A person in Catonsville was rescued in dramatic fashion Wednesday after falling down a 30- to 40-foot well that had been covered with soil and grass. He had been there for nearly 24 hours when found on Wednesday afternoon.

The person was walking in the backyard of a residence when the grass gave way, revealing the hidden well and causing the person to fall three to four stories underground. The Baltimore County Fire Department said the person was taken to a hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

The Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department responded to a call for a confined space rescue, which means a person is trapped in a very small space, or is only accessible through such a space, like an underground vault, storage silo, storage tank, or sewer. These types of rescues require specialized technical training, and present potentially fatal hazards, as there is a limited window of time in which the rescue can be performed.

The entire rescue was caught on video by the SkyTeam 11 crew at WBAL TV. Helicopter Captain Roy Taylor hovered over the scene, and only spoke after the rescue was complete to say the man was conscious and talking but injured. The rescue took place around 2:50 p.m.

11 News reported that a nearby neighbor, Wesley Straffin, heard the man’s cries for help when he went into his backyard with his dogs. Straffin got his father from inside the house, and they followed the sound of the fallen man’s voice until they found the well and the man, who had been trapped since around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the day before.

The Straffins gave him water and called 9-1-1 for help, and said the fire trucks came quickly. The man was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma with non-life-threatening injuries.

In the approximately 17-minute video, viewers can watch the fire departments and rescuers preparing the operation, and at the approximate 14:40 mark, the person is lifted out of the hole and placed on the stretcher. Taylor doesn’t begin to speak until around the 16-minute mark.

This article was updated to reflect information about how long man was trapped and how he was discovered.

Catonsville celebrated the grand reopening of its branch of the Baltimore County Public Library after 15 months of closure due to renovations and enhancements. The community was welcomed back to their beloved branch library to explore their library now that it’s been updated and upgraded to meet the needs of a 21^st-century community.

“Libraries are more than just places to borrow books; they are community hubs where people can work, learn and play,” said Sonia Alcántara-Antoine, CEO of Baltimore County Public Library. “Our goal was to create spaces that are not only energy-efficient and functional but also welcoming and adaptable to the evolving needs of our community. We are deeply grateful to the Catonsville community for their patience and support throughout this process.”

The Catonsville Branch improvements include a modernized sprinkler system, upgraded HVAC, new windows and doors, contemporary finishes, brand-new furnishings, a dedicated teen area and a state-of-the-art recording studio.

The recording studio will be a free resource that provides the Catonsville community, also known as “Music City,” the opportunity to explore their passion for music, podcasting, and audio production.

“Libraries are vibrant community anchors that provide our residents with modern and high-quality spaces where they can learn, study and build connections with their neighbors,” said Johnny Olszewski, Baltimore County Executive. “This $7 million renovation of the Catonsville Branch builds on our state and local partnerships to deliver a 21st-century facility where residents of all ages have access to the books, digital equipment and resources they need to achieve success.” 

There will be a weekend of celebratory events on Friday and Saturday for all age ranges, including a story time with Culture Queen, an Eco Adventures Ultimate Animal Adventure and a Book Buzz.

The plans for renovation began in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic, as it did with most things, put those plans on hold. Construction officially began in March 2023, with significant infrastructure upgrades needed for the 1963 building. The renovation cost $7 million and included $3.5 million in grants from the Maryland State Library Grant Program.

Moving forward, Baltimore County Public Library will move to begin a $22 million renovation of the Woodlawn Branch beginning March 2024, and there are plans for new buildings at the Randallstown and Essex branches in the coming years.

“Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library.”  Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881. Swiss moral philosopher, poet, and critic)

Bill’s Music founder and owner Bill Higgins passed away in February, but the music ecosystem is still very much alive in Catonsville, due in part to Higgins’ support of fellow local music stores.

Higgins, who died of Fabry’s Disease at the age of 81, is remembered by many of his colleagues as someone who would go out of his way to help customers and competitors alike.

Catonsville is well known for its variety and number of music stores, its free music concerts, and support for young musical talent. Void of chain music stores, the area is instead filled with independent music businesses. Officially designated “Music City Maryland” in 2002 by the Maryland General Assembly, the town’s musical cup overflows, and Higgins played an instrumental role.

