DEW

A Westminster man was sentenced yesterday to life in prison plus 30 years, with the possibility of parole, in a Carroll County Circuit Court case involving first-degree felony murder and attempted second-degree murder in a December 2005 double shooting that resulted in Carroll County's only homicide in two years. Shawn Anthony Jones, 29, was convicted of 11 counts in May, including first-degree felony murder, attempted second-degree murder, attempted armed robbery and first- and second-degree assault.

By now, Chris Prybylo can deliver the blueprint verbatim: A 4,000-square-foot House of Dew entertainment area, 6,000 yards of freestyle motocross dirt, a hulking vertical ramp and more than 50 semi loads of machinery. "It's essentially a big Lego set. We have well over 10,000 pieces of equipment," said Prybylo, senior director of events for the AST Dew Tour. Everything has been assembled, and from tomorrow through Sunday, the Camden Yards sports complex will host the first of five stops on the 2007 tour.

Teen-agers from the Baltimore-Washington area will "come on down" to the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center Saturday afternoon to participate in their own game show.Based on the television shows "The Price is Right," "Jeopardy" and BET's "Teen Summit," the "Motivational Game Show" tests teen-agers' knowledge and attitudes, said Anthony Dew, project coordinator for the show. Dew expects about 150 teen-agers to participate.Contestants from area youth groups will take part in a spelling bee, an oratorical contest, a golf game and a game that tests their motivational I.Q. Winners will receive cash and prizes donated by Foot Locker, NationsBank and Blockbuster Video.

OYSTERBACK, Maryland -- An oral history of an odd event:Miss Nettie Leery: I got up one morning and looked out my kitchen window and there it was, big as life. Bigger; the thing must have been about 10 by 12, just stuck down there on a stob right there on Oysterback Creek, by the bridge, so you could see it as you were coming into town.A great big old sign that said ''Litey Clash's Dew Drop Inn and Liteyworld Bar Thursday is always Wet T-Shirt Night.'' All in huge purple and gold lettering with that sequin-y stuff on it, like you see on those billboards outside of Ocean City, you know, very tacky.

Spring shakes out its tablecloth,scatters red, yellow, purple crumbs of color.Robin wings X,Y,Z the air.Crow, in oversized galoshes, wadesthrough black puddles, lifts wings,wobbles into flight.In magnolia trees, velvet capsules pop,hatch ivory, mauve blossom birds.Astride his geometric death contrivancespider drinks the dew that bejewels it.Silver penny moon sinks in silver water,westward. Owl hides his face ina hollow stump, shuts his furry eyelids,sleeps.Pub Date: 4/24/96

HOLLYWOOD -- In this sleepy village of thirsty farmers and parched watermen in Southern Maryland, they like a little beer.Order a cold can of Budweiser at Hollywood's Dew Drop Inn, a favorite local watering hole, and you may not notice anything peculiar. But wrap your hand around it and your drink will instantly feel different.Sort of, kind ofWell, small.That's because you have tapped into 10-ounce beer country.In St. Mary's County, as well as several counties on the upper Eastern Shore, people like their brew in cans 2 ounces slimmer than the standard.

FIRE* Winfield: Firefighters from the Winfield station were dispatched to investigate what was thought to be hazardous material dripping from a tank truck in the 6200 block of Woodbine Road at 5:37 a.m. Monday. They determined it was dew dripping from the truck. They were out for 22 minutes.

AT THE conclusion of the incomparable "Angels in America," a dying man named Prior Walter has the last word. Prior has seen ghosts and angels, love and betrayal, lesions blooming on his body and the deaths of many friends.But in the end, as he speaks of AIDS, America and the human condition, some of the things that this monumental play is about, he has a kind of peace so profound that you must genuflect before its grandeur, greater than any seraphim."This disease will be the end of many of us," he says, "but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away.

Despite its subtitle, Robb Forman Dew's wistful book is less about her son's revelation of his homosexuality than about the mighty weight of parents' expectations. It is a touchingly written account of family members coming to terms with their son's sexuality, and also with their own unspoken prejudices, and the realities that peacefully lay some of their dreams to rest.It is spring 1991 when, during the most casual of conversations with his mother, Stephen, then a Yale sophomore, comes out of the closet.

Oysterback, Maryland. -- I was up on the counter chalking up the White Meatloaf Special on the blackboard the other day when I heard the clang of 15 pounds of gold jewelry and Litey Clash walked in.Now, no matter what people may say, I, Desiree Grinch, proprietor of the Blue Crab Tavern (****, Guide Michelin) have nothing against Litey, or that watering hole he chairs down in Wingo, Virginia, the Dew Drop Inn. If someone wants a crabcake about the size of a baby's fist deep fried in a hogshead of grease and served with a side of vegetables boiled until they're olive drab, I almost always recommend the Dew Drop.

