Summer of Love

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

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

Dreaming of a White Christmas?

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

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

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

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

They stopped short of a white Christmas prediction.

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

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

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

I can feel that in my bones.

HoCo Housing Holds Up

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

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

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

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

Iron Bridge Boys Go Pirate

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

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

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

Bigger Than Big Ben

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

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

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

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

Didn’t Go There, Didn’t Plan To

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hot Time in the Old Town

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

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

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

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

Restoration Hardware Closing

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

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

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

New Visitor Center Debuts Friday

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

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

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

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

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

A new visitor center should help facilitate that effort. 

The Last Midnight Madness?

Ellicott City’s annual Midnight Madness celebration will be held once again this Friday night. The activities will kick off with a tree lighting at six in front of the old post office and most stores will stay open until midnight. Judging from past Midnight Madness celebrations it will be a fun evening in the old town. It also may be the last.

I spoke with Dave Carney, the proprietor of The Wine Bin and the current president of the Ellicott City Business Association. Dave expressed his frustration at the merchants and businesses that benefit from ECBA activities but don’t belong to the organization and pay dues. Out of approximately 100 businesses in the old town only about 35 are members. It can get pretty aggravating.

Dave isn’t giving up, yet. He told me that he’s agreed to stay on as president another year and try to increase participation but if he’s not successful, there may not be enough members and money to pull off events like Midnight Madness again.

That would be a shame. 

A Do Nothing Congress

It’s finally possible that the best thing that the United States Congress could do for the country is absolutely nothing. Given their recent track record, that would seem reasonably easy for them to accomplish. According to this story by David Gura on Marketplace, if Congress allows the Bush era tax cuts to expire next year and the automatic tax cuts resulting from the failure of the super committee to take effect in 2013, the deficit could be cut by $7 trillion over the next 10 years.

“Basically, Congress could slash the deficit by closing up shop and going home.”

Don’t hold your breath though. Just when we actually could benefit from Congress doing nothing, they’re likely to finally do something.

Happy Birthday Bertucci's

The Bertucci's restaurant chain is celebrating its 30^th year in business with a special birthday menu. At the bottom of the menu is a timeline from its inception in 1981 up this year, highlighting about four key milestones in the chains growth. One of those highlights was 1993, the opening of the company’s 50^th restaurant in Columbia, Md.

Happy Birthday Bertucci's!

E-Readers & Airplanes

Last week as I flew south for the Thanksgiving holiday, I discovered a clear disadvantage of e-readers. Unlike a “tree book”, as BethTribe describes printed books, an e-reader must be turned off once the plane leaves the gate. It may not be turned back on again until the plane reaches 35,000 feet. Similarly, as the plane begins its descent, the e-reader must again be shut down.

This is a problem. As soon as I settle in my seat on a plane, I pull out my book. Sometimes, if the book is really good, I barely notice when the plane leaves the ground. My colleague TW says he does the same thing. “I like to establish right off to anyone seated next to me that I’m not looking for conversation,” he told me.

Staring at a blank screen during these critical initial strapped in moments may leave you vulnerable to chatty chap in the adjacent seat. “Say, is that one of those e-readers….”

It’s time for the airlines and the FAA to take another look at this. In his column in The New York Times, Nick Bilton suggests that “maybe it’s time to change these rules.”

“Michael Altschul, senior vice president and legal counsel for CTIA, the wireless industry association, said a study that it conducted more than a decade ago found no interference from mobile devices.”

In fact, the current rules that have everyone turning their devices on an off again may actually pose more of a hazard.

“The government might be causing more unnecessary interference on planes by asking people to shut their devices down for take-off and landing and then giving them permission to restart all at the same time. According to electrical engineers, when the electronic device starts, electric current passes through every part of the gadget, including GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular radio and microprocessor.

It’s the equivalent of waking someone up with a dozen people yelling into bullhorns.”

HoCo Tax Deadbeats Online

A HoCo business has earned the distinction of being one of top five delinquent taxpayers in the State of Maryland. According to this list published online by the State Comptrollers office, Columbia based M&S Carpet Outlet owes over $400,000 in sales and withholding taxes.

They are not alone. Besides M&S, one other company and two individuals from HoCo also made the Comptrollers top 50 list. According to this story by Steve Kelly in SoMdNews.com, this list represents “nearly $21 million in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest,…”

“Franchot released the names as part of the comptroller’s“Caught in the Web” initiative, which seeks to “send a message to those who have ignored all attempts by the state to collect overdue taxes,” according to a news release Franchot issued on the initiative.”

Scene This Week In…

With the holiday season officially underway I figured it was time to update the STW pictures here at To2C and what better way to do than the feature the iconic shopping districts of Ellicott City and Columbia.

