Dinner and a Movie

We saw The Kings Speech last night. Well technically the 4:40 PM show time was still a matinee which was cool with me because it was cheaper. Both Columbia movie theatres are currently showing the true story of King George VI and his speech coach and we chose the Regal Cinemas at Snowden instead of the AMC in Town Center.

I wonder if we made the right choice.

First of all, the theatre was packed, which surprised us. This movie was released in early December. I figured that by now most people who wanted to see this would have already seen it.

I figured wrong. We were lucky to get two seats without having to sit in the neck ache section.

Second, it was cold. I don’t know what was up, but the heat in the theatre didn’t seem to working very well. We kept our coats on. Mama Wordbones kept her gloves on too.

Despite the chill we enjoyed the flick. Afterwards we headed over to Café de Paris to indulge in their Restaurant Weeks offerings. This time I actually got to enjoy the food. 

Borders on the Brink

Borders Books is running low on cash. According to this story by Jeanine Poggi in The Street, “Borders announced that it would also delay payments to some of its vendors, which prompted reports that publishers were halting shipments of books to the company. Borders has now spent the last several weeks meeting with publishing big wigs and presenting a plan to get back in their good graces.”

They also fell a little behind the technology curve. According to this story by Maria Panaritis in the Philadelphia Inquirer the national chain "hasn't made the move to digital as quickly as Barnes & Noble" did, said digital-book-publishing expert David Carnoy, executive editor at CNET in New York,”

In the exploding market of e-readers, Borders is playing third string. Amazon was first with the Kindle, followed by Barnes and Noble with the Nook and now Borders has the Kobo.

The Kobo?

Good luck with that.

Borders has already been closing stores in effort to help stem their losses but it still may not be enough to save the company. According to this story by Michael S. Rosenwald in The Washington Post “Whatever progress publishers and Borders make toward a temporary deal, analysts and industry observers say the larger problem is much more daunting: There are just too many big bookstores selling a product fewer and fewer people want, at least in printed form.”

Another Write Off

The Pen Boutique sells a Mohammed Ali fountain pen for $21,000. That’s for the gold and diamond version. They also sell a sterling silver limited edition for $2,500.

As much as I enjoy writing, I could never see spending that kind of money on a pen. I was given an expensive pen once. I lost it. I didn’t feel compelled to replace it either. When I saw that the Pen Boutique in The Mall was closing, I wasn’t really that surprised. I had never even been in the store.

In the digital age, penmanship is becoming a lost art.

HoCo Loco Celebrity

Every January Jim and I get together to celebrate our birthdays with a steak dinner.  We’ve been doing this for so long now that we’ve both forgotten when we started.

Jim and I grew up in Columbia in the seventies. When we get together we can spend hours talking about the HoCo loco scene.

“You’re becoming a real local celebrity,” Jim throws at me out of nowhere.

My immediate thought was, “Yeah, in my own mind anyway.”

Then I started to think about what he meant and what it means to be a loco celeb. It’s a simple formula really; the more you put yourself out there, the more people know who you are. The more people who know who you are the higher scale of your loco celeb stature.

For example, the high end of HoCo loco celeb hood is populated by guys like Ken Ulman and Allan Kittleman. Both receive a fair amount of exposure in all manner of media from the mainstream press to the social media networks. Still, at that level, I’ll bet they walk into some places in HoCo where people won’t have a clue who they are or why they should care. Loco celeb street cred is earned simply by the probability of recognition in HoCo places. The county exec and the state senator unquestionably have the highest probability of said recognition.

The next level of HoCo loco celeb status is held by people like Liz Bobo and Warren Miller. Though they are known countywide, their strongest probability of recognition lies within their respective districts.

At the low end of the scale perhaps you’ll find the likes of me and maybe somebody like Barbara Russell.  Nobody knows who we are but a handful of our enemies and our facebook friends. 

Three Things about Food

This is the first week of HoCo Restaurant Weeks. I have not had the opportunity to peruse the offerings of all the participating restaurants but if the sampling I had is any indication, this is great opportunity to leave your comfort zone and venture into the untried. I plan on taking Mama Wordbones to at least one of the participating establishments this weekend.

On Monday in The Sun, John Lindner wrote about his lunch at Maiwand Kabob in the Harpers Choice Village Center in Columbia and concludes “Maiwand serves up good food at attractive prices.”

I agree and while I on on the subject of kabobs, I recently sampled the cuisine at the newly opened Kabob Hut in Taylor Village in Ellicott City. Maiwand easily wins this kabob kontest, so far at least.

And finally, tonight is yet another HoCo Blogtail Party. This time the gathering wil be held at the Second Chance Saloon in the Oakland Mils Village Center in Columbia. If you want to meet some of the people behind the HoCo blogs, these gatherings are a good opportunity to do so.

Was that three or four?

