Blog Baltimore

Baltimore City’s new Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, was tweeting all through the blizzard that just struck Baltimore. Her twitter account shows activity starting as early as Feb. 3rd and right after that, a huge increase, with a significant amount of updates and information regarding how the city crews are operating and how the city was faring.

Twitter was very alive through the entire storm. Many of the local news tweeters were spreading information around about the quality of the roads and the openings of places for food and groceries. InsideCharmCity, http://twitter.com/insidecharmcity, was making a huge effort to coordinate between individuals to keep everyone updated, tweeting and retweeting.

There was a drastic difference in the level of news quality between that of twitter and the local news stations. The feeds on twitter were locally oriented. There was coverage about local restaurant and bar openings where city residents could walk to. There was discussions and tweets about snow ball fights, accidents, school closings, local gatherings.

With the Mayor’s continued feeds from twitter, it makes it much easier to follow a lot of the goings on in the city. Hopefully this isn’t just a trend and that the city will start to provide a easier way for its officials to feed information to the communities.

I should also add a thank you to insanebaltimore.com for spreading the news about mayorsrb being on twitter.

I declare tomorrow, Feb 6th 2010, national east coast blizzard snow fight day! If you see a friend or a neighbor, Baltimore, put down your guns and throw a snowball instead! Show your support by throwing snow balls in fun! Bloods, crypts, food coloring can be effective in marking snow balls.*

*this post is simply suggestion and in no way shape or a call to harm or hurt anyone.

According to this sign it appears that there will now be enforcement of a $90 and 1 point fine for violation of the bus (bike) lanes in Baltimore. I wonder if I can offer the police my assistance by taking snapshots of offenders license plates! Maybe get a commission!

I was changing some things about my layout on blogbaltimore.com today and I noticed something strange. The two ad banners that I had placed on the right side were gone. This had happened quite recently. I’m on the site daily and this is the first time I’ve noticed it. So wanting to see if there was some update to the code, I headed over to www.google.com/adsense to log in. Low and behold the login was gone for adsense. My frustrations mounting, I tried to log in to adsense with Internet Explorer. Strangly enough, I could see the login and I could get in.

With Mozilla’s Firefox, I use a plugin called Adblock Plus. Well either Google got wise and changed the code for the login to adsense to be picked up by Adblock Plus, preventing you from logging in and, in a very ironic way, showing you whats happening with your ads. Or Adblock Plus is doing it’s job way to well and preventing you from even participating in a website that even deals in advertising.

Either way, one side is at fault for preventing the other side form doing its job. The only way to get in to adsense in Firefox is to disable Adblock Plus or remove the line for the adsense code from it’s filter…or use IE (eeeeeew!)

For all those bicyclists in Baltimore (me being one as well) remember that even though you ride a bike, this doesn’t mean you’re above the law. Many bicyclists tend to forget that we have to abide by the same laws as cars and trucks.

This doesn’t give us the right to zip through red lights. This doesn’t give us the ride to fly across lanes cutting off cars. This also doesn’t give us the right to cut through pedestrians trying to cross the street. Just because we’re not covered by tons of steel doesn’t mean that we have the right to go anywhere and everywhere our bike will take us, including side walks, walkways, and pavilions.

At this time the police are lenient but if these sophomoric acts continue, we’ll start to see a crack down and I for one don’t want to get a ticket for riding on the sidewalk because some asshole decided to ruin it for the rest of us.

If you don’t believe me, you can read about it here.

http://www.sha.state.md.us/OPPEN/acom_bike_laws1.pdf

It’s long, its painfully legalese. You can read a summary of this information here for those who have a hard time with big words.

Ultimately, cars have horns and blinkers. We have our voices and our arms. Make sure to use every means possible to communicate with other bicyclists and vehicles. Don’t assume that they know you’re there. Don’t assume that they’re going in any specific direction. If you’ve got a voice, use it. Otherwise buy a bell damnit.

Cross posting for effectiveness

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/midnight_sun/blog/2009/02/snuggies_pub_crawl_saturday_in.html

This Saturday, the folks at Captain Larry’s, (601 E. Fort Ave.) are organizing a Snuggies Pub Crawl, which runs from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. and hits about a dozen South Baltimore bars.

Don’t know what a Snuggie is? Hint: I’m wearing one in this photo.

Still confused? Read this.

