- The site reference ID is incorrect, invalid or no longer in use
- The site has been sold or removed
- Documentation is not available
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Kimco QR Fail
This afternoon I spotted this QR code stuck to one of the
windows of the former Produce Galore space in the Wilde Lake Village Center .
I was curious to see if it would enlighten me about the progress that Kimco is making on the
redevelopment of the center. I whipped my i5 and gave it a quick scan.
The following message immediately appeared on my phone:
The Marketing Package for the selected site was not found.
Possible reasons include:
I scanned it again just to make sure. Same message.
It’s obvious that something is about to get cooking besides fast food at the old village center. There is
now a stockade construction fence surrounding the former KFC building and there's an
asbestos removal notice taped to another storefront window.
Maybe I should have asked Siri what was going on.
iPhone…Finally!
Initially I pined for the day that the iPhone might become available
on Verizon. Back in 2009, when Apple’s revolutionary phone hit the market you had
to be on the AT&T network to use it, legally anyway. Like many, I decided to
stick it out and hope for the day when it might become available on Verizon.
While I was waiting Android phones started getting better and better. I actually passed up the first opportunity I had to get a Verizon iPhone
opting instead to stick with my Motorola Droid X which I’ve kept long past its
useful life. I figured I’d probably just stick with an Android phone when it
came time to replace it. Some people were even saying that Samsung's new Galaxy phones are superior to the iPhone.
And then I got an iPad. The iPad with the CoStarGo product
is the most powerful tool in commercial real estate. It’s not available on the
Android operating system. No iPad, no CoStarGo.
This is when I learned that Apple doesn't play well with
others. My Android phone and my iPad had communication issues.
What finally pushed me over the edge though, was how easily
the iPhone worked with our Microsoft servers. Last week as we transitioned into
our new offices I could not get my phone to sync my email but I noticed that the
people in the office who had iPhones experienced no trouble.
The next morning I was at the Verizon store picking up the iPhone 5.
Can you love a phone?
Perhaps it’s just that initial passion you get at the
beginning of a relationship but I have to admit that I sometimes just like to
hold my new i5. As David Poque points out in this column in The New York Times, the iPhone 5 is the thinnest smartphone in the world “just under four ounces; it disappears
completely in your pocket. This iPhone is so light, tall and flat, it’s well on
its way to becoming a bookmark.”
Its beauty is matched by its elegant performance. It’s rather fast too.
Its beauty is matched by its elegant performance. It’s rather fast too.
"The iPhone 5 is now a
4G LTE phone, meaning that in certain lucky cities, you get wicked-fast
Internet connections."
When I returned to the office I was able to sync with our servers on the first try. Smugness ensued.
And the best part, it gets along very well with my iPad.
I think I'm becoming a fanboy.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Funny Numbers
David Gertler should be on the school board. He is funny,
smart and has a passion for mathematics yet twice now HoCo voters have chosen
lesser candidates over him. As far as I’m concerned it’s a loss for our
students.
Then again, we really haven’t lost him. Despite his
electoral loss, David has remained engaged with the system by organizing the
first countywide STEM Festival to be held Sunday, June 9th at HCC.
He also does stand up comedy which distinguishes him from
your stereotypical math geek.
David was one of those guests we felt we could jump right in
with since he’s pretty well versed in HoCo issues. In fact, our freewheeling
chat about HoCo loco stories almost didn't leave us enough time to talk about
his upcoming festival.
We had plenty of news items to fill the show, particularly on
the political front with the announced retirements of Senator Jim Robey and delegates
Jim Malone and Steve DeBoy and Ken Ulmans budget.
You can listen to 88th episode of “and then there’s
that…” here.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
More Bad News for Creig
Occasionally I get asked about a post I wrote back on December 20, 2011 concerning a lawsuit filed against HoCo über realtor, Creig Northrop. “Whatever
happened with that?” they’ll ask.
I had no idea. It seemed to have faded off into that silent
world of negotiated settlements.
Until today that is. In his column in The Washington Post, Robert McCartney writes that an unrelated new suit, filed in federal court, alleges
that Creig “received hundreds of thousands of dollars of illicit
payments over a period of 13 years to send settlement business to a local title
firm.”
That would be Lakeview Title. McCartney also mentions them.
“The agreement provided that Northrop would “designate
Lakeview as its exclusive preferred settlement and title company,” and would
not “designate or endorse any entity” other than Lakeview for such business.
The new lawsuit alleges that the marketing deal was a clear
violation of a U.S.
law, known as RESPA, which prohibits a firm from receiving compensation in exchange
for referrals for real estate settlement services.”
