We Got It Good

I realize that many are worried about the ramifications of growth but the bottom line is that most communities would love to have the problems that we are dealing with. The front page article in today's Sun outlines the opportunities and challenges that BRAC presents us. Personally I think we are up for the challenge. If we can tone down the rhetoric and work together to find that ever elusive middle ground between those who want to stop all growth and those who want to "pave paradise and put up a parking lot" we will become the envy of the nation.

And...given that we are are also facing a budget shortfall, this projected growth in employment is very good news indeed.

Think about it. We have a state that is growing with "knowledge workers" instead of a state that is bleeding from the drain of an aging population coupled with the loss of manufacturing jobs.

We got it good.

Snow Time for Goofing Off

It never seems to fail. You decide to take a day off so you can get all these things done and before you know it the day is done and there are still items on your list that you never got to.

Sigh.

After putting up a short post this morning I was about to head out to the grocery store when Paul Skalny called. Paul and I are planning on doing a podcast on New Years Eve and we had hoped to have HoCo mega church preacher, David Anderson as our guest. We want to focus the show around loco New Years resolutions and we thought it might be fun to have some spiritual perspective. Unfortunately we learned today that the good reverend will be out of town and unable to join us. This led to a lengthly discussion about who we could get instead. Names were bought up, bantered about and discarded. We finally reached consensus on an old Wilde Lake High classmate of mine. I called him on my way to the store. I was now about an hour behind.

I don’t know what the situation was later in the day but this morning the Giant in Lyndwood was relatively calm. The store manager was directing one of his staff to bring more snow shovels out of the back. Shovels were selling like hotcakes today.

By the time I left the store the road situation had begun to get dicey. It wasn’t so much the snow as it was the ice. The roads were pretty slick and though I saw a few cars doing the old slip side, I didn’t see any accidents. Back home I unloaded the groceries. Making chili was on my priority list today and now at least I had the necessary ingredients.

Next stop was the Wine Bin in Ellicott City. This is no time to run low on wine. In fact Dave Carney says that his business does very well when these winter storms hit. People stop in on their way home from work before hunkering down for the night. This afternoon however, there was only one other customer in the store and it wasn’t long before Dave was uncorking a bottle of wine for us to taste. We toasted the holidays. I love this store!

Leaving the Wine Bin I crossed the street to Classic Interiors. During Midnight Madness I noticed Mama Wordbones taking special interest in an item there and so now Santa was circling back to pick it up. I ended up speaking with the store owner, Carolyn Gaughan. It turns out that Carolyn has made quite a retail journey in HoCo. Her original location was in The Mall some thirty years ago. When then mall anchor store Woodward & Lothrop closed up shop, her business took a hit and so when it came time to renew her lease she opted instead to move to Savage Mill. After several years in the mill, she moved her store to a new space in Ellicott City behind Su Casa two years ago. It’s a very unique space that seems to fit her wares well.

She said that business is good, much better than last year.

Nobody had a good year last year.

Back home I realized that I needed to clear the driveway before I did anything else. That took me right up to 4:00 PM when I needed to have a phone conference with a developer about a clients lease renewal. I didn’t get started on my chili until five o’clock.

Now, with the pot of chili slowly simmering away on the stove, I’ve poured a glass a wine and pulled out the laptop. All in all I'd have to say it was a good day; I may not have accomplished everything I set out to do but right now it seems that it was just enough.

Wordbones Weekend Words

Visits to this blog drop in half over the weekends. It has pretty much been that way since I started paying attention. Two months or so ago I started making a conscious effort to do at least one post per weekend to see if I could effect that.

I am happy to report that it does make a difference when I post on a weekend. It’s marginal but noticeable. I just thought I’d share that.

I also figured it was a good way to begin a weekend post. Maybe it will become a regular feature, Wordbones Weekend Words!

Last night, I had the rare solo Friday night. Mama Wordbones was off at Parents Weekend at Washington College and Peanut was with her mom. It was just me and our two aging dogs, Mars (black lab) 11 and Lucky (golden) 12. At this point in their lives they really need somebody staying in the house with them all the time. The drop by three times a day dog care services won’t cut it with them anymore.

