

Summer

The Good – Hiking; camping; tubing; travel; fireworks; August recess (means big hikes, summits, camping trips) weekends are easy to fill; grilling on the deck.

The Bad – Hot; humid; tons of big, ugly bugs (Mrs. Link and I referred to some of the hatches as plagues); too hot to run outside.

Fall

The Good – Leaves turn; Thanksgiving; Renaissance Fair; perfect temperature for running; elections; grilling on the deck.

The Bad – Not warm enough to keep doing all those summer things without special gear; elections; long – (when’s it going to snow already?)

I’ll miss seasons.

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 7 – Storms

Well, let’s see. There were Hurricanes Ivan, Ernesto, Hanna, Irene and of course “Superstorm” Sandy. There were tornadoes, flash floods, Nor’easters and a derecho or two. There was Snowmageddon, Snowquester and Trafficgeddon. And that’s just off  the top of my head.

Growing up in Missoula, surrounded by tall mountains, clouds jettison their water long before they get overhead. As a result, a bad rainstorm means drizzle for a week – the kind where you can walk from your car to the front door without an umbrella. In California, rain is rare with precipitation taking the form of mist or fog as often as not.

Neither Montana or California reliably produces storms as violent and powerful as the ones we have experienced in Maryland. And here, storms happen among high population densities bolstering body counts and property damage. Add in with a higher concentration of sensationalistic media in the D.C. area and its not an exaggeration to say that the whole country ends up talking about our weather.

Sure, the rest of the country makes fun of D.C. for closing schools and the federal government at every hint of inclement weather. Usually that mockery is deserved – I went though 12 years of school in Montana and never once had a snow day. Locally, we joke about how bad the weatherman is, knowing full well that the micro climates make predicting weather nearly impossible. You can have tornado clouds in D.C., sun in Columbia and torrential rain in Baltimore… all at the same time. In fact, it became tradition to leave rain in D.C. to find sun on the Potomac River for tubing or over the Shenandoah Mountains for hiking.

Storms in Maryland are fun. They’re a social event. They’re scary. And we’ve forged some great storm memories in our decade here.

Rain

Over the course of an average year, Columbia (42.24″) gets about three times as much precipitation as Missoula (16.63″) or Los Angeles (17.66″). The very nature of the rain is different – instead of long, dreary days, Maryland storms build, break and pass quickly. If you’re caught outside without an umbrella, chances are really good you’re going to get soaked.

In 2011, Montana’s Billings Little League made it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. As President of the Montana State Society, I chartered a bus to take a group of Montanans up to watch a game. As the bus drove back, Hurricane Irene struck with a mighty vengeance. That far inland, the wind wasn’t terrible, but there was a ton of rain. After dropping us in D.C., we drove back up to Maryland in some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen. It was awesome.

There was also a Brad Paisley concert back when they allowed tailgating at Jiffy Lube Live. Turns out, that mud doesn’t get slippery when wet…

Snow

I grew up with snow, but Mrs. Link did not. I only remember one “blizzard” in Montana. As an arid state, usually the extreme weather is cold, not snow. Maryland winters are not as cold, but they are a ‘wet cold’ which makes all the difference. And when it snows, it can really pack a punch. All that heavy rain I talk about above comes down in massive, thick snowflakes and snow can accumulate very quickly.

My favorite snow story was the cleanup after Snowmageddon. It was my first time missing school or work because of snow, but there wasn’t a choice. While main roads were cleared pretty quickly, smaller roads and drive ways were impassible for days. Here’s the thing about a big storm on the east coast: while they have the snow-removal equipment they need, the urban density means there’s nowhere to put the snow when they plow it. We were stuck, and I was a little stir-crazy, so my neighbor and I used his snow shovel Excalibur (he was the only person that had thought to buy one before they all sold out) and started digging our way out. Other neighbors we didn’t know joined the fun, and before long we’d cleared our cars out of the parking lot! We got to know our neighbors, who are still friends today, and since we were all stuck at home for the Super Bowl everyone came over and watched at our place.

Funny post-script. Remember I mentioned that the problem with a lot of snow is that there’s nowhere for the snow removal trucks to put the snow? Well, the nice big patch we cleared manually over the course of an afternoon became the receptacle of all the snow in the entire parking lot. Our good deed resulted in our parking being out of commission longer than anyone else in the neighborhood. Sweet!