The column also shed some light on the case from my earlier post.
“Much of the earlier lawsuit, in state court, was defeated
on technical grounds. A judge ruled that the complaint didn't qualify as a
class action and that the statute of limitations had expired. The plaintiffs
plan to appeal.”
Now you know.
Lt. Governor Ulman
My friend, and HoCo loco political operative, Roger Caplan
has generally dismissed the notion of Ken Ulman playing backup quarterback to
the guv. “I can’t see Ken carrying a clipboard,” he likes to say.
Maybe he can’t but apparently Ken can. The prospect of a Brown-Ulman gubernatorial ticket is beginning to look like a done deal.
According to this story by John Wagner in The Washington Post
“several people familiar with talks between Brown and Ulman described the
Howard executive as the clear front-runner for the No. 2 spot on Brown’s ticket.”
“Ulman’s interest in the job has been prompted in part, the
sources said, by a growing realization of the challenges he would face in
winning the nomination and a sense that he is young enough that he could run
for governor later in his career.”
It would be a pretty formidable ticket.
"Brown, a former delegate for Prince George’s County who
served a tour of duty in Iraq as an Army reservist, is the handpicked successor
of O’Malley (D), who is term-limited and weighing
a 2016 presidential bid. If elected, Brown, 51, would be Maryland ’s first black governor and only the
third African American elected governor in the country since Reconstruction.
Ulman has gained recognition for expanding access to health
care in his county, among other initiatives. Now 38, Ulman was 32 when first
elected, making him the youngest county executive in Maryland ’s history."
Those aren't my words. Those are a real reporters perspective and provides a great story line for a campaign.
A narrative like this coupled with the support of the incumbent guv immediately makes Brown-Ulman the front runners.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
No Scanners No Problem
On more than one occasion I've encountered an empty scanner
rack at Giant. I hate this. No scanners mean no Scan It for me, not on this
trip anyway. I’m a big fan of the little handheld buggers so that when I find none available I get a little bummed.
They've fixed that problem, at least for people with
smartphones. Earlier this week I saw this notice in the Columbia Palace Giant
announcing a Scan It mobile app.
I've haven’t tried it out yet but it sure sounds like a good
idea.
And…this week I bought my first iPhone. More on that later…
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Fire in the West
From my experience, the best way to sum up the politics of
the HoCo Fire Department is to say it’s complicated. Whenever a major issue
crops up like a change in fire districts or, more recently, the contingent firefighter program, the internal battle lines are not always clearly drawn, at least it can appear that way to this outsider.
This is likely more indicative of the political
disconnect between the urban east the rural west and a desire to preserve a way of life that is rapidly disappearing in HoCo than it is a disagreement with fellow firefighters .
It is clear that passions can run high yet it’s hard to get anyone within the department to speak out. It's almost as if everyone wants to keep their stuff within the family.
The exception to this is the Lisbon Volunteer Fire Company.
As they were with the fire district dust up, the Lisbon firefighters have taken the point on
opposing the plan to eliminate the contingent employee program. Contingent
employees are paid part-time workers who assist in the staffing of volunteer
fire companies, notably West Friendship, Elkridge and Lisbon . According to this story by Blair Ames
in The Sun, Fire Chief Bill Goddard believes that ending the program will allow
the department to operate more “efficiently with career and volunteer personnel
working together.”
"The only people that suffer in this is the community," said Kenny Livesay, a volunteer firefighter at theLisbon
station. "It's setting us up for failure."
"The only people that suffer in this is the community," said Kenny Livesay, a volunteer firefighter at the
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Spring Fever
The blog has slipped down my priority list lately. It’s not
that I don’t have the time is just that I've chosen to spend that time
differently. For instance, Mama Wordbones and I spent the last five weeks binge
watching Homeland. We had both heard people rave about this series so when FiOS
gave us two months of Showtime for a free trial we decided to check it out. We
were hooked on the first episode.
Work has cramped my blogging time as well. In case you hadn't noticed, commercial real estate in HoCo is becoming red hot. I've lost count of
the number of projects underway; Whole Foods, Clyde’s, Merrill Lynch building, the
Metropolitan, The Mall expansion, Wilde Lake Village Center . There is more to come too, with at least two more projects being announced in downtown Columbia alone
before the summer is over.
If its any consolation, I've at least been thinking about posts for
To2C. One of the topics that has started germinating in my twisted mind is the dynamics life in HoCo’s largest business park, Columbia Gateway. It’s really another Columbia village of sorts. People may not live in Gateway but a very large population
spends the better part of each work day within its bounds.
