Tales Of Two Cities

Who We Are

2012-02-10T17:14:00.001-05:00

There is a core of activists, living in Columbia, who are seemingly obsessed with the notion that anyone living in the planned community shares some universal value of community. The People Tree codifies this notion for them; People working and living together in harmony. They see every action that occurs within the lien paying borders that geographically define the town through the glasses of Jim Rouse. Whether it is the removal of a graphic from a logo or making improvements to a public park, these self anointed “keepers of the flame,” righteously challenge any perceived affront to these values.

I wonder if Jim Rouse would be amused. He had a pretty good sense of humor.

Columbia is physically special. Its winding roads and abundant open space are a welcome departure from the typical suburban development of the sixties and the seventies. It also has funny street names.

And it’s full of people that are no different, or have any special values than any other community in the Baltimore Washington, D.C. corridor.

I started out to write this post about graffiti. Driving past the first phase of the new Blandair Park in Columbia today, I noticed that, even before anyone has had a chance to enjoy these wonderful new fields, vandals have already left their mark.

This happened right smack dab in the middle of Columbia. It could have just as easily occurred in Catonsville or Laurel. I’ll bet the profile of the perpetrator or perpetrators’ would be readily recognizable in all three communities.

When I got home I read this post by Julia McCready on her blog, Village Green/Town Squared. Julia takes issue with the notion of a mythical developer “Mr. GoodRouse” and the expectation that someone at Howard Hughes Corporation will now attempt to fill those shoes. That isn’t going to happen and she suggests that “waiting for the "Great Good" someone to make things right with Columbia leaves us vulnerable to anyone who knows the real rules of the game…”

Show Me a Sign

2012-02-09T19:53:00.002-05:00

Three curious sets of banners appeared on lighting poles in the parking lot of the Howard Hughes Building in Town Center today. One set read “Natural” and “Organic.”

Another set read “Local” and “Value.”

The third set read “Fresh” and “Quality.”

I don’t know about you but this sure looks like something you’d put up for a specialty grocer, in particular a specialty grocer who also happens to use the colors of green and white.

John DeWolf, Senior Vice President of the Howard Hughes Corporation, released this statement this afternnon.

“The banners attempt to demonstrate the potential for alternative uses for the building and its associated parking areas beyond simply an office use. All of this remains “hypothetical” and “prospective” at this point. And, we may do more experimenting in the near future. Hopefully, soon we can announce with great certainty some results from all this effort.”

Okay. I feel a little better about things now. Yesterday I became a bit concerned when I received an email from HowChow. He wrote that in Whole Foods latest quarterly earnings press release they listed eight new leases, none of which were in Maryland, much less HoCo. “They won’t announce more stores for three months,” he added.

That may be so but judging by what’s going on in the parking lot, its safe to say that something is going on.

In This Months Business Monthly

2012-02-09T14:04:00.003-05:00

Seventeen years is a long time, even for a Twinkie. I thought about that as my seventeenth annual box of birthday Twinkies arrived in the mail last month. My sister Pat, who now lives in St. Augustine Beach, has dutifully sent me a box of Hostess Twinkies, accompanied by a pack of birthday candles every year since 1995.

This birthday Twinkie tradition started right here in HoCo with a column I wrote for a now defunct newspaper. In 1994, a fellow named Ed Pickett tried to buck the trend of declining newspaper readership by launching Howard Counties first ever daily newspaper. He called it the Columbia Daily Tribune.

It lasted three months.

I had met Ed in 1992 when he rolled into town and started a monthly business publication originally called the Columbia Business Journal. I don’t know how he got my name but he invited me to meet him for a drink at Piccolo’s (now Three Brothers Pizza) and asked me to write a column for his paper. After being threatened with a lawsuit by the Baltimore Business Journal, Ed changed the name to the Columbia Business Monthly, which was eventually shortened to The Business Monthly.

Ed was a bit of bit of restless character and by 1994, with The Business Monthly actually making money, he decided to start a daily paper. The problem was he tried to do this with very little capital. By the time the paper “suspended” publication he owed money all over town and he soon left for greener pastures.

I stayed in touch with Ed for a few years after that. He ended up in Maine where he started the Bangor Business Monthly which, eventually grew to include monthly business papers in Penobscot Bay and Kennebec under the banner of The Maine Business Monthly Group. Those papers ceased publication in May of 2001 due to declining advertising revenue. Undeterred, he then moved to Portland to try and start another daily paper called the Portland Morning Sun. It lasted for thirteen issues. Last I heard he was living in Pittsburgh.

Through all of this, the birthday Twinkies have endured. You can read this months column here.

Itching for a Fight

2012-02-08T20:32:00.000-05:00

The snow crews were ready today. Wherever I went I saw them in their trucks, plows mounted, beds full of salt, waiting patiently for the call to take on the predicted storm. There were county crews, state crews, power company crews and a host of private plow drivers that look forward to making a few extra bucks when the snow falls. They were pumped.

The call never came.

It’s been lean times in the loco snow emergency business this year. Despite the ominous signs we received back in October, this winter has been a bust when it comes to snow.

To be fair, it could have easily gone the other way today. A few degrees cooler and we would have had a winter mess on the drive home.

And these guys would have been ready.

Thompson to Lead Town Center Redevelopment

2012-02-08T15:59:00.001-05:00

Mark Thompson, a former Director of Commercial Land Sales for GGP and The Rouse Company, has been selected by County Executive Ken Ulman to lead the redevelopment of Columbia Town Center for the county. The newly created position will help the coordinate the development process among the various stakeholders involved and will report directly to the exec.

Beware the Ides of March

2012-02-07T21:06:00.003-05:00

Last night the HoCo County Council tabled the councilmanic redistricting legislation (CB 57-2011) after failing to come to an agreement on the changes recommended by the Redistricting Commission. According to this story by Lindsey McPherson in Explore Howard, after attempting to iron out their differences in a recent work session, “the council had still not reached consensus on what, if any, changes should be made to the commission's plan.”

“Council Chairwoman Mary Kay Sigaty, a Columbia Democrat, council member Greg Fox, a Fulton Republican, and council member Courtney Watson, an Ellicott City Democrat, all filed amendments to the plan that are in conflict with one another.”

It looks like Dr. Ball and Jen Terrasa are the only ones without a plan. That may be the best plan.

By tabling the bill the council is basically kicking the can down a very short road. If the council fails to reach agreement to any changes by March 15^th, the recommendations of the Redistricting Commission become law.

And perhaps that will provide enough political cover for all concerned.

You and Your Heart

2012-02-07T20:06:00.000-05:00

Maybe its just because Valentines Day is coming up and my otherwise cold heart is in a softer place, but when I heard this song on The Spectrum this morning it made me smile.

With or Without Apple

2012-02-07T15:39:00.002-05:00

This afternoon, while getting a haircut at The Mall, Wayne Shepard and I got into a conversation about the fiscal health of the forty one year old shopping center. I told Wayne about this mall story by Stephanie Clifford in The New York Times yesterday that said “as retailers crawl out of the worst recession since the advent of malls, many are realizing they are overbuilt and are closing locations at a fast clip.”

The article goes on to note that there hasn’t been a new mall built in this country 2006. In fact, more than a few have been torn down and redeveloped including the first enclosed mall on the east coast, Harundale Mall in Glen Burnie.

The Mall in Columbia is actually one of the more successful malls in the country. Since opening in 1971, the 1,200,000 square foot mall has adapted with the times through four renovations, the last being in 2003. Wayne recently asked GGP how the mall was performing on a sales per square foot basis.

“With or without the Apple store?” was the response.

It turns out that the Apple store, with sales exceeding $5,000 per square foot, skews the overall numbers by about $100 per square foot. With the Apple store, The Mall sales are averaging over $600 per square foot, well over the national average for malls of $386 per square.

And without the Apple store numbers?

It is still over $500 per square foot.

I was pretty blown away by these numbers. According to Wayne, the only store in The Mall that has a higher annual sales volume than Apple is Macy’s.

Identity Crisis

2012-02-06T16:35:00.003-05:00

Maybe it’s because I’m an old dog but more than a few people have come up to me lately asking if I plan to do anything about the People Tree issue. Well not exactly the People Tree itself, but a graphic representation of the Columbia Town Center sculpture that many believe represents the very soul of the planned community. Some of these folks are downright outraged at plans by the Columbia Association to remove this icon from their logo.

I’m not one of them.

If it is such a sacred symbol, shouldn’t the outrage instead be directed at plastering it over everything from business cards to garbage cans?

The People Tree sort of looks out of place with the Columbia Association name anyway. It’s sort of like a weed the way it pops up in different places.

In this iteration it rises between Columbia and Association and towers over the organization like dandelion on steroids.

In this take, the tree encroaches on the letter “C.” It makes me want to get out the hedge trimmers. In fact, that looks like what happened in this version of the logo on the Hobbit's Glen page of the CA website.

Some facilities took a virtual weed whacker to the tree graphic and eliminated it altogether.

The bottom line is that CA doesn’t even own the rights to the People Tree image. Those rights are now held by Howard Hughes Corporation, the successor to Columbia’s original developer, The Rouse Company. In the early years of Columbia’s development, the People Tree image was used as a branding symbol for the new town. It was used in all manner of marketing materials including, ties, lapel pins, and tote bags.

In my opinion it looked better on those things than a dumpster.

And finally the People Tree sculpture isn’t going to go away like the poinsettia tree was a few years back. It’s staying right where it has always been. In fact, I imagine we might begin to see it make a comeback in some of the marketing efforts for redevelopment projects in Town Center in the very near future.

A Week from Today

2012-02-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

The last HoCo Blogtail party was held back in October so we are a little overdue for another one. Apparently Brain Dunn, the author of Columbia 2.0, felt this way too. He got in touch with the major domo of the HoCo blog scene, JessieX and in very short order they put together a party for one week from today, the day before Valentines Day.

The last party I was a little preoccupied with our podcast and did not spend nearly enough time meeting and greeting the members of the continually expanding loco blogger community. I hope to do a better job of meeting new people next Monday.

Brian has done a nice job engaging younger generations of Columbians in the redevelopment of Columbia. He launched Columbia 2.0 at a time when the discussions of the communities future were dominated by voices from its past. I believe he has helped make a difference.

The party will be held on Monday, February 13^th from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM at the new Corner Stable Pub in the Kings Contrivance Village Center. If you plan to attend, please help JessieX by registering in advance.

Compost Crunch

2012-02-05T13:17:00.004-05:00

About a thousand HoCo residents are now participating in the HoCo kitchen waste recycling program reducing the amount of waste sent to the landfills by 25%. By most measures the program has been a success yet, according to this story by Kevin Rector in Explore Howard, “it's future is also mired in uncertainty.”

"With what's going on in Annapolis and what's going to happen with our budgets, I'm not sure yet," said Howard County Department of Public Works Environmental Services Bureau Chief Evelyn Tomlin on the program's future. "I think we're really going to see a real impact on what we can do."

Right now the biggest problem is where the stuff in the green bin ends up after it leaves the curb. When the program started in 2010, the collection of banana peels, egg shells and pizza boxes were trucked just across the border to a composting facility in Carroll County, Woodbine based Recycled Green Industries. The privately held business, which once processed over a half million cubic yards of organic waste every year, agreed to stop accepting food waste in December after being notified by the Maryland Department of the Environment that they were out of compliance with state regulations. According to this story by Jeremy Carroll in Waste and Recycling News, DOE spokesperson Samantha Kappalmen, said “composting can cause surface and ground water pollution and it is important for composting to be done within the state’s regulatory requirements…”

Does this mean that HoCo’s green can initiative has helped make Carroll brown?

Now our wet garbage is traveling across the state line to another company facility where, either it is in compliance, or the regulatory environment is just more favorable.

Well Hung

2012-02-05T11:32:00.000-05:00

I was honored and a bit surprised to be asked to be a “celebrity” bartender for the Evening In The Stacks fundraiser for the HoCo library later this month. I was definitely surprised when Christie Probst Lassen posted this video on facebook.

Do you think they got my best side?

State of the County Blog Notes

2012-02-03T10:26:00.001-05:00

Lindsey McPherson from Explore Howard wasn’t the only member of the working press to cover the county execs State of the County address yesterday. WBAL sent out a camera crew out to Turf Valley and Brian Hooks from Savage Path provided live blogging coverage.

It was a record turnout for the annual address with over 450 people packed into the Turf Valley ballroom. Pam Klahr, the CEO of the HoCo Chamber announced that one dollar from each ticket was donated to Ullman Cancer Fund.

About ten 8^th graders from Lime Kiln Middle School were set up at a table just inside the ballroom demonstrating their financial literacy project. I spent a few minutes talking to their principal, Scott Conroy and school board member Ellen Flynn Giles about the program which is part of Junior Achievement. Other school board members in attendance were Janet Siddiqui and Frank Aquino.

Ken told the assembled business leaders that while Maryland ranked first in the nation in research, it lagged in capitalizing on the opportunities created by that research. Close to home, Ken pointed out that the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Fulton was responsible for the invention of the Global Positioning System and heart stents, among other things.

Ken said he asked his daughter what he should say in his State of the County address and she suggested he ask Siri. Siri’s response was “Okay, I give up. Shall we try again?”

Over 300 miles of fiber have been laid so far in the One Maryland broadband initiative that was spearheaded by his administration. He claims that this is the only statewide broadband effort in the country. When completed it is expected to save local jurisdictions over $26 million annually. The first fiber installed connected Howard Community College with Howard County General Hospital.

The only state lawmaker to attend the event was Delegate Guy Guzzone. That is not surprising. Ken and Guy have been close since they served together on the county council. As I was leaving the event I saw Ken and Guy head off for a private meeting, probably to talk about how they might keep the guv from shifting $17 million of teacher pension liabilities to HoCo.

Good luck with that.

Ken and the Bloggers

2012-02-02T22:19:00.000-05:00

When HoCo loco blogger TJ Mayotte interviewed Ken Ulman last month for Elkridge Patch, he asked Ken if he read the local blogs. “Generally, I’m aware of what’s being said online...I’m big on social media.”

He was seemed to be very familiar with at least one blog today. After the chamber luncheon this afternoon I congratulated him on his elevation to the top tier of 2014 gubernatorial prospects. He mentioned that this week he was also recognized by another blogger, Todd Eberly, as being among the top four hopefuls, with Gansler, Franchot, and Brown.

Todd is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at St. Mary’s College and writes The FreeStater Blog. Here is some of what he had to say about Ken:

“Ulman cannot easily be defined as liberal or conservative - he is, dare I say, post-partisan. Even as he criticized the Governor's budget, he has been lauded for the county's innovative health reform efforts and Ulman was central to the state's receipt of a federal grant to bring broadband to the state.”

