A Car Crash Hits Home
I got word last night that the star basketball player from my high school was killed in a traffic accident on the B-W Parkway. I didn't know him on a personal level, only from being a freshman going to basketball games and seeing him lead the team to a win over powerhouses like DeMatha. But it hits home a little more when you know the person involved in the car accidents that take lives all too often on our region's roads.Last week when swine flue deaths in America topped 1,000, the President declared a national emer

Playoffs? Playoffs?!!
Posts have been increasing lately, but I somehow managed to get my football squad into the playoffs with out 2-6 record. Excuse the Jim Mora reference in the title.We're now practicing at our home field under the lights (which makes a huge difference this time of year) because there are fewer teams practicing. Funny, it makes the program smaller and thus better served by the community it represents. The players have a much easier time getting to practice, and team moral has improved quite a bit. Just one more reason I decry the robust, "big box" approach to youth sports that the suburbs have been taking these days.

Imagine the Green Line North Extension
Monday night, Prince George's County voted on its transportation master plan update. I would have attended, but I wonder if the vote and public meeting was intentionally held on an evening where the Washington Redskins Monday Night game at FedEx Field in Landover would make traffic unbearable for northern (urbanism friendly) Prince George's County residents to drive to (highway friendly and transit inaccessible) Upper Marlboro. It's just conjecture, but I would not put it past the county government.The master plan calls for the

Google Maps
This week Google Maps began using a new symbology on its maps.line features and place names are now outlined/shadowed, making the maps much easier to read. The new maps are more aesthetically pleasing, professional-looking, and sharper at every scale:View Larger Map

Suburbane
Today I stopped in Calverton to fill up on gas. Much to my surprise, the Sunoco station on Cherry Hill Road offered "NBC at the pump", a TV screen with news and entertainment snippets. I had to sort of chuckle at the combination of two uniquely suburban inventions.I often wonder what of our American toys were popularized or invented because of suburbanization. I've opined in the past that youth sports rose to prominence because of the suburbs. But the popular axiom "it takes a village to raise a child" is virtually lost in isolated, homogenized suburban culture. My mother, who grew up in a Sicilian ghetto in the West Side of Buffalo back when it was a thriving industrial city, u