Just ask Gary Gebler, owner of Trax on Wax, a record store on Frederick Road. He put his store in Catonsville because of Higgins. The 66-year-old Gebler grew up on the border of Harford and Baltimore counties, and his parents took him to Bill’s Music when he was a teenager to get his first drum set.

“He made this town the music town that it is,” Gebler said. “And everything that we owe to our success, he’s partially responsible for. Just by being such the institution that he is in this town and the amount of people that came into this town that were musicians, I knew if I had a music store where musicians came, I would be successful, and it’s been 16 years and we’re still having a great time.”

Emory Knode owns Appalachian Bluegrass on Frederick Road in Catonsville. The store has been around since 1960, specializing in the sale and repair of bluegrass instruments, and offering lessons.

Knode reflected on Higgins’ legacy in Catonsville music and business, saying that as competitors, the two had a very good relationship. He called themselves “allies,” saying they competed “amicably” as business owners.

If one store couldn’t meet a customer’s needs, they would regularly refer them to the other.

“Over the years, we’ve had many customers where we couldn’t necessarily fill their needs here in my store, we’d send them to Bill’s,” Knode said. “If they were looking for an electric or a P.A. or a keyboard or that sort of thing, yes, we sent, over the years, many, many people up to his business.”

Knode’s father established the business in 1960 as Nelson Music Center, a general music store carrying all types of instruments, both acoustic and electric. When Emory took over in 1980, he decided on a narrower focus.

“I just pulled everything in and just focused on acoustic music instruments, focused on the Bluegrass community, focused on some very high quality, fine musical instruments,” Knode said.

He spoke of Higgins as a visionary in the music business, the likes of Sam Ash and Chuck Levin. Knode said Higgins was part of a group of entrepreneurs back in the 1960s that envisioned a music store as a large, super store rather than the smaller music shops that were the norm. He took the music store to that larger level, and Knode believes we will never see that again.

“Whenever you see a large business open up, it’s typically not an independent owner,” Knode said. “It’s typically going to be some sort of a chain business, like Guitar Center. So, the people like Bill, Chuck Levin, and Sam Ash, and all those guys, they were pretty unique in their day.”

David Fedderly, former principal tuba player with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (he retired in 2014), established Baltimore Brass Company in his home near Catonsville in 1992. His business was worldwide from his basement before he moved it into a shop in The Shops on Mellor in 2001.

“I moved in there on September 1st, and we were just getting set up and this guy walks in the door and introduced himself as Bill Higgins,” Fedderly recalled. “Very nice. And he said he owned Bill’s Music, and that he wished us luck. And I said I think we’re very different stores. So, I said I don’t think we’ll be getting in each other’s way at all.”

On the contrary, Fedderly describes a very friendly, supportive musical and business relationship with Higgins. If he needed parts for fixing percussion instruments, he bought them from Bill’s Music. Baltimore Brass Company did some repairs for Bill’s Music. Fedderly noted that all the music stores in Catonsville have their own niche, paving the way for a symbiotic rather than uber-competitive relationship among them.

“He was always very complimentary and very supportive as I was with him,” Fedderly said. “It was just a nice professional relationship. I always knew if he was in there, I’d stop and I’d talk to him.” Fedderly sold his business in July 2023 and now lives in South Carolina.

Lee Hirschmann, like Gebler, began frequenting Bill’s Music as a child. Years later, he worked there as a salesman, then as a musical repair technician. Eventually he ran Bill’s brass/woodwind repair department before he struck out on his own to start The Band Shoppe on Frederick Road. There, they repair band instruments, run a rent-to-own instrument program, teach lessons, and provide shopping for band items.

All told, Hirschmann worked for Higgins for around 10 years, time he describes as a lot of fun, and Higgins as a fair boss.

“He taught us a lot along the way,” Hirschmann said. “He was one of those guys that worked every day, you know? He was always up there. If you needed something, you could certainly go talk to him. With any employer, there was always times you obviously banged your head up against the wall, but very much he was a big family guy, huge lover of music, and when it came to the music business, he was just a very, very, very well-respected man.”