I can imagine that some HoCo loco’s will take issue with the “post-partisan” label.

Eberly believes that in a four way primary battle the key will be “the candidate who can appeal to rural Marylanders in Western Maryland, the Eastern Shore, and Southern Maryland - that candidate is not (at least not yet) Doug Gansler.”

Good luck with that Ken. That’s Repub country.

Our Own Skutnik Moment

2012-02-02T21:21:00.001-05:00

In his State of the Union this speech this year, Barak Obama, just like every President since Ronald Reagan, gave us yet another “Skutnik” moment

In his 1982 address to Congress, the Great Communicator invited Lenny Skutnik to sit next to Nancy during the speech. As he wrapped up he suggested that one doesn’t need to look to the history books to find American heroes, they are all around us. At that point he directed his attention to the galley where Nancy and Lenny sat and proceeded to tell the story how, just two weeks earlier, Lenny Skutnik dove into the frozen Potomac River to rescue Priscilla Tirado, a flight attendant on the Air Florida flight that had just crashed into the 14^th Street bridge in DC. Since then every president, Dem and Repub, has repeated this State of the Union gesture of recognizing the heroes among us.

Today, at his State of the County address, Ken Ulman had his own“Skutnik” moment. Ken singled out police officer Nick Bingham and firefighter Josh Angelo for their heroism during Tropical Storm Lee. First they rescued a man stranded in his pick up in the floodwaters. Shortly after getting the man to safety, the truck was washed away. Later the same dynamic duo helped rescue fellow rescuers who got into trouble when they attempted to conduct a search in the raging Patapsco.

I think Lenny would approve.

Starbucks Move Set

2012-02-01T17:35:00.000-05:00

The Dobbin Road Starbucks is getting ready to move to other side of the road this spring. The manager recently told me that the new location, next to Chick fil A, will open on March 23^rd.

She also told me that the new store will actually be smaller than the existing Dobbin location. It looks like its going to get even harder to find a seat than it is now, if that’s possible.

“We are going to a drive thru though,” she added.

Oh yeah, that. Despite the increasing push back against drive thru service, the drive thru window remains extremely popular with fast food retailers. According to this article by Karl Taro Greenfield in Business Week, fast food restaurants expected to do over $150 million in sales last year with 70 percent of that business coming through the drive in window.

Starbucks is also going to 24 hour service in some locations but there are no plans for that at the new Dobbin store, not yet anyway.

A Good Start

2012-02-01T16:27:00.001-05:00

There could not possibly be a better way to begin the worst month of the year than today. Sunny with temperatures in the mid sixties on the first day of February is about as rare as a Republican in District 2.

The arrival of February is actually a double edged sword weatherwise. On the one hand, it is the last full month of winter. You can almost smell spring from here, especially today. On the other hand, it is winters last chance to really mess with us. Sure, we can get snow in March but that’s rare. February however, is the month when the really big snows seem to hit. I'm talking big like Big Kahuna big.

Not today though. Today was like a free sample of days to come. In many places it actually felt warmer outside for a change.

I tried to spend as little of the day inside as possible. I hope you did too. Tomorrow February will begin to regain its balance and by the weekend we’ll be back in the mid forties.

Still not a bad start for February.

Missed Signals

2012-01-30T22:19:00.002-05:00

One of my pet peeves is people who don’t use their turn signals. That would seem to be most people. I theorize that this bad habit started becoming more prevalent as cars got easier to drive. In the sixties and early seventies, power steering and air conditioning were still optional items, not to mention power windows. Back then a person really had to be involved in driving a car so using turn signals was just part of the deal. Nowadays our cars are so automated they practically drive themselves.

It almost as if today's drivers are annoyed by the fact that the turn signal function is still basically manual.

I’m not the only one who’s noticed this decline in driver etiquette either. On NPR's Morning Edition today, Steve Inskeep spoke with Ron Sowder. Ron has driven a delivery truck for UPS for over fifty years “without being blamed for an accident.”

“He has managed to stay safe while climbing into the cab more than 12,000 times and traveling more than four million miles.”

He was recently honored by UPS for this extraordinary achievement. In the interview, Steve asks Ron what changes he’s noticed in peoples driving habits over all his years on the road.

“Well, the old saying used to be courtesy is contagious - not so much any more. You let people in, and that's that. Only about one out of 50 can bring themselves to throw their hand up, thanks. And they don't use turn signals. You know, if you hit them, you knock them into next week. But I think some of these people need some additional training or something.”

You tell ‘em Ron!

Scene This Week In…

2012-01-30T16:57:00.002-05:00

Last September, when the flash food ripped through Ellicott City, well above the high water mark, a 19^th century stone wall collapsed onto six cars in Parking Lot C. Those cars may have prevented a bigger catastrophe by halting further erosion and undermining the foundation of St.Pauls Dohony Hall.

Contrary to loco rumor, the cars are no longer buried under the pile of rock. According to this story by Brandi Jefferson in Ellicott City Patch, the six cars were removed about a week later when more stone was added.

This is the way it looks five months later. I understand that the complete restoration of the wall won’t be started until the spring and will likely take awhile. Replacing old stone walls in the historic district can be a little involved.

Better get used to seeing signs like this popping up in Town Center. There are going to be around for the next thirty years or so. Now that the long anticipated redevelopment of Columbia Town has begun in earnest that means more meetings.

We’ve actually enjoyed a brief Town Center meeting hiatus since the Town Center legistlation was passed. It was two years ago this week. That is about to change. In no time at all the familiar faces and arguments will return to the public arena to be endlessly debated at every single step of the process. Count on it.

And if the antics displayed at the recent Pre Submission meeting by GGP are any indication of what we are in for, it should at least be fun to watch.

Cool Feature

2012-01-29T15:57:00.002-05:00

One of the first things I noticed about the iPad is that it doesn't come with an instruction book. Not that any self respecting guy ever actually reads an instruction book but the presence of one is always a bit reassuring, you know, just in case.

To be fair, Apple does allow me to visit their website and download instructions but the underlying message is pretty clear, you don’t need it. The little card that comes with the tablet tells you how to turn it on. After that you’re on your own.

Consequently, this weekend I’ve spent some quality time getting to know my new iPad and I’ve discovered things about it that I didn’t know before.

Like the “Find My iPad” feature for instance that allows me to locate the device on a map, lock it, display a message, play a sound, or remotely wipe out the data.

The new iPhones have this too and it really works. According to this story by C. J. Hughes in The New York Times, this feature proved to be “quite useful in helping police officers track down a robber on Thursday in Manhattan.”

The robber had stolen an iPhone.

“Punching in the victim’s Apple ID, which is the log-on people use to buy, say, songs from iTunes, he quickly determined by the location of a small gray phone icon on a digital map that the robber was near Eighth Avenue and 51st Street.”

The thief was apprehended and the phone returned to its owner in less than an hour.

Pretty cool.

HoCo Loco Politico Games

2012-01-28T11:57:00.003-05:00

One school board member, all five county council members, the county executive, two state delegates, a state senator, states attorney, the governor and lieutenant governor, two bloggers, a reporter and the president of the United States all got a little air time on our latest podcast. When Paul mentioned that loco political activist Chris (“Ox”) Oxenham might make a good guest for a partisan take on the loco politico scene I suggested that it would be even more interesting if we could get someone from the opposite side of the political spectrum to be on with him. After spending some time with him at Guy Guzzones fundraiser earlier this month, I thought Roger (“the Rog”) Caplan would be the right match.

It worked out even better than I expected.

Despite the strong convictions of both guests, there was no yelling or overt nastiness. Instead we had a spirited exchange about the people and politics in HoCo with more than a few laughs. Nothing was held back.

I suspect some loco politicos may not find our sometimes brutally frank analysis all that amusing though. On the other hand, I also suspect that some others may take offense that they weren’t even mentioned.

The bottom line is that this was a very fun show and we will likely have these guys on again. They were that good.

You can listen to the latest episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

Yelp No Help

2012-01-27T18:25:00.002-05:00

I locked myself out of the house on Wednesday. I was getting ready to leave the house when I received a phone call about work. As I talked, I also walked around the house getting my stuff ready to leave. I was a little behind schedule. I was the last one to leave the house.

As I walked out the door to put a few items in the car, still talking on the phone, I inadvertently locked the door behind me.

I realized what I did as soon as I did it.

“I gotta go,” I told the caller. I assessed the situation. I was locked out, without a coat. The car was unlocked but the key was back on the kitchen counter. I had my phone. I needed a locksmith, soon.

A commenter to a recent post made reference to Yelp, the smartphone app that bills itself as the “fun and easy way to find and talk about great (and not so great) local businesses.” I decided that this was as good a time as any to put it to the test.

I typed “locksmith” into the search window and Yelp gave me two options that were close by and offered service within 15 to 20 minutes. Recall that I didn't have a coat.

I called the first and got an answering machine. That immediately disqualified them. The second was a disconnected number.

I was getting cold. I then thought of a locksmith I used years ago in Columbia, Village Lock & Key. At one time they even had a store in The Mall. The name actually originated from their first store in the Wilde Lake Village Center. I met the owner once, a big guy named Sonny Crosun. They were my third call. They were also my last call.

Within fifteen minutes a locksmith named Tim pulled up in his Village Lock & Key van and got to work on getting me in. Quick and professional.

Curiously, they weren’t even listed in the top sixteen on Yelp.

Being good at loco info is not so easy to do on a national scale.

New Toy

2012-01-26T16:26:00.001-05:00

I got an iPad today. It feels like Christmas.

It came this morning by FedEx but I really haven’t done much more than open the box and hold it in my hands so far. It felt cool.

Today's schedule allowed for approximately thirty minutes of discretionary time between 7:00 AM and 4:00 PM. That was nowhere near enough time to savor the joy of a new tech toy. Play time would have to wait.

But I could at least get it wired up while I was running between appointments. Around 12:30 this afternoon I dropped into the Verizon store on Snowden River Parkway. I'd just pop in and get the new toy connected to my wireless account.

As I approached the store, no less than two people held open the doors for me, one to my left and one to my right. How could they help me they asked. After explaining the simple transaction that I wanted to conduct, the one on the right took my name and told me to have a seat. No one else was sitting on the little brown bench.

There were also very few people in the store. More than one lanyard wearing Verizon guy looked “available.” This shouldn’t take long I thought.

I thought wrong. Fifteen minutes later I was still second on the list. I walked out. Any discretionary time I had in my afternoon just got cut in half.

I hate that store.

Anyway, I now have an unscheduled window of an hour and a half. There are many things that I should use that time for that are more important than playing with my new toy.

But those things are just going to have to wait.

Ring Around the Fountain

2012-01-25T20:43:00.006-05:00

Tomorrow, the Columbia Association Board of Directors will consider two fountain designs for Symphony Woods Park prepared by Wesco Fountains on behalf of CA, their engineers and architects. Wesco builds and designs interactive fountains such as the one in downtown Silver Spring and at the Gaylord National Hotel in National Harbor.

This the “Argyle” design.

This is the “Rings” design.

The Rings design apparently accommodates dry uses too.

Whichever concept the board chooses, they’ll first have to seek a variance from the HoCo Health Department, which, according to the drawings, classifies interactive fountains as pools and therefore requires them to be fenced.

That particular fence is noticeably absent in these concept drawings.

Some will likely criticize CA for moving ahead with fountain designs before the nascent corroboration with Howard Hughes is totally fleshed out but that would be a little unfair, to the present CA team. This design contract was likely awarded before the new working relationship with HHC got started.

Sure, CA should have established this cooperation with HHC long before this. That is now water over the dam. If you want to thank anyone for the convoluted path CA took to get where it should have been years ago, see Liz Bobo, Cynthia Coyle, Alan Klein,... for starters.

SRB & CSX

2012-01-25T11:27:00.001-05:00

The mayor of Baltimore weighed in today on the importance of an intermodal rail transfer facility in the Baltimore/Washington corridor calling it an economic imperative for keeping the Port of Baltimore competitive. In this op-ed piece in The Sun, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake wrote that the completion of the widening of the Panama Canal to accommodate larger ships will create a “new surge in imports and exports is projected to result in thousands of new jobs and millions in new economic activity — not just for Baltimore, but across the metro region. We must act swiftly to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity.”

“The truth is, our port makes Baltimore relevant in the global economy and is an economic engine that serves as a pillar of growth for our city. Moving forward with an intermodal facility — in a way that makes sense for our state, our port, and the private sector — is critical to keeping that engine humming. As an additional benefit for everyone who commutes in our region each day, driving more freight traffic onto rail reduces emissions, costs and wear and tear on our roads.”

Of course the sticky question is still where to put it.

Mutiny on the Blog

2012-01-24T19:29:00.004-05:00

I’m having a birthday. It’s not a joyous moment for me this year but I can’t escape it. My actual birthday isn’t until Sunday yet I’ve already received a half dozen or so birthday greetings on facebook. Yesterday the usually celebrated birthday box from my sister arrived on my doorstep. I haven't opened it yet.

I'm trying hard to be grateful. It's better than not having a birthday after all.

Last week I received a postcard from Iron Bridge Wine Company telling me to come in for a free entrée for my birthday. It was good for something like a month. We went Saturday night. I drank more than I ate.

Today I got this postcard from Mutiny, the new pirate bar concept from the boys at the bridge. It’s basically the same birthday deal only I'd have to drive much farther to use it. I think I’ll pass, for this year anyway. I seem to recall Steve Wecker telling me Saturday night that they are looking for a spot in HoCo to do their next one. We talked a bit about the Friendly Inn but by then it was the second glass of wine and the only thing I can definitely recall him saying was that the place was going to need a lot of work before it could reopen. He didn't come right out and say that it was out of the question so I suspect that it would really just be a matter of getting the right business terms.

I’d say keep your eye on that one.

That night I also had a moment of HoCo loco blog brotherhood. Mama Wordbones and I were joined by Tom Coale and Indiana Jane. Upon our arrival, there were no seats at the bar and the hostess was giving us that sad faced look when Tom waved us over. The gentleman of proper upbringing that he is, he offered his seat to Mama Wordbones. This naturally had the secretly desired effect of separating them from our conversation. They didn't seem to mind. In no time TC and I pored ourselves into a glass of wine and proceeded to have a lively exchange over the HoCo loco politico scene.

And that my friends, beats a free entrée any day.

Three Things about Food

2012-01-24T10:59:00.001-05:00

One, Burger King is testing home delivery in Maryland and so far it is being well received. According to this review by Mike Rosenwald in The Washington Post, ordering burgers and fries online was “as easy and quick as ordering diapers from Amazon.com.”

That’s the bad news.