How many?
The National Association of Industrial and Office Parks
recently concluded that the average US worker occupies 176 square feet of office space. Columbia Gateway has 4,185,941 square feet of office space so that would work
out to 23,782.1 people. That doesn't include those who work in buildings that aren't classified as office, which would include most single story buildings in
the park.
That’s a lot of people, the majority of which will never
have the chance to interact with each other within their corporate village.
Maybe we can change that. My colleague TW often quips about
Colonel Gateway in reference to the state highway signs leading to the entrance
off of 175 that reads “Col Gateway
Drive .”
Maybe we can create a fictional character called Colonel
Gateway and throw a big birthday party for his fictional birthday.
I’m thinking April 1st would be the perfect fit.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
On A Roll
When the Howard Hughes Corporation purchased the former
Ryland Headquarters building last August, it was more than half empty.
Yesterday, with the announcement that GP Strategies had leased three floors in
the nine story office building, it’s now 94% leased. In the commercial real
estate game this is a home run.
Howard Hughes is beginning to make home runs look easy. In
his remarks at yesterday’s ceremony, John DeWolf, Senior Vice President of
Howard Hughes told the guests that downtown Columbia
was one of the top three projects for the company. The other two were in Hawaii and New York City .
There is more exciting news to come in Columbia too, including the pending announcement of the new restaurant for the former Red Pearl space. The company
has actually found itself in the enviable position of having to manage
announcements so that each new development gets its own time in the spotlight.
And speaking of spotlights, Ken Ulman was also on hand
yesterday to help celebrate this latest downtown development and I took the
opportunity to chat briefly with him. I asked the exec what he thought about
the talk of Dutch Ruppersberger getting into the 2014 gubernatorial race. Ken
did not betray any concern about this development. He suggested that it may already
too late for Dutch in terms of both grassroots organization and fundraising. Apparently
any monies Dutch has raised for his congressional races cannot be used for a statewide
race.
In the meantime, Ken can look forward to more
opportunities to stand in the spotlight in the coming months as downtown
Columbia
continues on a roll.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Comedy is Hard
This weekend, the 2nd annual Spring Celebration
in Ellicott City featured four comedy acts in addition
to a wide assortment of bands on three stages. I was able to catch partial
performances of two of them; Michael Freidman at the Tiber Park stage and an act
called SM Stefano Stratakis at the Wine Bin stage.
I came to the conclusion that grassroots loco comedy is
hard. Just because someone tells you that you are funny doesn't necessarily mean that
funniness translates into a successful stand up act. Both of these acts
struggled to elicit any kind of audience reaction. As a few people pointed
out, all successful comedians likely started out this way. I couldn't help but
think that this is a very hard road to travel.
Other than the comedy acts, you’d have to call the Spring
Celebration a big success. The weather was perfect and the crowds turned out.
Dave Carney told me that the ECBA is working on a summer festival too, most
likely to occur in mid July.
You can see additional pictures of Saturdays’ event here.
Friday, April 19, 2013
HoCo Losing Corporate HQ
On Tuesday shareholders of Columbia
based Arbitron voted overwhelming in favor of being acquired by New York based Nielsen,
combining the dominant radio rating service with the dominant television rating
service. If the deal passes muster with the antitrust cops, the television guys
will win and HoCo will lose a major corporate headquarters. According to this story by Gary Haber in the Baltimore Business Journal the radio ratings company
“is one of the largest employers in Howard
County . It employs about
860 people in the Baltimore area, out of a U.S.
workforce of about 1,000.”
The ratings business is struggling to keep up with tech
savvy consumers. In an article entitled “The Nielsen Family is Dead” in Wired,
Tom Vanderbilt writes that “Nielsen and others have been scrambling to generate a new kind
of TV rating, one that takes into account all of the activity that occurs on screens
other than a television.”
“Since the 1970s, television has been ruled by the Nielsen
Family—25,000 households whose TV habits collectively provide a statistical
snapshot of a nation’s viewing behavior. Over the years, the Nielsen rating has
been tweaked, but it still serves one fundamental purpose: to gauge how many
people are watching a given show on a conventional television set. But that’s
not how we watch any more. Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Roku, iTunes,
smartphone, tablet—none of these platforms or devices are reflected in the
Nielsen rating. (In February Nielsen announced that this fall it would finally
begin including Internet streaming to TV sets in its ratings.)”