So anyway, Friday night it was just me and the dogs. Once I fed and played around with them a bit, I hopped in the car and drove over to Clyde’s. I ran into Dennis Dunn. He was the first GGP guy I’d seen since that certain newspaper article came out this past Thursday (more about that in a future post). As promised, I bought him a drink.

Clyde’s was having its Oktoberfest and some of the waiters were walking around in lederhosen. They aren’t letting the rain deter them. They have a tent. The Oktoberfest is on tonight and tomorrow too.

From Clyde’s I swung over to Victoria. It was a happening place. They were standing two deep at the bar. I ran into Randy Marriner, the proprietor of the gastro pub. We spoke a bit about the nasty review in the Post by Tom Sietsema. I told him about my blog post and the some of the positive comments it received defending his establishment. In any event, the review didn’t seem to be affecting business. Randy seemed generally happy.

After that it was back home to the dogs and the debate…in that order.

Today Peanut and I ventured down to the Fall Festival in Downtown Ellicott City. When we parked the car it wasn’t raining. By the time we were at the intersection of Old Columbia Pike and Main Street it was drizzling. By the time we got down to the corner of Main Street and Maryland Avenue it was pouring.

Poor Ellicott City, things don’t look so good on Main Street right now. I counted at least six vacant storefronts right on Main Street. Two restaurants have closed down this year, Annabel’s and the Tiber River Tavern. The weather gods certainly weren’t in its favor today either.

Eventually the rain drove us home.

Raggin On Ranazul

I don’t often write restaurant reviews. I defer to HoCoLoCo Girl in that area. However, once in awhile, just every so often, I have an experience so awful that it compels me to write a post about it.

I had just such awful experience at Ranazul last night. The thing is, I am quite certain that the other two tables in the “La Galeria” room we shared were also having awful experiences.

The short story for those with short attention spans is that the service stunk but the food was, in some cases exceptional and in all cases good. That makes the choice as to whether to return for a second chance a little more difficult to make.

For those who like the details, we arrived around 7:00 PM without reservations, a party of three. We were seated within ten minutes, so far so good.

Then we were left alone, completely alone with the paintings in the La Galeria room. We had water and menus from the hostess. I expected someone to offer to get us a cocktail while we looked over the menu. I was disappointed. At least fifteen minutes passed. Soon though another couple arrived and was seated at the table next to us. In very short order a waiter appeared at their table, welcoming them and offering to get cocktails and warm bread.

I sat watching, wishing he were at my table. Meanwhile, at the table next to us, the waiter was cheerily going over the menu and the specials in great detail. I heard him mention that they were out of the pear salad.

We still had no waiter at our table. This was getting ridiculous. Finally, I decided to go see if I could find someone to wait on our table. While hanging out at the server station I saw the guy who was serving the table next to us. I leaned over to him and said I’d appreciate it if he could find someone to come to our table. He nodded and I returned to my seat and waited.

And waited at least another fifteen minutes At long last a waitress appeared. She said she was ready to take our orders.

“What about the specials?” I was feeling a little cheated here.

“There are no specials.”

“Are you sure? I could have sworn I heard the waiter at the table next to us mention something about specials.”

“No. No specials. Would you like me to explain the menu to you?”

At this point I am getting pretty annoyed. The thought of getting up and leaving crosses my mind. Then again, I’m hungry. That’s why I came here.

We ordered a couple of glasses of wine and five tapas dishes. We had plenty of time to read through the menu during our no waiter period.

And then we waited some more.

Meanwhile, at the table next to us, things were also beginning to go south. His entrée came out, but hers didn’t. They began to exchange sympathetic glances with us.

Our glasses of wine arrived followed shortly by three of our tapas dishes. One of them was a salmon avocado sushi concoction that was delicious. Another was calamari and the third one was something called arepas, which was crab, shrimp and polenta with a sauce that was exceptional.

We polished these off in short order. The lady next to us still hadn’t received her entrée.

We all waited together. Soon, a third couple was escorted into La Galeria.