A Friend of Vice is Friend of Mine

If Delegate Warren Miller has his way, you will soon be able to sample single malts in addition to beer and wine in HoCo. Under current HoCo requlations, sampling of liquor is prohibited in HoCo though it is allowed in AA Co, PG Co, and Baltimore. According to this story by Larry Carson in The Sun, Miller received the support of the HoCo delegation after agreeing to amend his bill “to reduce the total amount of alcohol that could be consumed from four ounces down to one ounce in quarter-ounce shots.”

The only legislator not on board with the booze bill was Liz Bobo.

"To me, there is a big step from tasting wine to tasting liquor with a higher alcohol content," she said, explaining her vote.”

Does Liz think that whiskey is some sort of gateway drug like say, marijuana?

She has already indicated that she is "pro pot" which she believes that “in her heart” should be decriminalized in the Free State.

Millers other vice initiative is a bill that would allow HoCo VFW posts to install up to five slot machines for the use of their members. Warren has pointed out that eight Eastern Shore counties already allow this but that’s no surprise.  Eastern Shore residents are still mad at Millard Tawes for banning slots in Maryland in the early sixties. According to this story by Stephen Janis in The Baltimore City Paper, the state took action against slots because citizens groups complained that they were "destroying the fabric of family and economic life..."

Times and attitudes change, in this case fueled by a thirst for more state revenue.

The HoCo delegation will roll the dice on veterans gambling when they reconvene next Wednesday.

31 Seconds of Prime Time

A few readers may recall that last spring I spent some time with investigative reporter Dana Priest showing her around the defense intelligence community in our midst. Dana also bought along Michael Kirk and Jim Gilmore, independent producers of programming for Frontline on PBS.

Yesterday I received a call from Jim giving me a heads up that part of the stuff they filmed with me last May would be on TV last night...in prime time no less. He told me to watch the lead story "Are We Safer"  which was one of three stories in the new Frontline Monthly Magazine Show.

I’m on for about 31 seconds. If you’re just curious to see that part you can find me at 14:50. We're driving around Annapolis Junction.

I was on twice as long in an earlier promotional video. 

No matter, I'm still planning on telling people that I was in story about Homeland Security with the governor.

It Could Be Worse

The DC Metro area and the Baltimore metro were ranked among the top five metro areas in the US for job growth in 2010 according to this story in The Economist which also points out that “America’s recovery is officially longer-lived than the recession that preceded it.”

It’s also better for some than others, particularly those with a degree.

“Why have the rich got richer? Partly because fewer college-educated workers lost their jobs during the recession, so lower unemployment rates in some cities simply reflect a brainier citizenry. But Ed Glaeser, an economist, argues that clusters of clever workers themselves enhance productivity. Such clusters give firms a useful advantage in a productivity-obsessed, cost-conscious world. And in tighter labour markets, firms are more eager to snap up talent while they can.”

The worst metro area for job growth last year was Las Vegas leading me to conclude that it is fortuitous that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

New Stuff

Suddenly it seems that the HoCo blogosphere has become much richer. Thanks to this post and this post on theHoCo,  I've discovered some great new voices in the HoCo loco blogging conversation.

I actually started linking to HoCo Hangover a couple of weeks ago. Any blog that sets its mission on the study of HoCo bar ecosystem sounds good to me. So far they’ve written up Union Jacks in Town Center, River Hill Sports Grille in Clarksville and Looneys in Maple Lawn. So many bars, so little time.

Though My Other Car is a Pirate Ship it isn’t really a new blog, it’s new to me. The blogger describes herself as “a thirty-something pirate girl, on a quest to find buried treasure in Columbia, Howard County, Maryland and beyond. Join me on the high seas for adventure, good food, grog, and tales.”

Good stuff.

I also like SaySayLobbyist. Meg tells us she loves “to use words that rhyme with Ham, Spit, Switch, and Duck. I also whine, misspell, procrastinate, run with scissors, and am a registered Democrat (The Horror!)."

Could this be the HoCo lefty blogger we’ve been looking for?

Kittleman Steps Down as Minority Leader

Senator Allan Kittleman told a Republican caucus this morning that he will step down as minority leader in the Maryland State Senate. According to this story by Annie Liskey in The Sun, Allan was “heeding concerns from other Republican senators who voiced discomfort over his decision to introduce a civil unions bill.”

“Speaking on the Senate floor he it was "no secret" that he is left of his caucus on social issues. He said the caucus would "feel more comfortable" with a different leader.”

This move was widely expected. It also puts Allan in a better position should he decide to make a run for county executive in 2014.

The Dimming of Route 100

The State Highway Administration is turning down the lights on Route 100 in HoCo. According to this story by Pete Pichaske in The Columbia Flier, “SHA has turned off some 75 lights along that 6-mile stretch of the roadway, about 20-25 percent of the lights.”

It’s being done to save money.

“Reduced lighting requires less energy and saves money that can be used for road maintenance,” SHA District Engineer Dave Coyne said. “With reflective line striping, well-lit signs and headlights from vehicles, some of the overhead lighting along Maryland 100 could potentially be eliminated.”

If the year long pilot program is successful it could be replicated in other parts of the state as well.