The Dew Tour will not return to Baltimore this summer. The action sports tour, which features skateboarding, BMX and other extreme sports, started in Baltimore in 2007, returned in 2008 and was expected to make its third appearance at Camden Yards this year. Instead, the Dew Tour will begin its schedule in Chicago in late June and will make its Boston debut in late July. The chance to break into two larger markets with a new format showcasing individual sports was too great to pass up, said Chris Prybylo, the tour's vice president of events.

After Sunday, the Ravens had one more win in September than the Orioles. Call me an optimist, but I think the Orioles will eventually pass the Ravens for victories this month. Though I wouldn't bet the bar on it. We have a new drink at the bar this week: The Flat-footed Flacco. Whiskey, rum, Mountain Dew and a dab of molasses. It goes down slow, but effectively packs a punch. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/cornersportsbar)

Stuart Godwin Jr. wrote from Chestertown a while back to ask: "What is the relationship between Dew Point and Relative Humidity? Is one dependent on the other?" You bet. Warmer air can hold more water vapor. The RH is a percentage, telling us how close to saturation (100 percent) the air is at ground level. As air cools, it can hold less moisture, and RH rises. At the dew-point temperature, it's saturated (100 percent), and the vapor condenses as rain or fog.

Louis Rosenstock in Baltimore reminds me that humidity determines comfort in a Chesapeake summer. He and others plead for humidity forecasts, not just data on yesterday's mugginess. Many older people step into suffocating humidity and turn back, Rosenstock says. "They can't handle a certain level of oppressive heat." The problem is cramming more data into this space. Try a NOAA Weather Radio. Dew point's over 70? Stay indoors. Or go online. The NWS has a nifty interactive forecast at www.weather.

For Freestyle Motocross rider Blake Williams, his second trip to Baltimore turned out much better than his first. The Australian native, who injured himself last year at this event and ended up missing most of the season, captured the FMX competition yesterday, giving him his first AST Dew Tour title and a win over defending champion Nate Adams. The victory earned Williams 100 points in the race for the Dew Cup and, more important, redemption for the way things turned out in 2007. "Last year I was coming in with even better form but then things went all bad," said Williams, who crashed at the conclusion of his second run a year ago while trying one more jump for the crowd.

The highlights of the weekend's Dew Tour at Camden Yards: Sheckler the star Ryan Sheckler, 18-year-old Skateboard Park competitor and MTV celebrity, again took first place in the event. The three-time Dew Cup winner had droves of fans filling the stands in hopes of just getting a glimpse of him, making the Skateboard Park event the most packed of any this weekend. Other activities For those wanting to take a break from seeing crazy tricks, the festival offered a great alternative. Sony had a truck filled with PlayStation consoles for free gaming, and booths from national and local businesses were set up with activities and giveaways.

Baltimore native Bucky Lasek delighted the hometown crowd, winning the Skateboard Vert event last night. Lasek's second run was strong, earning him a score of 93.75. Lasek, a two-time Dew Cup winner, was largely responsible for getting the Dew Tour to come to Baltimore. In last year's Panasonic Open, he took third while skating with an injured knee. Winning in front of his hometown fans was Lasek's dream. "This is huge redemption," he said. "It means a lot to me to come to my hometown and to put it down the way I did and to represent Baltimore the way it deserves to be represented.

It had been almost a year to the day since Stephen Murray's life was changed forever. During the BMX Dirt final of the Dew Tour's Panasonic Open in Baltimore, Murray suffered injuries to his spinal cord and vertebrae in a horrific crash that left him in a wheelchair. The BMX rider from England attempted a double back flip on the last hill. The missed trick sent chills through the action sports community. But Friday night, Murray, 28, was on the sideline of this year's final, and the fans in Baltimore gave him a standing ovation.

Almost a year ago, Chaz Ortiz was showing that he was the next big thing in skateboarding. The 14-year-old took first place in skateboard park in the Free Flow Tour, the official amateur series of the Dew Tour. This year, Ortiz was given a wild-card entry into the Dew Tour, and the Chicago native proved that stardom might be in his near future. He had two nearly flawless runs in the Skateboard Park preliminaries, finishing third with a top score of 82.5 points, which advances him to the final at 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Six days. That's all it takes to turn the parking lot at Camden Yards Sports Complex into an action sports fan's dream. That's all it takes to build towering ramps, steep rails and huge mounds of dirt for athletes to perform gravity-defying tricks on. The Dew Tour's Panasonic Open starts today in Baltimore and will feature some of the best athletes on skateboards, bikes and motorcycles from around the world, battling for points and prize money....