 To encourage shoppers to venture down to the historic district, the Ellicott City Business Association, Ellicott City Restoration Foundation and HoCo Government have joined together to suspend metered parking for the holidays. They have been doing this for four years now and each year they seem to expand the free parking period. This year the free parking period runs through January 2nd.

It should be noted however that this courtesy only applies to metered parking. The two hour limit for parking along Main Street still applies and violators of that rule will still be ticketed. I spotted a parking enforcement officer writing someone up near Ellicott Mills Brew Pub this past weekend.

Parking at The Mall during the holidays can also be a challenge. I know of some HoCo locos who actually forswear going anywhere near the The Mall between Thanksgiving and New Years.

It isn’t all that bad. I’ve learned that it is all about timing, especially on the weekends. The trick is to go early. Yesterday I arrived at about 11:00 AM and found plenty of parking and found the manageable crowds in every store except the Apple store.

There was even plenty of room to take a break and put up your feet for a spell.

For me, no trip to The Mall during the holidays is complete without a visit to our poinsettia tree and I do consider this particular shopping center holiday décor item to be uniquely ours. While there are other poinsettia trees across the country, ours has a history. You can read more about that here.

Ruminations on Black Friday

Amongst our small gathering of the clan here in St. Augustine Beach there were no Black Friday shoppers. That isn’t to say all were against the concept. Out of eight of us, at least one openly admitted that, in years past, she has happily woken up in the wee hours of the morning after Thanksgiving and headed off to the stores with her mom.

“We’d shop til eight or so and then return home for breakfast followed by nap, comforted by having all of Christmas shopping completed.”

This ran counter to what I read yesterday in this article by Stephanie Clifford in The New York Times who reported that “the differences between how affluent and more ordinary Americans shop in the uncertain economy will be on unusually vivid display.”

“Those in a more modest income situation are the people who are going to the Wal-Marts and the Best Buys and the Targets at 8, 9, 10, 11 p.m. with little kids in tow because they can’t afford a baby sitter,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consultant firm. “It’s a very unpleasant shopping experience, frankly, for a lot of people.”

I tend to think that income levels don’t necessarily determine whether or not someone enjoys shopping for bargains. For some, the very fact that they’ve learned to be shrewd consumers has become its own path to personal wealth. 

Turkeys of the Year

For the second year running, Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney, is celebrating the holiday by honoring the DC metro areas “Turkeys of the Year.” While he singles out notables such as Redskins owner Dan Snyder and former PG county councilperson Leslie Johnson for his roasted bird toast, no HoCo locos made his list.

I think our loco school board member Allen Dyer should've of at least gotten an honorable mention. How about the former board of the Domestic Violence Center too?

There’s still a chance for to celebrate our own HoCo loco birds. Thanksgiving is a good time to start thinking about the year end Dookie awards for the best and worst of HoCo as seen through the lens of the HoCo blogosphere. I’m hoping this early warning will help bring back more of the biting sarcasm of the 2009 Dookies. I blame myself for setting the gratuitous back slap tone of last year. I’ll endeavor to do better this year.

As in years past, I’ll kick off the 2011 Dookie nominations the day after Christmas, the perfect time to celebrate a season of overindulgence.

Fast Turkeys

Wherever you are, I hope you are able to catch your turkey today. Happy Thanksgiving.

Marylanders On The Move

In case you didn’t notice, there is a mass movement of Marylanders going on right now. According to this story by Ryan Sharrow in the Baltimore Business Journal “Some 871,000 Marylanders are projected to travel 50 miles or more for Thanksgiving, a 3.5 percent increase over last year…”

The movement is starting earlier too. As Michael Dresser wrote in The Sun, “Tuesday before Thanksgiving is becoming the new Wednesday before Thanksgiving.”

It was for Peanut and I. We caught a flight out of BWI yesterday for Florida. Our early departure may have been fortuitous. As reported in this story by Olivia Katrandjian at ABC News, “Two forecasted storms are expected to make air travel rough across parts of the country, causing delays and cancellations at airports.”

I can’t imagine that it will be any easier driving. Rain has almost the same effect on Maryland drivers as snow.

Be careful out there.

Existing Conditions

This afternoon, as I headed over to the airport, I happened to get stopped as a CSX train rolled through the grade level rail crossing in Hanover, adjacent to one of the more controversial sites for the proposed intermodal terminal. As I sat there waiting for the train to pass I was reminded that this is already a busy, noisy rail corridor. It's an important factor to consider when weighing the concerns from the neighboring communities. This patch of HoCo has been an established industrial corridor long before people made a decision to live there.