In addition to describing Higgins as profoundly proud of his family, Hirschmann said he was funny, brazen in business, and unafraid to do things without asking permission, which he has come to respect after running his own business for the last seven years.

“He gave me a lot of tools you needed to succeed,” Hirschmann said.

Two things he remembers Higgins emphasizing over the years were to always make sure you have more money than month left, and it’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

He says Higgins always kept his employees fed — especially if hot dogs were involved.

“If you were lucky enough to have to run an errand to either Lowe’s or something like that, he never hesitated to treat you to a Lowe’s hot dog,” laughed Hirschmann. “He loved a hot dog. That man absolutely enjoyed that hot dog.”

“It was just one of those silly things that you really think about and just appreciate over the years, whether it was pit beef, or him picking up cream of crab for the shop and just little things. He never came to a meeting without doughnuts. The man always made sure we had something tasty laying around. It’s little things like that, that I just never forget,” Hirschmann said.

Higgins and his wife Nancy sent flowers to The Band Shoppe to congratulate him when it opened, and always encouraged him, offering to be on call for help if ever Hirschmann needed something. “He never withheld that. Up until the last time I saw him he always said that same thing. ‘You know, hey, if you need anything, please let me know,’” he said.

Hirschmann spoke of Higgins’ influence beyond Catonsville, too.

“You’ve got Miles DeCastro, who owns North Country Winds (Potsdam, New York). You’ve got Keith Grasso, who owns Island Music (La Plata, Maryland). You’ve got Robbie Stein, who owns a guitar shop down in Florida. You had two other guys that went out and started vintage guitar companies,” Hirschmann said. They’d all worked together at Bill’s. “More importantly, how many of us went out on our own after seeing it and learning from Bill how you do it, which is you take it on the chin, your pull your pants up, and you don’t give up. Every day you give it hell, you work your ass off until something happens, and that’s just what he did.”

Cole Morris agrees. Morris began working at Bill’s Music after graduating college, having studied audio engineering in 2012 or 2013. He used his knowledge to become a salesman and met Hirschmann there. Morris learned that instrument repair was a career path that existed and was worth pursuing, and he ended up running the Keyboard Pro sound recording department at Bill’s Music for five or six years.

“It was very cool to see and to have been able to work with somebody and watch someone that’s so self-made,” Morris said. “There’s very little blueprint for what he did. He just did it based on ideas and what worked and what didn’t, and just like Lee said, he stayed agile with that. You can kind of just hop from idea to the next. If it doesn’t work, you don’t really lose too much time on it if your brain is working that quick. It was definitely interesting to see somebody operate like that at such a high level when they’ve done it all themselves.”

Morris also had been going to Bill’s since he was a child – a common theme for folks in music around Catonsville and beyond – calling it a “wonderland.” He now works with Hirschmann at The Band Shoppe.

Tracey Kern began working at Bill’s Music when she was in middle school. She was already quite familiar with store operations, however, given she was one of Higgins’ three children.

Kern said she and her family never realized the impact her father had on so many people. This is the store’s 58^th year, and her father was there for nearly every day of those 58 years, so the number of messages, calls, and social media posts paying him tribute was overwhelming.

“We were getting calls from people out of state that heard [he’d passed away] and wanted to call and say, ‘Oh my god, your dad gave me my first credit card,’ or ‘He trusted me to take this and pay him,’ or ‘He picked me up for my band job when my car broke down,’ or ‘He brought me a guitar when my string broke.’ None of us realized the impact he had on people,” Kern said.

He wasn’t only in the music business; he was in the people business, Kerns said. He may not have remembered a customer’s name, but he could match a face to the instrument they bought. She described people coming up from North Carolina to buy a guitar, knowing Bill’s was physically one of the largest stores on the east coast. She also credits him with having a big role in Catonsville’s “Music City Maryland” designation.

Kern and her sister still open the store every morning.