Our waitress reappeared and said that one of our choices, a salmon with crushed cashews would take a little longer. We told her we’d wanted to order two more tapas dishes and two more glasses of wine. We decided that since we were seeing her so infrequently that we’d better get everything covered while she was there.

The rest of the evening was more of the same. Soon we began laughing with the other two tables. The newest arrivals, having already begun to wonder if they were ever going to see a waiter asked, “How long have you all been here?”

“We got here last night,” I replied which drew laughter from all three tables. The lady at the table next to us, who had finally received her entrée, stated that their water had just seemed to disappear for long periods of time.

So, in conclusion to my ragging post, that I sincerely hope that the Ranazians were simply having a bad night. I may give them a try again but if they offer to stick me back in a table in La Galeria, I’m bolting

Why We're Here

As we were getting started with our podcast at The Mall yesterday, an elderly lady stopped to examine our show banner as she passed by. At this point we already had our headphones on so we just nodded at her when she then turned to consider us.

The banner did not provide enough information for her. “What is this?” she asked.

Paul was closest to her. He took off his headset. “It’s a podcast about local issues,” he explained.

“But why are you here?” she wanted to know.

I wanted to say “because we got thrown out of the coffee shop.”

It was good to be back.

After taking an extended summer break we returned to The Mall yesterday afternoon for the 70^th episode of  “and then there’s that…”. Appropriately enough our guest was Michelle Jose, the Marketing Manager for the Mall. She’s got alot of things going on in her world right now, beginning next month with the opening of the SA Elite store. This will be the first east coast store for the new retail concept from The Sports Authority. We also talked about the plans to open up the LL Bean plaza with new retail and the unlikelihood that there will ever be another flash mob in The Mall.

Not inside perhaps but maybe with this new outdoor plaza…

It was a big local news week too. We talked about WholeFoods, Allen Dyer, gambling, the general plan, Clarksville, BGE, and even our old coffee shop.

It’s been a long time since we started in Lakeside back in 2009. We’ve been in The Mall since November of 2010.

Michelle said The Mall likes us there. We like it there too and that’s why we’re there.

So there.

...and you can listen to the 70^th episode of “and then there’s that…” here.

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?

Returning From Spring Blog Break

Hello again.


For those of you who check in from time to time to see if there were any new posts, please accept my apologies for my recent absence. I've been busier than normal this spring living the life of a somewhat typical Howard Countian.


My first distraction was our extreme backyard makeover. When we built our new home last year we ended up with a drainage problem that left a portion of our backyard in permanent soggy status. We feared that if we left this unresolved, the Army Corps of Engineers would declare it a wetland. Our solution was to install a series of pipes and drains to move the water out to the street. We hid these waterworks underneath a flagstone patio and walkway. Midway through our water works project, we decided to go ahead and construct a screened room that would provide us some relief from the impending arrival of summer bugs.




In other words, the project quickly got out of hand.


I am happy to report that it is now complete and we are able to enjoy evening cocktails outside. It was also done in time for us to host my stepdaughters high school graduation party, which was another thing that distracted me from blogging.


Anyone who has had a kid graduate from high school lately knows of what I speak. It sure is different from when I matriculated from Wilde Lake High School back in 1973. Back then it was pretty much, "Congratulations, now go get a summer job."


Nowadays, it is an endless progression of awards dinners, parties, and even a public school baccalaureate (only one county high school still has one...can you guess?).


And as if that were not enough, we are also in the middle of the Columbia Festival of the Arts. I have the somewhat dubious honor of serving on the Board of Trustees of the festival which means I get to give lots of money and time (and manual labor lugging "doors" around) in return for the satisfaction of seeing the event succeed. Oh yeah, I also get a t-shirt.


It is a great festival though. While some may think of it only in terms of the LakeFest which was held last weekend, the festival actually runs from June 6th through June 23rd. So far this week I attended the production of True Colors, The 80's Musical and America (they were great) at the Rouse Theatre. Tonight we will be seeing Minnesota Dance Theatre with the Columbia Pro Cantare Chorus.


