53 beers on tap

Marshmallow Man personal appearance TONIGHT!!!

Whoo-hoo!  Tonight, tonight, tonight is the annual Columbia Foundation Spring Party!  And MM will be in appearance.... once again, signing autographs and posing for pictures for those with flash photography capability.

MM also intends to attend the famout twnetyfivefortyfive Spring Party After Party as well!

More about these events here!

It has to be the social event of the year if the Marshmallow Man is attending!  Look for a full report later this week!  And if you're attending this evening.... say hello!

Dumbass of the year nominee

So I was out Saturday getting six miles under my feet, in preparation for the Baltimore 10-miler next month.  I was about 1/2 mile out, making the left turn from Ten Mills Road back onto Columbia Road and the Fortress of Solitude, when I came across this scene:

Yes, this is what you think it is.  It's a golfer playing (I presume) his second shot on the par-3 6th hole at Fairway Hills Golf Course.   His (I presume) tee shot totally overshot the green, possibly bounced on Columbia Road, and landed on the other side of the road in the grass.

This is all sheer lunacy.  One, that this guy cranked this ball a good 40 yards part the hole before it even would have hit onto Columbia Road.  Two, that he went to look for his ball.  Three, that he found it.  Four, that he didn't pick the ball up.  Five, that he decided to try to play it.

And he was definitely planning on playing this shot, hitting the ball over two lanes of oncoming traffic be damned.  He took a couple practice swings and looked ready to go, but doggone it, wouldn't ya know!?  Traffic had to come by and ruin everything.

I assume he took his shot, but I have no idea the outcome.  Obviously he wasn't a low-handicapper, else he wouldn't have his this shot 40 yards past the hole.  He should've just declared the ball out of bounds, lost his $2 bet with his playing partner for the hole and moved on.

What an idiot.

Turf Battles

Looks as if an agreement is evolving between the Department of Education and Department of Recreation and Parks regarding the use of the soon-to-be and eventual turf fields at all of the county's high schools.  Sara Toth, hopefully in a better mood after writing that article about the Meshkin-Adler debacle, wrote an article about this that can be found here.

Reading over the description of the proposed agreement, I like it.  Seems like it makes a lot clear, although there should probably be some stipulations added for non-sport school group usage.  Blocking out hours on each field for usage or something like that.  Going to be hard for anyone to define and monitor EVERY student group who would want to use the turf field.

But this agreement, as it stands, is more than good enough!

The Grand Prix's Third Life

Thursday night, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was in Howard County, cutting a rug with none other than The Diabolical Biz Markie at Ken Ulman's fundraiser.  But during the day, Herhonor was breathing new life into the Baltimore Grand Prix.  A woman of many tastes, that SRB!

This article talks about the third, yes, THIRD group who have been entrusted with organizing, marketing, promoting, and pulling off the Baltimore Grand Prix in September.  And I'm hoping the third time's the charm.

I have reason to think this time, it'll work.  First off, the event is in a little under four months, so it had better!  Secondly, the group running the show is led by former IndyCar race great Michael Andretti.  The Andretti family is from Pennsylvania and I recall last year, Michael's father Mario saying that the family used to enjoy excursions to Baltimore when his children were young.  So this is about as close to a hometown connection as I think we can get!

Let's hope for a great show on Labor Day weekend!  Can't wait to buy my tickets!

Special Session (part un?) Monday!

So our General Assembly goes into its special session on Monday.  This is the special session which is supposed to result in a balanced budget for the state that everyone can live with, not the so-called "doomsday" budget, which no one (at least not any Democrat) can live with.   So after this session, the state will again be under a balanced budget as God and the Maryland Constitution intended, birds will sing more beautifully and the air will smell sweeter.  Lindsey McPherson brings you the sweet smells of the special session in this article.

More unclear is whether or not there will be the sometimes-threatened SECOND special session, possibly later this spring or early summer, to take up the issue of gambling.  Where the Assembly left it at sine die last month, a push to add a sixth gaming location to the state, at National Harbor, as well as add table gaming to ALL gaming locations in the state, died without final disposition.  There is a thought that the issue my be brought back up as part of a second special session, though this special session is less likely to occur, as passage of this legislation is far from assured, and signature of any passed legislation by the Governor isn't a sure thing.  So stay tuned for more gambling coming to a state YOU (assuming you live in MD) happen to live in!

Chesapeake Shakespeare moves on up!

For those of you who have ever enjoyed "Shakespeare in the Ruins" at the Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City-- and incidentally, that should be everyone reading this blog post-- you/we are going to be in for a HUGE treat in 2014.  For the Chesapeake Shakespeare company is going to be performing in Baltimore.  A theatre has been purchased for their use, will undergo renovations, and is planned to open in 2014.  You can read more about it here.

Here is what gives this a coolness factor of, oh, infinity.  The building, the former Mercantile Trust Building, is about two blocks from the Inner Harbor and, while there are no definitive renovation plans, it appears that the 250-seat theatre will be reconfigured into a theatre very much like the world-famous Shakespeare venue, the Globe Theatre of London.  That simply rocks.

The company will still do a production or two per summer in the HoCo, but for the winter months, the new venue will be their home.  Being a Shakespeare fan myself, this is exciting news about the local performing arts scene!  I wish the company well in their renovation project, and I wish it were summer already!