The Smell of Success

The Barnes & Noble bookstore in Ellicott City is a happening place on a cold Sunday in January. When I dropped in yesterday, a little after two, the place was abuzz with activity.

First of all, I should note that I love bookstores. I love the smell of bookstores. There is certain energy to a good bookstore that emanates from all those books and readers coming together in one place.

And they’re better than a library cause you don’t have to be quiet.

The Ellicott City Barnes & Noble is a great bookstore. Though it was well past noon when I passed through, every seat in the Café was taken. There were lots of students. Some were studying, others socializing. There couples, old and young and there were singles, engaged in a computer or a book.

And there were lots of people browsing the aisles picking up all manner of printed material, while the B&N eBook, The Nook, was on display just inside the door. They even had a couple of tables set up where you could play with one. I didn’t realize that the Nook had Wi-Fi capability. I quickly pulled up the blog, of course.

You have to credit B&N for their retail savvy. I suspect though, that an all eBook bookstore will not smell as nice as the current blended version.

Watson Takes on Jeopardy

Anyone watching football this weekend is already well aware that IBM’s artificial intelligence computer, Watson, is going to go toe to toe with the Jeopardy All Stars, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. This morning I discovered this preview which includes a graphic that shows the other answers Watson considers before answering.

Pretty neat stuff for an otherwise cold and dreary day…

Package Plan Member #96

Package Plan member number 96 is no longer Dottie Binckley. This is actually a milestone of sorts. Dottie Binckley was one of the first one hundred Columbians to sign up for Columbia Associations’s Package Plan when it was first introduced in the late sixties. For the average Columbia family, Package Plan was a huge bargain over individual memberships for the recreational amentities like swimming, tennis and golf. For a family of eight like the Binckleys it was a no brainer.

Through all these years Dottie has kept her Package Plan membership even though all her kids were grown up and had moved out. She’s in her eighties now and the only amenity she enjoys is an occasional visit to the health club. It would make sense of course to simply cancel Package Plan and pay a daily rate at the health club, but there was that sub 100 number. She was number 96. It was part of her Columbia pioneer bonafides.

Her son hoped that maybe CA could cut her a break and let her keep the number for some sort of reduced rate. He visited the Customer Service Center and pleaded her case. “If we did that for you we’d have to do that for everyone,” he was politely told.

“Really?” he wondered. How many eighty year old Package Plan pioneers could there be?

Not surprisingly, his plea to find some accommodation for preserving his moms Package Plan legacy fell on deaf ears. He turned in #96,

Though CA can spend years and waste millions of dollars on a customer service software program that still doesn’t work they seem to have forgotten what real customer service looks like.

Ironically, this occurred in the same month that CA was touting their improved connectivity with lien payers with a new Facebook page.

A Real Guy

I first became acquainted with Guy Guzzone when he was serving on the County Council in the seat now held by Jen Terrasa. At the time Jim Robey was serving in his second and final term as county exec. Back then it was widely expected that Guy would run for exec in 2006 instead of Ken.

Obviously things didn’t turn out that way. Guy was taking care of his aging parents at that time and he eventually determined that he could not handle the time and demands of the exec job in addition to his family obligations. He opted to run for the part time job as a State Delegate instead.

He may now get another chance to be exec. Guys name has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the office in 2014. On the other hand, according to what he said on our podcast yesterday, he may decide to remain at the state level of loco government instead.

We were also joined by Jesse Newborn who shared her perspective on Doug Millers column about social media.

You can listen to the 32^nd episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

What’s Your Walk Score?

In a recent post on The HoCo, Chris Bachman writes that when comparing the cost of suburban living versus city living “the affordability of Columbia vanishes once we factor in transportation costs.”

One of the resources he used for his post is a website called Walk Score where you plug in an address and it spits back a rating of how walk friendly it is. For instance, my home in Ellicott City received a low score of 22 out of 100, putting it solidly in the Car Dependent category. On the other hand, my work address on Dobbin Road rated an 80 for Very Walkable.

The irony of course is that in reality my office is not very walkable. While there may be plenty of places within walking distance, there are no sidewalks or crosswalks to connect them which causes many people to drive to Panera Bread which is less than a tenth of a mile away.

I also checked out my sisters place in St. Augustine Beach. During my last visit we walked to the beach, the bar and a great farmers market yet her ranking was still in the Car Dependent range with a 29.

It seems that Walk Score doesn't really know the score.

Doug Miller and the Social Media Monster

Doug Miller is not a big fan of social media. In his latest column in The Columbia Flier he posits that he doesn’t “find that much online that's relevant to real life as I know it.”

That’s really quite a statement. His own column is online after all. I’ll assume that Doug wasn’t referring to mainstream media online or sites like WebMD or the US Census. I think he's referring to the social media thing when he says he doesn't "get it." He doesn’t read any loco blogs, and doesn’t use Facebook or Linked In. I’m guessing he doesn’t Twitter either.

What he really doesn’t get is that social media is all that and more. He need look no further than his own column where seven people have already commented have already weighed in on his words. That’s social media Dougie.