Arbitron has been trying to keep up as well. In 2005 they
began rolling out the Portable People Meter which was meant to phase out its dependence
on diaries. Four years later they encountered some unanticipated regulatory blow back.
Change may be constant but it can also be unpredictable.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Spring Celebration 2013
This Saturday the Ellicott City Business Association will
host their 2nd Annual Spring Celebration in the historic district.
Live entertainment, craft beers and Earth Day activities will be spread up and
down Main Street
from noon to 7 PM.
If Foot’s Forecast is right, the weather should be perfect. “Morning
clouds will break to a fantastic afternoon! Skies will gradually become
sunnier, with highs reaching generally the lower 60s.”
Perfect weather for festing!
On a Clear Day You Can See Best Buy
Some people can spend their entire working life in the same
office with the same morning commute and the same view. Not me. Since beginning
my professional career I've occupied sixteen different offices in five states.
Three of those offices were windowless. I liked them the least.
My sixteenth move has landed me in the Gateway Corporate
Community in Columbia .
Corporate community is an apt label for the 600 acre business park that
contains almost seven million square feet of commercial space but no residences.
It wasn't my first choice. If I had my way we would have located
our new office in downtown Columbia .
That said, I have to admit that I’m warming to life in this corporate community.
I have a second floor view overlooking thickly wooded open space. In the
distance I can just barely make out the Best Buy sign at Gateway Exchange. In
matter of weeks, as the trees leaf out, I probably won’t even see that. In my
former office my view was of another building.
Gateway is also Columbia ’s
largest disenfranchised community. Even though it is larger than any of the ten
Columbia villages and its building owners pay the same CPRA lien as village
residents, it has no representative on the governing body of the Columbia Association.
It’s our own HoCo loco version of taxation without representation.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Spring Stuff
The only thing I dislike about spring is that many of the acts of natures great color show end too soon. A week or sometimes just days can dramatically change the scene from brilliant color to something greenish.
Catching the really big shows like the cherry blossoms in the Tidal Basin
is often a matter of luck and timing.
Columbia
looks good. There are flowering trees all over the town and some like the
bradford pear have already done their spring thing. Others like the kwanzan cherry
are just getting amped up.
Life is returning to the lakefront too. Earlier today I
walked by Clyde ’s.
The new façade is up and new employees are being trained. Paul Kraft, the
general manager, told me that they hope to reopen by next Monday. He let me peek in the
door and, from what little I could see, I was impressed. New ceiling, new lighting, new back bar, new carpet,
you get the picture. It’s familiar yet different. “That’s what $5 million will
get you,” he quipped.
I understand it also paid for a kicking new kitchen and
bathrooms.
There will be announcement soon about who will takeover the
former Red Pearl space. I've sworn not to reveal what I know even though it’s
killing me. I’ll just say that I’m excited.
You can find more pictures here that I snapped around town while goofing off a little this afternoon.
Labels:
Columbia Town Center,
Green Stuff,
The Retail Scene
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Busboys and Poets
A couple of months ago I discovered Busboys and Poets for
the first time. I was in Hyattsville on a work assignment and
came across their newest location in the Gateway Arts District. I had heard the
name before but I’d never been in so I decided to check it out.
My first reaction was that Busboys and Poets would rock inColumbia . That was only further reinforced when I read how they describe themselves on their website.
My first reaction was that Busboys and Poets would rock in
“Busboys and Poets is a community where racial and cultural
connections are consciously uplifted...a place to take a deliberate pause and
feed your mind, body and soul...a space for art, culture and politics to
intentionally collide...we believe that by creating such a space we can inspire
social change and begin to transform our community and the world.”
Am I crazy or does this sound like it came right out the Jim Rouse playbook?
I decided to see if I could make a Columbia location happen so I
sent an email to Andy Shallal, the impresario behind Busboys and Poets. I refer
to Andy as the impresario because, as Judith Rosen writes in Publishers
Weekly, “I’m not really a restaurateur,” says Shallal, who opened his first
restaurant in 1987. “I’m an activist with food. We all eat. There’s a
commonality.”
He responded to my email in relatively short order, thanking me for the “vote of
confidence” in his venture. Regarding downtown Columbia he wrote that he’d “keep this in mind.”
Now the real work begins.
Monday, April 15, 2013
The More Things Change…
While cleaning out my desk for our move last week I found a
copy of The Sun from June 9, 2002. Presumably I saved this particular paper
because it featured an in-depth report on Columbia
on the occasion of the towns 35th birthday.
As I reread the piece to decide whether it was worthy of
continued retention, I chuckled when I came across the following
paragraphs.
