Nails

Jeff Gordon has plenty of motivation for the upcoming NASCAR season. It's the soundtrack rich with voices of children laughing, crying and calling out for daddy dearest. Gordon and his wife Ingrid Vandebosch are parents to two children: Ella Sofia is 31/2. Leo Benjamin was born on Aug. 9. So much for Gordon's plans to retire at 40. "It's making me drive longer, I can tell you that," Gordon, 39, said jokingly during preseason testing at Daytona International Speedway.

Some women are coy about revealing their beauty secrets, but Dana Williams-Johnson happily concedes that she's a product junkie. Inside the Clinton townhouse she shares with her husband, her private bath overflows with health and beauty aids — hundreds in all. Think teeth whiteners and lip glosses, firming creams and false eyelashes. "I'm a girl who's been obsessed with makeup and beauty products since I was a little kid," says Williams-Johnson, 32, a webmaster for a trade association.

John Harbaugh looked emotionally drained after the Ravens' chaotic 34-28 win at Houston on Monday night, perhaps the culmination of his team blowing a fourth-quarter lead for the eighth time this season. "Do we have things we are worried about? Do we have things we need to work on? Absolutely," Harbaugh said. "But at this point in time in the season, you are what you are and you have to find a way to win. " And what are the Ravens? At 9-4, they're certainly a playoff-caliber team.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's re-election prospects seem markedly less certain than they did just weeks ago. At the very least, Maryland's governor may have a harder time winning his second term than his first. According to this week's Gonzales Research poll of 807 likely voters, conducted July 13-21, the rematch contest between Mr. O'Malley and former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has tightened to a margin of just 3 points. The Democratic incumbent who occupies the second floor of the State House leads his Republican predecessor 45 percent to 42 percent, a difference within the poll's margin of error.

News item: The Ravens wrapped up their final voluntary minicamp Thursday, 46 days before the opening of training camp at McDaniel College in Westminster. My take: I never thought I'd say this at this early point in the baseball season, but those 90-degree, 100-percent humidity days in Carroll County sound pretty good to me right now. News item: Orioles pitching prospect Jake Arrieta made his major league debut Thursday night against the New York Yankees, just two days after Washington Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg set the world on fire in his debut.

Spring is a tricky season for craft brewers. They must come up with a "seasonal," a beer that catches the mood of this time of year. Other seasons are easier for the brewers to nail down. Winter beers, for example, tend to be dark and robust. Summer beers, which offer relief from heat and humidity, steer toward light and crisp notes. The fall is prime time for malty Oktoberfests lagers or their cousins, autumn ales. But the spring is harder to categorize. Compared with other seasons, there are fewer brewing traditions to follow.

Science night Anne Arundel Community College's free "Science Night" will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. Nov. 12 in the Dragun Science Building at 101 College Parkway in Arnold. Visitors can participate in hands-on demonstrations or just watch. See a bed of nails; learn how to pull a tablecloth out from under a table full of dishes, watch chemical reactions and more. Call 410-777-1217 for more information.

Homeowners who are putting in additions to accommodate family moving in are giving a much needed boost to business at Trademark Remodeling in Eldersburg. At Starcom Design Build in Columbia, clients feeling a bit more confident about the economy are investing in home repairs and tackling small renovations. And at Wall to Wall Construction in Catonsville, homeowners who might have launched big home renovations in more robust times are still spending, though not as much and on smaller projects.

On March the , 2009 Gwendolyn Mae Nails A memorial service focusing on her life works and international travel will be held in August of 2009.

Stories about little kids who flip out in public have always fascinated me, which is why we present another here today. This story begins on a Saturday at Dick's, the mammoth sporting goods store, where I have come to buy a pair of running shoes. The shoes are for the daily exercise walks needed to maintain the sleek, whippetlike physique that is only hinted at in the column picture above. Anyway, I'm trying on a pair of Nikes when here comes a couple trailing their young daughter in the wary manner in which sheriff's deputies escort prisoners into court.