I also get that guys like Doug and Larry Carson look askance at blogs and bloggers. These guys came up in a world where the mainstream media and their professional journalists were the gatekeepers for all content and comment. The Internet has busted down those walls and a flood of blogs and tweets has spilled into the void.

It can be a pretty scary world for an old school writer. The coin of the realm in the world of social media is the number of people you are connected to and the number of people who read and/or follow your stuff. Anyone can write a blog but that doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will read it. 

Doug actually has a blog. People likely read his blog because they are already on the Explore Howard website. I wonder how it would fare by itself out here in the blogosphere. He last posted on December 23^rd.

I actually feel a little sorry for him. His world is changing and he doesn’t understand it. Maybe we should take him out for drinks.

Can We Eat Now?

I was a little surprised when Dave Bittner told me that HoCo Tourism liked the idea of having Paul and I promote HoCo Restaurant Weeks. It is nice to know that some HoCo locos think enough of our podcast to want to be associated with it in some manner.

That was pretty cool.

The best part for me was getting to spend time with Erik Rochard and Joe Barbera, the proprietors of the two establishments we visited. Erik personifies the spirit of joie de vivre. As the chef was preparing the dishes for the shoot, Erik grabbed a bottle of wine and some glasses. The fact that it was 11:00 AM on a Tuesday did not even merit consideration. We talked about food, life and business and shared a few laughs while his staff kept bringing out food and laying it down in front of us. I felt like Bacchus.

Unfortunately we couldn't touch the food until after the shoot. It wouldn't look good after all to zoom in on a veal chop with a bite taken out of it.

With Joe we got the behind the scene tour of his new restaurant, the highlight being the walk in wine cooler that houses both bottles and kegs of wine. Though they are called kegs, the containers are actually stainless steel cylinders. The wine on tap system is made possible by state of the art equipment that insures that the last glass of wine from a keg is as fresh as the first. The wine we sampled was excellent, if that's any measure of anything.

Anyway, we had a good time. I’m not real crazy about how I came across sometimes but hopefully we’ll get another chance to do something fun like this again. If that happens I’ll try to do better.

Thanks to Amanda Hof from HoCo Tourism , Erik Rochard, Joe Barbera, Paul Skalny and Dave Bittner. That was a lot of  fun.

Can we eat now?

Donkey Games

It’s pretty well known that the relationship between Senator Jim Robey and County Executive Ken Ulman is not a real close one. The former county executive has been a less than enthusiastic supporter of his fellow Democrat.

Take the current initiative of the exec to increase the HoCo hotel tax for instance. Ken would like to bring our tax rate up to the same level as Anne Arundel County in order to provide additional funds for HoCo economic development and tourism efforts. According to this story by Larry Carson in The Sun, several hotels “said they support the two-percent tax increase and believe it would generate more business.”

Sounds like a slam dunk to me.

Not so fast says Senator Robey. He wants “written guarantees the money would be used as promised. As a measure that would only affect Howard County, such a tax increase must be approved by the Maryland General Assembly, starting with Howard's 11-member delegation.”

Ken and the HoCo Budget Director, Ray Wacks, would prefer a little more flexibility “in case unforeseen fiscal circumstances develop.”

That seems reasonable. I suspect that Jim would have preferred that flexibility back when he was county executive too but he seems somewhat less trusting of his successor. "I want to make sure if we commit to increasing the hotel/motel tax it goes to tourism," he said.”

Yeah right, that's what this is all about...tourism.

New Show on HoCoMoJo

Tom Coale, the man behind HoCo Rising, has teamed up with Jodi Finklestein for a new podcast called “I Can Fix That” on HoCoMoJo. Since Tom leans a little to the right and Jodi tends to hang a little on the left side they tackle the issues of the day from both sides of the political gridiron.

This could be interesting. Actually I’m listening right now as they dissect Allan Kittlemans endorsement of civil unions in the State of Maryland.

In each show Jodi will give Tom a problem to fix and Tom will give Jodi a problem to fix, hence the name "I Can Fix That."

To tune in and listen for yourself, go here.

Medstar and the Cleveland Clinic

This has been a big week for HoCo loco business news. First there was this column about Martek in The Sun, then it was this release about Sourcefire’s acquisition of an anti virus company. Today, in this story by Lena H. Sun in The Washington Post we learn that Columbia based Medstar Health and the world renowned Cleveland Clinic have agreed to “collaborate to bring medical inventions to market, according to a plan to be announced Tuesday.”

“The alliance, which will affect technologies developed by thousands of scientists and doctors, will be the first of its kind between two large U.S. health systems, executives said. The collaboration is a response to growing pressures on health-care institutions to cut costs while finding innovative ways to improve patient health and care delivery, they said.”

We may never become another Silicon Valley, but the news coming out of all three of these companies indicate that HoCo is still a pretty impressive hotbed of innovation in healthcare, the biosciences and cyber security.