Lately, some loco activists have begun carping about the
need to do more for low income housing in downtown Columbia , besides the Columbia Downtown Housing Corporation which was established
as a part of the redevelopment legislation. The trust receives its funding to
provide affordable housing from a fee assessed on every new housing unit created
in downtown. It was seeded with a million dollar check from Howard Hughes.
Eleven years ago nothing like this existed or was proposed.
Is it enough?
Of course not. Providing low income housing in an area of
relatively high housing values will always be a challenge, just as it was back
in 1967. Instead of demanding more subsidized
housing in one place from one developer though, perhaps the better strategy would
be to create a countywide housing trust that assesses a fee on all new residential units in HoCo.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
How Animals Eat Their Food
Peanut told me this short clip garnered over 20 million hits
in five days on YouTube.
Its classic slapstick stuff and I got a good laugh out of it.
Perhaps that reveals something about my intellectual depth.
Anyway…as I've mentioned before, Peanut watches YouTube way
more than what I’d call conventional television.
But what is conventional television anymore?
In the most recent issue of Wired, Willa Paskin points out that streaming video has not only enabled
us to watch our favorite shows on any computer with a WiFi connection, it has
also changed the very nature of how we watch TV. We are now able to "binge watch” our favorite shows.
“Whatever our televisual drug of choice—Battlestar
Galactica, The Wire, Homeland— we've all put off
errands and bedtime to watch just one more, a thrilling, draining, dream-influencing
immersion experience that has become the standard way to consume certain TV
programs. We've all had the hit of pleasure after an installment ends on some
particularly insane cliff-hanger and we remember that we can watch the next
episode right now. It’s a relatively recent addition to the pantheon of
slightly illicit yet mostly harmless adult pleasures, residing next to eating
ice cream for dinner, drinking a beer with lunch, and having sex with someone
you probably shouldn't.”
Guilty. Just last Friday we binge watched two episodes of
Homeland after we got home from dinner.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Awesome Guests
Jean Parker has served as General Manager of Merriweather Post
Pavilion for almost thirty years. She’s held the same job even as the operators
changed from Nederlander to SFX to Clear Channel and now I.M.P. She started
working at the outdoor theater part time while still a high school student at Mt. Hebron .
After graduating from the University
of Maryland with a degree
in computer science, she did a one year stint with Arthur Andersen before returning
to Symphony Woods. This is the third time Jean has been on our show.
And speaking of Symphony Woods, Jean told us she “loves the
Inner Arbor plan.”
“CA is doing lots of great things…it’s all good.”
The future looks bright for Merriweather too, particularly
now that the Maryland General Assembly has codified the permitted noise levels
within a quarter mile of the facility.
And speaking of the future, we also invited Ian Kennedy to
join us to discuss the upcoming elections for the Columbia Council. Ian
launched the Let’s Make Columbia Awesome website to support those candidates
who support visionary initiatives like the Inner Arbor Plan.
Ian also has a Merriweather history. He and his friend
Justin Carlson launched the Save Merriweather effort back in 2003 when the
future of Merriweather was in doubt.
Ian made a pitch for Regina Clay in Wilde Lake, Mike Cornell
in River Hill, Julia McCready in Oakland Mills and Ed Coleman in Long Reach,
pointing out that these people are more interested in “pushing Columbia forward
rather than holding it back.”
In other words, these are the candidates that can make Columbia awesome. “They’re
all awesome,” he suggested.
You can listen to the 87th episode of “and then
there’s that…” here.
Labels:
All Politics Are Local,
Columbia Town Center,
People,
podcasts
Friday, April 12, 2013
Lt. Governor Watson?
Maryland Juice, a widely read Maryland political blog, has suggested that Courtney Watson is on Anthony Browns short list for lieutenant governor in his 2014
gubernatorial bid. According to this post by David Moon, Courtney’s name is
among eight that have been mentioned “by knowledgeable sources, and at least
some of them appear to be going through some level of vetting.”
I should note that Ken Ulmans name is also among the eight
mentioned but most political watchers widely dismiss the notion of Ken playing second
fiddle to the guv. As Roger Caplan is fond of saying “I don’t see Ken holding a clipboard
for anyone.”
Most HoCo loco politico watchers would also dismiss Courtney
as a serious prospect for backup quarterback given her expected run for county exec in 2014. Even
David seems to acknowledge this pointing out that it is “unclear whether she
would be willing to abandon her campaign for an unplanned run for LG.”
