Flow

The combination of wine, food, music, crafts and vendors will flow across the landscape of the Carroll County Farm Museum on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 15-16, for the 29th annual Maryland Wine Festival. The festival is always a popular event for grape lovers, but it also celebrates the wine industry in the state - this year, some 37 different wineries will be represented. Several winery or vineyard operations either in Carroll County, or immediately close by, will be represented, including Cygnus Wine Cellars in Manchester; Galloping Goose in Hampstead; Serpent Ridge Vineyards in Westminster; Detour Winery near Keymar; and Elk Run Vineyards and Linganore Winecellars in Mount Airy.

ADVERTORIAL CONTENT In the past few years, real estate has increasingly become an investment option that's difficult to ignore. With moderated pricing and historic financing conditions, the costs associated with acquiring investment properties are within reach of more consumers today than at any point in recent history. At the same time, rental rates are increasing and vacancy rates are dropping, sparked by the additional demand that comes with declines in homeownership. More renters in the market make the potential return on investment properties even more enticing.

In October 2012 the Church will observe the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Like every anniversary, it is a time to look back and to look ahead. There will be many articles and talks on the history of the council and its true meaning. As well there should. Among those who took a leading part in the council was a young bishop named Karol Wojtyla, later known to the world as Pope John Paul II. He called the Second Vatican Council "a unique and unrepeatable experience.

"Flow" iOS Free/$.99 ad-free version Big Duck Games Rating: 4 out of 4 When you first open "Flow," you are not treated to the typical one- or two-screen tutorial that seems to be standard with iOS games. Instead, it's a bit like the film "Inception. " You see a field of 25 squares and eight colored dots. You can almost hear Leo DiCaprio asking you to draw him a maze in one minute that takes two minutes to solve. "Flow" challenges the visual and problem solving side of the brain in a way that is intruiging but beautifully simple.

The girls stand together in their skates before taking the ice. They talk animatedly as they stretch and prepare for a long practice. "They haven't seen each other in a week," one of the mothers says in passing. The Sailors, the highest-level team in the Chesapeake Synchronized Skating club, compete nationally at the intermediate level. The girls come from counties around the state and see one another only at practice, but they're close-knit. "We're just like a family now," said Blaire Burgin, a tri-captain and a Pikesville junior.

Related to the reply to my letter ("Yield to left at roundabout and to right at four-way stop," Catonsville Times, Jan. 4), I did not realize that drivers do not need to be courteous when using traffic circles. That writer's self-centered mentality would keep us "poor saps" stranded at one of other entrances to the circle when there is an unbroken queue of vehicles in one direction. This "poor sap," having learned the written rules for drivers approaching an intersection (with no stop signs or all direction stop signs)

A blockage in a 12-inch sewer main caused 1.16 million gallons of sewage to overflow into a tributary of Herring Run, according to a statement Wednesday by the Baltimore County Department of Public Works. The sewer line is in the Anneslie-Idlewylde area near the border of Baltimore and Baltimore County, DPW said. The overflow occurred Oct. 12 but was not discovered until Tuesday after an odor complaint was investigated, according to the statement. The line was cleared around 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Something positive resulted from last month's battle with Mother Nature: more places to catch trout this fall. More than 27,000 trout will be stocked throughout the state starting this month. Most of the trout will be either rainbow or golden trout weighing an average of one pound each. There will also be about 1,500 brown trout weighing about a pound each, as well as 300 rainbow and golden trout weighing two to three pounds each. Approximately 1,000 additional trout will be donated by The Freshwater Institute in West Virginia, a research facility.

During a break in the action, my son's friend came into the kitchen, glass in hand, seeking some water to drink. He looked at the refrigerator door - but saw no dispenser there. He turned toward a corner where a water cooler might be, but saw no dispenser there. A bit confused, he scanned the room, glass still in hand, looking for something, anything, that resembled a spigot from which drinking water might flow. Finally, defeated, he asked me where, please, he might find some water.

The combination of music, food, seminars and a bit of the grape have kept the Maryland Wine Festival flowing for 18 years, and that same recipe will be on tap when the 2011 edition comes to the Carroll County Farm Museum, 500 S. Center St., Westminster, on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 17-18. Hours are Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday 12 to 6 p.m. The festival is the statewide celebration of wine and wineries, and features tastings, seminars, amateur wine competition and the awarding of the Governor's Cup — awarded to the "best in show" wine at the festival.