Sourcefire is Hot

Martek isn’t the only Columbia based technology company grabbing headlines these days. Sourcefire a developer of “real time adaptive” network security products, is another HoCo loco business in the fast lane. Founded in 2001, the company passed $100 million in revenue in 2009 and now employs over 300 people. They are headquartered in the Patuxent Woods Business Park near the village of Owen Brown in Columbia.

They also just bought another fast growing company. 

Last week the company announced the acquisition of Immunet, an interesting little start up anti-virus subscription service based in Palo Alto. Immunet “leverages the collective intelligence of a growing community, the speed of cloud computing, and the power of social networking to provide a groundbreaking approach to security.”

In just two years Immunet has already signed up 750,000 users in 192 countries.

Sourcefire is a company with a sense of humor too. Their leading product is called Snort which it describes as “the world’s most downloaded intrusion detection and prevention technology with nearly 4 million downloads to date.”

They even have a Chief People Officer which sounds so much nicer than Director of Human Resources.

Gun Crazy

The gunning down of twenty innocent people in an Arizona shopping center this past weekend has reignited the debate about guns in our society. While some have tried to pin the blame for this tragedy on the increasing vitriol in our political dialogue, both proponents and opponents of gun control have seized upon the incident to bolster their cases. The proponents argue that more stringent control laws would have prevented Jared Loughner from purchasing a handgun. Opponents argue that if someone in the crowd had a gun they may have been able to take the shooter down sooner.

In his Blog Briefing Room in The Hill, Jay Schroeder reported that both sides are spinning the shooting to advance their agendas.

“Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called for an investigation into how the man who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and as many as 19 others in Tucson, Ariz., Saturday obtained a handgun despite a "history of mental instability."

Newly minted Senator Mike Lee from Utah saw it differently.

“Laws are already on the books that prevent mentally ill people from obtaining guns, he said.

"I don't think we're going to legislate our way out of the risk," the Tea-Party backed senator said.

 "To the contrary, there is abundant research suggesting that in cities where more people own guns, the crime rate, especially the murder rate, goes down."

I think they are both nuts. It is doubtful that a more thorough background check would have prevented Mr. Loughner from purchasing a gun and it is just as unlikely that someone with a gun could have stopped the guy any sooner than the men who eventually tackled him. If someone had attempted to shoot Mr. Loughner it is just as likely that they’d miss and hit another innocent bystander.

That being said, it is still far too easy to buy a gun in this country. It is harder to get a real estate license than it is to purchase a weapon.

That’s crazy.

For Some, It’s Never Enough

Martek Biosciencess was in the news again today. In his column in The Sun, Jay Hancock used the company to highlight Marylands failure to attract manufacturing jobs. Even though Martek employs over 200 people in Maryland the company located their DHA manufacturing plant in South Carolina.

“Besides more than 200 Martek employees, the Kingstree, S.C., plant also was responsible for hundreds of construction jobs associated with an expansion, according to The State newspaper.”

Okay, that was a miss but it also should be noted that the higher paying jobs in Martek are located here and the company is actually increasing those jobs in HoCo with an expansion of their offices on Dobbin Road that began this past summer.

It’s sort of like the reaction by some to Allan Kittlemans civil union initiative. Instead of seeing this as a positive step for equal rights in the state, some activists have attacked him for not going far enough, even before anyone has had a chance to actually read the proposed legislation.

Jeez people, come on now!

Verizon iPhone Imminent?

At a neighbor’s house today, while watching the Ravens whooping of the Chiefs, I picked up a rumor that Apple would be announcing an iPhone for the Verizon network as early as this Tuesday.

Then again, it may not happen until February 3^rd.

Either way, it does appear that the days of AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity are numbered.

In a way, it’s almost anti climatic now. A year ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to get a Verizon iPhone as soon as I could get my hands on one. Since acquiring my Droid X two months ago, not so much.

The guy who hosted the neighborhood gathering for the game today actually works for Apple. He has an iPhone of course but he didn't have the NFL mobile app. That immediately took some of the luster off of the iPhone for me.

Personal Archeology

I’ve never been mistaken for an organized person. As such it is inevitable that I’ll misplace something, like a receipt for one of the gifts I gave Mama Wordbones for Christmas. This, of course, will end up being the very receipt I need. Though I did manage to keep the lion’s share of my holiday shopping paper work in an easily retrievable location, this particular document seems to have eluded my effort.

I had an idea where it might be.

In my closet I have a drawer of stuff. For the most part this is stuff I take out of my pockets when I’m changing clothes. The drawer is a magnet for an inexplicable collection of stuff.

I should also note that my drawer of stuff is stuffed with at least of year’s worth of stuff. In fact, it was overflowing. Finding the elusive receipt required tackling the stuff drawer, one item at a time, like conducting a personal archeological dig of the past year. This is a task I had put off far too long.

I found it curious what I had collected in the stuff drawer. There was a golf ball, some tees and a couple of ball markers. There were ten pens and a packet of Excedrin. There were three unmatched socks. There was a ticket “Good for 1 Drink,”…such a waste.

And there were three fortune cookie fortunes that I must’ve thought enough of to hang onto, if only for a little while.