Indeed. Still, if you're Courtney it still has to feel good to see your name on the list.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
More Food for Turf Valley
When I visited the new Turf Valley Town Square last weekend, I noticed two more restaurants were joining Facci and Petite Cellars
in the new shopping center, a sports grill and Xitomate.
It would be fun if one of these new watering holes dedicated
a special drink to Marc Norman, the Turf
Valley activist who
fought hard to keep this shopping center from being built.
I’m thinking something with sour grapes would be fitting.
Labels:
Development Stuff,
Ellicott City,
The Retail Scene
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
What’s in a Name?
There has been a significant realignment of Baltimore
commercial real estate firms over the past two weeks, with all the action centered
in Columbia .
The sixty seven year old former powerhouse of the Baltimore
market, Manekin, merged the lions share of its operations with the Baltimore office of Colliers International. Lest there be any doubt about
who was acquiring whom, Tim Hearn, CEO and Principal of Colliers will be moving his office to the Manekin building in Columbia Gateway, while
the remaining Manekin businesses will occupy his old space at 7172 Columbia Gateway Drive .
At least everybody involved gets to stay in the same neighborhood. Presumably, 8601 Robert Fulton Drive
will soon be sporting a new name on the bricks. To the victor go the spoils.
That wasn't the only shift that occurred. After sixteen
years my own firm, Ryan Commercial, morphed into Lee & Associates
Chesapeake Region, along with a few brokers from the Columbia office of KLNB. The new firm is headed
up by Allan Riorda (KLNB) and began operations with Matt Ryan (Ryan), Kate
Jordan (KLNB), Tom Whelan (Ryan), Bill Harrison (Ryan), Marley Welsh (Cushman
Wakefield) and yours truly. Like one big happy local commercial real estate family, the new Lee
office is also in Columbia Gateway at 6990
Columbia Gateway Drive .
Unfortunately this means I have to move. Our current offices
are on Dobbin Road
in the Columbia Business Center. W e've been there for about five years. I like where we are. I can be in
Wegmans in ten minutes. Sigh. Columbia Gateway is a retail desert compared to Dobbin Road .
Actually, we are in the process of moving. The physical move happens Friday. Right now all of us are going through old files and
loading up the recycling bins. As much as I dislike this process it can be very
cathartic.
It's kind of like spring cleaning.
Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Fire Drill
When I stopped in the Old Mill Bakery and Café for coffee this morning they were debating whether to call 911. From their parking lot you could see the black smoke rising from the hill above Ellicott City.
“It’s just a fire department exercise,” I informed them.
“It would have been nice if someone had told us,” one of the clerks replied.
Actually I thought Howard County had done a pretty decent job getting the word out, at least in my neighborhood. Even before I drove past the action on Weavers Court I knew what was going on. Earlier in the week I received alerts from both my community email list and from Notify Me Howard.
“That figures,” she said, “we’re in Baltimore County and they don’t tell us anything.”
Such is life in a bordertown.
Later in the day I drove past the controlled burn again but this time the fires were out and the trainees were busy rolling up hoses and packing up their gear.
“It’s just a fire department exercise,” I informed them.
“It would have been nice if someone had told us,” one of the clerks replied.
Actually I thought Howard County had done a pretty decent job getting the word out, at least in my neighborhood. Even before I drove past the action on Weavers Court I knew what was going on. Earlier in the week I received alerts from both my community email list and from Notify Me Howard.
“That figures,” she said, “we’re in Baltimore County and they don’t tell us anything.”
Such is life in a bordertown.
Later in the day I drove past the controlled burn again but this time the fires were out and the trainees were busy rolling up hoses and packing up their gear.
Andrew Metcalf with Patch reported from the scene.
Monday, April 08, 2013
Russian Bike with German Bones
The fun vehicles came out of their winter hibernation today
as spring made its belated debut. I had been wondering if I’d see something to put in The Garage, when this unusual motorcycle and sidecar appeared in our office
parking lot. Fortunately, I was also able to meet and speak with the owner.
Jim Macdonald, who lives in Frederick,
owns this 2012 Ural and drove it to Columbia today. The Irbit Motor Works builds the Ural in Russia and is
one of the only manufacturers of motorcycles with sidecars in the world.
According to this story by Andrew E. Kramer in The New York Times, the
retro looking bike is “a heavy, 40-horsepower motorcycle whose two
cylinders jut sideways from the frame. It is modeled after a late-1930s BMW
sidecar bike called the R71, which Nazi Germany provided to the Soviet Union after the countries signed a nonaggression
pact in 1939. When the Nazis broke this pact and invaded, the Russians used the
bike to fight them.”
