St. Mary's County is a medium sized county in the southernmost part of Maryland on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It was initially founded by British settlers who landed on St. Clement's Island in the Potomac River. St. Mary's City was the forth permanent settlement in British North America. There isn't much left of Historic St. Mary's City except for the skeleton of some old houses and a Church which is now on the campus of St. Mary's College.

The County Seat is now located in Leonardtown, although Lexington Park, Hollywood and California are the most developed and busiest spots in the county. This can be directly attributed to the placement of the Pax River Naval Base which is located smack-dab in the middle of Lexington Park. Pax is the primary NAVAIR testing facility, and there are many contractors around, particularly aircraft and aerospace contractors, like BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Raetheon and Boeing. The Naval Air Warfare Center - Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), another Navy Command is located just around the corner in St. Inigoes, MD, which is a bit south of Historic St. Mary's City.

Between all the high tech contractors and military installments, St. Mary's county is still 95% trees. I've flown over most of it (except for Naval airspace) and it looks like nothing so much as endless bunches of broccoli. There are also vast tracts of farmland whose primary crops are corn, soybeans and tobacco. St. Mary's also enjoys a robust seafood trade. Crabs, oysters and clams are available in abundance. And you can buy them from the backs of trucks on the side of the road cheaper than you can buy them anywhere else.

With all this high-tech industry all over the place, you'd think that two-way cablemodem service would be available here. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.


Addendum: Two-way cablemodem service has since become available since the time of the original writeup. Happily, I landed a job developing the website of the cable company, and I don't even have to pay for it.

Booya!

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