The good news, for that 2012 New Years resolution of yours, is that delivery service is not yet available in HoCo. The closest participating restaurant is in Burtonsville and I don’t think they cross the border...yet

Two, knowledgeable sources inside the hospitality industry inform me that rockstar restaurateurs, Cindy Wolf and Tony Foreman are behind a new concept restaurant planned for Turf Valley Town Square.

Three, just down the pike from Turf Valley, the venerable Crab Shanty has undergone a major makeover. Momma Wordbones and I checked out the new menu at the recently rechristened Shanty Grill a couple of weeks ago and give it enthusiastic thumbs up. We both highly recommend their Shanty Maki Roll appetizer.

A Bag of Books

2012-01-22T15:14:00.001-05:00

I've been thinning my inventory of tree books this month. It’s not a dramatic reduction in stock, more like managing the herd. Unlike e-books, storage of tree books is an issue, limited by shelf space which is not easily expanded.

The problem is that the inflow of books is always greater than the outflow and eventually this results in books piling up on desks and cabinets awaiting an opening on the shelves.

Today I purged.

Picking the books that would get the hook was interesting exercise. For some it was easy. I had two copies of “Tis” by Frank McCourt for example. In Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger I found a copy of a Las Vegas hotel bill from 1994. So that’s where I put that.

I must’ve read that book on the plane. It was a good way to fall asleep.

In all I bagged up twelve books and took them to the library. The shelves in my library are breathing a little easier now.

Go Ravens!

First Snow…For Some

2012-01-21T12:24:00.001-05:00

By the time we ventured down the hill to Main Street this morning, the HoCo roads were relatively clear. Last night one of CG friends left their car downtown so this morning around ten we set out to retrieve it. At closing time last night the roads were a decidedly different proposition, especially for someone who had to drive to Mount Airy, so we ended up with an extra overnight guest.

On the way downtown we passed a family out shoveling their driveway. Mount Airy Girl (henceforth Mag) commented that it hardly seemed necessary to shovel. Before long it would all melt away on its own. I suggested that it was the novelty of the first snow to which she pointed out that it wasn’t the first. The first snow was in October.

It was more like a dusting around here than a snow. In Mount Airy apparently it was a different story.

Cleaning the cars off wasn’t as bad as it looked either. Fortunately the snow came before the ice, providing a buffer of sorts between the ice and the windshield. We had Mag on her way in no time.

Top Tier

2012-01-20T14:45:00.000-05:00

The county execs recent fundraising prowess has significantly raised his stature in the nascent gubernatorial race . Today, Lt. Governor Anthony Brown was a guest on the Kojo Nnamdi Show and was asked about his future political ambitions. Kojo noted that the lieutenant guv had over $800,000 in the bank and then went on to comment that States Attorney Doug Gansler had over four million and that “former Howard County Executive Ken Ulman” had a million three. He then corrected the “former” comment.

Notably, the State Comptroller Peter Franchot wasn't even mentioned even though he had more cash on hand than Brown.

The point is, Ken was mentioned in the top three. That’s a long way from where he was last August.

In answering the question the lieut guv said he is "humbled" by the generosity of his supporters and that he see's himself still "working in the state" after 2014.

Thick as a Brick

2012-01-20T14:03:00.004-05:00

I attempted to buy a brick today. It’s been over twenty years since I bought the last one. In 1990 the Columbia Association first sold bricks around the People Tree to help defray the costs of renovating and restoring the sculpture. At the time my office was on the top floor of the Teachers Building with a window overlooking the icon of Columbia.

Back then it was a fairly common sight to see a pair of shoes hanging from one of the outstretched gold leaf arms. I didn't know then what I know now.

Anyway, we had a company called Noel-Lane so we purchased a company brick in the plaza below. I thought about that brick when I heard that CA was selling bricks again. I like this. It is a way of placing your own personal marker on Columbia’s timeline.

I had been thinking about what marker I would lay down this time so when I arrived at the CA offices this afternoon I was ready to complete the transaction. I had the copy, cash and credit cards.

“We only take checks,” the attendant at the Maggie J. Brown Welcome Center desk (and yes, it is actually called that) informed me.

Of course that was the one thing I didn’t have. I mean really, a check?

That is so nineties.

I took the forms back to the office.

By the way, the People Tree was commissioned by The Rouse Company and designed and built in 1967 by Pierre du Fayet. He actually called it “Tree of Life.” Another of du Fayets sculptures can be found in the Wilde Lake Village Center, also commissioned by The Rouse Company. The Wilde Lake sculpture, called “Family” was originally a fountain but was later transformed into a planter as a way to trim maintenance costs.

And finally, if you've bought a brick over the years and forgotten where it is, there is this handy little online app.

Bleeding Burgundy

2012-01-19T13:42:00.000-05:00

In keeping with the spirit of ecumenical regionalism, is it appropriate for a Redskins fan to cast aside regular season loyalties and embrace the Ravens in their march to the Super Bowl?

In other words, is it okay for a Redskin fan to root for the Ravens on Sunday?

That is the question posed by Robert McCartney in this column in The Washington Post today. It’s a particularly poignant question here in HoCo, a county pretty evenly divided between Redskin fans and Ravens fans.

The short answer is no.

“A real fan only has one team,” Jerroyd Goode, 37, explained at Jilly’s in Ellicott City. “I grew up with the Redskins, and I’m not going to change.”

McCartney agrees.

“No, being a fan satisfies some deep need, embedded in our nature, to be part of something bigger. In caveman days — and I pick that comparison deliberately — it was belonging to an extended family or clan. Today, it’s Redskins Nation. We wear the colors. We sing the song. Whether we’re celebrating (occasionally) or despairing (usually), we do it as one.

Given all that, I cannot bring myself to endorse rooting for the Ravens. It would betray my kin.”

It’s okay Bob. I feel your pain. Last year, with the Steelers in the Super Bowl, I decided to try and be supportive of another AFC team. After half heartedly rooting for them through the game, I went immediately home and took a shower. I didn’t even feel totally clean again until November 6th.

Images

2012-01-19T12:43:00.001-05:00

Some time last year my exercise regime was overthrown. My eating and drinking regime was not. The result of course is that I have put on weight. I know in my heart of heart that its time to return to a daily regimen of exercise yet I delay.

I really can’t ignore it either. Every morning my bathroom mirror reflects an image of an overweight old white haired guy. I may not be able to fix the white hair and the old part but the weight thing is well within my control. I know what I need to do I’m just having trouble getting started again.

That’s why I empathize with the county exec. This morning, Tom Coale took a little shot at Ken for being pictured eating a donut in this story. He quipped that Ken’s health coach would probably be “disappointed in him.”

No doubt. Don’t get me wrong here, but the county exec today is not exactly in the same fighting trim that he was when he came into the office. Back then I used to see him regularly at the Colosseum Gym. Not anymore, though I will concede that it is highly likely that he goes to another gym now.

Wherever that is, it looks like he’s going to his gym about as much as I'm going to mine.

I tell you a loco politico that is looking good these days, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake. A colleague of mine was in the skybox next to the city skybox at the Ravens game on Sunday. At the end of the game he hung around for a bit while waiting for the traffic to clear. It was then that he noticed the mayor with a trash bag cleaning up the balcony section of the box next door. A couple of others saw her as well and asked if they could get a picture with her. She cheerfully agreed to, once she finished cleaning up.

I really like that image.

Not Getting It Right

2012-01-18T16:36:00.006-05:00

“None of what’s been written in the blogs is right.”

That’s how the representatives from GGP responded to certain speculations made about their plans for The Mall last night according to Darrell Nevin. Darrell called me this morning and provided me a bleacher report from the Pre Submission Meeting for the first new development at The Mall since 2002. I couldn't attend because of a prior commitment.

I think they might have been referring to me when they mentioned "the blogs." Particularly this post, where I suggest that a new building would be constructed at the entrance of Little Patuxent Parkway and Sterrett Place. Can I take that back?

To be fair though, I think I may have been the first to report that the L.L. Bean store was coming down and that turned out to be true. That’s something, right?

I still think that the eventual reopening of the old main entrance is in the cards too.

Predictably, there were the usual HoCo loco community activists in attendance and many of the old guard were highly agitiated at the lack of detail and specifics in this pre submission meeting.

What part of "pre" don’t they understand?

This is the first step in a long process that basically says “we want to get something started so start lining up the hoops we’re going to have to jump through.” It’s intended to be a very general announcement meant simply to convey to the community that they are preparing plans.

According to this story by Kevin Rector in Explore Howard, that simply wasn’t acceptable to some HoCo locos.

"Cynthia Coyle, of Harper's Choice and a member of the Columbia Association's board of directors, said she came to the meeting "with the greatest hopes" for the mall, but felt the planners' presentation was weak."

"Don't take away that we mistrust you," she said to the planners. "Take away that it's a bad presentation."

Well, I guess I shouldn't expect much more from Cindy. She just doesn't know any better, even though she likes to think she does. On the other hand, you would at least think that the development professionals in the room would know better. Apparently not.

"Cy Paumier, an urban design consultant who used to work for the Rouse Company, said he was underwhelmed.

"It's boring," he said. "It's very repetitive. We've heard most of this before."

Architect Bob Tennenbaum, who welcomed Paumier at Rouse in the late 1960s, agreed, questioning why the planners wouldn't provide more details.

All in good time Cy and Bob, all in good time.

It was a bad night for another perennial Columbia development naysayer, Alan Klein. Darrell told me Alan spoke for fifteen minutes during the Q&A yet he wasn’t even mentioned in Kevin Rectors story.

I'll bet he misses Larry.

The Bookshelf Shuffle

2012-01-18T11:23:00.000-05:00

You can't do this with e-books!

Skates

2012-01-17T16:38:00.003-05:00

The last time I went ice skating with rented skates was the last time I’m going ice skating with rented skates. That was two weeks ago.

Today, I bought a new pair of hockey skates.

I hadn’t planned to buy new. It’s not like I’m going to start playing hockey again. I just want to throw on a pair of skates once in awhile and skate around a bit; used skates would already be a huge improvement over the rentals.

This afternoon I drove over to Play It Again Sports in Ellicott City. It was the first time I’d ever been in the place. At 2:30 it was rocking with activity but the staff was clicking along like a well oiled machine. In no time I was trying on a pair of used skates.

As it turns out, they really didn’t have my size in used hockey skates but they did have it in new ones. I sucked it up and bought them.

I figured that, at my age, these would likely be the last pair of ice skates I’ll ever buy...for me anyway...

Back to Center

2012-01-16T21:35:00.002-05:00

Although the focus of tomorrow nights Pre Submission Community Meeting by GGP will be what is proposed to be built at The Mall, the more interesting development to me is what is coming down.

From what I have been able to ascertain, L.L. Bean is interested in a smaller store and GGP is interested in opening the Mall up and establishing a direct connection to the lakefront. L.L. Bean moves into the new lifestyle center and GGP gets back prime real estate right in the middle of the action. The Warfield Neighborhood Plan identifies the area directly in front of the existing store as an amenity area called Warfield Plaza. According to the Downtown Columbia Design Guidelines, this area is envisioned accommodating “intense and planned public events such as frequent markets, small concerts, festivals, fairs and similar.”

“Additionally, the plaza should function equally well for outdoor dining, shopping, walking and informal activities.”

Presumably GGP would want to build on that by reopening the old main entry.

The mall center court would regain its true center court status. The original mall was your basic dumbbell design with an anchor on each end. The department stores had their own entrances and The Mall had its own as well in the middle. Over the years, through various expansions and renovations, two out of three of these original points of entry were closed off.

It is still easy to see where they were if you look close enough.

At the end of the corridor that is now part of a Chicos store, there was a pinball arcade called The Boardwalk. The entrance led out to the top of a two level parking deck.

The space where J. Crew now sits was once the busiest entrance. The Columbia Association staffed a Member Services Center there.

With the L.L. Bean building out of the way, this space opens up again with lots of possibilities. Think of a corridor of restaurants and shops leading right down to the lakefront.

It will take awhile for this to come to fruition though. I suspect that the earliest we’d see anything happen in the physical space would be sometime in 2014. First they have to build the new building and that could take up to eighteen months from now, if all goes well.

From One List to Another

2012-01-16T11:42:00.000-05:00

I didn’t waste any time removing my name from the HoCo library waiting list for Nooks. After receiving my very own e-reader for Christmas, my wait for the e-book experience was finally over.

Well sort of anyway. I still haven’t actually read a book on my new Nook yet. Just before Christmas, my sister loaned me “Unbroken” in regular old hardback book form. I’m just finishing it now. My next book will be my first e-book but its not likely to come from the library. As Christian Davenport reports in this story in The Washington Post borrowing an e-book from the library “is often far from the on-demand satisfaction people have come to expect from their laptops, tablets and smartphones.”

“Want to take out the new John Grisham? Get in line. As of Friday morning, 288 people were ahead of you in the Fairfax County Public Library system, waiting for one of 43 copies. You’d be the 268th person waiting for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” with 47 copies. And the Steve Jobs biography? Forget it. The publisher, Simon & Schuster, doesn’t make any of its digital titles available to libraries.”

Book publshers are experiencing the same angst that racked the music industry when computers made sharing music files easy.

“In November, when it announced that it was withholding its new e-books from libraries, Penguin said it has “always placed a high value on the role that libraries can play in connecting our authors with our readers. However, due to new concerns about the security of our digital editions, we find it necessary to delay the availability of our new titles in the digital format while we resolve these concerns with our business partners.”

No doubt this will be resolved over time but, for now at least, public library e-book lending has to seen as a work in progress.

Captain of the Dream Team

2012-01-14T15:19:00.001-05:00

In the sixties, as Columbia began to take form in the farm fields of HoCo, Cy Paumier joined The Rouse Company as part of the Columbia design team. He was hired to master plan Symphony Woods but soon found himself working on The Mall instead. Forty some years later, he’s getting the chance to finish what he never really got started. The Columbia Association has engaged him and his former Rouse colleagues, Bob Tennenbaum, Jervis Dorton, Mike Reimer and Monk Askew, to remake Columbia’s central park.

Some have called this the “dream team” of planners. Some have criticized CA for not bringing in new blood.

It’s a moot point. The Dream Team is “weeks away” from unveiling their master plan for Symphony Woods. What many don’t know is that Howard Hughes has also been busy with Merriweather Post Pavilion. HHC has retained Sasaki & Associates to develop a new master plan for the outdoor theatre. They have been working closely with CA to make sure both efforts are complimentary and the two parties may have found the formula to make the café in the woods concept work.

Cy says they want to emulate the Pavilion café in the sculpture garden at the Smithsonian.