Here is the route for the pub crawl, complete with Snuggies specials:

Route:
1. Captain Larry s – $2 Yeungling & Miller Lite Drafts
2. Rafters – $2 Yeungling & Bud Lite Drafts
3. Hogans Alley
4. Idle Hour
5. Don’t Know – $2 Miller Lite bottles & drafts & free lite buffet
6. Southside
7. Little Havana’s
8. The Tavern on Key Hwy
9. Sly Fox
10. Lime
11. Paul’s
12. End at Captain Larry’s …

The kids at Captain Larry’s are also awarding prizes to the people who wear their Snuggies the most interesting way. Hmm.

Either way, this sounds like fun. Unless you’re a smoker. Who knows just how flammable these things are? I’ll bet if somebody steps outside for a smoke and doesn’t flick the cigarette butt far enough, he/she would flare up like a Christmas tree in February.

For more info on the pub crawl, go here.

I’m still alive here, just been busy with school and the holidays. It’s amazing how time can fly and how hard it can be to keep up with hobbies. We’re still going strong Wednesday nights at the Gin Mill with trivia and we’re always looking for challenges.

Also, Red Fish has reopened as Meridian 54. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet but the Red Fish sign is still on the front. From what I’ve heard that place changes hands quite a bit so maybe they’ll get it right this time. We did walk by one night and it had a very posh look and feel to it. This could mean one of two things, expensive food and drinks or a nice atmosphere away from the bar scene with fine dining. I’ll let you know when we give it a shot.

We went to trivia Night at the Gin Mill in Canton last night and it was quite a blast. The event started on time and ended on time which was much better than the last place we tried trivia at. The trivia was based off of Brain Freeze Trivia which was challenging and competative. This felt a bit more official and fun since the event was run through Brian Freeze. They offered gift certificates and DVD movies as prizes too. The questions ranged from multiple choice and matching to true/false and fill in the answer. The Gin Mill also has a nice clean atmosphere. The food there has been getting better since it’s been open. Initially it was standard fair with no flavor or spice but they’ve been improving. My only complaint about the Gin Mill is that they don’t have any exotic Gin’s. I had assumed that with the name Gin Mill, it would specialize in various different styles of Gin, but this is not the case.

Dutch Ruppersberger, in front of the United States House of Representatives, thanks them for providing a clear and concise bill to help fight terrorist communications from over seas. What he actually thanked them for, According to a lawsuit filing by the EFF/ACLU, is allowing the collection of the information of millions of Americans without us knowing.

In an attempt to explain it so that many of us can understand, The FISA Amendment Act, allows for phone companies to collect data on customers conversations for the government so the NSA can screen for keywords that might be terrorist related. Any conversations related to international calling can be tapped and recorded without a pre-authorized warrant if there’s belief it it being terrorist related. This doesn’t ultimately upset me, what gets me going is how the companies are going about doing this.

Companies can, if they wish, continue to collect your private information and conversations, store them indefinitely, and not have it be illegal. This isn’t considered illegal because it’s not being analyzed by NSA computers or analysts, so it’s not considered a tap. Isn’t that like saying you recorded someone for blackmail but couldn’t be held liable for blackmail because you never actually listened to it? Smells like bullshit to me. Companies, for the government, can hold this information indefinitely and NOT be sued, not only because it isn’t considered illegal, but also because the government is trying to grant these companies immunity in case of any lawsuit.

The ACLU and the EFF are challenging the legality of this and good for them. They’ve got the foresight to see where this is going, too bad Ruppersberger didn’t.

The FISA Act, pushed through by President Bush, and fully supported by Dutch Ruppersberger, has given our government full, unabridged access to conversations that they deem terrorist in nature. Having seen how our government has dealt with the financial issues as well as the Iraq war, I doubt this will lead to any good either.

This is a post to assist with other motorists that might have the same problem I’ve had. Police are running speed traps on the Clinton St. entrance/exit to 95 by the First Mariner building. They’re running speed trap because the road’s posted speed limit is 25mph and they won’t take the excuse that all the trucks parked on the sides of the roads are blocking the speed signs (even though they are). Just a warning to motorists, take it at about 25mph cause they will pull you over if you’re going 36mph. Also be mindful that this road is extremely busy with tractor trailers and trains due to the ports located there so I have a feeling that this might be another reason they’re trying to keep motorists from going 50ish.
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EDIT: 10/23/08
It’s been quiet. I haven’t seen them sitting out at all but then again, that’s usually when they catch you.