Nails

Decks are definitely hot: When public television's master carpenter Norm Abram was in town a few weeks ago to give seminars on deck building, his lectures were standing room only.In fact, deck building is where a lot of budding home carpenters get their start. The structure is mostly visible, it's fairly straight-forward carpentry and the rewards are nearly immediate.Plus there's a wealth of information available -- books, videos, and seminars.In some neighborhoods, people band together to form a roving deck-building crew.

STATESVILLE, N.C. -- Bob Beatty owes his life to determination and two eight-penny nails.The self-employed heavy machine operator nearly died when his 18-ton Caterpillar earth mover flipped, crushing his left leg.It took the north Iredell County, N.C., man two hours, using the 2 1/2 -inch nails, to free his leg. For almost an hour more, he dragged himself uphill toward help, quenching his thirst with water from puddles along the way."I thought I was going to die, and I remember looking at the watch to see what time I was going to die," Mr. Beatty said from his bed at Davis Community Hospital in Statesville.

Maxixe drove past Change A Babe entering the stretch and went on to a surprising victory in the $45,325 Park Heights Handicap at Pimlico Race Course yesterday.Maxixe, the only gray in a field of 11 fillies and mares, finished a neck in front of I Like Secrets in the five-furlong turf race."This filly was sharp as nails," said Tommy Turner, who picked up the mount on Maxixe in midafternoon.Maxixe, a 4-year-old Canadian-bred, had won only $59,083 from 22 prior starts and, accordingly, was a 29-1 shot yesterday.

Some day Dennis Hopper will make a great movie, you can see it in his eyes. But "Nails" is not the one.The movie premieres at 9 tonight on Showtime, and stars Mr. Hopper as a randy, renegade cop relentlessly on the trail of the killers of his partner. Now there's an original idea, right?Nope. It's formula, formula, formula of the cable variety, with Los Angeles street chases, gratuitously vulgar language and a little nudity -- the longest scene, surprisingly, of Mr. Hopper himself, chasing a suspect into the street right from the shower.

The sisters flowed through two exhibit halls of the Baltimore Convention Center yesterday, having their hair styled and their nails polished, listening to gospel music, learning about health care and enjoying their sense of community.The fifth annual "For Sisters Only" in Baltimore, a celebration of African-American women, continues today from noon to 8 p.m. Bill Hopkinson, general sales manager for radio station WXYV-FM, which co-sponsors the program with radio station WCAO-AM, estimated that the two-day event will draw 25,000 to 30,000 people.

A U.S. Coast Guard inspector ignored a recommendation to pull samples of the nails holding together the El Toro II, saying that when he saw the boat in March and April 1993, he found no problems to warrant a closer look."

The 18th century is a fun place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there.A few minutes with participants sharing 200-year-old crafts and wearing period dress outside the B&O Railroad Station Museum at Founders' Day Weekend in Ellicott City yesterday would convince you of that.When a man asked the blacksmith how much he was charging for the nails he had made, Twyla Hirrlinger butted into the conversation."You're not planning to burn your house down, are you master?" she asked. "It's against the law, you know."

NEW YORK - For his Spring 2003 show, eveningwear designer Carmen Marc Valvo created glamorous corset gowns and cocktail dresses inspired by 1950s sirens like Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor. He chose smoky eye shadow and dark eyeliner for his models and voluminous hair to balance the slender silhouettes of his outfits. Finally, he focused his attention on selecting a color for a tiny and seemingly insignificant detail - his models' nails. "When they come through here, their nails are disgraceful," Valvo said.

This season, streets and sidewalks are drenched with every possible type of precipitation. But your body is likely to be as dry as a martini.We asked nutrition, health and beauty experts for advice in winning the war against damaging winter weather.First, the basics: A good moisturizer is your best weapon. Use it often and in mass quantities. Keep it in the car, your purse and your desk, for replenishment anytime, anywhere. A good conditioner is moisturizer for your hair, but save that for the shower.

Sheila Murphy recently settled on the house that she and her husband bought in Baltimore County. The home inspection they had done prior to purchase of the house found that the cedar shake roof on the house needed repair. The repairs consisted of replacing damaged shakes at scattered locations and repairing loose ridge caps. The home inspector's opinion was that the ridge caps could be refastened, rather than replaced, to minimize the cost of the repair. A roofing company that was called in for an estimate wants to replace the ridge caps rather than refasten them.