Posts

Now that the local Howard County political campaigns are starting to heat up, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the last local elections in 2010. Don’t worry, this won’t be a boring statistical analysis or a deep philosophical rumination. Instead I thought it would be fun to comment on the candidates’ 2010 campaign signs—or at least the ones that I saw and managed to take pictures of. (I had meant to do this post in 2010 but never got around to it. For more on this topic see part 2 and part 3.) ...

Last Tuesday Tom Coale announced that he’s running for the open House of Delegates seat in the newly-created District 9B in (parts of) Ellicott City. Unfortunately I was not able to attend the fundraiser in which Tom announced his campaign. Equally unfortunately I won’t be able to vote for Tom; I live just north of the boundary line of District 9B, in “Bates-Miller” territory. However the least I can do is to publish a blog post commenting on Tom’s platform and campaign. ...

Congratulations to the Howard County Library System for being selected the 2013 library of the year by Gale and Library Journal magazine. Note that the cover story in the June 15 issue of Library Journal, as well as pretty much any other story about the library system these days, highlights the new Miller Branch and Historical Center in Ellicott City. That’s fine by me, since I live in Ellicott City less than a mile from the Miller Branch; it’s my main library and I visit it frequently. However let’s not forget that the former flagship library in Howard County, namely the Central Branch in Columbia, is not nearly so cover story worthy these days. A while ago I imagined how the Howard County Library System might work with the county government to re-imagine the Central Branch for the 21st century, building a new and larger facility next to Symphony Woods and adding a startup incubator and co-working space to the existing library functions. ...

As you’ll know if you read my last post, I decided to stop blogging for a while to save wear and tear on my shoulder. However as it happened I got a phone call from Nuance, the makers of Dragon Dictate for Mac, who were trying to get me to upgrade to the new version of the product that I purchased a few years ago. It was a reasonably good deal and I thought it was worth trying out, so I took advantage of the offer. ...

They say America is suffering a crisis of ill-maintained infrastructure prone to occasional failure. Closer to home I’ve been having my own infrastructure problems, culminating last week in shoulder surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff. I’ll be taking some time out from blogging to invest in healing, physical therapy, and (I hope) eventual recovery. I’m sorry I’ll miss the memorial service on June 4 for Dennis Lane, and probably also the reception for Tom Coale on the 18th. In the meantime best wishes to my readers and fellow HoCo bloggers; I hope to see you online or off-line as soon as I can. ...