Coming out of the woodwork!

Being a Steelers fan in hostile territory (Baltimore that is) can be somewhat of a strange experience.  When the Ravens are doing good everyone and their brother supports the team, when they are doing bad, well that is a different story.  I'm sure all sports teams have fans that are like this, but to me it just seems like the Steelers' fans travel better and support the team better during good times and bad.

On Monday I walked into the office and I was accosted by an individual that rarely talks football, "this oughta be a good game coming up this weekend, we are going to kill the Steelers".  I remained silent during this obvious trash talking chance, the individual then asked me why I wasn't saying anything.  Well, I informed them that I could to all the talking that I want to before the game or after the game, but my talking isn't going to have any affect on the outcome of the game.  I think my choice of silence dejected this obvious fair weather Ravens fan.

Then at lunch, I was approached again.  I questioned the individual's loyalty to the team during the regular season.  They said, "oh I've been following them all season".  So I promptly asked them what the Ravens record was, their response was, "13 and 0".

What kills me is that the fair weather fans seem to be the ones doing the most trash talking.  The true die-hard Ravens fans that I know aren't talking much at all.  We (true Ravens and Steelers fans) both realize that this is going to be a hard fought game.  I have my concerns about the Ravens and I'm sure they have their concerns about the Steelers.

Has anyone else noticed this fair weather fan trend or more than normal the amount of purple colors flying?  It's like these new found fans are coming out of the woodwork now that the Ravens have a successful season.  Oh well, good luck this weekend Steelers and Ravens.

Photo of the week

walk
Originally uploaded by rich.steinbach

This week's photo of the week comes from flickr user rich.steinbach.

This is a wonderful night shot at Lake Kittamaqundi by the Columbia Mall.

Rich is a photographer and musician out of the Columbia/Baltimore area. He is for hire to do promo and live shots for bands. Please contact Rich at 410.446.0742 should you want to hire him.

Thanks again for your wonderful contribution Rich.

Public transportation, that doesn't exist in Maryland, does it?

A few months back (when gas was an arm and a leg) I was talking to a co-worker about my newly purchased hybrid vehicle.  The conversation turned to public transportation and he asked me if I would consider public transportation to get to/from work (I must warn you this co-worker lives in Baltimore and is not familiar with suburban life).  I'm not against it, I rode on public transportation when I worked in DC.  I told him I didn't think that there was any form of public transportation that I could take to work. He then introduced me to the public transportation tab on Google Maps.

What I found was somewhat surprising.  By car my commute is roughly 14 miles and will take, on good days, approximately 22 minutes.  Now, onto the surprising part, public transportation to and from my office does actually exist.  Further examination though shows me that public transportation is definitely not a word in Maryland's vocabulary.

Google Maps tells me that I would have to walk a short distance to a bus pickup location.  Then I would get on a bus that takes me into Baltimore.  Once in Baltimore, I would have to get on the Light Rail that would take me back towards BWI airport.  Once at the Light Rail station I would have to take another bus and then finally I would have to walk another short distance to get to work.  This whole public transportation ordeal would take approximately 2 hours.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for public transportation, but for suburbanites that only commute a short distance, the state of Maryland needs to do a better job.

What? When did this happen?

Spontaneously, almost overnight Columbia and Howard County has proven me wrong on the burbs being trendy, hip locations.

When I thought about this blog concept it didn't occur to me that other Columbia residents were blogging about the place we call home.  Then, to my surprise I found not one, but many blogs dedicated to Columbia/Howard County.  Not only did I find other blogs, but I found that the gods of suburbia have taken it upon themselves to make Columbia/Howard County a cool, trendy, and hip place to reside.  No longer can it be referred as Howard County, from this day forward it will take on the name HoCo, like the trendy hip locations in Baltimore that seem to sprout up on a daily basis.

Now, where was I when this took place, how come I wasn't called?  Oh, yeah, I know, I guess I'm not hip and trendy.  Oh well, go figure, I decide to write about boring suburban life and within hours my idea is shot to hell by the now trendy HoCo.

Take a look at all the HoCo/Columbia blogs out there at:

HoCoBlogs

My personnel favorites are:

Tales of Two Cities

HowChow

Strobist

Ugh, I hate being the last to know about anything!!!!