This being the Sunday before Memorial Day, it is the day of the Parkton Cup Invitational, and Danita and I have scored a coveted invitation! Mark and Jiajia are in town to prepare the US physics high-schoolers for the international physics competition and were able to spend the afternoon with us. Here’s a pic. There are some more on the website.

Danita is still experiencing her mysterious pains. She seems to be doing a little better. She’s able to do most of the things she normally does. Her next doctor appointment is in two weeks.

The big news in Columbia is the tornado that struck last week. It touched down in Clarksville and followed Rte 32 to Columbia, a distance of about 10 miles. There were trees and branches down all over the area. Some very dramatic damage occurred within 5 miles of us. If you go to the website, you will see a picture of the tornado cloud near the Columbia Mall, and a picture of a tree that cut through a house like a knife through butter. Fortunately, there was only one injury, which was not life threatening. You can see some interesting pics on the website.

After all the bike riding I’ve done, I thought I had seen it all. But I had three special challenges this week. The first was a machine that created huge clouds of dust. It was supposed to be a street cleaner, but in this case it was only creating dust. It drove slower than a bike, but not slow enough for me to pass. So I just hung back and endured the dust as best I could. The second was a squirrel. Squirrels can be quite dangerous to bikers. They can get caught up in the spokes of a wheel, spin around, and hit the fork. When that happens the spokes experience a sudden force in a direction they are not designed to handle. The end result is a ruined wheel and an immediate transition from vertical to horizontal for the cyclist. Squirrels are nothing new for me, but this one was at the entrance to an intersection. There was a lot of “interesting” traffic absorbing my attention. When I finally noticed the squirrel at the last moment, it seemed to me it was running much slower than squirrels normally run. Fortunately it was just fast enough to prevent a close encounter of the first kind. The third and most distressing unusual encounter was a tractor in a field. (Yes, there are farms in western Howard County.) Normally this is not a problem, but in this case, the tractor was upwind. And it had a huge tank filled with an unknown liquid with a large boom on the back spraying the field, and everything else that was downwind. One spot on the boom was leaking an evil-looking foam, like some strange rabid monster foaming at the mouth. The farmer was well separated from the spray. I was riding up hill. Going faster to pass sooner was no more of an option than holding my breath. It was a tough week for biking!

I hope everybody has an excellent Memorial Day holiday.