And yes, the receipt I sought was also there. 

January Odds

January is not a very fun month for me. The bill for December comes due, along with any previous past dues I may have accrued over the prior months. It’s also cold here in HoCo, even when the sun shines. The prospect of warmer weather is a far off notion.

January is also the month of my birth. Some year’s birthdays are better than others; this year isn’t one of them. As it happens, it is the month of CG’s birth as well and she isn’t exactly thrilled by her birthday this year either.

She has a theory about this. Both of us are facing an even number year.

“The odds are better,” she says.

CG told me that last year, turning 21 was a great birthday. This year turning 22, not so much. “It’s a tweener. I’m not on my own yet, no money, senior in college…”

She goes on to explain that 23 will be cool because by then she’ll still be in her early twenties, working, single, confident…looking good in her crystal ball.

Of course 24, the dreaded evil even year, will mean she can longer qualify for early twenties…and so it went on right up to the fifties, my country.

“50 is hard because you’re, like fifty,” she observed. “51 is better because you’re an “early fifties.”

It took awhile but we finally got to me. The odd / even theory continued to hold up. 56 is all about that transition to the other side of “mid fifties”. I sense the march of time bearing down on me like Ray Lewis on Dustin Keller.

And speaking of which….Go Ravens!

In This Months Business Monthly

I have a weakness for gadgets, particularly electronic ones. When the iPhone was introduced two years ago I openly lamented the fact that, as a Verizon customer with contract extensions that will take me to my grave, this cool gadget was unavailable to me.

I should know better.

The essence of hot technology is that it begins to cool off the day you acquire it. Within a year of the iPhone introduction, Apple rolled out the iPhone 4 significantlty lowering the temperature of the original model. The same thing is about to happen with the iPad. In approximately two months, analysts expect Apple to roll out the iPad 2.

I also understand the positive side of these rapid developments. Before long, technology that was once cutting edge becomes commonplace and the bar is raised for the next big thing.

This was true with many of innovations in community planning that The Rouse Company introduced in Columbia. Forty years ago, burying power lines was cutting edge stuff. Today it is mandatory in all new developments. Forty years ago planners didn’t give much thought to run off from impervious surfaces. Today the Columbia Assocation has a watershed program to get people to rethink their driveways and lawns.

Forty years ago Columbia was a laboratory for new technologies in community planning. The redevelopment of Columbia Town Center presents an opportunity to regain that mantle of innovation. To a development guy like me that's even more exciting than an iPad.

You can read this months column here.

Hot Mail in Hanover

Watching the CBS Evening News tonight I was surprised to see Hanover, Maryland in the middle of national story. It seems that some wacko mailed letters to the Maryland Department of Transportation in Hanover and to the Governor in Annapolis that contained a small explosive device…a very small explosive device.

Hanover is just across the HoCo line near Elkridge.

According to this story by Nicole Fuller, Annie Linskey and Nick Madigan in The Sun, “One package was addressed to O'Malley and the other to MDOT Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley.”

“The note that accompanied the Annapolis package read: "Report suspicious activity. Total [expletive]. You have created your own self-fulfilling prophecy," according to source familiar with the investigation.


The source said the wording on the note, along with the fact that a package also was sent to transportation, leads investigators to question whether the suspect is talking about the overhead highway signs urging motorists to report terrorism tips.”

Of course wackos little stunt resulted in the deployment of every piece of available emergency equipment in Anne Arundel County as well as Homeland Security for what turned out to be nothing more than some sort of  flash powder.

“Certified explosive specialists from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded to both locations and "are assisting right now," said ATF Special Agent Clare Webber.


Officials did not offer a motive but the state police Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership with the FBI, has joined the state police and the state fire marshal in the investigation.”

I won't be surprised if the next thing we hear about is the need to spend millions to fortify the mailrooms in every state building.

Officials would be wise to consider that it is impossible to make anything fool-proof because fools are so ingenious.

Exiled on Main Street

Caplan’s , a fixture in the Ellicott City antiques business community is closing up shop on Main Street after 23 years. According to this story by Kim Lemmonds in Ellicott City Patch, “the store will be closing in late January.”

On the surface this closing could be seen as another setback to the retail health of the historic district. Just before Christmas, The Good Life Market announced that it too would be closing by the end of this month after six years. In both cases the owners of these stores were heavily involved in promoting Ellicott City.

That’s where the similarity ends though. The Good Life Market is closing up shop for good. Caplan’s is simply moving out of their Main Street location because they could not work out favorable lease renewal terms with their landlord.

In March of 2004, the 8,700 square foot former department store was sold to a partnership that includes Don Reuwer, Bruce Taylor and Jared Spahn. The new owners plan to renovate the property which includes a vacant parcel of land behind the store. According to this story by Jackie Powder in The Sun, “the businessmen hope to build apartments on a vacant lot behind it that extends to St. Paul Street.”

The departure of Caplan’s will allow that redevelopment program to move forward in earnest and the net result will actually benefit the old mill town.

