Abundance

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Week in, week out, I hear the same refrain from former students, many of them bright, young women: They are searching for something else. Not that there is anything especially wrong with their lives, their jobs, their grad programs. It's just that things haven't turned out the way they expected. I sense the same low-grade dissatisfaction among my own kids, their friends and my friends' kids: The grass is always greener. Except when it is not. The niece of a friend once confided that she sometimes wished she'd been born into a world where everything, from spouse to career, was chosen for her. She echoes what I see: a generation of young people overwhelmed by the unintended consequences of choice overload.

On Television Comanche Moon airs at 9 tonight on WJZ (Channel 13). Persuasion airs at 9 tonight on MPT (Channels 22, 67). Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs at 8 tonight on WBFF (Channel 45).

It seems so ironic that the very fields of Antietam, which are today possessed by butterflies and flowers in abundance, should have been the same fields upon which so many died during our Civil War. Perhaps these beauties of creation are trying to tell us something. Dennis L. Durham Bel Air The Sun welcomes submissions for "My Best Shot." Photos should be accompanied by a description of when and where you took the picture and your name, address and phone number. Submissions cannot be individually acknowledged or returned, and upon submission become the property of The Sun. Write to: Travel Department, The Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore 21278, or e-mail Travel@baltsun.

New York-- --New York's Fashion Week -- the biannual presentations by the country's top designers -- ends today, wrapping up a style vision for spring that is both breezy and tailored, long and short, pale and bold, solid and printed. Designers showed a little bit of almost everything on their runways, giving shoppers many choices of spring styles to wear after a fall season of tights, shoe-boots and leather jackets. Looking for a decade to channel? Spring's got several. "I'm very excited about this spring because we've sort of got a change in silhouette, from all the baby doll and all the volume," says designer Rebecca Taylor, "to a more fitted and feminine look -- maybe slightly '40s inspired."

FLORIDA CITY, Fla. -- The Everglades can be a surprisingly noisy place. There were the strange, catlike sounds from the small heron sitting in a tree. Earthshaking burps could be heard from unseen Southern bullfrogs or pig frogs. There was an occasional roar that we knew came from, yes, the dark-colored alligators along the Anhinga Trail. Some were sunning themselves, and some were swimming in the freshwater pools. Everglades National Park is a big, flat, swampy and often buggy place.

Responding to a federal appeal, Maryland's transportation secretary ordered last night new inspections of 10 Maryland bridges of a design similar to the Minnesota bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River on Wednesday evening. Secretary John D. Porcari assured residents that the state's bridges are sound. "No Marylander should be concerned about the safety of our bridges," he said at a news conference earlier in the day. "When our bridges need repair, it's a priority. We make it happen."

Say "Poconos" and for many people, the word "gaudy" almost automatically comes to mind. It is, after all, the place where Morris Wilkins invented and installed the world's first heart-shaped tub in 1963. The Pennsylvania resort area is also a place known as the "honeymoon capital of the world," where champagne glass-shaped spas are sometimes the prelude -- or finale, depending on your inclination -- to a night of romance. And for some odd reason, it's a place that seems to bring to mind sappy family-themed resorts that offer never-ending games of pinochle and shuffleboard.

Franklin coach Larry Meekins believes it's not a coincidence that the number of outstanding pitchers in the metro area is at a high point as more and more high school pitchers seek personal instruction and strength training in the offseason. Meekins, who serves as a pitching coach at former Oriole Larry Sheets' Players School and Clinic in Westminster, said he is amazed at the number of parents who are seeking personal instruction for their kids. "When I started with Larry seven to eight years ago, I thought it might not be worth it for kids to get the extra personal instruction, but I was wrong," said Meekins, an All-Metro pitcher at Franklin in 1970 who went on to pitch at Clemson and in the minor leagues.

When the Top 24 were finally revealed on American Idol a couple of weeks ago, there seemed to be an abundance of contestants making the cut whom we'd never seen before. Now I know why: They're boring! We got stuck with Alaina Alexander (now mercifully gone), Haley Scarnato (still around) and Leslie Hunt (also cut this week). It seems as if we saw some more dynamic performers during auditions, so when they threw these people we'd never seen before into the semifinals, the assumption was that they were amazingly good.

Two years ago, the nation was beset by a severe shortage of flu shots, with huge lines at clinics and many people going without. This year, it looks as if there might be a glut. Yet, somewhat perversely, because of distribution delays earlier in the season, this year's abundant supply has not meant that everyone who wanted a flu shot has received one. The situation underscores the uncertain nature of the nation's supply system for flu vaccine, a risky and volatile business with thin profits, in which the federal government has a limited role.