“I come in and I do what I have to do to get the store open, but when I walk in now, when I’m by myself here alone, I just have always been so proud of what he did,” Kern said. “He didn’t do it to make money or to be famous. He did it because he loved music so much and he loved getting guitars in the hands of kids and people that wanted to play.”

“Who’s lucky enough to spend every single day with their parents at their job?” Kern said.

After many years of planning and preparation, the Baltimore County Public Library’s Catonsville branch will undergo a full renovation.

On the close of business Feb. 18, the branch at 1100 Frederick Road will close its doors to customers for a 12-month project that is scheduled to begin next month. 

The estimated cost of construction to the 60-year-old building is $8 million. The Baltimore County government will cover a portion of the funding and $1.1 million will come from the 2020 fiscal year Maryland State Library Capital Grant. 

According to the Maryland State Library Agency, $5 million must be included in the state budge each year for the library capital grant program. With assistance from the program, 23 of Maryland’s library systems have received funding to renovate, expand or build new library facilities. 

“One of our goals at Baltimore County Public Library is to make sure that we are offering our customers a 21st century library experience with our infrastructure, as well as our customer service,” said Baltimore County Public Library CEO Sonia Alcántara-Antoine. “We are pleased to get this long-awaited renovation underway, which will provide critical building updates along with new features that will help fulfill our mission of providing opportunities to explore, learn, create and connect.”

The new 21st-century library upgrades will include a new recording studio; a new customer service desk; a public meeting room; a dedicated teen area; new LED lighting throughout the building; new laptop bars, seating, shelving, work tables, conference tables, and reading areas.

“Since Catonsville is nicknamed ‘Music City,’ we are particularly excited to include a recording studio with recording and mixing booths as part of the branch renovation,” Alcántara-Antoine said. “It will reduce barriers to access by allowing our customers to record music, podcasts and more for free.”

Additional building improvements include new flooring, wall graphics, a new sprinkler system, sewage ejector pump and sanitary line, new windows, electrical system, and an upgraded heating and air conditioning system. 

Customers who use the Catonsville branch are encouraged to use the next closest branch in Arbutus, located at 855 Sulphur Spring Road. There are 19 other branches around the county, as well as the digital library available for all library patrons.

A Baltimore County woman has been arrested on charges for allegedly plotting to destroy electric substations in the Baltimore region, federal authorities said during a press conference on Monday.

Sarah Beth Clendaniel was recorded detailing her plan to use firearms to destroy several Baltimore Gas and Electric substations with gunfire, according to the FBI.

The substations in question included Norrisville, Reisterstown and Perry Hall, according to The Baltimore Banner.

“[It] would probably permanently completely lay this city to waste if we could do that successfully,” she allegedly said on Jan. 29, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Monday.

Brandon Clint Russell of Orlando, Florida and Clendaniel, of Catonsville, Maryland were charged with conspiracy to destroy an energy facility, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland office press release.

Clendaniel is expected to appear today in the U.S. District Court of Baltimore.

If convicted, Russell and Clendaniel each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

“This planned attack threatened lives and would have left thousands of Marylanders in the cold and dark,” said Erek Barron, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, the state’s top prosecutor, on Monday.

“The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is evolving and persistent,” said Thomas Sobocinski, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore office in a press release.

Read more at WYPR.

Karen Ebrahim was working from her home in Catonsville when she looked out her patio door and saw something that surprised her.

A deer was standing in her backyard with a blue trick-or-treat bucket over its head.

“I saw the deer and I went ‘oh my god that bucket is stuck,’” Ebrahim said, “I’m thinking ‘it can’t eat, it can’t see, it could run out in the street and get hit,’ so my first instinct was to find someone who could help, because I didn’t know what to do.”

Ebrahim turned to Nextdoor for help, a platform where neighbors can connect and post information about their neighborhood. 

She is a frequent user of Nextdoor – just before she saw the deer, she was posting a photo of a cat on her deck that resembled a missing cat she had seen a neighbor post.

Around 5 minutes after posting a photo of the deer, a neighbor responded and advised her to call the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. 

Ebrahim contacted the department, who said they would send someone shortly.