Al Jazeera in EC

Today, while I was in downtown Ellicott City, I spotted a camera crew filming on Main Street. My curiosity got the best of me so I crossed over and asked what they were doing. There were two guys, a casually dressed camera guy and a reporter type sporting a dark wool overcoat with a red scarf.

“We’ve come out to Main Street to see what people outside of the centers of power think about the incoming Congress and the specter of impending budget cuts,” the guy in the overcoat told me. He had a British accent. He then asked if he could ask me a few questions on camera.

“Who are you with?” I wondered.

“We’re actually with AJE, it’s associated with Reuters,” he answered. He seemed a bit reticent about disclosing much.

“Do you have a card?”

“No actually I don’t,” he replied. He told me his name was John, or was it Jon?

Anyway…

I was up to having having a little fun so I told him he could go ahead and interview me on camera.

“What do people on Main Street think of the specter of government spending cuts from the new Congress?”

I joked that I had only been elected as the official spokesperson for Main Street America last night so I really hadn’t had a chance to get a consensus from my peeps yet. I then went on to say that, in general, everyone thinks that government should be cut, except of course those tax breaks and programs that they rely on.

When we finished I again asked where they were from. Jon (or John) told me that they work out of DC.

“What was the name of the company again?” I asked.

“AJE” he said.

Back at the office I checked out AJE on Google.  

There goes any chance I ever had of getting a security clearance.

Yeah, I Bought One Too

It’s funny how the prospect of winning $355 million motivates people to buy a lottery ticket more than the prospect of winning $20 million. Tonight’s estimated $355 million jackpot in the multi state Mega Millions lottery has people standing in line across the country. The odds of winning are about 176 million to one. Though otherwise rational people know this is ridiculous, they still buy a ticket.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tonight, in the 7-11 on Montgomery Road in Ellicott City, they were doing a brisk business in Mega Million ticket sales but at least there was no line at 7:30 PM. A woman who came in behind me openly acknowledged the folly of it all as she handed the clerk a dollar. “The odds are ridiculous,” she said a bit embarrassed.

Yes they are.

I look at this way. Tonight, before the winning number is drawn, everyone who purchased a ticket will fantasize, if only for a moment, what they would do if they won. Basically it’s a buck for a dream.

Almost Stuffed

When Dave Bittner asked us if we would do a promotional video for Winter Restaurant Weeks, Paul and I jumped at the opportunity. As I understood it, we would basically visit three restaurants in one day eating free food and talking with the owners while Dave recorded the whole thing on video. I’m so in!

Our first stop around eleven this morning was Café de Paris in Columbia. Erik Rochard was preparing a complete sampling of the prixe fix menu he was planning. While we waited for the food to come out of the kitchen he uncorked a dry little Cote du Rhone. It was five o’clock somewhere.

Soon enough the table was covered with food; escargots in a puff pastry, black angus carpaccio, lamb rolled in sausage, a veal chop with mashed potatoes and vegetables, fresh pate with dill pickles and a basket of warm bread. A veritable feast lay before my eyes.

And then Dave started recording and reality came home to roost. The whole point of this exercise is to promote the upcoming restaurant weeks so we needed to be talking, not eating. No sooner had we finished recording, than Amanda Hof, was prodding us along to get to our next stop, Aida Bistro and Wine Bar across town.  Amanda is the Special Events & Project Manager for Howard County Tourism & Promotion, the main sponsor of HoCo restaurant weeks. We were already running behind. I was able to snarf some of the lamb sausage things and a little carpaccio but we left a table full of food and half filled wine glasses behind as we packed up and got on the road.

The lamb sausage thing was outstanding. I made a mental note to come back with Mama Wordbones for that.

We arrived at Aida in the thick of their lunch rush so we decided to set up in the bar this time. Joe Barbera told us that he hadn’t yet decided on his menu for the two week HoCo loco culinary event but he did tell us that it would be three “savory courses“ instead of the more traditional appetizer, entrée, desert prixe fix menu. To give us an example he bought out a flatbread with veal and a macadamia encrusted rockfish with risotto.

Once again we were recording and talking before eating. This was torture.

While we were yaking it up with Joe, Amanda received a call from our third planned stop, Venegas Prime Filet in Maple Lawn. Apparently they were having some sort of problem in their kitchen and they had to cancel.

It was really just as well as far I was concerned. This allowed us to actually eat more of the food and learn about Joe’s wine taps. Aida Bistro and Wine Bar is one of only a few places in the country that have this state of the art “wine on tap” system that offers a choice of twenty wines by the glass. As it says on their website, this system “eliminates the problem most restaurants face from serving old & tired wine by the glass. Wines are enjoyed just as if you were at the winery tasting it from the barrel.”

Joe poured us a nice Pinot Noir. It was yummy. It may still have been five o’clock somewhere but now I needed a coffee.

I expect it will be another week or so before Dave works his video voodoo and finishes the shoot. Coming soon!