It's all good and the best part is that it is all right here in our backyard.


So that's where I've been. I'll update more stuff on the festival this weekend.

Aftershocks

The earthquake rolled through our offices on Dobbin Road right around 2:00 PM. My first sensation was that someone was up on the roof working. Then I thought that whoever or whatever was on the roof was very large. Then, as the wave rolled across the office, I realized this was an earthquake.

“This is an earthquake!” TW declared from two workstations away.

Indeed it was, and an impressive one at that. I once spent a couple of years in the San Francisco Bay area and this little HoCo loco seismic event was even respectable by that standard.

As quickly as it came, it was over. In our office there was no evidence that it had even happened. The phones worked, the lights were on, the computers were working, and the Internet was up. We didn’t even have to straighten any pictures.

Shortly after that I left and headed to the county offices in Ellicott City. Traffic on the roads was normal, the traffic lights all working.

Isn’t wasn’t until I arrived at the newly renovated George Howard Building that I saw any sign that an earthquake had occurred. All of the employees and visitors were standing outside. They had been evacuated.

A friend of mine told me “They told us to leave and then they told us we could come back. When I started back they told me they changed their minds."

It was a nice day to be stuck aside though. It was one of those rare beautiful August days with little to no humidity and a pleasant breeze.

I saw Councilperson Jen Terrasa. She told me she had been in the lower level of the building and hadn’t really felt anything.

While we were standing there, a guy with a walkie talkie and reflective safety vest announced that everyone could return to their desks if they wanted to. He said the liberal leave policy was in effect for the rest of the day. It was about 2:45 PM. He said that there was some concern about gridlock.

I’m thinking with a day like this and the opportunity to enjoy a good part of it, the only gridlock is going to be at the starter’s box at the golf course.

When I got back to my office, I discovered that we had lost half our power. We had no lights, no a/c, and no phones but our computers work and we have Internet. Even our CNBC feed is working.

All in all, we’re pretty good to go after the Mineral Earthquake of 2011.

Cramming

It is often said that your worst days at work are the day before you leave for vacation and the day you come back. That’s why we came back yesterday. We needed today to gird for the reentry to reality.

Arriving home in the late afternoon, we commenced with the usual stuff like unpacking, sorting through a weeks worth of mail, and discovering that the kitchen faucet is no longer working. Last night we ate sushi. I later fell asleep watching Game Change. That wasn't a statement on what I thought of the film. I had been up since 5:00 AM. A day of schlepping through airports, a glass of wine at dinner and a second back at home did me in. 

Today was more productive. We even fixed the faucet thanks to Mama Wordbones tenacity and somewhat amazing plumbing skills.

I also have to carve out time to get caught up on the latest HoCo news. Since I was some 1,500 miles south on our normal Friday podcast day last week, we went ahead and pushed it to Monday afternoon.

That’s like tomorrow Monday.

And we have a guest, Dr. Calvin Ball. We last had the good doctor as a guest almost exactly two years ago.

We originally thought it be interesting to hear what he has to say about the new park in his District, Bridge Columbia and how it felt to be the only council member who didn’t have an alternative plan for councilmanic redistricting.

Now that I’m home I found out that he was also on the losing side of the vote for the plan that the council has passed on to the exec. This is high loco politico drama for HoCo. We have a council appointed redistricting commission recommendation that nobody seemed to like except the Dem politico operatives. We have people in Ellicott City who don’t want to be a part of a Columbia district and people in Columbia who don’t want to be part of an Ellicott City district. As if that wasn’t enough fun, the plan that the council passed has pissed off the people in Elkridge, not this is all that unusual lately.

The stuff going on in Annapolis is pretty scary too. The budget that the state Senate is about to approve has some heavy baggage. According to this story by Aaron C. Davis and Michael Alison Chandler in The Washington Post, it “is an even more fundamental change to the way government works in Maryland.”

“The state would assume authority to seize county tax revenue and to hand it directly to school boards to ensure that counties maintain what areamong the nation’s highest levels of per-pupil spending.”

I’ve got some reading to do.