He also weighed in on Kimcos plans for Wilde Lake Village Center. He's not a fan. He even questions the viability of the new retail they've proposed.

Actually, Cy doesn't think there is much market for any new retail or office development in Town Center either. He thinks the only thing that can be built right now is housing.

I happen to disagree with him on that score. Apparently GGP does too.

You can listen to the latest episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

Fanstache Friday

2012-01-13T16:20:00.004-05:00

Podcast days are usually tight days, they have a certain stepped up rhythm to them. Every other Friday that we tape the show is a delicate balance of real job and play job for all three us. Somehow, we have consistently managed to carve out three hours in the middle of the day to bang out another episode.

We do eat lunch though and it’s not all work either. After two years of eating and planning out shows together we've developed a nice little camaraderie and shared more than a few laughs.

It’s not like we’re doing this for the money after all.

So when CG told me about the Fanstache on Tuesday night, I immediately thought of my podcast pals. I wasn’t sure how we’d work it in but somehow I knew we’d put them on. CG works for Charm City Concierge and they are selling them at their buildings in the city. She agreed to pick up four for me.

Today Paul showed up at lunch sporting a new beard, he already had the Flacco thing going on, albeit the full beard version. He’s going on a boat in the blue waters next week so I guess he’s working on his salty mariner look. Nonetheless, knowing full well that removing the stache would not be painless, he plastered on his purple Fu Manchu for the photo anyway.

And the fourth one?

That went home with our guest, Cy Paumier. He got out of having to wear his by agreeing to take the picture.

Go Ravens!

Taxes, Jobs, & Deficits

2012-01-12T16:30:00.002-05:00

The guv sure got this years General Assembly off to a somber start. The seats of the delegates and senators were barely warm when Martin O’Malley threw a couple three buckets of cold water on them, in the form of new taxes.

There’s the gas tax bucket, a flush tax bucket and a sales tax bucket. I would not be surprised if I missed a few. He says we need the money. We’re in the hole.

And yet, he also wants a $40 million increase in school construction funds. He also wants to increase spending on affordable housing projects to the tune of $15 million. Martin tells us that this is more about jobs than housing.

And that’s the problem.

In a recent presentation to Leadership Howard County, Anirban Basu, rock star regional economist suggested that Maryland relies way too much on government related jobs, more than any other state in the union and at the expense of attracting private sector business. He believes the state could begin to better diversify it’s employment and tax base by eliminating the state corporate tax.

“It’s only 5% of the state budget,” he argued. Eliminating it would attract more firms to locate in Maryland and help raise the states dismal job creation rate.

Some want to fix the budget with more taxes while others see salvation in eliminating them. The honest answer is that it takes a combination of both.

I have no doubt that the guvs initiatives will be heard and forcefully advanced but I wonder if those arguing for balance will be afforded the same courtesy.

Leadership Change at Columbia Foundation

2012-01-11T19:45:00.000-05:00

Beverly Francis has stepped down as the President and CEO of The Columbia Foundation after almost four years with the organization. In 2007 she replaced Barbara Lawson who held the job for 19 years.

Beverly joined us on “and then there’s that…” a little over a year ago

Sources tell me that board chair Earl Armiger has stepped in as interim CEO until a replacement is found.

This all seems rather abrupt.

The HP 12C

2012-01-11T16:59:00.003-05:00

When I turned on my trusty old HP 12C Monday, an asterisk was blinking in the small display window. Though this is a pretty rare sight in this uber calculator, I knew what it meant. The batteries were low.

On my way to GG’s fundraiser, I stopped by the Batteries Plus store on Dobbin Road just down from my office. I showed Joseph the gold and black calculator and asked him to fix me up with some new juice.

“How much do you love this calculator?” he asked after a quick look at the batteries.

The question stunned me a bit at first. Was there something wrong with the 12C?

“The batteries are $3.79 each,” he added. “It takes three.”

Oh that's all. That’s a small price to me. I’ve had this calculator for almost twenty years. I think this is the third time I’ve changed the batteries.

Joseph probably couldn’t imagine spending that much on batteries for just a calculator.

This is no ordinary calculator. It debuted in 1981 and was the world’s first horizontal financial calculator. Every commercial real estate broker worth his commission bought one and then had to learn how to use it. Once I learned how to use it, I loved it. It is the only technologic gadget I use everyday that is thirty years old.

I’m not the only one either. My colleague TW, an accountant by training, simply won’t use any other calculator. He even lost the battery cover off his a few years ago and now covers it with tape.

He should really just buy a new one. HP still sells them too. They’re a bargain now compared to twenty years ago, about 30% cheaper today.

The batteries on the other hand, are probably 30% more.

We Got Ourselves a Contest

2012-01-10T22:21:00.000-05:00

Last week it looked as though Allen Dyer had a pretty easy path to reelection. Only five candidates had filed for the three open seats. There would not be a primary and not much of a contest. Interest would be low.

This week it’s a different story. As of now, there are ten candidates for three seats. According to this story by Sara Toth in Explore Howard, this “guarantees an April primary, as it is more than twice the three available seats.

We have ourselves a contest.

Many already know, Siddiqui, Giles, Dyer and Gordon. We met Leslie Kornreich and Bob Ballinger in the last election. That leaves the new folks, Ann De Lacy, Olga Butler and Kelly Casey Van Horn.

I have never met Kelly Casey Van Horn but I liked what she had to say to Sara.

"From a parent's perspective, I want to be involved in local education," said Van Horn, who previously taught in FairfaxCounty, Va., and has two children, 1 and 3. "The board would have a fresh, young perspective of a person who's been in the classroom recently — I have the teaching aspect and student aspect, and I'm quickly learning the parent aspect. I think those things needs to be represented a bit more."

It’s going to be fun getting to know these folks. It’s good to have a contest.

Working the Plan

2012-01-10T21:25:00.003-05:00

I had a pretty interesting afternoon. Leadership Howard County invited me to moderate a panel on the “Drivers of our Local Economy” for this years class. The panelists were Marsha McLaughlin, John DeWolf and Phil Nelson. Marsha gave an overview of the General Plan past and present, John talked about getting shovels in the ground by June, and Phil made it clear that the working relationship between CA and HHC is working.

To make things even more interesting, Katie Essing is in this years class and she joined in the conversation when The Mall came up.

The Mall is in the HoCo loco news week. According to this story by Kevin Rector in Explore Howard, GGP is planning to remove 30,000 square feet of existing retail space and add a 75,000-square-feet "lifestyle center"…”

The plan is to remove the existing L.L. Bean store and, eventually, reopen the old, original main entrance to The Mall. A J. Crew store fills that space now.

L.L. Bean will move into a smaller space in a new 75,000 square foot project being built on the strip of land that separates The Mall from the Fountainhead Title Building. This parcel has already been identified as part of the first phase of the Town Center redevelopment program.

This development will also reconfigure the mall entrance at Little Patuxent and Sterrett Place, creating a new .36 acre amenity area called Warfield Green.

Other highlights were:

Marsha McLaughlin acknowledged that the Route One corridor is not likely to be an office market, continuing instead to be ideal for single story flex buildings and distribution centers.

John DeWolf revealed that Frank Gehry had recently visited Columbia. John said that Gehry had expected to be told that the building was being torn down and was pleased to learn otherwise. He approved of the adaptive reuse that HHC is undertaking and of the overall Town Center plan as well.

Phil acknowledged that if he had it to do over again, he would have preferred that HHC had taken the lead with the Design Advisory Panel instead of CA.

I’m not sure if this was really a discussion about drivers of the economy as much as it was a HoCo real estate roundup!

Guys Night Out

2012-01-09T21:05:00.004-05:00

First of all, the really big news coming out of Delegate Guy Guzzones fundraiser tonight is that Patricia Gordon is running for school board…again. Pat Gordon served on the HoCo School Board for ten years. She decided not to run for reelection in 2010. I did not get a chance to speak to her tonight but her entrance into the race is significant. Since she was only off the board for two years she still has some of the power of incumbency, beginning with the ever crucial name recognition. Her announcement was greeted with applause.

This morning, at Allans breakfast, I heard a couple of folks suggest that Bob Ballinger might be getting in the mix too.

But I digress, this was Guys night and the HoCo loco Dem team was out in force: council members Calvin Ball, Mary Kay Sigaty, Jen Terasa and Courtney Watson, Senator Jim Robey, school board members Ellen Flynn Giles and Sandra French, to name a few. I’m sure I missed somebody. It was crowded and at a hundred bucks a head plus sponsors who were “too numerous to mention” it also appeared to be fruitful for Guys coffers.

I spent some time with Jon Weinstein. I told him that it looked as if the Dem gods were rewarding him for fighting the good fight by designing District 9A just for him. Though he was predictably coy, does he think anyone honestly believes he won't run for it?

Most of the time I sat next to Roger Caplan. It was like having a color man for the loco politico game. Guy’s party was fertile ground for punditry too. Dems are much more animated than Repubs. Then again, this was a cocktail hour reception.

It was short on speeches too. I think Jim Robey spent more time introducing Guy than Guy spent talking. I've noticed this about him before. I’m beginning to think I could like that.

Before leaving I did get a chance to ask him about legistlative scholarships. Somewhat to my surprise he said “I’m against them. I don’t participate. I give the money back and it goes to general, merit based scholarships.”

He said a couple of other HoCo state legislators do the same.

So there is hope.

Minority Report

2012-01-09T13:13:00.001-05:00

This morning, at his legislative breakfast in Ellicott City, Senator Allan Kittleman outlined the challenges facing the minority party in this year’s General Assembly. He noted that out of 47 state senators, only 12 are Repubs. That of course means that whenever they hope to advance something on their agenda, they need to find a little love on the other side of the aisle.

Like they did on the guvs wind power initiative last year.

Last year Martin O’Malley tried to get the state legislature to approve a package of subsidies for a proposed wind farm off of Ocean City. According to this story by Aaron C. Davis in The Washington Post, this would have added “a couple of extra dollars to every Marylander’s monthly electric bill for 20 years and thousands onto those of the state’s largest businesses.”

It died in committee thanks to a few Dems who saw this as an unfair burden on the working poor.

“I definitely could not sign on to support offshore wind so long as ratepayers need to pay more,” said Sen. Delores G. Kelley (D-Baltimore County).”

It hasn’t completely gone away though.

“After last spring’s failure, O’Malley was initially optimistic that he could build support for a second run at a subsidy for offshore wind. But as the landscape has shifted, he has grown more cautious. In a recent roundtable with reporters, O’Malley said only that he would do “something” about offshore wind when lawmakers return.”

Allan also bought up the issue of legislative scholarships. Each member of the General Assembly gets $130,000 every four years to give away for college scholarships to Maryland schools. Each legislator is allowed to exercise their own discretion in seeing who gets this money. The program costs the state $11 million a year. Allan thinks this is a luxury the state can ill afford.

I agree with him but I think its highly doubtful that he’ll find enough Dem’s to help him kill this. People rarely give up perks easily and this is a big perk.

Allan also announced that Diane Wilson has joined his staff.

Pondering the Parking Lot

2012-01-08T17:07:00.003-05:00

When you enter a busy parking lot, take the first available spot you see rather than searching for something closer. According to this story by Michael Kimmelman in The New York Times “the journal Transportation Science has shown that drivers who parked at the first available spot and then walked to their destination on average saved considerable time (never mind savings in gasoline and anxiety) over those who cruised around until a “better” spot opened.”

Kimmelmans article was all about parking and parking, has been on my mind lately. For instance, more than a few people have asked me why Wegmans covered up the front of their brand new building with a two level parking deck.

I don’t know.

I do know that parking lots, particularly parking lots in edge city communities like ours, represent some of the best development opportunities over the next twenty years. Take the Sears parking lot for example.

Thankfully, I think HoCo, and Ellicott City in paricular, will largely avoid things like the Pensacola Parking Syndrome, “used to describe a city that tears down its old buildings to create parking spaces to entice more people downtown, until people no longer want to go there because it has become an empty lot.”

“Cities should let the free market handle the construction of new parking spaces. People who buy or rent new homes can pay extra if they want someplace to park a car. Municipalities can instead cap the maximum number of lots or the ratio of spaces to dwellings and offices.”

I could get on board with that notion.

Oh yeah, if you are wondering about the picture, it was taken today at the Columbia Palace Shopping Center near the Dunkin Donuts. Apparently a car jumped the curb in the parking lot and ran into the railing. It’s a very tenuous connection to the subject of this post but I liked the picture so there it is.

It’s dangerous out there. Be careful.

Big Tease

2012-01-07T15:59:00.003-05:00

Unseasonably mild. That’s it in a nutshell. If you didn’t get out and enjoy at least part of the day you likely missed the best day of the month.

As Capital Weather Gang member Ian Livingston warned in this post, "Take it in, as this could be the warmest day for quite some time. We do still have a decent stretch of mild -- cooler than today -- temperatures coming up through much of the work week before the next cold shot heading toward the weekend. It certainly could be worse in the heart of winter!"

As I write this the conditions at Weather Station Wordbones are 62.5 degrees, humidity 45% and the barometric pressure is dropping.

Plenty of HoCo locos did take it in today.

Teenagers in my neighborhood were out playing basketball in shorts. Everywhere I went today I saw people with jackets and sweaters wrapped around their waists. Ordinarily, a ten mile an hour wind on a January day would cause collars to be pulled up tight and hands stuffed in pockets. Not today. The only time I really took notice of the wind was when Peanut and I were out throwing a Frisbee.

It may have been a big tease of warmer days that seem long off from now but it was welcome all the same.

Knight Vision

2012-01-06T16:59:00.003-05:00

I started reading The Kiplinger Letter when I was in middle school. Seriously. My father was a loyal subscriber. A household of seven kids allowed for very little downtime to take in the big picture. Once a week, in four pages of short paragraphs, with key thoughts underlined, the Kiplinger editors provided him their take on everything he needed to know about national and global business, politics, and economics in order to be a good salesman.

As a kid, I remember being impressed that Austin Kiplinger himself signed every issue. I also liked that Mr. Kiplinger addressed my dad as “Dear Client.” I imagined that he actually knew my dad.

After my father passed away, my mother continued to subscribe to Kiplingers. She shared the newsletter with me after she’d finished. When I went away to college, she even mailed me her old issues. The news may not have been as fresh but this was in the pre CNN years so fresh was relative.

Needless to say I still subscribe. So do at least two of my sisters. So when Jim Peacock offered me a seat at his table for the Maryland Bankers Association Fifth Annual First Friday Economic Outlook Forum in Baltimore today, I took him up on it. The keynote speaker was Knight Kiplinger, son of Austin Kiplinger and the guy who is signing my newsletter these days.

