Rest

Orb's path to the finish line in the second leg of the Triple Crown remains uncrowded. Normandy Invasion, the fourth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, dropped from contention for Saturday's 138th running of the Preakness on Sunday. Trainer Chad Brown and owner Rick Porter decided to stick with their original plan and point the horse toward prestigous races for 3-year-olds later in the summer. That leaves Orb, the colt co-owned by Baltimore County resident Stuart Janney III and Ogden Mills "Dinny" Pipps' stable, with only seven confirmed challengers at this point.

Shug McGaughey, the trainer for Kentucky Derby winner Orb, attributes his calm demeanor since that race to maturity. Had he made it to the Preakness with a Triple Crown chance at a younger age, the 64-year-old insists, the scene would have been different. The kindly man in a sweater, face almost always softened in a sort of bemused wonderment, would be replaced by a high-strung, short-tempered barn general. Orb co-owner Stuart Janney III knows McGaughey feels some pressure. "Before the Derby, he had no color in his face," he said.

Even if you're not yet ready to retire, San Miguel de Allende is perfect for a vacation or long weekend getaway. Getting there United and American airlines offer connecting flights (via Texas) to San Miguel's two closest airports, Leon/Guanajuato (BJX), 90 minutes away, and Queretaro (QRO), one hour away. Round-trip airfares start around $600. Multiple airlines offer flights to Mexico City, which is three hours from San Miguel. When to go January may be the sole inclement month to travel, and even then it's nothing compared to a typical Baltimore winter.

It didn't take my fiancé and me very long to decide who would join us down the aisle. We have a small, intimate circle of friends, so choosing them was easy. We settled on having six of our friends who would make up our party: four women and two men. The hard part was finding the right words to call them. The traditional bride/groom format has well-defined roles, traditions and terms for each person in the party. However, when faced with a bride/bride or groom/groom setup, the rules don't fit so neatly.

LOUISVILLE, KY. - This year, Doug O'Neill and his assistants sat in the office at a barn in the far corner of the Churchill Downs backside. Few reporters dropped by, and O'Neill was not asked repeatedly to relive the running of the Kentucky Derby a day before. Last year's winning trainer, with I'll Have Another, O'Neill instead convened with his robust team to discuss plans for the 138th Preakness Stakes, scheduled for May 18 at Pimlico. Their Derby horse, Goldencents, finished 17th.

If you're a big fan, you already knew what was coming in the season finale. But it didn't make it any easier -- or less heartbreaking -- to watch. The majority of the Season 3 "Downton" finale, or the "Christmas special" as its called in the U.K., took place in Scotland, where the whole family (minus Branson) visits the Highlands home of the Dowager's niece, Susan, and her husband, Shrimpy. Most of the trip included bagpipes, hunting, more bagpipes and Scottish reel dancing. But more on that later (and more on O'Brien meeting her Scottish lady's maid doppelganger)

In her column ("Big step forward for women's health" Aug 15) essentially advocating universal, free health care-on-demand for women, Susan Reimer sums up by stating, "It is about keeping the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of this country on their feet and caring for the rest of us ... " Pray tell, Ms. Reimer, how are women who need government to provide their every need going to take care of the rest of us? Dave Reich, Perry Hall

Caught between the need to rest his ailing left ankle and his desire to play, Ravens wide-out Lee Evans may err on the side of caution Sunday in St. Louis. Sitting out to allow the injury to heal is an option that Evans and the Ravens may find more palatable this week than they did in the first two games of the season. “We know that rest is one of the biggest things for it, which is why we try to approach the week the way we do,” Evans said. “We also want to be smart and not have the thing linger throughout the whole season.

Maryland linebacker Demetrius Hartsfield has torn his ACL and will miss the rest of the season, Terps coach Randy Edsall announced today. Hartsfield, a senior from Raleigh, N.C., suffered the injury on a running play with 2:20 remaining in the second quarter of Maryland's 33-13 loss to Georgia Tech. Hartsfield, who was blocked low on the play, had started all nine games this season. “This is another tough loss for the program,” Edsall said. “Demetrius is a captain and has been a leader of this defense both on and off the field.

Back in 2005, a manager at the Starbucks Coffee shop at the Maryland House Rest Stop on I-95 just south of the Aberdeen exit told an Aegis reporter that particular Starbucks was one of the busiest in the world. It would be easy to chalk the claim up to hyperbole, exaggeration or the inexperience of a possibly not-so-worldly coffee shop manager, but anyone who has done a little research on the subject knows the claim is far from wild. Going back years before that, Marriott, the food service giant that has the restaurant contract for the Maryland House and many other rest stops across the country, also confirmed the Harford County rest stop is among the busiest.