Wind

Wind typically goes along with rain or snow, but I put it separate because it’s usually the wind that does the damage. When someone dies, or when 100,000 people lose power for a month, it’s usually because the wind knocked over a tree that grew really big on account of all that rain.

Two times, I have been stuck in the middle of the Potomac River in a bathing suit during extreme winds. Both were Capitol Hill Tubing Society excursions. We always stop on a rock called the Andy Bopp Memorial Rock which is about a quarter mile downstream from where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac River in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Both rivers have carved very deep valleys, and the rock where we usually stop for lunch is at the vertex of those valleys. We’ve tubed through a lot of rainstorms on the river, but twice the combined funnel of those two valleys hurled a mighty wind laced with stinging rain and dirt against our rock. Both times, we were humbled by the awesome power of nature – and sadly, while both storms were newsworthy, the first storm proved fatal when it reached D.C.

The second “Storm on the Water”

And, of course, there was Hurricane Sandy, which I missed because I was working on a Senate campaign in Montana. My wife, who had just given birth to our son, was benefiting from the constant support of family. Support that, it turns out, was newsworthy in and of itself. The following appeared in the Great Falls Tribune on 10/30/12:

Flights also were grounded, but [Sister Link] of Missoula was able to jump on one of the last planes to depart Montana.  [Sister Link] was hoping to arrive in Columbia, Md., before the storm so that she could help her sister-in-law and 2-month-old nephew weather the storm.

“I have’t really experienced something like this before,” she said. “I don’t really know what to expect.”

Link landed on Sunday afternoon, right before the rain started. It continued raining through the night and into Monday, with gusts of wind creeping up around midday.

“We’re hunkering down right now and staying indoors,” she said. “It’s been gallons and gallons of rain all day long and you hear the constant howling (of the wind).”

…

[Sister Link] also was prepared.

“We stocked the house and made sure to have enough food and water and formula,” she said.

[Sister Link]’s brother works for Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont.

Of course, at the time, no one knew Mrs. Link was internally bleeding to death and we were going to lose the election and my job, but that’s a different story that has nothing to do with storms in Maryland…

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 8 – Maryland

I think this one surprises me the most.

Our relationship with Maryland started off on rocky footing. Mrs. Link lived in a tiny Charles village studio that slanted ever-so-slightly toward the outer wall so it felt very much like a sky cell at the Eyrie. I lived in a basement apartment in the People’s Republic of Takoma Park which was infested by house centipedes and camel crickets. Hell, even the geography was out to get me. See, dense vegetation generally limits your visibility to well under a mile while there are no mountains or anything else on the horizon to provide orientation. So I spent the first few years completely disoriented without any of the visual queues I grew up with. Suffice to say, when we first got here, we were counting the days until we could leave again… we were unwilling hostages.

But then something strange happened. Stockholm Syndrome. At some point, I started to actually like Maryland.

It’s hard to pinpoint when the change happened, but I remember vividly the moment I became aware of it. It was something like that scene in romantic comedies where the girl has a sexy dream about a guy she thinks she hates. For me, it was when Maryland revealed their fancy new Under Armour uniforms inspired by the Maryland Flag. The uniforms were widely panned, but I loved them. For the record, I also like the Oregon uniforms before they got popular. Anyway, I realized I liked the Maryland state flag, and that got me thinking… I had actually grown fond of my adopted state.

When did that happen?

Columbia – Moving to Columbia and out of the insect and crime infested urban centers was probably the single most important ingredient in the fundamental change of heart. Columbia represented the space my Montana soul craved. And I don’t just mean the miles of wooded trails. I mean space. Back yards. Lakes. In Baltimore and D.C. a car owner is a pariah to be punished, attacked, taxed, and ticketed. Columbia has welcoming wide streets… and the let you turn right on red!

Annapolis – Baltimore and D.C. are about 30 miles apart. Completing the triangle, roughly 30 miles from each of these urban hell-holes is Annapolis. Judging Maryland by Baltimore alone is like judging Cindy Crawford solely on her mole. Maryland has a lot of really cool parts. It has farm land, ski areas and honest-to-God rednecks (complete with pickup trucks and hyphenated names!). Annapolis became a regular destination for Link family staycations – weekends away from home that felt like you might as well be a thousand miles away.

Renaissance Festival – One of the reasons I like the Maryland flag is its medieval influence. In fact, the medieval theme has worked its way into my design work. RenFen is great – how can you not love a place that sells meat on a stick?

The Wire – I guess those B’more thugs aren’t that bad. Especially Omar.