Holiday Movie Night: Part Two

Holiday Movie Night: Part Two

Last Friday night we made the decision to see a movie first and go to dinner afterwards. Often, when I eat dinner before a movie, I'll get sleepy midway through the film, especially if it is a chick flick. We caught the 6:30 PM screening of the The Good Shepherd at the Regal Cinemas in Snowden Square.

Of course, the movie rarely begins at the posted time. This fact coupled with the 2 hr 40 minute movie meant that it was a little past 9:30 PM when we got out of the theatre.

Finding a place to grab dinner at 9:30 PM in Columbia on a Friday night is a bit challenging. The last time we found ourselves in this situation we went to the Macaroni Grill at Columbia Crossing.

We won't do that again.

It was easy enough to get a table. It was almost impossible to get service. After waiting at least 15 minutes for a waiter to come to our table I ended up leaving my seat and going in search of someone to help us. It did not get any better after that.

This time we headed over to Aida Bistro in Columbia Gateway. Though the sign on the door said they were open til 10 PM, the door was locked at 9:45 PM.

We ended up at Cafe De Paris. There weren't many people in the dining room but they happily seated us and served us a delicious dinner, even though it was 10 PM.

This quest for a late after movie meal made me ponder the thought; Is this indicative of weekend night life in edge cities such as ours?

Barbarians at the Gate

I attended the Columbia Association Board of Directors Planning & Strategy Committee last night. I went to show my support for increasing the annual contribution that CA makes to the Columbia Festival of the Arts. For as long as I can remember, the CA contribution to festival has remained static at $95,000.00. This money is used primarily to help fund the free, three day LakeFest program of the sixteen day festival.

This year, the Board of Trustees of the festival requested a $15,000 increase from CA. As I have previously written, this years fundraising for the festival has been directly impacted by the slowing economy. Festival volunteers are pulling out all stops to make up for the shortfall. The request to CA was one of these ongoing efforts.

First, the good news; CA will not reduce this years contribution. That was actually proposed by Councilperson Cynthia Coyle (Harpers Choice). After watching Ms. Coyle in action last night I can honestly say that she is either the dimmest bulb on the council or simply an obstructionist. Councilperson Coyle and Councilperson Barbara Russell believe that the festival is “flush with cash.” They believe this because they erroneously misinterpreted a contribution made to the festival from The Rouse Company Foundation.

The foundation made a contribution to an endowment for the festival in lieu of continuing to make annual gifts. The object was to establish something more long term to insure the festivals long term survival. The intent is for this endowment to produce an annual income that would be equal to the previous annual gifts. Unfortunately because the endowment fund has not actually earned much money yet (it was only established this year), this had the resultant effect of actually reducing the amount of money that the festival would have received this year from the foundation. Instead of being “flush with cash” the festival is like a Columbia homeowner. Our home is worth more on paper than it would be in readily available cash. That is hardly being “flush with cash.”

Both Ms. Coyle and Ms. Russell said they got their information from “the newspaper.” A statement from Steve Sachs, the former chair of the festival Board of Trustees detailing the facts of The Rouse Company Foundation gift was read by CA president, Maggie Brown, at the meeting. The statement claimed that the CA board members had injured the festival fundraising efforts by these statements. Both Ms. Coyle and Ms Russell remained unapologetic for their previous statement and simply reiterated that they believed what they had read in “the paper.”

The bad news is that the CA Board voted 5 to 4 to deny an increase in the annual contribution. Those voting against the increase along with Ms. Coyle and Ms Russell were Councilpersons Evan Coren (Kings Contrivance), Phillip Kirsch (Wilde Lake), and Henry Dagenais (Long Reach). Evan Coren, who also chaired this particular committee was blatantly pandering to both Coyle and Russell all evening, not just on this issue. It was quite obvious to the very small audience (less than five people including myself) that Coyle, Russell, Kirsch and Coren are all under the influence of the Alliance for A Better Columbia. I am beginning to question what a “better Columbia” actually means to these people. I don’t think it looks like any place I’d want to be.