Phone Face

I first recognized the look when I was sitting at the bar in Pure Wine Café last week: head tilted down, eyes lowered, luminescent glow from a smartphone on the face. As I scanned the rest of bar I noticed that this look wasn’t just confined to the guy sitting by himself, it also graced the faces of people otherwise engaged in conversation. I saw the same phenomenon at Iron Bridge Wine Company over the weekend. Even couples do it. Phone face is everywhere.

In his Faster Forward column in The Washington Post, Rob Pegoraro called the growth of smartphones “the most exciting, fastest-moving part of the electronics industry.”

The irony is that these devices are more about connecting to social networks than they are about placing a call. We don’t hold these phones to our ears so much as we glance down at them and tap away while they glow back at us in approval.

Of course the phones are simply our conduit for Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and other social networking sites that connect us now. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two.

“You can't write the story of any of these sites without noting how smartphones have allowed their users to connect from so many places.”

It’s really noticeable in places with dim lighting when phone face is more pronounced.

I can hear it already, “If you think I’m going to kiss you with that phone face you’ve got another thing coming.”

Staying Put

Last Thursday, just before lunch, there was a malfunction in the fire suppression system in the Columbia Associations data room that required the building to evacuated. When I first spotted the emergency equipment in front of the building I mistakenly thought that the cause was related to Clyde’s or more specifically, The Tomato Palace. Back in the mid nineties I had an office on the top floor of this building and more than once we were evacuated because of a fire in the exhaust vent of the wood burning stove in that restaurant.

The unfortunate thing about last Thursdays event is that it occurred right before noon and effectively shut down the lunch business for both restaurants, and this time it wasn't even their fault. I ran into Paul Kraft, the manager of Clyde’s, as he was standing outside apologizing to patrons as they showed up for lunch.

“You’re closed?”

“Yes mam, the fire department has ordered the evacuation of the building.”

“But I’m meeting my clients here for lunch. This was the place they suggested.”

“Sorry mam.”

Paul also told me that Clyde’s had begun a long needed major renovation. He said that the restaurant was getting ready to sign a five year extension to their lease that clears the way for that work to begin in earnest. I suppose that means that the forty year old building will not be coming down anytime soon to create the “fountain square” part of the Town Center redevelopment program.

Prior to Greg Hamms sudden firing, there had been speculation that Clyde’s might relocate to the ground floor of the former Rouse Company headquarters building. One of the potential redevelopment scenarios for that building shows a space for a large restaurant with outdoor seating on the plaza side of the building. That may still be the plan but I'd have to say that its now unlikely Clyde’s would be the tenant.

The Ins and Outs

Though I usually consider myself to be fairly well read and informed, I never fail to be humbled by The List, an annual compendium of ins and outs published in The Washington Post. For as long as I can remember, the Post has published The List on New Years Day and each year I eagerly look forward to seeing, if perhaps this year, I’ll get at least half of them.

No such luck. Once again I failed to measure up. This time I only “got” about 12 out of the 67. In some cases I got what was out but the new “in” left me scratching my white head.

Until yesterday I can honestly say I’d never heard of alcoholic whipped cream.

My Buddy Alan

Back in 1972, as I was finishing my junior year at Wilde Lake High School, Alan Jones transferred in from Sherwood High School in MoCo. His parents had purchased a townhouse in Tidesfall in Bryant Woods.

It didn’t take long for us to become fast friends. Alan had an interest in student government and at that time I was running the student government. Before long we were also doing the morning announcements together, promoting ourselves as Radio Free Wilde Lake.

We’ve stayed in touch over the years and by some funny twist of fate we now live within a mile of each other. That of course makes it easier to still hang out sometimes.

One of Alan’s favorite sayings, when there is really nothing left to say, is “and then there’s that…”

That’s where we stole the name of the podcast from. Alan has expressed outrage over this blatant theft of what he considers to be one of his trademarks. This particular outrage usually manifests itself when we’re otherwise enjoying a bottle of wine together.

When we were unable to get David Anderson for our New Years Eve podcast, we decided to invite Alan. We figured we owed him at least that. Not surprisingly, we had a great time.

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

Good Morning 2011

In his facebook status update three days ago, County Councilperson Calvin Ball quoted Edith Lovejoy Pierce in his status update, “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”

This little quote was Edith’s moment in time. Do a Google search on her and this is what comes up most frequently.

Anyway…

I commented to Calvin that the trick was nailing that first sentence. Any writer understands the importance of that first sentence (It was a dark and stormy night…) in capturing a reader’s attention. Ever since I read Edith’s words I’ve rolled that thought around in my head and played with the metaphor. Can I capture in one sentence, the hopes and aspirations for the coming year?

Probably not. That’s a tall order and I’m not that good of a writer. Instead, last night, as I sipped a glass of wine and cranked up Michael Franti’s tune “Hey Hey Hey” I discovered the words I was looking for:

“Hey, hey, hey, no matter how life is today
There’s just one thing that I got to say
I won’t let another moment slip away”

And just like that, there they were, the first words for my book of 2011, I won't let another moment slip away.

Happy New Year Everyone!