Inner Harbor – As much as I hate on Baltimore, there are some charming places. Inner Harbor stands out, especially after the awesome Star-Spangled Sailabration when they brought in a bunch of tall ships to celebrate the bi-centennial of the War of 1812. I also enjoyed football at Patterson Park, the watching fireworks on the Henderson’s Fleet Street rooftop and going to Orioles games at Camden Yard with the Bezaks. Still, one of my favorite parts about the inner harbor is the tribute to a tall ship – the Pride of Baltimore – which sank in 1986. It’s commemorated by a hilarious plaque that says “Pride of Baltimore – Lost at Sea”. Yep.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like Maryland and I’ll miss it. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t breath a sigh of freedom relief every time I drove across the American Legion Memorial Bridge into Virginia. Maryland taxes are too high. It’s politicians are too comfortable and too corrupt. There are too many random beatings of tourists in “The Greatest City in America.” Even so there is a certain Chesapeake charm that I’ve grown fond of.

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to head West. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 9 – Food

When we first moved here, all we could talk about was the absence of “good Mexican food” – a criticism that holds fast to this day despite finding a few places with adequate south of the border fair. Our problem was that we were expecting Southern California cuisine in Maryland. As time has passed, though, we’ve found some excellent local favorites that we’ll miss as much as we missed good Mexican when we left Cali.

D.C. is famous for good restaurants, something I never really took advantage of. On one hand, 2006 ethics rules put most of these restaurants out of the price range of a mid-level congressional staffer, and on the other the quality was lost on my cardboard palette.

Let me use this opportunity to assure you I am by no means a food concessionaire. Apparently, the very number of taste buds people have is variable – some super-tasters are particularly susceptible to nuanced tastes. These are the people who enjoy a flavor of 63-year old Shenandoah Valley Oak in their wine, suffused with a hint of blueberries picked on a Sunday. Mrs. Link is one of these people, or at least on their team.

I am not.

I’m more of a comfort food guy. I love mashed potatoes and Kraft macaroni and cheese. I like steaks medium without any marination. I like pasta – but I have no clue why they make it in so many different shapes. I believe that you can predict the quality of a hamburger by the presence or absence of tater tots on the menu. I like to smother things in gravy.

Here are the comfort foods I’m going to miss.

Hickory Ridge Grill – We stumbled across HRG quite by accident early in our Columbia residence. We were so lucky! Our first time, Mrs. Link ordered an uncharacteristic vegetarian sandwich called the Full Mazzi and I got a pasta dish called Diablo Chicken. Both became instant favorites. Then we met George, the owner and proprietor who wears parachute pants and lives in Virginia (I thought my commute was bad). Mrs. Link always orders the Full Mazzi while I’ve never found anything on the menu I didn’t love. What makes HRG so good is that it never disappoints. Too often, I’ve found that you end up chasing a good dining experience with mediocre followups. Not at HRG. Every time is perfection!

Fondue Dinners – Someone mentioned how much fun it was to eat fondue at the Melting Pot. Someone else mentioned how unbelievably expensive it was. And so, Fondue Night was born. With the possible exception of the gawd-awful pear schnapps, the three courses – bread/cheese, meat, dessert – never failed to satisfy. As much fun as the food was the company. Mrs. Link and I will both miss Fondue Nights.

Grilling on the Rock – I love to grill. I’d include that on this list except there’s absolutely no way I won’t bring grilling with me wherever we end up. What I will miss, however, is grilling in the middle of the the Potomac River on the Andy Bopp Memorial Rock. We only do it once a year, but man… after a few hours on the river and a few beers, there’s nothing quite as tasty as a cheeseburger. And one of the best parts is the reaction of other people as they they float by use realizing we’re grilling on a rock in the middle of the Potomac River.

Crabs & Crabcakes – Maryland is proud of our crabs. And rightly so. They are fresh and they are good. It seems like every street corner has a hole-in-the-wall boasting about its crabcakes being the best in the state. Fact is, they’re all pretty good. And while Mrs. Link loves the crabcakes, I’m a huge fan of steamed crabs that you have to de-shell by hand, pulling and sucking the meat out as you go. They’re a lot of work, but it’s a ton of fun. There’s also something special about Old Bay.