It wasn’t all bad. There are good people on the board too. There just aren’t enough of them. Last night the festival friends were Tom O’Connor (Dorsey’s Search), Miles Coffman (Hickory Ridge), Pearl Atkinson-Stewart (Owen Brown) and Michael Cornell (River Hill). After listening for an hour and a half to the discussions about staff salaries, the sister city program (it now has some new multi cultural name) and the festival funding request, I would have to categorize these four councilpersons as the guardians at the gate. We are very lucky to have them on the council. Right now they are outnumbered and it is getting harder to hold back the barbarian hordes.

Just my opinion of course. Still, I challenge anyone to attend a CA board committee meeting and draw your own conclusions. It is high drama of Columbia politics. This particular meeting even had a surreal nature to it. Ms. Russell was unable to attend in person (I know not why) but she was present on the speakerphone. I guess that is at least better than Gail Broida (Town Center) who was not in attendance at all (again I know not why).

The bottom line is that The Columbia Association has seemingly been taken over by a people are closely aligned with The Alliance for a Better Columbia. That should scare anyone who cares about Columbia.

The Alliance for a Better Columbia is a darling of the local papers. Alex Hekimian, the president of the organization is often portrayed by the papers as a spokesman of a leading community group. The problem for me is that this organization is basically Alex Hekimian. For at least fifteen years he has been the only president the organization has ever had. I would be very surprised if the ABC board of directors hadn’t changed that much in so many years either. I am willing to bet that their active membership does not exceed 300 people. Three hundred people led by one guy, having a major influence on the direction of an organization that touches the lives of the majority of people in Howard County. Scary.

Real citizen’s organizations have succession in leadership and dynamic boards. In this way they attempt to more accurately reflect a wider range of opinion and thought. That just ain’t happening at the ABC.

In my opinion of course. This is my blog after all. You don’t have to read it if you don’t like it.

For those who agree, we need to do something. We need to do something big. We need to act soon before it is too late. The barbarians are at the gate. We are outnumbered.

Good Show for a No Show

In the two plus years since we started, we’ve had every member of the county council on our podcast except Jen Terrasa. It’s not like we haven’t tried. Our latest attempt was for the show we taped this past Monday. At least two weeks prior we reached out to her and she indicated that she was interested in joining us but demurred from making an actual commitment. She told us she’s get back to us.

As late as Wednesday last week she still hadn’t gotten back to us. We were running out of time. It was four days before the show and we didn’t know if we had a guest or not. That night I attended her fundraiser at Kings Contrivance and when I got a moment to speak with her I asked again if she was coming on the show.

“Can I let you know tomorrow?” she asked.

"Sure, but please let us know by then so we can make other plans if you can't do it." I replied.

She never did. Maybe she just  didn’t like what I wrote about her party.

Thankfully, on short notice we were able to get the Programming Manager for the Columbia Festival of the Arts, Josh Stoltzfus. Josh is the guy who lines up the entertainment for the ten day festival, including Lake Fest. He’s the guy who bought Marching Fourth to the Columbia lakefront and he wanted us to know about the rest of the festival lineup. It’s a pretty impressive lineup including Rosanne Cash, The Flying Karamozov Brothers and Momix, all within the intimate confines of the Rouse Theatre.

It turned out to be a pretty fun show and probably a lot more interesting than talking about HoCo loco zoning and land use with Jen. 

You can listen to the 68^th episode of “and then there’s that…” here.  

State of Play

Mama Wordbones and I signed on to play in an adult coed softball league this fall. We play our games on Thursday nights under the lights at Cedar Lane Park in Columbia and Rockburn Branch Park in Elkridge. Our team is a neighborhood team and we felt that this was a good way to connect with more folks in our community.

So far, three weeks into the season, the teams we’ve played include a team of employees from Transportation Management Services and a team of what I’d refer as softball mercenaries that were most recently sponsored by Micros. The softball mercenaries are group of men and women who play as much as they can, often in more than one league at a time. While the TMS team plays for employee camaraderie the mercenaries play simply for the love of the game. It’s all good. While the teams were competitive they all practiced good sportsmanship.