Readers will mostly acknowledge that The Kiplinger Letter has a tendency to always be upbeat, even when things appear gloomy. As such Knight’s talk, which followed an otherwise downbeat panel of economists, left the audience of bankers and accountants feeling at least a little hopeful. His editors predict a 2.3% growth in the GDP this year.

He also said that Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee but, unless something really bad happens like a total Euro meltdown, he will not be president.

Knight Kiplinger believes that if the economy stays on this 2.3% growth track through late summer and the unemployment rate does not get any worse, Barack Obama will win a second term. His win will be based on the perception that things are getting better, if only marginally.

In This Months Business Monthly

2012-01-06T10:34:00.000-05:00

I have a tendency to be too accepting sometimes. When first meeting someone I tend to assume the best. This is not always a good social strategy. Many times I end up being disappointed in my first impression.

Perhaps that is why I have always admired the approach of Herb Weber. Herb and I met back in the mid eighties when we were neighbors in San Francisco. Though he was rapidly rising through the ranks of investment banking, he still embraced his blue collar roots. Herb was one of those guys that could carry on a conversation with anyone and make them feel like what they said genuinely mattered.

Most of the time it didn’t. Most of the time Herb was just putting up a good front. “I start off hating everyone I meet and in that way I’m never disappointed,” he confided in me once.

Twenty some years later that conversation came back to me as I sat down to write a column about the relatively new HoCo EDA chief, Laura Neuman. To say that Laura and I hit it off right away would be inaccurate. Our first face to face meeting dispensed with false pleasantries and instead dove head first into an airing of grievances.

It was oddly refreshing.

You can read this months column here.

The Sears Real Estate Play

2012-01-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

When Edward Lampert orchestrated the buyout and merger of K-Mart and Sears back in 2004, some investors speculated that he was more interested in the real estate than in running a mass merchandising retail operation. It was easy to see why. In addition to the inventory on the shelves, the combined company owns quite a bit of real estate, retail real estate in generally good locations.

Like Columbia Town Center.

Sears owns about 11.5 acres in the middle of Town Center. They also own a two story 147,000 square foot building.

They don’t necessarily have to sell Craftsman tools in that space either. In fact, according to this letter to investors about a year ago, other retailers are now leasing out space in Sears stores. In Greensboro North Carolina, Whole Foods leased 34,000 square in an existing Sears store. Sources tell me that Sears was trying to get them to do the same in Columbia.

Unlike the other anchor stores at The Mall, Sears also owns a fair amount of the parking area around their store. This means that they are free to sell or develop that land, in accordance with the Town Center redevelopment legislation and design guidelines of course.

Look for that to happen sooner rather than later. The retailing business of Sears hasn’t been doing all that well since Mr. Lampert took the helm. According to this story by Roben Farzad and Michael Arndt in Bloomberg Businessweek “Sales are down and keep falling. Per-store sales have declined for the past five years, and total revenue has slumped to $44 billion, its lowest level since the 2005 merger.”

“His preference for buybacks over capital investment necessarily disadvantages his retail operations—yet he has insisted that he took over Kmart and then Sears because he wanted to operate them as retailing companies. Analysts have just as consistently seen a different motive. They looked at the chains and their combined count of nearly 4,000 stores as a real estate play, hard assets that Lampert bought cheaply and could flip for a fortune.”

Or develop themselves for potentially an even larger fortune.

Coffee with Calvin

2012-01-04T20:37:00.007-05:00

This morning I met up with Councilperson Calvin Ball for coffee in Columbia. Among the wide range of topics we covered was councilmanic redistricting, specifically the redistricting of the Wheatfield and Brampton Hills neighborhoods in Ellicott City. Under the proposed plan those neighborhoods would move from Courtney Watsons District 1 to Calvin Balls District 3. To listen to some of the affected residents you’d think the council was trying to put an intermodal terminal in their backyard.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

There are some similarities though. In a show of solidarity at a recent public hearing on the issue, the opposition wore red, just like the Hanover activists. They are almost as irrational too.

It’s as if these people think that the county political district they fall in will somehow decrease their property values and forever change their community identity.

It won’t and yes it might, but so what, change is inevitable after all.

Honestly, most people have no clue as to what council district they live in and, in this case anyway, it doesn’t really matter. If these people like Courtney Watson as their councilperson, they’ll love Calvin Ball. He’s just the kinder gentler version of Courtney.

It some ways Calvin may be the better fit for them. These communities are hemmed in by a busy Montgomery road on one side and MD Route 100 on the other with little to no bicycle and pedestrian connections to nearby shopping, schools and parks. With his experience developing an pedestrian/bicycle plan connecting Blandair Park to Town Center and eventually the hospital, Calvin could potentially help make these neighborhoods more pedestrian friendly.

Not that he might just do that anyway, even if they’re not in his district. He’s just that kind of guy.

By the way, Bridge Columbia is a critical piece the Blandair/Town Center bike route. It's a grassroots efforts to help fund and build a new bus/bike/pedestrian bridge to replace the dismal pedestrian bridge that currently connects the two sides of Columbia. If you like that idea go visit the website and sign up to get involved.

Active Chic

2012-01-04T12:58:00.000-05:00

A relatively new sports apparel concept by Englewood Colorado based Sports Authority, SA Elite, is coming to The Mall. According to this story by Mike Harden in The Denver Business Journal, the new store features “high-end performance apparel, footwear, and accessories from premier brands…”

"S.A. Elite's brand and small store format was the brainchild of extensive consumer research and customer insight including advanced basket analysis, ethnography, and other innovative primary research techniques," Jeff Schumacher, Sports Authority's executive VP, CMO and CSO, said in the statement. "The S.A. Elite brand has tested well with consumers who believe it conveys the elevated product assortment and experience, while still representing the great value Sports Authority is known for."

SA Elite stores are about half the size of a typical Sports Authority store. The 14,000 square foot Columbia store will be on the lower level of the Nordstrom wing in a space that has held a variety of temporary stores in recent years. Their arrival will also necessitate the relocation of a couple of adjacent stores as well.

There are only seven SA Elite stores open so far and the new location at The Mall will be one of the first on the east coast. The new store is expected to open in June.

Resting In Peace

2012-01-03T20:59:00.001-05:00

It appears that the great Clarksville funeral home fight will end peacefully. The zoning battle that was waged by two powerhouse HoCo loco zoning attorneys appears to be headed towards settlement. According to this story by Lindsey McPherson in Explore Howard, Sang Oh, the attorney for the funeral home operator, is submitting modified plans to the Board of Appeals that “address all of the concerns that were expressed by the hearing examiner and the surrounding community…"

The new plans include reducing the building size by 8,400 square feet, increasing the parking from 66 spaces to 100 spaces and “enhancing the landscape buffering” between the proposed development and the adjacent St. Louis Church.

The church is represented by William Erskine.

"They decreased the size (of the funeral home) while increasing the parking, … greatly increased the setback and buffering between the funeral home and the (church) rectory … (and) produced a very pleasing lighting plan that has absolutely zero light trespass across the property line," he said.”

The revised plan will be presented to the Board of Appeals at a public hearing this Thursday at 6:30 PM in the George Howard Building in Ellicott City.

Scene This Week In…

2012-01-03T16:50:00.002-05:00

We waste no time at our house dismantling Christmas. By noon yesterday 98.7% of Christmas was taken down and boxed away for the next twelve months. That includes the tree.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am real tree guy, partially because I’m old school but also because I think it’s the environmentally correct thing to do. That means, to complete the cycle, I recycle my tree for mulch. Fortunately, HoCo is very accommodating in this regard, offering but curbside pick up and drop off stations scattered around the county.

In Columbia there are drop off areas at Grandfathers Garden Center, River Hill Garden Center, Kendalls Hardware and Cedar Lane Park.

After first mistakenly turning into the park entrance off Route 108, I found the drop off point just inside the Cedar Lane entrance. As I pulled up I met Eric Sandoval adding his family tree to the growing pile of evergreens. I commented that I recalled a teacher named Sandoval back at Wilde Lake High School and he told me that he’d just graduated last year from Wilde Lake!

Go Wildecats!

In my Ellicott City neighborhood we have curbside yard waste pick up which means I also have curbside tree pick up on yard waste days. I wanted to confirm that curb service would continue through January 20^thwhen yard waste collection officially ends for the winter, so I called.

“What’s your address?”

After giving my address I was told that I have year round yard waste collection because some in my neighborhood are participating in the food scraps recycling pilot program. That means that even those of us who are not in the program benefit from the fact that the recycling trucks are already scheduled in be in our neighborhood.

So at least I’ve got that working for me, which is nice.

The Few, The Proud, The Merkle

2012-01-02T12:38:00.000-05:00

It’s not easy getting a job at Merkle, but then again it’s not supposed to be.

I can’t help myself.

Since reading this column by Thomas Heath in The Washington Post about Merkle I find myself conjuring up potential slogans for employee recruitment for the Columbia based company. Then again maybe they don’t really need that.

“It isn’t easy to get hired. The screening process includes making a presentation before three people, who then vote on whether they want you. “

That’s hard.

Still, it’s seems to be working. The 1,500 employee firm was recently valued at $400 million. That’s a long way from where they started when David Williams acquired Merkle in 1988. “And Williams has his sights set on raising revenue to $1 billion a year.”

And that will certainly require a few more people.

No End in Sight

2012-01-01T19:19:00.000-05:00

We had a pretty big night last night bringing in the New Year in Baltimore. Consequently today has been pretty much been a recovery day, taking naps, watching football, eating cookies. Not a great day for overly thoughtful blog posts.

Reading the paper this morning I did note, with some relief, that this will not be our last New Years, at least as far as we know anyway. There are some who believe that the Mayans had predicted that the end of the world as we know it will come on December 21, 2012. This belief is known as 2012ology. This belief is wrong. According to this story by Matthew Restall and Amara Solari in The Washington Post “the ancient Maya predicted no such thing.”

“During the heyday of their civilization, circa A.D. 250 to 900, the Maya produced thousands of artworks and hieroglyphic texts, a dazzling legacy of literature and learning, art and architecture. But they weren’t preoccupied with apocalypse. Maya creation mythology recorded tales of a past world, but it did not detail how and when the current world would end — or even if it would.”

So go ahead and make plans for next December 31^st. With any luck we’ll all still be around.

Happy New Years!

Go Ravens!

Wrapping Up 2011

2011-12-31T12:21:00.001-05:00

Last night, after listening to the discussion about Ken Ulman and his failed attempt to reform the school board, Mama Wordbones made an interesting comment.

“Even by losing he won,” she said.

Her point being, that even though the county exec failed in his attempt to create more diversity on the elected school board, he still wins because he tried. The effort alone will score him points with minority groups, critical to his expected bid for statewide office.

Other than that, she only marginally cared for the rest of the podcast. Politics really isn’t her thing so listening to a forty eight minute podcast of four people discussing HoCo loco politics is something she does more or less to humor me. Relationships, especially successful ones, are often like that.

Still, she did listen and her comment about Ken’s political instincts told me that she also paid attention, so it couldn't have been all bad.

It was a fun panel. I’ve known Len Lazerick since he was a political reporter for the Columbia Flier, before it became part of the The Sun media empire. He was also the first guest on our inaugural podcast back in 2009. I’ve only gotten to know Lindsey McPherson over the past year after meeting her at a Blogtail party. This was her second appearance on the show too. Back in October she joined Tom Coale in a discussion of loco politics for our 50^th episode show. The combination of Len’s statewide politico perspective with Lindseys loco politico perspective provided informative and at times entertaining dialogue.

In fact, for loco politico wonks like me, the show may have been too short. While we did cover school board reform, Allen Dyer, the intermodal, gay marriage, and Frisky's, we never got around to other 2011 highlights like Diane Wilson and private swim clubs.

You can listen to the 56^th episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

I Spy

2011-12-30T10:20:00.000-05:00

Going through Costco earlier this week I stopped at this display for a home security camera system. It wasn’t the first time I have seen one of these systems but it was the first time I actually could imagine buying one. Up until this point I pretty much thought of these things as overkill for the seriously paranoid.

My perception of this technology began to change when I read the story about the “preppy burglar” in September of 2010. A home security camera system caught the preppy perp on tape and he was arrested and charged within weeks along with some of the stolen loot.

Earlier this year, a late night mailbox mauler was wreaking havoc on curbside mailboxes in our community. People were waking in the morning finding their mailboxes trashed and tire marks on the lawn. This continued unchecked and unsolved until he hit a home rigged with cameras. In short order the mailbox mauler was nabbed and charged.

Last month, certain neighborhoods throughout HoCo were plagued by daylight thieves stealing UPS boxes off of front porches. Eventually, the thieves hit a home with the cameras and now the police have a better idea of who they are looking for.

Last year, my neighbor was broken into. Though it appears his home was targeted, it was still a little too close for comfort. I don’t think they’ve caught his crooks yet. In October there was even an armed robbery just down the street. And this is supposedly a nice neighborhood!

What intrigues me is the very proliferation of these relatively low cost systems may in and of itself, deter more property crimes like these.

Put another way, if someone ever breaks into my home, a five hundred buck camera system would seem a very small price to pay to get a good look at the jerk who did it.

A Dubious Distinction

2011-12-29T11:16:00.000-05:00

Maryland may be the most gerrymandered state in the union. According to this story by Len Lazerick in Maryland Reporter, the Free State has “the least compact and most gerrymandered congressional districts in the nation.”

This was the finding by Azavea, a geograhic information systyems company that has ben studying the compactness of congressional districts nationwide using the Polsby-Popper ratio, which “measures the area of the district to the area of the circle whose circumference is equal to the perimeter of the district.”

The study singled out our 3^rd Congressional District as especially egregious.

“The least compact congressional district is Maryland’s 3rd, represented by John Sarbanes, singled out by a federal three-judge panel in an opinion last week. It scored a lowly .0333.”

None of this comes as a surprise to those of us who live here.

Now About That Discount…

2011-12-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

I received an email this afternoon from The New York Times asking me to reconsider cancelling my subscription. They were offering me 50% off the regular subscription rate for the next 16 weeks if I’d come back.

The problem is I never left. After getting the email I checked my last bill and determined I was paid up through the middle of next month.

I called the number in the email. I wasn't even given the option to wait. Instead I got a recording telling me to call back later. Apparently they were getting quite a few calls about this. According to this story by Matt Schifrin, in Forbes, “about 8 million other readers mistakenly got the same email…”

Later this afternoon I got another email from The New York Times telling me to disregard the earlier email and apologizing for “any confusion this may have caused.”

Well okay, but what about that discount?

“I imagine some heads are rolling at the NY Times circulation department tonight and I assume plenty of longtime readers like me will be either demanding 50% discounts for 16 weeks or considering switching to the cheaper digital only subscription option.”