Cheeburger Cheeburger – Sure, it’s a chain. Actually, it’s a bigger chain that I realized. But it’s a rare chain, as in there isn’t a Cheeburger Cheeburger on every corner. Just dang good, reasonably priced hamburgers with a huge assortment of toppings, great fries and delicious milkshakes. Also, Mrs. Link and I may have gotten our pictures on the Wall of Fame for eating the 1-pounder a time or two.

Cafe de Paris – The restaurant is as eclectic and unique as the website. Like HRG, the owner and his family are always around. Unlike HRG, it took us a long time to figure Cafe de Paris out. The menu changes dramatically. The hours are erratic. No one can really tell you what to expect until you get the menu in front of you. It’s a place that is quite affordable if you know when to eat (early bird, before 6 PM) and expensive the rest of the time. It’s also a place where patrons and servers actually speak French and if you let yourself, you can forget you’re in Maryland and actually feel like you’re in Paris. The food is darn good too.

Carousel Frozen Treats – Not anywhere near Maryland, Carousel is on the way back to Maryland from Shenandoah National Park, where we indulged ourselves after many hikes and camping trips. Always something to look forward to.

Author’s Note: After nearly a decade on the east coast, it’s time for Mr. & Mrs. Link to move home. In the last ten years, our lives have changed significantly. We moved in together, got married, bought a house, got promotions at work and earned higher education degrees, hiked, drank, ran, ate and welcomed our son to the world. For a gal from Southern California and a guy from Montana, Maryland took some getting used to – the pollen, bugs, humidity, and distance from home made the change all the more difficult. But as time passed, we began to grudgingly put down roots. We even began to feel at home in our adopted land. What follows is Mr. Link’s favorite (and least favorite) parts about living in Maryland. Other posts here.

Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Maryland

Number 10 – History

We live 34.4 miles from the capital of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen. We live 123 miles from the city where that nation debated and declared its independence. We live 21.5 miles from Fort McHenry, where a poem that would eventually become our National Anthem was written during the War of 1812. We live 61.3 miles from a decisive Civil War battlefield that gave President Abraham Lincoln the excuse he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, lending a moral justification to the endeavor to preserve the Union of the United States.

From colonization, through the revolutionary war, and on up to modern events, history happened in my back yard. Every time I pick up a book about a Founding Father, the places they lived and worked aren’t just names on the page. They are real places that I have actually seen.

I was in high school the first time I visited Washington, D.C. – a Close Up trip with my favorite teacher Mr. Matt Stergios. The scope and gravity of the place made a powerful impression that never went away, even after living here for ten years.

I used to staff Senator Conrad Burns when he met with school groups, and as a history buff himself, one of the things he was fond of telling students was that 50 percent of the battles fought in the Civil War were waged within 50 miles of Washington, D.C. Indeed, Mrs. Link and I spent a great deal of time hiking in Shenandoah National Park. To get there, we had to drive though Bull Run. And the mountains themselves played a pivotal role in the defense of Virginia from Union Invasions as Stonewall Jackson utilized his intimate knowledge of the terrain to stay a step ahead of his enemy.

While it’s true that U.S. history is but a sliver compared with the breadth of human history, which is a sliver in geologic time, there can be no denying that the history of the New World has had a profound impact on the world we live in today. And so many of the most important events happened within a day’s drive of where I have lived for the last ten years. Living among this history – even participating in the creation of some of it – is both humbling and demystifying. Spending five minutes in Independence Hall reminds you that the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not giants; they were men who sat in chairs that I could sit in. This makes their accomplishments all the more impressive; it is no special thing for a giant to move a mountain.

Over the years, Mrs. Link and I ventured on many an historic pilgrimage to see the things we’d learned about as schoolchildren. Few of them failed to impress even as my first trip to Washington, D.C. left a permanent impression. There’s no doubt that California and Montana have their own history, but it is fresh and local. The events in around Maryland changed the world.

In November, 2009 Mrs. Link, her dad and I visited the battlefield at Gettysburg. By coincidence, we were there the weekend of a large reenactment.

One of our regular “staycation” visits to Annapolis – the one-time Capital of the United States and the home of the Naval Academy.

Antietam Battlefield, just a few miles from where we regularly tubed in the Potomac River.

The view from Jefferson’s rock in Harper’s Ferry where the Shenandoah River flows into the Potomac River. Not only is Harpers Ferry the site of significant Civil War history (including the largest surrender of American forces in history), but this view inspired Thomas Jefferson to write: “This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic.”

The average age of Capitol Hill staff is a lot lower than you’d expect. Long hours and low pay mean that when you’re working on The Hill, you’ve pretty much got to be married to the job. Turnover is high. Starting a family is rare.