Last week, as we arrived at Cedar Lane Park for our 8:15 PM game, two other teams, the Ramrods and the Repeat Offenders, had just finished a game where good sportsmanship got left in the dust. The police had even been called to settle things down. I wasn’t present to witness what actually transpired but apparently things quickly got out of hand after a base runner for the Repeat Offenders plowed into the basemen for the Ramrods. The umpire, after receiving a good deal of verbal abuse, called the game which resulted in even more bad behavior from some of the players.

A couple of thoughts occurred to me. One, I hope we don’t play these guys. Two, I hope upon reflection, these adults who decided to behave like children last Thursday evening, felt embarrassed enough with their behavior and later made all necessary apologies. If not, I think it would be appropriate given our local ideal of choosing civility, for the county softball commissioner to ban them from playing in any county sponsored league.

A Million More By 2020

A Million More By 2020

This afternoon on the Kojo Nanamdi Show on WAMU a group of panelists discussed the projected growth of the Washington region between now and 2020. The consensus was that the area stretching from Northeast Maryland to Hampton Roads, Virginia will add a million more people in that time period. One of the panelists suggested that the region will soon be referred to as the "Chesapeake Crescent."

This weeks Kiplinger Letter also talked about growth. Kiplinger forecasts a national growth rate of "almost one percent per year, adding one person every 11 seconds. By 2030, there'll be 60 million more people living on U.S. soil, a total of 360 million."

Scary?

I don't think so. I happen to subscribe to the notion that growth is both healthy and desirable. Sure, it presents challenges but it also presents a wealth of opportunities. Managing the two is key to maintaining a high quality of living.

We are doubly blessed in this area as I said before. Our location smack dab in the center of the Chesapeake Crescent bodes very well for our local economy. As Jay Hancock pointed out in his column in today's Sun, Maryland is likely to weather any recession in the coming year due to increased defense spending and the growth in health care. Our proximity to Fort Meade means that we will see more than our fair share of those defense dollars.

We got it good indeed!

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.

It’s Dookie Time

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….

Christmas Shopping 09

Shoppers outnumbered salesclerks at the digital camera section of Best Buy by a ratio of at least 10 to 1 this past Monday. An impromptu clerk waiting line had formed which I joined just as the harried sales guy reappeared. He had been trying to find something on the computer for the first customers in the line.

“It looks like we are out of stock,” he told them.

The second customer in line had apparently been listening to the first customer’s camera inquiries. He pointed to a Canon display and asked if they had considered that one. “I’ve done some research on the Internet and this one seems to get pretty good reviews.”

Before the first customer could respond, the sales guy chimed in “That’s a very good camera,” and then proceeded to point out that it was actually a better a choice than the camera the first customer had inquired about. “It’s on sale too,” he added.

A brief discussion of that particular cameras features and benefits then ensued with questions and answers following back and forth between the sales guy, the first customer in line, the second customer in line, a fourth customer and me.

The first customer decided to go with it. They were available in dark gray, light gray or light blue. “I’ll take a dark gray one,” he said.

“While you’re down there grab me a light gray one” the second customer suggested.

“I’ll take a light blue one,” I said.

The fourth customer went for a light blue one too.

Before you know it, the sales guy had taken care of four customers in one swoop. Of course we the customers had a lot to do with that. We collaborated on this one holiday shopping task and saved a good deal of time and energy. I never got anyone’s name but for that brief period of time we worked pretty well together as a team. The whole experience was pretty interesting, for me at least.

“I hate this time of year,” the sales guy said as he rang up my purchase.

Out of Sync

It was bound to happen. After forty eight shows we were probably way overdo for a serious guest problem. Two weeks ago, we had hoped to have Laura Neuman, the new HoCo Economic Development Chief as our guest for this weeks podcast. It turns out that the earliest she was available was sometime in 2013.

Just kidding of course.

Our next invitee was William McMahon, the HoCo Chief of Police. We thought it would be interesting to get the chiefs perspective on the two recent murders in HoCo and perhaps some insight into the loco police role with DHS. The chief readily agreed to join us until Tuesday when he informed us he had to cancel. He apparently got called away on police business.

