Featured Photos - Photographer: Jamie Crannell

Father's Day at Jane's Island

My Father's Day present this year was a weekend camping with the family. We like to pick state parks when we go camping, due to the grounds maintenance, playgrounds and the convenience of having bath houses with showers nearby! We used to do it the good ol' fashioned way, picking a spot in the woods somewhere, but that was before children.. when the campfire and the hours relaxing int eh hammock were a win. These days we have to fill our time with entertaining activities to keep the wee ones from getting bored.

This time we chose Janes Island. We went online and reserved a spot, the closest tent spot to the water. It looked amazing from the pics, however once we got there we realized we were more or less camping right at the boat ramp. Zero privacy here, nor much for the dozen or so neighboring spots between the main ranger station / camp store and the boat ramp parking lot.This campground is definitely more of a community based experience and not a "get away from it all" kind of trip.

We rented a slip in the marina to tie up the boat. As it turned out, this was only a few dozen feet away from our camp spot! This high traffic area being our camp spot had been a little worrying at first, but turned out to be a positive

With trails in the woods for bike riding, trails in the marshes for Canoe and Kayak exploration and 3 ways to get out into the Chesapeake Bay with it's glorious white sand beaches and tidal marsh wetlands, we kept rather busy. We did some boating, some fishing, some swimming, some marshmallow roasting over the campfire, watched boats of all shapes and sizes, appear or disappear from the boat ramp and marina. We sat on the dock and fished out the sunset while watching the dozens of turtle heads popping up as they headed out toward the bay for the evening.

It was a great time, and we have already picked out the camp site we want to get next time!

2017 Annual Artifact Show


Click to see the photos!

This year's show had a wonderful turn out. Thank you to everyone who was involved in making things happen, and to everyone who came out to enjoy it! There were about 2 dozen collections displayed across over 60 tables! It was a magnificent sight to behold. One could touch a tool that was crated some 18,000 years ago, could learn the ages and types of artifacts along the timeline all the way up to colonial contact and beyond. One could even see things being made this very day!

Hundreds of the people stopped in today. Many of them brought their own finds to seek explanation of what, or how old, they might be. A Special Thanks to Terry Crannell for being the go-to guy for most of these inquiries!

The photographs in the above gallery are not intended as documentation, but instead are meant to convey the journey of an interested visitor enjoying the experience. Some of these photos were taken at very odd angles to reduce glare & reflections

If you would like a full size, or Photoshop enhanced, copy of any photo in this album, or if you would like to schedule a private photo shoot, contact lifeontheshore@gmail.com

Hurlock Fall Fest 2017

It was unseasonably warm, 85 degrees, sunny, breezy.. a beautiful day for the October celebration. One could fill their belly with any number of locally grown & raised beef, chicken, corn, or even french fries! The little ones had their faces painted and went on pony rides. There were train rides all day long for enthusiasts of all ages. Giggles could be heard from the nearby pumpkin bowling alley.

Click here to see a few shots.. enjoy the scenery of it all.


Dorchester Center for the Arts - A walk down High Street



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A bright, hot sun shone down on us as we enjoyed the smiles and murmurs of people gazing upon the art that lined both sides of the street. For several blocks there were booths lined up displaying skilled craftsman and their works. Some were selling their wares, others were showing their skills, and others yet were simply displaying things of beauty.

We got an ice cream, listened to a marching band, fingered through old books, and became completely enthralled by a talented young guitarist. A little girl squirmed restlessly as a paint brush transformed her into a kitty. Laughter caught our attention from a few tables down as a few ladies showed off their weaving and gossiped gleefully.

The arts are alive in Dorchester, there is no doubt about it.

Friendship Park - Bike Parade & Ribbon Cutting

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( You can also add your own pics of this event if you have a google account )

Once again the rain and drizzle tried to put a damper on an event, and once again we didn't let it stop us! The parade, the dog walk, the scavenger hunt.. even the paper ribbon for the cutting.. all kept calm and carried on!

There was food, drink, laughter and enjoyment. Prizes were awarded for categories like "Longest Resident" and "Newest Resident" and for a scavenger hunt and a bicycle parade.. there were even treats for the dogs in the dog walk. It was a good time to be had by all.

We'd like to thank the Mayor and Town Council of East New Market for the time and effort they have put in to acquire the land and create this park for the local community. Both locals and visitors alike make use of the park every day.

Chicone Village Day at Handsell - April 2016


The day was grayish and slightly chilly with a spot of warm sun here and there; quite an improvement over the previous week of rain and drizzle. We took the back way, turning off at Brookview and heading down Indian Town road. The boys enjoyed seeing the cows and pigs and other various critters while I enjoyed watching the breeze-blown wheat flowing in swirls across the fields. Local farms were in full swing and doing what they do in spring, and it was beautiful.

When Handsell has an event, you know I will be there. There is so much history embedded in our area, to see it come alive and to participate in the experimental archaeology is a truly wonderful experience. Experimental archaeology is putting theory and passed-down knowledge of the old ways to use. When you actually physically DO the things, you can learn so much more about how they were actually done than you might get from just reading about it.

My oldest son, 11, spent most of our time there enthralled by Daniel "Firehawk" Abbott and his presentation. The history and culture from thousands of years past up to colonial introduction seems to come alive in the way Daniel explains things and lets you use hand made examples of working period tools and housing all made with the techniques and materials that would have been used in their time.