In my decade on the Hill, I saw people put their personal lives on hold. Engagements postponed, weddings scheduled around campaigns and kids? Well, when a co-worker announced they were having kids, it was like giving 9-months notice. The lifestyle is simply not compatible with the requirements of raising a family.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not writing this to be critical. The job is what it is, and for Mrs. Link and I, it worked great for the time she was busy with medical school. But when we got pregnant during an election year – and eventually started trucking the baby around the Hill, we both noticed something funny.

In most public places, people smile when they see a baby. Not on Capitol Hill. On the Hill, the reaction is often the opposite of a smile. Babies invoke looks of sympathy – even sometimes carnal fear. It’s as if they are terrified that babies are somehow contagious.

Recently, Mrs. Link and I brought Ryder to a Montana State Society reception in the U.S. Capitol. At one point, our friend Jocelyn (who, by the way, is the exception to the rule when it comes to Hill staff and babies) wanted to hold him. Now, let me preface this by saying that Jocelyn is awesome and all night she was in the middle of the action surrounded by people. That’s why this is so funny. Look what happened when she picked up a baby. That’s a good 10-feed quarantine around her as an entire section of the room cleared out. I’ve added the red circle for effect:

Want some elbow room on Capitol Hill? Bring a baby with you

It has been many a year since I graced this site with a post of my own. This is my way of being held accountable, even if it is only by Jed.

During my pregnancy, I gained about 32lbs (including the kid+components: placenta, fluid, ect.), which is within the recommended 25-35lbs range of pregnancy weight gain. Honestly, I did not watch what I ate very closely (unless you include me watching the Haagen Dazs as it entered my mouth), but I worked until the day I went in to labor, keeping me on my feet anywhere from 10-16hrs a day working as an intern in the hospital, which isn’t exactly kick your feet up kind of work. Safe to say, I was at least modestly active, but still, here I stand, 6 mo after Ryder’s arrival, and I am barely able to squeeze in to my pre-pregnancy pants, still 10 lbs heavier than my pre-pregnancy weight. I’ve began to run for the last month or so, trying to train my way up to the Cherry Blossom 10 mile race, but alas, it was not meant to be. Between my month of nights on night float, my week of nights in the ICU, and general lack of sleep from the last 4 months spent doing the worst, most time-consuming rotations intern year has to offer-68-80 hrs/ 6 days/wk- ( I know, insert worlds smallest violin here), I wasn’t able to stick with a running regimen. I did go from not even being able to run 15mins to running 6miles in 60mins and was able to run my first race, the St. Patricks Day 8K in a not-too-shabby 49:30. Go me.

However, I needed something that would only take less than 30 min a day, that I could do everyday, and could do no matter the weather. After a long search, I decided to try the Jillian Michaels 30day shred. I heard good things online. I started on level 1, because I had heard from other reviews that even if you are in decent shape, it still kicks your butt. Boy was that an understatement. I did it for the first time two days ago before  I knew how the system worked. I completed the whole work out, but had to flip in and out of doing the “easy” with the “advanced” moves (advanced with sit ups and cardio, easy with strength/upper arms), and I literally couldn’t even walk down the stairs or hold my son in my arms, I was that spent. I spent most of yesterday with Jed and Ryder roaming around Philadelphia, in some good pain. However, today, I start the regimen in earnest.

The shred works as follows: 10 consecutive days on level 1, 10 days on level 2, and 10 days on level 3. No rest. Ever. Since I’m a scientist, I want to measure specific end points. I realize that I may or may not lose a single pound this month as I expect to be gaining a good amount of muscle. However, if the system really does work, I should at least lose some size off my measurements. Today, I stand at 5’6″, 160lbs. I took various measurements so that if I am toning up, I should be able to notice it somewhere. Every week, I will re-post my measurements so you can see my progress or lack of progress. Well, here goes nothing!

Arms (widest diameter): R- 13″, L- 13″

Thighs(widest diameter): R-25″, L-25″

Chest (under bra line): 36″

Waist: 35″

Belly (largest diameter-under bellybutton): 39″

Baby got back: 43″

 

The 2012 Yearbook is finally done, and wow… what a year! You can see all the albums from the year here.

The events and excitement of the year required a record 126 pages. This blows away the previous record of 108 by a substantial margin. Will this be the longest Yearbook yet? Only time will tell.

You can browse the pages below.