It’s also proven to be quite popular with older cyclists.
“Irbit found salvation in an unlikely niche market: older
American riders seeking utility, not thrills or spills. Suddenly the sidecar, a
seemingly anachronistic product evoking a World War II newsreel, had a new life
among the late middle-aged.”
Jim admitted that his Ural is a fair weather toy. That’s why
it was out being played with today.
Secret Garden
We've driven by it numerous times but never stopped. That in
and of itself is not so unusual, it’s an old graveyard after all and neither of us knows anyone interred there. I suppose it was a combination of curiosity,
a warm Saturday, and the profusion of daffodils that spurred Mama Wordbones to
suggest we take a closer look at Whipps Garden Cemetery
on St. Johns Lane
in Ellicott City .
I’m glad we did. True to its name, Whipps is as much a
garden as it is a 180 year old cemetery. Carefully overseen by the Friends of
The Whipps Cemetery and Memorial
Gardens and community
volunteers, the one acre “heritage-garden park” is both historic and botanic. It
features a native plants “typical of those grown in Maryland gardens of the 1800’s.”
You can find more pictures of Whipps Garden
Cemetery here.
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Black Mulch
Home Depot had a big sale on mulch this weekend and we took
advantage of the opportunity to load up. We weren't the only ones. In the Ellicott City store on Saturday the staff in the garden
center struggled to keep up with the demand, particularly for the black stuff.
I watched a steady stream of customers empty out a pallet
load of the stuff within fifteen minutes. During that time the brown and red
mulch bags were hardly touched.
Brown mulch is out. In HoCo, black mulch is suburban yard chic.
Saturday, April 06, 2013
Beer Madness
In yet another play on the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament The Washington Post has been running its 7th annual
Beer Madness, a blind tasting of 32 regional craft brews to determine a loco
king of beers. A panel of nine has been “sipping, spitting and scribbling their
way through 32 brews from the Chesapeake
region.”
This is the first year the competition has focused solely on
Virginia , Maryland
and the District of Columbia .
“In previous years we've gone mass-market, global (in honor
of the Olympics) and all-American. In this, the seventh annual Beer Madness, we
decided to celebrate the local renaissance and showcase the best this region
has to offer. All 32 entries come from breweries in the Chesapeake
Bay area. We included some local brewpubs whose distribution doesn't stretch outside their front door, and a few small newcomers, such as
Wild Wolf Brewing in Nellysford , Va. , and Union Craft Brewing in Baltimore ,
that are just poking their noses into Washington
and suburbs. But you can find all of these beers, on tap or in bottles or cans,
within the confines of the Beltway.”
We are truly experiencing a beer renaissance in this
country. In 1980 there were fewer than ninety breweries in the US . Today there
are over 2,400, the highest number ever.
It’s beginning to get a little overwhelming. Earlier this
week, To2C reader and occasional contributor Andy Liberman sent me a note about
a new wine bar coming to Turf Valley . He wrote that it
was purportedly backed by the folks at Perfect Pour in the Gateway Exchange
shopping center. It had been some time since I was last in Perfect Pour so I
decided to drop in and see what I could find out. While I didn't discover
anything new about the Turf
Valley venture, I was
bowled over by the craft beer selection in the store. They have one of the most
extensive offerings of craft beer in HoCo. There’s a pretty good chance that
you will find most, if not all the 32 beers in the WAPO Beer Madness tournament in
the store.
Andy later informed me that the name of the Turf Valley
place is Petite Cellars. Yesterday I dropped by the new shopping center and saw
that work was well underway. He also thinks the new place will be similar to Liquid Assets in Ocean City .
Thursday, April 04, 2013
Not Yet
“We didn't go to the Tidal Basin .”
“You were on the Mall weren't you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t recall seeing any cherry blossoms.”
“Then they weren't blooming.”
Mama Wordbones was right as usual, particularly when it
comes to the ways of nature. I went back and checked my camera. I had taken the
typical tourist pictures. Standing in the middle of America ’s front lawn I took one
shot towards the capital and one towards the monument. Bing. Bang. Boom.
If you look closely you can see the beginnings of color. I wasn't looking closely. It was cold.
Peanut and I took a day trip to the National Museum of American History ,
my choice not hers. Someone is not doing well in US History and I was hoping
for some sort of inspiration. I don’t think it took. Hard to tell though, teenagers
are notoriously hard to read.
On the ride home I heard on the radio that peak bud time has
now moved back to this Saturday, two days above the average.