My youngest, 7, was all over the place, as most 7 year olds would be. Playing the various games and talking to the people, and then he found something that really seemed to engage him. Mr. Norris Howard Jr. of the Pocomoke Indian Nation was using water and sand to shape soapstone into decorative pieces, the resulting byproduct being, basically, mud! Well this was just too good to be true for a 7yo boy. Not only did he get to help shape stone into something beautiful, but was encouraged to make mud in the process!

As usual, I took a few shots to remember the experience better, to enlighten the community and to pass on to my children a little more documentation of how they grew up. I hope everyone enjoys them.

Click Here
to see the pics!

Ingress Obsidian Win - MD DE ENL Recharge Room

For the final anomaly of the Ingress Obsidian series, the nearest primary site was Orlando Florida. Over 1300km away, most of us locals could not make it down. Since we still wanted to help our team (Go Enlightened!), agent Zombpika decided to hold a "Recharge Room". Various Ingress agents traveling along the east coast delivered portal keys from the anomaly site portals to our, and several others', recharge rooms. This allowed us to recharge those portals remotely, helping our team to keep the ones we needed to keep.

I started off the day with an hour and a half bike ride, most of which was in the rain, to get to our designated meeting place. Thank you agent Kshthymyla for generously allowing us to use your home as our base. As our team arrived and got our devices plugged in and ready for a long day's battle, agents Zombpika and Torrejon84 divvied out keys to everyone. Agent Synspheonix set his laptop up for intel and bluetooth speaker to broadcast our Zello channel to the room. And then... it began.

As critical portals were called out, those with a key to them would begin frantically recharging. Everyone else would recharge any portals they had keys to in the field, keeping them green so the critical portals didn't stand out and attract extra attention. Over the course of the day, shard after shard after shard came flying in to our target portals.

We enjoyed the day sharing company with good people, feasting on delicious yummies, and laughing heartily time and time again. When all was said and done, Enlightened had won the event 50 to 2 over the Resistance. We all cheered and shouted, took a group picture, and headed out to upgrade and hack some local portals.

#ingress
#lifeontheshore
#ingressbymotorcycle

2015 ENM Indian Artifact Exhibit

The show this year was a huge success! Many eager patrons stopped in to see, hear, touch and experience the culture and artifacts of an older time. Many even brought their own stuff in to show off or ask questions about.

From kid's crafts to 20,000 year old stone tools.. Brass keys to woven grass.. local authors.. fresh oysters.. flint knapping.. conversations with many happy, smiling people over thousands of years of history.

Thank you all for coming, and I hope we'll see you again next year :)

P.S. Video might take a while, lots of editing to do and not much time to do it lol.



View Pics Here!

Designing & Implementing a Web Platform

A poorly planned implementation generally results in an incredibly patch-worked system. Many times when someone decides to jump the gun and get things started before the full realization of a realistic plan, it falls under 1 of 2 categories.

1) Experimentation - The client is not fully sure yet of what the end goal will be, so they add this and remove that and try the other until they work out the system as they want it to be. After a full realization of the intended system and it's workings, the system is rebuilt from the ground up.

2) Plan B - Changes have occurred that were unforeseen and not prepared for in the planning of the original system. This results in very much the same thing as above. Things added and changed and removed and rearranged until you end up with a big mess, even though it may seem on the surface to be working as intended.

I would like to present you with a graphic analogy using network wiring images.

The original idea:

What you thought you needed

Hey let's add this and that..

What you added later

Now lets remove this.. and change that over there and..

What you ended up with

As you can see, you will quickly find that scaling becomes an issue when your system has become too patched together.

The best policy in this case is to write a new plan, integrating exactly, and only, what your end product has evolved to become. Take this new plan and build a new system from the ground up, with everything accounted for, and you are once again in a good place.

Two point 0

Lets ADA some Ingress portals!

Several local Enlightened agents were looking to farm some level 8 goodies, however, there were not enough L8+ players nearby to make this happen and the aforementioned players were not really able to travel very far at the moment. So..

We used the old ADA/Jarvis flip flop technique to whip up a couple sets of ripe-for-the-picking L8 farming portals. With a few heat-sinks and multi-hacks as the cherries on top, we netted a few hundred yummy good stuffs each. We sometimes do this when we want to top off our high end supplies. Right profitable really.

For this particular run, I was the ADA guy. Enjoy the ride :)

~

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About

LifeOnTheShore is a web community based on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Delaware & Virginia; otherwise known as DelMarVa. This project is currently upgrading and enhancing our technologies.

Here in our web site you will eventually find things like

  • Local parks & playgrounds with photos & reviews
  • Local events
  • Interesting local people
  • Unique local businesses
  • Technology, photography
  • Blogs (online magazines)
  • . . . and much more!

We are currently seeking writers, journalists, poets, ranters, preachers, soap-box politicians and anyone else who has a story to tell or an opinion to share. Write an article, a message on the forum, a comment on a post, get conversations started!

Why the 48forks.com domain? I needed a to name domain on the fly and the first text I set my eyes on, was on the side of a box on the shelf in front of me.. 48 Forks. Brilliant! So, here we are.

Crannell Web Services

Fluidly Evolving Internet Technologies - Crannell Web Services

We'd like to thank our parent site, CrannellWeb.com, for providing the technology needed to get Life On The Shore up and running. Currently this entire project is running on donated time and effort to provide customized software solutions for our online community.

If you are ready to take the next step in establishing your online presence, and want to have it done right, get in touch!