It’s Dookie Time

2011-12-27T16:13:00.005-05:00

Yes folks, that’s right, it is time once again for that modestly recognized year end collective roast of HoCo loco blogs, the Dookies. Since their inception back in December of 2006, the Dookies have continued to rise in loco stature, or perhaps I should say we've attempted to raise a bit of a stink. In fact, just last year, transit wonk blogger Sarah, helpfully pointed out that the word “dookie” is often used to describe feces.

How oddly appropriate is that?

Our Dookies are HoCo homegrown. It was started by a once promising loco blogger who subsequently sold his soul to The Man. He blogs no more and therefore he shall hence remain nameless and even more sadly, soulless. Pray for him. He has young children.

Before departing to the dark side, he that shall remain nameless, passed me the torch of Dookie.

But enough about that. Time to get things rolling. The rules are simple because we make them up as we go along. I am the high priest of the Royal Academy of Dookie and in my role I "will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger" those entries that cross a certain line.

And where is that line you ask?

You let me worry about that.

To start things off…

“He’s everywhere, he’s everywhere…” was the oft heard refrain from the Chickenman series. In honor of the intellectual contribution of that show to our culture, I nominate Tom Coale and HoCo Rising for this years Chickenman Dookie. Over the past year our prolific morning links news commenter was everywhere in HoCo, speaking, governing, sitting in meetings, all while ending homelessness. All I can say is that Brian Meshkin is no Tom Coale.

Kermit the Frog will often lament that it’s not easy being green. Coming up with important topics to discuss and offering brief liberal commentary in the wee hour of the day, everyday is enough to make anyone green. Take a look at the post times on almost every one of Duane St. Clair posts on HoCo Connect; 5:43 AM, 4:36 AM, and so on. What is that all about?

“I can’t sleep therefore I blog.” I think Duane makes a pretty compelling case for the Left Handed Green Frog Dookie. We finally got our lefty blogger.

It’s the best book that nobody's read. I hear its good though. I did read some it in his blog posts. I am referring of course to the book by Frank Hecker, uber geek HoCo loco blogger. Frank spent hours of painstaking research and analysis putting together a modern history of Howard County politics and political divisions. It reads like Tolstoy. Though you can buy it on Amazon, its only in Kindle format. Sorry Frank, I'm a nook man. I think I’ll just wait for the Cliff Notes. This year I nominate Frank Hecker for the “Will There Be A Test On This” Dookie. .

And finally, you know how it is when somebody recommends something to you or suggest you try something. If the person making the recommendation is someone you otherwise admire and trust you’re probably going to give it more weight than something you'd get, say, from one of the Dobbin Road panhandlers you just handed a buck to. The thing is both can be wrong. When the wrong recommendation involves food, it becomes particularly memorable. Before I go any further I’d like to stress that I DID NOT GET SICK. I like HowChow but from now on I’ll buy in smaller quantities first. For 2011, my nomination for the “Don’t Play With Your Food” Dookie is HowChow.

Now its your turn….

Number 172 Moves Up

2011-12-27T09:37:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I went on the HoCo library website and removed my name from the waiting list for a Nook. I had moved all the up to 171 on the list after starting at 569 last August. As it turns out, Mama Wordbones came through for me first, giving me a Nook Tablet for Christmas. As I took my name off the list I wondered how many others in HoCo were doing the same thing. Sales of eReaders this year were expected to be three times that of a year ago. Who knows, maybe number 172 took their name off the list yesterday too.

So far my personal eReader experience is a bit mixed. Unlike some well known tech products, my out of the box Nook experience was not good. A software glitch required me to return to the store yesterday to have the factory settings reset before I could use the thing. Still, it wasn’t a big issue and was easily remedied by the tech in the store. I suppose that it’s just the kind of thing that happens when you rush a product out the door.

Even though it is now fully functional, it will still be awhile before I’m likely to read a book on it. When I visited my sister over Thanksgiving, she sent me home with "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand in what Beth Tribe calls a “tree book.” Since I was still finishing "Top Secret America" by Dana Priest and William Arkin at the time, Unbroken got put aside until now. I’m not going to buy an eBook until I finish this tree book.

On the other hand, I figured could at least borrow an eBook from the library in the meantime just to test it out. I soon discovered that the only available library eBooks that I found even remotely interesting were all unavailable.

It appears I’ve simply moved from one library waiting list to another…

Sliding By Christmas

2011-12-26T20:21:00.004-05:00

“I don’t remember getting a 2011 schedule.”

I had just returned from the garage with news that the slide question was not answered by the slide schedule postcard pinned on the garage wall. Mama Wordbones had asked if this was a slide week or not. Christmas was, after all, on a Sunday. Today wasn’t a holiday. Or was it?

The schedule on the wall was for last year when Christmas fell on Saturday and regular Saturday collections were slid to Monday, skipping right on by Sunday.

Undoubtedly the 2011 slide schedule postcard prematurely ended up in the recycling bin in a flurry of a junk mail purge. I had to go the HoCo Department of the Environment website.

As it turns out, this is a slide week. If, like me, your normal garbage day is Tuesday, this week it's Wednesday. The website informs us that for HoCo trash collection, this year Christmas Day is “observed” on Monday, December 26^th.

This is no small thing on the week after Christmas, a big week for solid waste collection. There has been whole lotta waste generation going on in HoCo this past weekend. As a result, throughout greater HoCo, regular curbside receptacles will be augmented by various in sundry disposable containers that offer weak resistance against certain nocturnal scavengers. Garbage like this left out a day early is like setting out an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord with a big sign saying “free.”

These uninvited guests are notoriously bad at cleaning up after themselves.

Merry Christmas (observed)!

Merry Christmas from Weather Station Wordbones

2011-12-25T12:39:00.003-05:00

One of the items on my Christmas list was a weather station. Frankly, it was one of those things I think I just casually mentioned to Mama Wordbones once. I usually endeavor to keep evidence of my inner geek in check but every so often something slips out, such as my interest in a home weather station.

As it happens it’s not just the political winds that interest me. There's still nothing like the real thing.

If I hadn’t received one this Christmas I likely would have bought my own home weather station before long. As it turns out, Mama Wordbones and my sister, GyspyPalace, succeeded in surprising me yesterday with a Weather Channel Professional Weather Center which I immediately opened and installed. The Winding Ross Weather Station is now active.

Right now it’s informed me that the pressure is dropping and wet weather is on the way. I’m in heaven.

Merry Christmas.

Streets Unsafe for Gingerbread Men

2011-12-24T13:39:00.000-05:00

Coming out of The Mall earlier this week I spotted this snarly beast. Gingerbread men and other fictional characters beware!

Even Santa Had to Wait In Line

2011-12-23T16:41:00.002-05:00

The line at the Heavenly Ham store in Dorseys Search Village snaked out the door and along the sidewalk this afternoon. For many HoCo locos like me, getting a ham on December 23rd is just part of the holiday tradition. This ritual comes complete with its own unique hierarchy. Are you an A, B or I?

A's have people.

To their credit, the Heavenly Hamsters keep things moving pretty smoothly considering.The people around me were in good spirits too and that made the twenty minute wait go by rather painlessly. Instead of burying our heads in our collective smart phones, we engaged and shared a smile or two. I'm met a couple of new friends.

I was just thankful I didn’t get caught behind this guy. I can’t begin to imagine how long it would take to fill his order.

The Latest Rap on Wrapping.

2011-12-23T12:49:00.003-05:00

I'm not very good at wrapping gifts. I can't tie a decent bow with a ribbon to save my soul and the art of neatly folding wrapping paper around gifts has largely escaped me. If it's an odd shape, I find myself reduced to wrapping tissue around it. Needless to say that gifts from me generally stand out under the tree. No need for a "from" label.

So it was that I was heartened by the latest research on gift wrapping. The bottom line is don't bother.

According to this report by Bob Moon (no not that Bob Moon) on Marketplace, "test subjects who got presents tied up in brown paper were actually happier than they were with flashy packaging. And you might just want to skip the wrapping altogether.”

This was the conclusion drawn by Nathan Novemsky, a marketing professor “at Yale University's Center for Customer Insights.”

It’s all about managing expectations.

“…you can imagine that -- especially as a gift that's wrapped sits under the Christmas tree for, you know, days or weeks, for example -- you start to imagine what's in there and you get pretty expectations. And when Christmas finally comes or the time comes to finally open that wrapping, you're imagining something great. Where as if I just say, "Here is something for you" and hand you something that you can immediately see, there's no chance for those expectations to creep up.”

Kind of like that little box that sort of looks like a jewelry box but ends up being a wine stopper.

“Oh, just what I wanted…”

Port Lands a Very Big Deal

2011-12-22T11:27:00.003-05:00

The future prospects of the Port of Baltimore for container shipping got a big boost this week. The world’s fifth largest container shipping company, Hapag-Lloyd has chosen Baltimore over other east coast ports, to be a major

shipping hub. According to this story by Candus Thomson in The Sun, state officials, who had lobbied hard to woo Hapag-Lloyd to Baltimore, claimed this “will boost container traffic at the port of Baltimore by roughly 10 percent, increasing the number of waterfront jobs and further raising the region's profile within the maritime industry…,”

Good news indeed. There’s a HoCo loco angle to this story too.

“For stevedores and other workers at the Seagirt Marine Terminal, operated by Ports America Chesapeake, the additional containers will serve as a warmup for the expected arrival of the so-called post-Panamax ships, the world's largest cargo vessels that will use the Panama Canal after a widening project is completed in 2014.”

This is one of the reasons why a loco intermodal terminal could be a boon to some of the HoCo loco companies involved in the distribution of goods. There is approximately six million square feet of HoCo loco warehouse space housing a variety of distribution firms. I really don’t care if its Montevideo or Hanover as long as its here it will be good for those jobs.

CSX actually helped sell Baltimore to Hapag-Lloyd. James White, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration explained “a team that included Ports America Chesapeake and CSX as well as the port of Baltimore made a presentation to Hapag-Lloyd…”

“Ports America was able to emphasize the deep-water, post-Panamax berth and cranes, its efficiency in unloading ships and the open land next to Seagirt, on which a warehouse could be constructed. CSX outlined its $160 million commitment to finishing the National Gateway rail project, which will allow double-stacked freight trains to deliver goods to the Midwest.”

First Day of Winter

2011-12-21T10:41:00.000-05:00

Count me as one of those who always thought of December 21^st as the first day of winter. Science was never one of my strong suits so I was a bit surprised to discover that this year it actually occurs on December 22^nd. It’s all tied to the Winter Solstice of course, that day when the sun is as far away from HoCo as it gets during the year. This means that tomorrow will be the shortest day and the longest night.

It's also tradition in some circles to dance around a fire naked tomorrow night.

The good news is that on Friday the days will start getting longer again. As someone who is not exactly a fan of winter, this is a hopeful sign.

Cracks in the Bedrock

2011-12-20T14:10:00.001-05:00

In an ad currently airing on television, Wesley Foster, the CEO of Long & Foster real estate, states that his company was founded on the “bedrock of honesty and intregity.” He then goes on to say that those are the qualities “that I’ve always seen in Creig Northrop.”

In a lawsuit filed on December 9th against the Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster, several families in the Baltimore area are now challenging that assumption. According to this story by Jamie Smith Hopkins in The Sun, the suit “alleges that the defendants used a complex scheme to get clients to buy new homes without first selling their old ones, requiring two new loans rather than one and netting more fees and commissions for the companies. The defendants fabricated documents to make these deals possible, the lawsuit also alleges.”

Apparently this isn’t the first time this year that Creig and his team has found itself defending its “honesty and integrity” either.

“In the earlier lawsuit that settled in March, a Fulton couple said they were victimized by a similar buy-now-sell-later scheme. G. Russell Donaldson, who represented them and is one of the attorneys involved in the new suit, said the settlement terms were confidential.”

I’m betting that Mr. Donaldson is not on the Creig Northrops team Christmas card list.

The Great Divide

2011-12-20T13:05:00.003-05:00

Just when I was beginning to think that the lines between Columbia and Ellicott City were becoming blurred, last nights County Council Legislative public hearing gave me a big dose of reality. For at least fifty three Ellicott City residents, who attended the hearing dressed in red, the notion of being part of a Columbia council district is abhorrent.

Wheatfield resident James Weidemann went so far as to use images of babies and puppies saying “not me” to drive home his neighborhoods opposition to being moved from District 1 to District 2.

Jonathan Branch, the president of the Columbia Democratic Club, sparked a heated exchange between Courtney Watson and Greg Fox when he testified in favor of the recommended district changes. Greg said that the proposed changes “did the worst job of addressing existing political boundaries." Courtney responded that was only one of the criteria and suggested that Greg was unfairly attacking Mr. Branch. Greg responded that Courtney didn’t seem to have a problem attacking the people who testified against these changes in a previous public hearing. That generated a round of applause from the red shirts.

I getting the feeling that Courtney and Greg and aren’t getting along very well these days.

My favorite testimony however came from Sherman Howell. Sherman said that Ellicott City residents are afraid of Columbia because Columbia is “too progressive.” He went on to insinuate that an African-American doesn’t have a chance to win an election outside of Columbia “because of the progressive nature of Columbia” which predisposes Columbia residents to support black candidates more than Ellicott City residents.

Wow! Is he suggesting that Ellicott City is inherently racist?

I’m sorry but to me this all seems so silly. Perhaps what we need is another effort like Bridge Columbia to get a bridge built across Route 100.

Note: I tried to embed the video clips of this testimony but there was something screwy with the code. After several attempts using different browsers I gave up. I even attempted to provide a link but received the message "Permission Denied." What's up with that?

The Least Worst

2011-12-19T14:41:00.000-05:00

For those of us who continue to struggle through a weak economy there is some comfort in knowing that it could be worse. According to this story by Lindsey McPerson in Explore Howard, Anirban Basu recently described the HoCo loco economy as the “least worst, and least worse of course is the new excellent…”

While the HoCo unemployment rate is the lowest in the state, we are still feeling the effects from the slowdown in government spending.

“More problematic for Howard County, he said, is that the Washington metropolitan region, which is largely tied to federal government employment, has only added 5,600 jobs in the past year. Basu said the shrinking of the government sector is not good for income growth or the housing market in the area.”

Fortunately, a couple of HoCo loco private sector businesses are picking up some of the slack. In this article by Danielle Douglas in Capital Business, Columbia based Micro Systems and Medstar Health were both singled out for adding jobs in 2011.

“Micros Systems in Columbia is one company that added jobs. It brought on 23 new, local employees in the past year, boosting its headcount to 1,016. The company, which provides the hospitality industry with cash registers and computer applications for back-office functions, is projecting revenue north of $1.1 billion this year, a 10 percent increase over the prior year.”