That happens.

No problem. We had also planned to split the show with Councilperson Greg Fox. After the councils legislative public hearing this past Monday we felt we could build a whole show around Greg.

Friday morning, about seven hours before the show, Greg called. He contracted food poisoning the night before and spent the better part of the evening in the emergency room. Obviously he wouldn’t be joining us in the The Mall that afternoon.

We were grateful that Jan Hines, the Director of Development for the Howard Hospital Foundation, was willing to fill in at the last minute. Jan was a delightful guest but I don’t think we did a very good job as hosts. I felt this show was generally pretty flat. We were simply out of sync.

It was bound to happen,

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

A Book is a Book is a Book….

“Aren’t you packing your NooK” Mama Wordbones asked as we got ready for our recent trip. She had given me the Nook for Christmas.

I told her I had just started reading what some now refer to as a “tree” book. My sister Pat sent me “Matterhorn” by Karl Marlantes for my birthday at the end of January. When it arrived I was already about midway through “The Big Short,” by Michael Lewis, my very first eBook. It's a tale about a few investors who figured out the absurdity of sub-prime mortgage underwriting and made a boatload betting against conventional wisdom.

I put Matterhorn on deck until around mid February. It’s a big book, 566 pages. By the time we were ready to leave for Curacao, I was only about a third of the way through.

And so I left my shiny new eReader back home while tree book made the trip. I can’t tell you what it is like to read an eBook on the beach, by the pool, and on the plane. I did enjoy a moment of smugness with old tree book when passengers were instructed to turn off their electronic devices. It was a guilty pleasure though. There but for the grace of literary timing I would have been one of them.

Then there’s the security thing. I thought nothing of leaving tree book on a beach lounge whilst I wandered off for a beer. I doubt I’d feel as cavalier about leaving my Nook lying about. I’d probably take it everywhere with me.

Just like this guy.

Anyway, I wrapped up Matterhorn on the flight home. It was the best book I’ve read about the Vietnam war since reading “A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam,” by Neil Sheehan. If you have an interest in that conflict I highly recommend both of these.

Ignoring the two tree books awaiting on my night stand, I instead find myself trolling the Nook bookstore for my next read. The bottom line is that reading a book on an eReader is just better, in most situations. Reading a book on my Nook is a treat for my eyes. The lighting is always perfect, just right for me and I never lose my place. I flew through The Big Short, flipping pages with my finger, never having them flap back.

I’ll still read tree books of course. A book is a book is a book after all. There are two of them sitting next to my bed that will beckon me back to the good old days.

It could be awhile though. I downloaded a free sample of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” by Stieg Larssen. It’s the first 76 pages of the book. I’m on page fifty something. I feel the hook gently sinking in.

Same Show, Different Day

Every other Friday, for over two years now, Dave Bittner, Paul Skalny and I have gathered for lunch followed by a podcast. This biweekly routine has developed its own little rhythm and rituals. Since I was on vacation on our normally scheduled podcast day last week, we simply moved it to Monday.

Monday has a much different vibe than Friday, particularly at The Mall where we tape the show. It’s less crowded and easier to park. Getting a decent table at the Nordstrom café is no problem on Monday. On Friday we have to arrive before noon in order to secure good lunch time real estate.

The day change didn’t seem to affect the show vibe though. Once we got underway it was just like another Friday, only with a little less background noise.

Our guest this week was Dr. Calvin Ball, the county council member representing District 2. Calvin is good guy with a decent sense of humor. This makes discussing hot button political topics like school board diversity easy. We had lively discussions about the school board, councilmanic redistricting, and the General Assembly taxing frenzy, without anyone getting all riled up.

I pointed out to Calvin that I had received spring fundraising invites from Courtney Watson and Ken Ulman but not from him. He said he had been too busy to think about that right now. Imagine that, a poltico too busy to think about fundraising!

We also talked briefly about some recent crime news; the mall robberies, the University of Maryland student from HoCo who threatened to go on a shooting rampage and the Howard High School assistant principal accused of stealing credit card information from the staff and teachers at the school.

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