Buy-A-Cop

I am truly, truly surprised that this is going on in the HFC.  Does anyone realize that there's been a recession going on?  It's been in the papers and everything.

Lindsey McPherson today brought us this article that I thought was so important, I am posting this bad boy NOW rather than stick it in the queue.  So, apparently, when our local law enforcement officers have been brought in to work as glorified security guards....errr, mainatin public safety... nobody, but nobody, from inside the county, is ever charged.  Only entities from outside the HFC ever get charged, though the article is silent on how much or what percentage of the staffing costs are reimbursed.

This is brilliant.  So I could hold a special event-- say, the Marshmallow Man 5.3K-- and I could just have as many of HFC's Finest as I want, making sure all my runners don't become road pizza.  And my cost?  Nuttin'!  At least not as Mr. Event Organizer.  As Mr. Howard County Taxpayer, I definitely do pay.

And we're not talking about chump change here, as the figures in the article show.  There are literally millions of dollars of unreimbursed overtime being charged to the county.

As a side note, I wonder how our fair county is protected when half the damn force is hanging out at Merriwether?  Have to wonder how many FTE (that's "full-time equivalents") of police positions exist because of the need to keep the county covered from a safety standpoint while the Clyde's 10K is going on.

Look, I ran the Clyde's 10K, and I love the race.  I don't think organizers of events should be shouldered with reimbursing 100% of the costs.  But, Geez Louise, they should be paying SOMEthing.

And let me ask another question.  Why has it taken until now for all of this to see the light of day?  Frankly, this is ridiculous.  In a time of furloughs and budget austerity, threatened cuts to "police, fire, and teachers", and people complaining about programs like my good buddy Healthy Howard, missing the opportunity to recoup even a quarter of these overtime costs seems inexcusable.

So, great-- there's a workgroup being convened to study the problem.  I'll save the time and trouble.  Charge event organizers 50% of the anticipated costs of police overtime!  Easy enough.  At the very least, find out what other local jurisdictions do and follow suit.

But pursing your lips, rubbing your chin and looking all pensive while thinking about this super-complex issue is nothing short of insanity.  This policy is something that is broken about Howard County.  Fix it.  Now.

Steve and Brian, Sitting in a Tree....

Well, isn't this just the sweetest thing.  Steve "If Elected County Executive, I will move the County Executive's offices to the Oakland Mills Village Center" Adler and Brian  " I Wanna Participate By Teleconference!!!" Meshkin have come to an agreement over a loan Steve gave Brian to help start up some sort of nonprofit incubator enterprise at Adler's Savage Mill.   Sara Toth suffered the indignity of having to write about this piece of Republican on Republican violence, and, I believe begrudgingly, filed an article about this with her editors, which can be found here.

So the two released some sort of joint statement that indicates that the whole thing was just some misunderstanding, that there had to be some kind of mistake.  And said statement paints a much different picture than what Steve Adler portrayed in his complaint accusing Meshkin of going all deadbeat.

Which suggests to me one thing, and this is as speculative as declaring Ann DeLacy fit for office: I think Brian Meshkin kicked my boy Adler's tuckus in whatever private conversations.   Basically, Brian said, "No Steve, I do NOT owe you the $3000 you gave me for forming a company in your mall, a thing which I did not do."  Dang.

I would love to understand more background and facts on this one!

 

Allen Dyer End Days are Upon Us

Soon, and let's all hope, very soon, the nightmare that has become Allen Dyer's presence on the Howard County Board of Education will be behind us.  Dyer stands before the scales of justice, and this humble correspondent is looking forward to seeing the scales tipped against him.    Yessir, let's see him grow his beard and preferentially vote against this one.  You can read all about the beginning of the end here.

Extra special is the fact that Dyer is representing himself in these proceedings.  And we all know the saying about what an attorney who represents himself has.  Such arrogance, even to what should be a bitter end.

It's also a shame that these proceedings are going to continue into next week (supposedly).  Isn'[t it pretty clear that the administrative law court's very low standard of "intentional wrongdoing" is met by the totality of Allen Dyer's actions while on the Board of Education?

Not only do I support the removal of Dyer from office, I wish it were possible to exile him from the State of Maryland, and claim all his property under eminent domain.  But these things are not possible.  A pity.

The little Grand Prix no one loved

I went to the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix last Labor Day weekend.  It was a really fun time.  The racing was awesome, I got to run in a 5k Friday night that was 1 1/2 laps around the track, I bought some cool stuff and thought the city looked terrific when I saw the coverage on TV.

So why can no one get their crap together to put on another awesome event in Baltimore this coming Labor Day?

This article talks about the troubles that the supposed saviors of the Baltimore Grand Prix are facing.  In fact, it looks like they have until the end of this month to get their shit together, or else the league itself, IndyCar, will step in and run the race its damn self.

Hopefully this won't be necessary, and these organizers/promoters can get on the stick.  Or maybe another group of organizers/promoters will take it over!  Because if the league has to step in and run the second Baltimore Grand Prix, I am afraid there won't be a third. 

And if that happens it would be a shame.  It looked as if the race was appealing heavily to the 25-44 (aka money spending) demographic, the demographic I now find myself on the outer edge of.  Baltimore can use resons to draw in a younger crowd and having this attraction makes people want to keep coming back to the city for their entertainment.