The Interstate 95 rest areas in Howard County are scheduled for temporary daytime closures beginning next week while crews repave the parking lots, the State Highway Administration said. On Monday, weather permitting, the southbound welcome center, including parking areas, will be shuttered for a week or two, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. When work is completed, the paving operation will switch to the northbound center. Both centers will be open around the clock, Friday through Sunday. Overnight truck parking will be permitted and the restrooms will reopen for the evening and overnight hours.

Can we go a little over the top here? OK, here goes: maybe we'll remember this just-concluded 7-4 Orioles road trip to the West Coast as the time where the legend of Manny Machado really took off. Sure, he got lots of attention last season when the Orioles brought him up from the minors to  play third base and the kid immediately solidified a shaky infield defense as the O's surged to 93 wins and their first playoff appearance since the Clinton...

On a perfect spring day in Baltimore County, surrounded by hundreds of his brother and sister firefighters and mourned in prayers thousands of years old, a hero was laid to rest Sunday. Gene M. Kirchner, the 25-year-old Reisterstown volunteer firefighter who died Thursday at Maryland Shock Trauma Center of injuries suffered when he tried in vain to rescue a man trapped in a burning home, was buried in front of the Fallen Heroes Memorial at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens after funeral services at Har Sinai Congregation in Owings Mills.

Saturday's 8-4 loss to No. 7 and reigning national champion Loyola weakened No. 13 Johns Hopkins' profile for an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. But the program's bid for a 42nd consecutive appearance in the postseason could depend on what happens with other teams. Half of the 16-team field will be filled by teams that win their respective conference tournaments and capture the automatic qualifiers associated with those victories. If conference tournament favorites like No. 3 Notre Dame (Big East)

With a 7-7 overall record and a 3-2 mark in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), Towson is locked in as the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament. The team can't catch No. 15 Drexel (10-3, 5-1) for the No. 2 seed and owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Hofstra (7-6, 2-3) for the No. 3 spot. But that doesn't mean that the Tigers are planning on coasting in Saturday's regular-season finale against St. Joseph's at Johnny Unitas Stadium in Towson. “Any game you compete in - I don't care if it's T-ball or lacrosse - you want to win, and that's important for us as a program,” coach Shawn Nadelen said Monday.

In response to the recent commentary on autism ("'Autism is not disability,'" April 11), I would observe that perhaps we are all disabled in one way or another, or else none of us is. I think we all, are and often in disability lies strength. Some disabilities are more visible than others. Someone who cannot walk can help the rest of us to learn to slow down. Someone who cannot see can help the rest of us learn to listen more carefully. People who appear disabled one way or another may help each of us admit our own disabilities and find the strength that lies in them.

When the Orioles signed left-hander Wei-Yin Chen, 10 days into 2012, they did so because they believed the 27-year-old had displayed unflappability in big games. He represented his native Taiwan in the Olympics four years ago. He overcame all the obstacles of pitching in a different country, shining for four seasons in Japan with the Chunichi Dragons. When Chen won his 12th game of the season Aug. 19 in Detroit, he became the first Orioles' pitcher to record that many wins since 2007.

Regarding you editorial "Twice as nice" (April 25), my wife and I along with our kids went through credit card debt not once but twice. The second time we had to cut up the credit cards and simply decide that if we couldn't afford something, we wouldn't buy it. (Of course there were exceptions, such as medical emergencies.) What has always bothered me about government spending when as a nation we find ourselves deeply in debt - to the tune of some $15 trillion currently - the government always threatens to cut police, firemen, teachers or other vital public services.

April is National Autism Awareness Month, which naturally raises the question: awareness of what? As a parent of a 19-year old son with autism, if you had asked me that question years ago, I would have said things like, "Be aware that kids with autism can experience sensory overload" or "Be aware that creating teaching opportunities around an autistic child's interests can help him learn. " Or, if I was meeting one of my son's teachers: "Be aware that if you leave that scented candle on your desk, it's going to have a perfect bite taken out of it within two minutes.

Nothing, besides the approach of a snowstorm or a rush-hour fender-bender on the Beltway, elicits more groans from Baltimoreans than the summons to jury duty, and I'm not sure why, except that we like to bellyache about stuff. When you think about it, we're not asked to do that much as citizens - separate trash from recyclables and set them on the curb, vote every couple of years, pay our taxes on time, sit on a jury once in a great while (more frequently if you live in the city)