“MedStar Health, a Columbia-based regional health care provider, grew its local employee roster by 25 percent to 15,559 people. The company manages a network of nine hospitals and 20 other health-related businesses in the area, including Washington Hospital Center and Good Samaritan Hospital.”

Trading Places

2011-12-18T14:42:00.000-05:00

Taping the podcast at The Mall two weeks before Christmas presents a special set of challenges, not the least of which is parking. Last year, when Katie Essing, the malls general manager was our guest just before Christmas, she suggested that the top level of the Maple garage always has spaces available. On Friday, as I leaving Nordstroms heading to our podcast set up, I passed Katie sitting at a table with our guest, Laura Neuman. Katie had just finished giving the new EDA chief a mall tour. After exchanging pleasantries, I made a crack about parking.

“Did you remember what I told you last year about the Maple garage,” she replied.

Indeed I did. While I appreciated the tip I told her that parking garages at malls during the holidays have their own special angst. It is not so much the availability of parking spaces as it the process of getting to them. Navigating three levels of parking means dealing with three levels of stopping and going as incoming shoppers block the flow while waiting for an outgoing shoppers to vacate a treasured close in space. The situation is further exacerbated when the outgoing shopper, oblivious to logjam, takes their time leaving, checking receipts, checking their phone and whatnot.

Needless to say I didn’t park in the Maple garage.

It is no secret around town that Laura Neuman and I did not get off to a very good start when we first met. On Friday we got past that and were able to have a congenial discussion about her background and her vision for the counties economic development efforts.

My favorite part of the show however came at the end when Paul ranted about holiday gift baskets he’d received in his office.

After we wrapped up and I was heading to my car in the Nordstrom parking lot, Courtney Watson pulled up and rolled down her window.

“Are you leaving?” she asked with a distinctive tone of desperation in her voice.

We carefully choreographed a parking space swap even as other hungry space seekers hovered nearby.

You can listen to the latest edition of “and then there’s that…” here.

Sharkey’s Back in Town!

2011-12-17T17:41:00.000-05:00

When Sharkey’s closed up back in April, I thought we’d seen the last of Sharkey in HoCo. The proprietor of the funky little second floor pub on Main Street in Ellicott City had told me back then that he was headed off to Chicago and then, who knew where the winds might blow him.

Looks like they blew him right back here. Last night when we dropped into Café De Paris for a nightcap we were surprised to see Sharkey tending bar.

“I’ve been here since July,” he told us. I think Sharkey has a thing for French restaurants. Before opening his own joint he tended bar for years at Tersiguel's.

Sharkey also said he regrets having given up his former namesake establishment. It’s now a church.

He told us that even though Café De Paris is only six miles away from Main Street he hadn’t seen that many of his former Ellicott City patrons at his new place.

Give it time Sharkey. They just haven’t found you yet.

It’s Miller Time

2011-12-17T15:51:00.002-05:00

Only in HoCo would five hundred people stand in the cold for a new library opening. Even Congressman Elijah Cummings commented on the surprisingly large turnout. The unexpected Saturday morning traffic on Frederick Road almost caused him to miss the ceremony.

I was one of those in the crowd. I had attended the groundbreaking for this building back in February of 2010 and so I naturally wanted be there when it opened. Mama Wordbones on the other hand opted to stay in bed on this overcast cold morning. She said she’d join me at the library after the opening stuff was over. As it turned out, there were so many people crowding inside at 10AM that I called her and told her not to come. We decided to take a walk around Centennial Lake instead and come back later when the crowds had thinned out a little.

The ceremony was nice though. A couple of students from Mt. Hebron High School played holiday music to warm the crowd up and the Boy Scouts presented the colors and led everyone in the pledge of allegiance. I did notice that during the pledge, Delegate Frank Turner did not remove his hat though he didn't seem to have a problem taking his hat off for the photo op ribbon cutting. I’m sorry but I’m old school when it comes to this. He should know better.

Anyway, after our lake walk we decided to drop by the annual holiday train garden at the Ellicott City Volunteer Fire Department. Visiting a train garden during the Christmas holiday has been a tradition for me as far back as I can remember and the garden in the firehouse on Montgomery Road is one of the best. The layout changes every year too so it never gets old.

After that we finally made our way over the new Miller Branch library. At one o’clock it was still busy but by this time the crowds were much more manageable. It is really a nice facility. My favorite area is the periodicals section on the second floor. I was tempted to plop down on one of the chairs and read a magazine or two. Next time.

On our way out we ran into Valerie Gross in the lobby who was still beaming like a proud new parent. I asked her what was to become of the old library next door. The plan is for that building to house the library administrative offices which are currently split between the Central Branch and the East Columbia Branch. Doing this would also free up more program space in those two heavily used buildings.

Word of the Year

2011-12-16T09:57:00.002-05:00

On NPR’s Morning Edition this morning, Linquist Ben Zimmer talked with Renee Montagne about the American Dialect Society “Word of the Year” competition. Last year the society choose “app” as its word, the year before that it was “tweet” and in 2008 it was “bailout.”

The front runner for this year is “occupy.”

If you think another word from popular American culture is worthy of consideration this year, you can send in your own nomination.

“Nominations can be sent by email to woty@americandialect.org, tweeted to the Twitter user name @americandialect or using the hashtag #woty11, or they can be posted on our Facebook page.”

My nominee is “unfriend.”

A Quieter Airport?

2011-12-15T17:06:00.001-05:00

The Maryland Aviation Administration has plans to sell off excess property around BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport that it acquired over the years as part of a noise zone program. According to this story by Alexander Jackson in the Baltimore Business Journal, the MAA has identified 190 parcels of land that are “no longer needed as noise buffers.”

“The MAA obtained FAA approval of a reuse plan in June 2010. That approval will allow it to sell the 190 parcels over the next five years.”

I was curious to see what had changed with the airports noise so I went to the FAA website and found this noise zone map from 1998.

When I compared it to the new noise zone map I discovered one interesting development. In 1998, a large portion of the Oxford Square development in Elkridge was in the noise zone. This would have prohibited a fair amount of the projects residential development, not to mention making it an even less attractive site for a middle school.

Fortunately for David Scheffenacker, the 2007 map moves the noise zone line to just outside his development.

I suppose this means the airport has gotten quieter over the years, even as passenger traffic has increased.

And finally, just for fun, I ran across this video of airport take-offs and landings...

Dress Rehearsal for Gridlock

2011-12-15T15:44:00.003-05:00

For anyone who regularly travels McGaw Road, the arrival of Wegmans can’t come soon enough. The road work related to the market's construction have created nothing short of chaos lately at the intersection of McGaw and Stanford Boulevard.

Think of it like sort of a dress rehearsal for the store's opening day.

I’ve pretty much avoided this area but then I got an email from Tales of Two Cities netizen Interested Party yesterday informing me that the sign was now up on the building.

Indeed it is

As the countdown meter on HowChow reports, only 184 days to go…

The Selling of the Sun

2011-12-14T10:44:00.000-05:00

Look closely at the photo that accompanies this story by Sara Toth in Explore Howard about the ribbon cutting for the new solar farm adjacent to Worthington Elementary School in Ellicott City. Notice that the ceremonial scissors and the ribbon itself are emblazoned with the logo for SunEdison. Curiously, you won’t find anybody from SunEdison in the picture.

You also won’t find any mention of the company in the article.

This is interesting because SunEdison is the actual owner of this new solar installation. SunEdison will be selling the power generated by these panels on the former county landfill, back to the school system.

SunEdison was the indirect recipient of almost a half million dollars in taxpayer funds to build this project, in addition to getting the land they sit on at no cost. They were unquestionably the big winner yesterday but no one from the company spoke at the ceremony. It was almost as if the county was attempting to downplay the true economic nature of the project. The school will not be getting free energy from sun. They will be paying for energy from SunEdison that benefited from hefty government subsidies. In his remarks, County Exec Ken Ulman only made a passing reference to the fact that the school would be buying the power at “below market rates.” He never even mentioned SunEdison.

One of my pet peeves about this project is that it cut off a nice half mile trail that, despite the No Trespassing signs, many local residents used for daily walks or runs until SunEdison came along. On my way into the solar ceremony I ran into Josh Feldmark, the Director of the HoCo Office of Environmental Sustainability. I asked him if, now that the project was completed, would the county allow public access back to that half mile loop.

“Uh sure,” he said.

We’ll see. Perhaps I should have asked the representatives from SunEdison instead.

Ringing That Bell

2011-12-13T15:35:00.004-05:00

My buddy Tim Gallagher spent three hours ringing the bell standing next to a Salvation Army red kettle last Saturday. This is the third year in a row he has volunteered for bell ringing duty. The folks at Wells Fargo Mortgage in Columbia got him started and it has now become part of his holiday tradition. Kettle bell ringing is a big deal in this Wells Fargo office, with employee volunteers vying among themselves each year to be the top kettle producer.

Tim said he is pleasantly surprised at the generosity of HoCo folks. During his stint at the Centre Park Giant he saw more than a few fives and tens dropped in his bucket. “The bigger donors tend to be a bit older,” he said. He noticed others however, who seemed to go out of their way to avoid him.

He was also very complimentary of Giant. “More and more places won’t allow the kettles, so we really appreciate those that still do.”

Last year Giant received some criticism in the media when they limited the time that the bell ringers could spend in front of their stores. Earlier this year the grocer made a $75,000 donation to the local Salvation Army in honor of their 75^th year in business.

I happen to like the bell ringers and their red kettles. For me, those kettles with their sentinel bell ringers are as much a part of the holiday season as Santa Claus. They’ve been out on the street in towns across America every December since 1891. Nowadays they are found around the world as well. This year they received a Top Rated ranking from CharityWatch.

“Of the over five-hundred charities currently rated by CharityWatch, only a select number qualify for our listing of Top-Rated charities based on our rigorous analysis. Groups included on the Top-Rated list generally spend 75% or more of their budgets on programs, spend $25 or less to raise $100 in public support, do not hold excessive assets in reserve, and receive "open-book" status for disclosure of basic financial information and documents to CharityWatch.”

Tim said had a good time too and not just standing there ringing his bell. He also spent the afternoon interacting with strangers and helping the occasional shopper with their groceries. One lady he assisted was trying to manage four rotisserie chickens fresh out of the oven, in addition to her assortment of other grocery items.

“You must really their chicken,” he quipped as they loaded them into her car.

“Actually these aren’t for me,” she told him. “I’m giving them to some other less fortunate families today.”

A buck in every kettle, a chicken in every pot...

Speed Trap State

2011-12-12T22:02:00.000-05:00

In a very short period of time, Maryland has become a national leader in the deployment of speed cameras and quickly gaining the reputation of being a speed trap state. According to this column by Jay Hancock in The Sun, “of the 12 states that allow the devices, only in Maryland and Arizona are there more than a dozen cities and counties deploying them, according to the highway safety institute.”

“In Arizona, a speed camera can ruin your day in 17 jurisdictions. In Maryland there are no fewer than 29. That's a fourth of all the jurisdictions nationwide using speed cameras.”

“The excuse, of course, is safety. Speed cameras are ranged near schools and work zones. Studies have shown they reduce accidents. But they're also an easy and addictive way to raise revenue.”

It’s big money too. According to this story by Ashley Halsey III in The Washington Post, almost 400,000 speed camera tickets were issued in work zones alone between January and October of this year “valued at $16 million.”

Now tell me again that it's not about the money...

Fire Draws Heat

2011-12-12T16:13:00.000-05:00

The last thing that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wants to see in the middle of the holiday shopping season is bad press for the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. Unfortunately that’s what he got in this article by David Streitfeld in The New York Times. Describing the Fire as “less than a blazing success,” he notes that the “most disgruntled are packing the device up and firing it back to the retailer.”

“I feel the Fire is going to be a failure,” Mr. Nielsen, of the Nielsen Norman Group, a Silicon Valley consulting firm, said in an interview. “I can’t recommend buying it.”

This of course makes me feel even better about the tablet choice that I put on Santa’s list.

Cheap Eats

2011-12-12T12:09:00.002-05:00

Last week I found out that the cafeteria in the Micros building in Columbia Gateway was open to the public. I was touring the building next door with a client when the building leasing agent, Dan Callihan, touted the fact that tenants in the building could just walk next door for lunch. This was news to me.

On Friday, my colleague Bill Harrison and I went back to check it out.

Java City, as the cafeteria calls itself, is located on the ground floor of the Micros building in Columbia Gateway. We made the mistake of trying to get in by the back door, closest to cafeteria only to find that it is card access only.

No problem, we simply waited a moment until some employees exited and slipped in the open door. If you’re not feeling that adventurous I’d suggest using the main entrance.

This isn’t a fancy place, it’s a cafeteria after all. That being said we were both pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food, not to mention the prices. I had a shrimp etouffée with four nice sized shrimp for $5.79 and Bill had a turkey sandwich made to order for $4.75.

I don’t know that I would make a special trip to go back but it was a fun discovery nonetheless.

Nothing Like The Real Thing

2011-12-11T11:34:00.004-05:00

This year, more homes will have artificial Christmas trees than real trees. According to this story by Darryl Fears and Robert Samuels in The Washington Post, this Christmas, in homes across the country, it will be “50 million fake trees vs. 30 million fresh ones,…”

In our home it will be both. Seven years ago, when Mama Wordbones and I combined our households, the Christmas tree debate was an open issue. She had a fake tree and I was old school, nothing but the real thing for me. We were equally and emphatically committed to our positions so the only reasonable compromise was to have two trees.

Her reasoning on the superiority of fake trees is backed up by a study conducted by the American Christmas Tree Association which concluded that “fake trees have a lower carbon footprint — if consumers hold on to fake trees for six to 10 years — considering the energy it takes to chop, water and transport fresh trees annually.”

Real tree people have their own advocacy group, the National Christmas Tree Association. Of course, the NCTA has also studied the issue and found that purchases of real trees “encourages farmers to keep planting acres that absorb carbon dioxide from the air, soak up storm-water runoff full of nutrient and sediment pollution before it pours into waterways such as the Chesapeake Bay, and provide habitat for wildlife.”

They also refute the carbon footprint argument.

“The real trees also have a smaller carbon footprint than ones made with plastic and shipped mostly from factories in China, said Stephanie Flack, Potomac River Project director for the Nature Conservancy. “This time of year, while people are thinking of gifts they get from under the tree, they should be thinking about the gift from trees,” Flack said.”

