Village Green/Town²

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F ³: Blimped, Again

The year is 2015. Word gets out: there’s a runaway blimp. It was more or less thought of as a Baltimore Blimp. To be absolutely clear, it was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Military blimp goes AWOL for a joy ride, Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today This was back when Twitter was really a happening thing. I wish I could recreate fully the explosion of humorous and whimsical runaway blimp posts as they occurred. Baltimore Twitter was in its element. USA Today even covered the Twitter aspect of the story. Breakaway blimp thrills Twitter , Jessica Durando, USA Today You’ll see that this article is full of blank spaces where tweets are no longer available. This is indicative of all the folks who have since left Twitter and completely deleted their accounts. There was much gleeful hilarity at the rogue, unmanned sky adventurer. There was also a darker side. What was this thing? It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a blimp. The JLENS Aerostat was a military...

Five to Survive

And now for some thanks. Over the last five months I’ve lived away from my Columbia home and found myself here only when caregivers were scheduled. Now that I’m really and truly home I’m thinking about the HoColocal businesses that became a part of my daily routine as I struggled to keep my head above water. You’ll see that all of these places are geographically centered around my part of town. That makes sense, doesn’t it? When time is short and your ability to make choices is limited, you choose the near and familiar. I couldn’t dilly dally when rush hour traffic awaited me. A good old HoCo Holler to these folks who’ve been there when I needed them: 7 Eleven, Steven Forest Road Especially at the beginning, when I was too stressed and tired to even think straight, this was the place I could grab a cold sandwich for dinner on my way back. I had to learn not to always grab chips and cookies every time but this place was a godsend. The folks behind the counter wer...

Decisions, Decisions

“Why are Maryland pools so boring?” asked a poster on the Columbia Reddit. Below are images of a typical pool from the Cleveland Ohio area, versus a typical pool from Columbia Maryland. What gives? The poster, relatively new to the area, uses a pool from Rocky River, Ohio to compare to the Clemens Crossing pool in Columbia. It’s an interesting discussion. I left Cleveland a very long time ago, but I found the Rocky River pool to be nothing like my neighborhood pool in Cleveland Heights. Cumberland Pool was built in 1927 and is still in use. Cumberland Pool, Cleveland Heights As I watched the conversation progress, I had a realization that we were talking about something which was the topic of much conversation in the past. Do you remember the word Aquaplan? The year was 2011, and CA held a number of community meetings about the future of the pool system. I attended one of them. (Shocking, I know.) There was quite a bit of emotional pushback from these meetings, which ...

The Front Page

Once upon a time I was encouraging people to read the Columbia Flier. Hard Copy, Hard Issues , July 21, 2016 Today there is no Columbia Flier. This story from WMAR2 News presents an interesting juxtaposition with my post from ten years ago. Diversity wins: Howard County on track for first-ever minority-majority county counci l, Blair Sabol That’s not how you spell “dais”. Ten years ago I was concerned at how “white” our local news coverage was. But as I reviewed this week's paper, an untold story leapt out at me. Almost everything in this week's edition could be categorized as The Stories of White People. The article about school suspensions is clearly the exception. But really, I urge you to get a copy yourself and leaf through it. Is this who we are as a community? Is our story just The Story of White People? I still see way too much of that kind of Columbia/HoCo coverage. But it’s not quite so predominant. Not “all better”. Not perfect. And I haven’t f...

Monday Mystery

Another day, another mystery. Screenshot from Bluesky Who or what is RingJing? I’ve never heard of this company before. Here’s how they describe themselves on BlueSky: Okay, they have a website . They have an “About Us” page. But it doesn’t tell me who they are. This drives me nuts. If you want me to trust your product and the information you disperse - - tell me who you are. You wouldn’t drink water if you didn’t know its source. Especially today, when so much of what we see is the result of an aggregator on the other side of the planet or unadulterated AI slop. A simple Google search shows that the only information available about RingJing is the company’s own website. So, naturally, the Google AI function is attempting to extrapolate that tiny bit of information into an entire explanation. Ugh. It is operated by its own RingJing Editorial Team. Okay? They have an editorial team. Who are they? Are they local? Are they also the owners? Is RingJing a HoCoL...

Magic Words at Enchanted Forest

Hold everything! New HoCoLocal restaurant brings back a local favorite! This glowing testimonial comes from the Howard County Eats FB Group: We went to Tony's of NY in Ellicott City tonight and everything was great!!! We had garlic knots, Caesar salad, mozzarella logs, pepperoni and cheese New York style pizza!!! We will be back again. Yes, community foodies have been abuzz with word of the opening of Tony’s, more officially known as Tony’s of New York, Ellicott City. They’re located in the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center. Image from Google Maps Here’s a reel from their Instagram that gives you a glimpse of today’s magic words. “ All You Need ” Tony’s of NY EC Have you guessed yet? No? It’s “garlic knots”. Long time hocolocals may remember the outcry that arose when the Tomato Palace at the Lakefront took garlic knots off their menu. The outrage! The laments! And it wasn’t just a brief objection - - people mourned the loss. It was ongoing. Some folks even went so far...