We're planning on going back on Sunday, with the bikes. It would
be nice if we didn't have to wear ski hats and gloves.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
“The Natives Are Massing”
The photo above came from Interested Party, a To2C netizen
and regular commenter. The note accompanying the attachment was brief and succinct.
“Spotted in a Columbia
Village . What does
it mean?”
At a minimum it means someone has thumbed their nose at their village architectural covenants. Yard art has long been considered bad form in Columbia.
Whether or not it means anything at all besides a spring prank, for
some odd reason it made me think of the recent postings in the Howard County
Citizens Association listserv. I regularly surf through their discussions, just
to keep an eye on them. I don’t really consider the HCCA to be a political
threat but HCCA members can usually be counted on to be against anything that
involves a developer. Being in the development business I like to keep tabs on what they are up to.
Right now there is a big discussion going on about
affordable housing and school board member Ann DeLacy is all over that topic
like goose poop on a lakeside pathway. She thinks that subsidized housing
should be more equally spread around the county citing a concern about “the
lack of affordable housing in places like Maple Lawn, Dorsey Search and River
Hill.”
“Are the elected officials here in Howard
County simply not interested in the allocation of fair housing in all areas of
the County? “
Sounds like ADL may be trying to broaden her political base
on the left side of town. Naturally she links socio-economic diversity with
education. It’s why our schools are so bad I suppose.
My favorite housing hypocrite is Alan Klein. You may
recall that AK was kicked to the curb by his full spectrum housing colleagues when the deal was cut on
the Downtown Columbia Housing Trust. Not matter what's negotiated, with AK it’s never enough. This
from a guy who lives in one of the only Columbia neighborhoods that doesn't have any multifamily housing let alone anything that could even remotely be
considered affordable. He likes affordable housing in your backyard, just
not his.
You gotta keep an eye on these folks, especially when they are massing…
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Good Neighbors
I am unaccustomed to running into my neighbors at
HoCo politico events. It just doesn't happen. Over the six years we've lived in our current neighborhood,
it’s only happened three times. The third time occurred last week at Courtney Watson's event in Columbia when I ran into my next door neighbors, the good ones.
Seven years ago, as our side by side homes were being built,
I first met Hatem. Later we would become introduced to his wife and two
children. Maha now brings her homemade baklava to our 3rd of July
parties. When they traveled back to visit family in Egypt , we kept an eye on their house.
At the party, Hatem told me that he was on the board of the
Howard County Muslim Council and explained some of the work that the council is
doing in the community. He made a point to mention that Courtney regularly
attends their functions and has been supportive of their efforts.
I loved this moment. I often lament about the sad state of
loco civic engagement and awareness. When I suddenly discovered that, right
next door, another neighbor was quietly doing his part to make HoCo a better
place to live, it made me happy.
In contrast, on the other side of my house is a family that
has also moved in at the same time. They have two daughters and after seven
years I don’t even know their names.
We spoke a little about the plans for a Muslim school and worship center in western HoCo. I told Hatem that a friend of mine is on the
executive board of Residents for the Responsible Development of Woodmont, which
“opposes the project currently proposed by Dar-Us-Salaam of College Park
because it’s size and intensity are far in excess of what RRDW believes is
reasonable for the Rural Conservation district and the rural west of Howard
County”
I sincerely hope that the Dar-Us-Salaam community and the
greater Cooksville community can reach some sort of mutual accommodation on
this. There are good people on both sides of this zoning debate so there is
good reason to be hopeful.
In This Months Business Monthly
The Columbia Council is the red headed step child of loco
politics. Even though the elected council members serve as the board of
directors of a corporation with an annual operating budget of $60 million and 1,300
employees, very few people pay much attention to its governance.
The system itself is at least partially to blame. Election
rules and procedures are inconsistent among the 10 Columbia villages and not all who pay the CA
lien are even eligible to vote, including the majority of the commercial property
owners.
Voter apathy is also to blame. Even seemingly contentious
citywide issues such as the future of Symphony Woods park barely register a
blip on most Columbia
residents radar. On the other hand, try and take away a neighborhood tot lot or
swimming pool and suddenly people start to pay attention, though by that time
it may already be too late.
It’s not too late now. If you live in Columbia please get informed and vote on April 20th
or, at the very least, get your hands on an absentee ballot. If you know someone who lives in Columbia , particularly the villages of River Hill, Oakland
Mills, Wilde Lake and Long Reach, please encourage
them to pay attention and participate.
A healthy and forward looking Columbia is in the best interests of everyone
who lives in HoCo.
You can find this month’s column here.
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