For real tree sellers in HoCo, yesterday was Black Saturday, the busiest day of the season for real tree transactions. As we have for the past seven years, Peanut and I visited the Groundshog stand at the YMCA in Ellicott City to pick out our real tree. The man at the stand told us that he expected to sell somewhere around 650 trees this year, a little better than last year. Between his Catonsville location and Ellicott City, Ellicott City does more business.

For now, in HoCo at least, real trees seem to be holding their ground.

Seasonal Serenade

2011-12-10T10:39:00.002-05:00

Last night, as we were enjoying our dinner at Clyde’s, a group of well dressed high school students approached our table and asked if they could sing us a song. After we agreed, they presented Mama Wordbones with a menu of song choices that included many holiday favorites like Silent Night and Winter Wonderland. She decided to go with a non holiday song and picked Java Jive instead.

That did a fantastic job. They were smiles all around.

The singers were the Wilde Lake High School Chamber Singers. They were working the tables to raise money for a spring trip to a choir gathering in Virginia Beach. I told them I was a Wildecat alum and tipped accordingly.

We watched as they worked their way from table to table and didn’t see anyone turn down the opportunity for a tableside serenade.

Intermodal Makes for Odd Bedfellows

2011-12-09T10:03:00.003-05:00

It wasn’t that long ago that certain resident activists of Elkridge were up in arms about the proposed zoning change to the former Coca Cola property in Hanover. Three years ago, David Scheffenacker asked the county to rezone the 122 acre rail served property from M2 (heavy industrial) to TOD (transit oriented development). Scheffenacker made his case for mixed use based on a tenuous easement connecting the property to the nearby MARC station that dates back to the 1700’s. Residents were further outraged that the school board was considering putting a much needed elementary school in the new development because of its proximity to a CSX mainline.

Councilpersons Courtney Watson and Greg Fox even voted against the rezoning. As Larry Carson wrote a year ago in this article in The Sun, “they argued, industrially zoned land should not be changed for residential use and Elkridge is too congested already.”

Courtney and Greg ended up losing that battle in a three to two vote. County Executive Ken Ulman heavily championed the project and prodded his Dem colleagues on the council to approve the zoning change.

What a difference a year makes. Now that David has gotten his zoning change, he wants to change the complexion of the rest of the neighborhood too. That means no intermodal terminal in Hanover, just a little over a mile away from his development. If the proposed CSX intermodal were to land in Hanover, the trucks servicing the terminal would roll right past his tastefully designed entrance, around the clock. That could certainly put a damper on the upscale "Oxford" image he is attempting to sell. Note that he didn't call the project Hanover Square.

And that’s why this development should have never been approved in the first place, It’s a residential project plopped down in the middle of an industrial district.

But I digress.

The activists in Hanover opposed to having the intermodal terminal in their backyard suddenly have a new ally. According to this article by Elizabeth Janney in Elkridge Patch, David has pledged his legal team to help the community in its fight.

"After talking to your [GECA] committee for the intermodal, we have hired four attorneys to fight this," said Scheffenacker at the Dec. 6 meeting, "and we’ve decided it would be good if our attorneys were your attorneys, too."

As the Arabic proverb goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

I haven’t figured out yet if this also means that these residents are now on board with the notion of a middle school being located in David’s development. Less than two months ago they thought this was also a bad idea. David needs that school in order to move his project forward.

Is that the deal with the devil that the Greater Elkridge Community Association has made?

In This Months Business Monthly

2011-12-08T14:00:00.001-05:00

One of the amazing things about being a parent for me is how fast things change. For us grown ups, change comes slowly and reluctantly. In my now teenage daughter, change comes enthusiastically, in quick bursts.

Lately, when I have determined that she is ready for the next step in independence and responsibility I find that she is at least one step ahead of me, ready to challenge my parental knowledge.

Sigh.

Our recent Thanksgiving trip really bought that notion home. We have been traveling alone together since she was five. In those early years I was basically her loyal Sherpa, carrying all manner of kid stuff like a car seat, extra stuffed animals and a bag of distractions to keep her occupied on a long flight. I attended to her every need. Nowadays she carries her own stuff and looks to me for entertainment and conversation only during those times that she is unable to use her iPod. I’m still her Sherpa of course, still expected to take of care of things that a princess can't be bothered with.

It’s all good.

I often tell friends that the only good thing about getting older is gaining perspective. My interactions with my daughter also causes me to think objectively about things in order to, hopefully, make a point and impart some of that wizened perspective to her without being preachy.

Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t.

You can read this month’s column here.

See Ya Around Doug

2011-12-07T21:14:00.004-05:00

Doug Miller has written his last piece for Patuxent Publishing. In this column, Doug announced, that after twenty three years on the HoCo loco news beat, next week will be the “last with this newspaper, which has been home for most of my professional life.”

I feel like I was just getting to know him. It was less than a year go that we had our “Wine Summit” after he wrote a blog post entitled "Why I Hate Social Media". When Sarah wrote a follow up post on her blog questioning his hatred, he admitted in a column entitled "Facebook Frenzy" that he still "didn't get it".

That's when Tom Coale reached out to him and suggested that the three us get together for a drink instead of talking through columns and blog posts. He readily agreed.

I found him to be a pretty nice guy and his skepticism about technology genuine. The guy doesn’t even own a cell phone!

That night I think we all came away with a better understanding of each other. I love it when that happens.

Good luck Doug, wherever your next venture takes you. If you ever want to grab a drink again, give me a call…on your landline of course.

Speed Cam Cynicism

2011-12-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

Whenever I make a cynical comment about how the the new speed cams in HoCo are really just about money, someone inevitably comes to their defense. A commenter named Alan in this post suggested that perhaps I should stand next to a school crossing guard one morning “and then get back to me, or one of our super brave crossing guards, with your "money grab" accusations.”

Okay, I get that, but what about those places where there are no crossing guards and no crosswalks?

How about those schools where no kids even walk to school?

How do you justify a speed cam van in these locations as anything other than a revenue generator?

I offer Ellicott Mills Middle School as Exhibit A. At Ellicott Mills, not only are there no crosswalks or crossing guards, there are no sidewalks either. In spite of this, since the warning period for speed cams expired less than a month ago, speed cam vans have been stationed in front of the school, along a busy stretch of Montgomery Road, all day, at least twice.

I snapped this picture at noon today. At six this evening, long after school was over but prime time for evening commuters, the speed cam van was still there. I would be curious to know the number of times the speed cam vans have spent the day in this location compared to those where the “super brave crossing guards” are stationed.

Summer of Love

2011-12-07T10:33:00.000-05:00

Walking through the Howard County Center for the Arts open house last weekend I discovered the offices of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. The CSC is the theatre group that puts on the very popular “Shakespeare in the Ruins” series at the Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City. I’ve since forgotten the name of the charming lady who spent time with us but I do recall that she told me 2012 will be the “summer of love,” in HoCo as the company presents “Romeo & Juliet” in June and July.

She also said that company is working on an indoor venue to present plays in the colder months.

Dreaming of a White Christmas?

2011-12-06T12:42:00.001-05:00

With the first snow of December in the forecast for tomorrow, I thought I'd check and see what the experts are saying about the probability of a white Christmas in HoCo.

The Weather Channel gives it a 40% chance, based on “historic probability.”

The Farmers Almanac, which accurately predicted the Big Kahuna storm of 2010, is calling for above normal temps in Maryland this winter and above normal precipitation.

“A very active storm track will bring much heavier-than-normal precipitation from the Southern Plains through Tennessee into Ohio, the Great Lakes, and the Northeast. Because of above normal temperatures, much of the precipitation will likely be rain or mixed precipitation, although, during February, some potent East Coast storms could leave heavy snow, albeit of a wet and slushy consistency.”

They stopped short of a white Christmas prediction.

The fearless Foot’s forecasters have yet to weigh in on Christmas specifically but in general they are calling for a milder winter with La Nina being the determining factor.

“In a typical La Nina winter, the East Coast normally experiences below average snowfall and precipitation along with above average temperatures.”

This morning, when I looked outside, it looked cold. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered it wasn’t. This of course, is the proverbial calm before the storm as the temperatures are expected to drop significantly tomorrow.

I can feel that in my bones.

HoCo Housing Holds Up

2011-12-05T11:14:00.005-05:00

Home values in HoCo have weathered the housing recession better than the rest of the Baltimore Metro area. According to this post on Jamie Smith Hopkins Real Estate Wonk blog in The Sun, as of June, HoCo home prices were only “7 percent less expensive than the typical sale in 2007, when prices peaked, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems data. Harford, the next closest, saw double the drop.”

“The reputation of its school system and its location between Baltimore and Washington have worked to Howard County's advantage for years, so it's not a complete shock that it might fare relatively better in rough times. But goodness, prices are still double what they were in 2000. In June, at least, Howard's median sale price was up about half a percent over the year before, which in turn was up over the year before that.”

Then again this is only the overall picture. In certain price points the value drop has been considerably higher. In my Ellicott City neighborhood, where new homes sold in the $700K to $800K range in 2007, the average value has declined by approximately 20%.

...and we are not even near a proposed intermodal site!

Iron Bridge Boys Go Pirate

2011-12-05T06:50:00.001-05:00

Rob and Steve Wecker, the proprietors of the Iron Bridge Wine Company, have launched a new restaurant concept called Mutiny that is to rum what Iron Bridge is to wine. The first Mutiny (Steve told me they intend to grow the concept) recently opened in Point Pleasant (think Glen Burnie). This weekend we took a trip to check it out.

Unlike Iron Bridge, which sits on a busy road, Mutiny is pretty much off the beaten path, tucked in a residential neighborhood along Marley Creek. Driving there we even passed a neighborhood called “Suburbia.”

If you like rum, you’ll like this place. They have something like a hundred different kinds. If rums not your thing, it’s basically a well done pirate bar, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Bigger Than Big Ben

2011-12-04T14:52:00.002-05:00

The clock faces of the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower in Baltimore are one foot in diameter bigger than those on Big Ben in London.

That’s what Joe Wall told us yesterday when we toured the clock room of this iconic Baltimore landmark. We stumbled upon this tour when we decided to attend the monthly open house that the arts tower hosts for its resident artists. In addition to the open studios, Joe offers an unpublished, behind the face, tour of the clock room. It was pretty darn cool and easily the highlight of our day yesterday.

I highly recommend this tour to anyone who is curious about this quirky piece of the Baltimore skyline. Joe does a great job of telling the towers story and its namesake hangover reliever, Bromo Seltzer. He even removes a pane of glass from one of the four clock faces so visitors can get a glance at the view.

The next open studio is Saturday January 7^th from 1 to 5.

Didn’t Go There, Didn’t Plan To

2011-12-03T13:40:00.003-05:00

Prior to coming on our podcast, the Board of Directors of the HoCo Chamber of Commerce told Pam Klahr, their President and CEO that certain topics should be off limits, particularly the Diane Wilson affair.

The funny thing is that neither Paul nor I considered that subject that would be of any interest to our listeners. As far as we were concerned, that was old news.

What was of interest to me was the perception of the chamber having an outsized influence on HoCo loco politics. There are some in community, including a couple of commenters on this blog, that seem to believe the chamber can work its will with the county council.

Don’t get me wrong, the chamber does lobby hard, and in some cases successfully for issues important to the business community but their efforts are no more or less effective than other major HoCo loco interest groups.

Perhaps it is just perception. Under Pams leadership, the organizations legistlative initiatives have become more robust. The Legistlative Affairs Committee of the chamber is one on the most active groups in the organization and their annual legistlative breakfast is well attended by most HoCo loco politicos.

I guess that’s why the Board continues to be so touchy about the Dianne Wilson thing.

You can listen to the latest episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

Hot Time in the Old Town

2011-12-03T12:15:00.000-05:00

By any measure you’d have to call last nights Midnight Madness celebration in Ellicott City a success. The weather was perfect, cold but not too cold and no wind. The streets were filled with people and music well into the night.

We arrived on Main Street after attending the Annual Holiday crafts show at the Howard County Center for the Arts. I was admittedly less than enthusiastic about starting my weekend with a craft show but this was something that Mama Wordbones wanted to do and so I humbly acquiesced. As often happens, I was pleasantly surprised. It won’t take much to convince me to come back next year.

Colleen West, the executive director of the HoCo Arts Council said she expected anywhere from 500 to 600 people to attend this years event.

It wasn’t just crafts either; the centers galleries were also open. My personal favorite was the sculptures of Sarah Wegner in Gallery II. Her exhibit runs through December 16^th, well worth checking out.

Restoration Hardware Closing

2011-12-02T15:43:00.000-05:00

The Restoration Hardware store in The Mall is closing. The upscale home furnishings and accessories store that was never really about hardware came to Columbia in 2000 with the opening of Nordstrom.

Almost from its inception, the retailer struggled financially, finally teetering on the edge of bankruptcy in 2008 before being taken private by Catterhorn Partners. Recently the company has been shuttering its mall stores and shifting to larger stand alone stores and repositioning the brand. They are moving from selling items like Super Hero in Box to high end design. According to this story by Tom Vanderbilt in The Wall Street Journal, Gary Friedman, the CEO, “now envisions Restoration as a kind of "open platform," an app store for home decor, where the likes of London furniture maker and antiques dealer Timothy Oulton and the Midwestern/Dutch pair of Mark Sage and Rudi Nijssen can craft new pieces out of old things, artisanal objects pitched somewhere between mall sameness and Design Center uniqueness.”

“Rather than hedging, he says, the company doubled down. "We said, 'Let's forget about the customer for a minute,' " Friedman says. "I don't mean that in an arrogant way. We believe that great brands don't chase customers, customers chase great brands." While everybody was "screaming value," Restoration went the other direction. "In bad economic times," argues Friedman, "quality becomes even more important, uniqueness becomes even more important—people need to be inspired to buy something."

New Visitor Center Debuts Friday

2011-12-01T14:05:00.000-05:00

When Ken Ulman flicks the switch and lights the Christmas tree to kick off Midnight Madness this Friday, he’ll also be cutting the ribbon to open the new Howard County Visitor Center.

It’s a major upgrade from the former visitor center which was housed in the basement of the old post office building on Main Street. Three years ago, the county purchased the building after the post office relocated to its new facility just up the hill on Ellicott Center Drive. This past summer the county began transforming the main floor into a new and expanded visitor center, helped along by a $175,000 state bond.

It’s nice repurpose for the 1940's era stone building. The renovation even pays homage to the buildings past.

I once dismissed the notion of HoCo Tourism. How significant could tourism in HoCo be I wondered?

Pretty darn significant it turns out. In 2010, tourism in the county generated more than $13 million in local tax receipts. HoCo Tourism, headed by Rachelina Bonacci, is hoping to build on that by convincing more day visitors to spend the night or two.

A new visitor center should help facilitate that effort.