Sand

He stands facing the vast ocean, a tiny figure in a bright blue and green bathing suit, clutching a pink plastic shovel and matching pail. He watches families frolic in the water and sea gulls swoop through the sky. He stares, enchanted, as boats float by. He loves boats. Then he looks at the waves. They are crashing down on the beach, coming at him with a terrifying roar. He turns and flees. This is Sean Hack's fourth trip to the beach. The first summer, he sat under an umbrella and ate handfuls of sand until his mother caught him. The next summer, he slept, lulled by the warm sun and the rhythm of the surf.

OCEAN CITY - Beach replenishment planned for the spring in Ocean City is being put off until after the summer because of delays by the Army Corps of Engineers. City Engineer Terry McGean said the bidding process was long and a contract was not awarded in time. He said the Army Corps worked hard, but its contract bids would not have been awarded until mid-May. Workers would have been pumping sand through August on that schedule. The city decided it had been able to patch its eroded sand dunes enough to get through the summer.

This week, "America's Got Talent," the only place on television left for freaks and oddballs that doesn't demand they have some strange addiction or possess a nickname like "Honey Boo Boo," gave in to the regular guys. Too many of the show's strangest semi-finalists got sent home. Host Nick Cannon explained that this time they would "announce the results differently," which meant this first group of 12 semi-finalists got put into groups of three and then the results were revealed to each group.  Once cut down to four, it would be up to judges Howard Stern, Sharon Osbourne, and Howie Mandel, to eliminate one of the four, sending the other three to the finals.

There's nothing like a cool summer to remind you how pleasant it is to sit outside and watch the wonders of nature -- like how high your grass is getting after all the rain.If you don't have a designated place to sit outside, you might think about putting in a brick patio. It's an old-fashioned and attractive addition to a yard, a perfect spot for outdoor dining or entertaining. Besides, brick patios are perfect homeowner projects. They're not at all hard to build -- as long as you don't mind a little digging, hauling and sand stomping.

OCEAN CITY - Assateague Island, sand-starved by Ocean City's jetties and slammed hard by a pair of back-to-back northeasters, has been gravely damaged and stands in urgent need of restoration, say the island's government stewards.Storm waters washed over a section of the island's northern end, and a portion is still submerged, said Maryland Department of Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin, after state and federal officials surveyed the island by air yesterday. "It's just absolutely flat.

OCEAN CITY -- Work on the "war zone," as one angry beachgoer deemed the oft-delayed sand-pumping project along Ocean City's beaches, should be completed by tomorrow.The sand-pumping portion of the $12.5 million beach-replenishment project comes to an end just before the last summer holiday weekend.The work was initially expected to be completed by mid-July, but inclement weather and other problems caused delays, state Department of Natural Resources officials said.With just two blocks of beaches left to restore Friday, for instance, pumping was halted as remnants of Hurricane Andrew moved across the Eastern Shore, causing 25 mph to 35 mph winds and seven- to eight-foot waves and damaging a submerged pipeline, said Nancy Howard, a DNR spokeswoman.

Old-timers in Baltimore may recall a storm that dropped 6 inches on Nov. 6-7, 1953 - the earliest heavy snowstorm on record here. Snow froze on the streets, snarling traffic for up to five hours. Three busloads of Towson High students didn't get home until 10 p.m. Cars, buses and trolleys were stranded amid a scarcity of cinder and sand trucks. Robert Larabee Jr., 8, died in a wreck on the new Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

A steadfast component of conservative gasbaggery has been the primacy of the common man of action, versus the "elites," the "pointy-headed intellectuals" and the "academics" in their "ivory towers." The gist of conservative posing is that frivolous girly-men spend years in college, slipping ever further away from the real world, losing sight of the "common sense" that holds all solutions to our modern problems. It is that Bushian swagger that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal doubtless practiced before the full-length mirror before taking the stage during the poisoning of the Gulf to proclaim his intention to ignore the red tape, bureaucrats, and professorial pansies.

Building castles in sandThe Castle in the Sand's 18th annual sand sculpture contest will take place Tuesday on the beach in front of the 37th Street hotel.The competition is open to amateurs as well as experienced sand architects, and families are encouraged to enter team efforts. Trophies will be awarded in family, adult and children's categories, and the grand prize winner will earn a three-day vacation at the hotel.Registration begins at 9 a.m., and the judges will start eyeing the sand structures at 2:30 p.m. Winners will be announced at 4 p.m.Participation is free, and the first 100 entrants get a souvenir T-shirt (limited to two per group)

LONG BEFORE Noah built his ark, man was grappling with how to live with nature. Nowhere is it more complicated than in our efforts to preserve nature through artificial means. Consider the dilemma at Assateague Island, where the government plans Herculean measures to protect that sand barrier from natural forces. Ocean waves and winds incessantly move the sands of Assateague, slowly thinning the 37-mile-long island and pushing it closer to the mainland. The National Park Service plans to dredge millions of cubic yards of sand from offshore to widen a five-mile stretch of the beach.