In the meantime, Ebrahim’s landscaping service arrived, unintentionally sending the deer running through the woods with the bucket still on its head, bumping into trees as it went.  

With the deer gone, Ebrahim went back to work.

Until she heard a commotion in her stairwell outside. 

A neighbor across the woods, who also happened to be updating Nextdoor about the deer, had tried to help the deer and ended up chasing it back to Ebrahim’s house.

“I thought it was pretty ironic that he chased the deer back to where the post originated,” Ebrahim said. 

The neighbor and members of her landscaping service KM Landscaping cornered the deer into her stairwell and finally removed the bucket.

But the deer wasn’t done getting stuck.

The deer ran across Ebrahim’s deck, accidentally getting its head stuck in the railing of her patio. 

The landscaping team freed the deer and it ran, unharmed, back into the woods. DNR staff were not involved in the rescue, despite the caption that Ebrahim later posted on the website.

Animals trapping themselves in man-made objects is a surprisingly common occurrence. 

Last week in Colorado, wildlife services finally removed a tire that had been wrapped around an elk’s neck for two years. The elk had somehow shoved its head through the tire, and it became locked in place as its antlers developed. 

Colorado Parks and Wildlife tranquilized the 600 pound elk and sheared its antlers to remove the tire.

It was finally free. And its antlers will grow back. 

Marylanders can contact Wildlife Services regarding sick or injured animals at 1-877-463-6497. See here for more information.

Family-friendly yet stylish, with a large, varied menu of elevated comfort foods and a lively bar scene, State Fare in downtown Catonsville hits a sweet spot of being broadly pleasing without dumbing down its offerings.

True to its name, State Fare’s menu leans Maryland, with favorites like crab cakes ($26 for two), Old Bay chicken wings ($10) and roasted rockfish ($24).

Evan Brown, co-owner with chef Keith Holsey, says the lineup will change periodically, but patrons can count on finding food they already like, just stretched and tweaked a bit. Prices hover around $20 for entrees, and it’s possible to eat well for far less than that by focusing on appetizers, sandwiches and breakfast food, which is served all day.

The $12 chicken and waffles is a good example. The waffles, speckled with chives and Gouda, are more tangy than sweet. The chicken, marinated in buttermilk, is unusually moist. And the whole thing is drizzled with a subtly sweet-hot raspberry jalapeño jelly that’s worlds better than the usual syrup.

And there’s the $12 cobb salad, loaded with goodies such as blue cheese, avocado, hard-boiled eggs, roasted corn and chicken tenders. For two bucks more, a seafood version subs shrimp and fried oysters for the chicken and eggs.

The owners, Catonsville natives, are trying something different after their Italian restaurant, Portalli’s, was destroyed not once, but twice by flooding in historic Ellicott City. Portalli’s was a special-occasion restaurant, priced accordingly and attractive mainly to grown-ups.

This time around, Brown says, he and Holsey are throwing their doors wide open, welcoming every generation from 8 in the morning to 2 a.m. the next day, seven days a week.

The strategy seems to be working. During two recent visits, I saw something of an America in miniature: people of all ages, including families with young children, millennials watching basketball at the bar, and folks with a bit more life experience.

The space, blessed with large picture windows, gets a lot of its pizazz from colorful paintings of musicians like Freddie Mercury and Jimi Hendrix, who seem like they’re looking right at you, ready to start a conversation. Brown says he chose them because music appeals to people of all ages.

State Fare, open since January, gets the details right. The tables, without the fuss of tablecloths, are close enough to feel friendly but not crowded. A pleasant buzz of conversation doesn’t get super loud, even with a big basketball game on the televisions about the bar.

Appetizers are a big deal here. You can make a meal out of potato skins ($9) stuffed with Reuben ingredients (corned beef, kraut, Swiss, thousand island dressing), or stick with an old favorite like tender, peppery fried calamari ($10). Cleverly constructed sandwiches include a cheesesteak made with marinated Korean bulgogi ($13) or a club sandwich layered with shrimp salad and a crab cake ($18).

Seafood dominates the entrée section of the menu, but there are plenty of other choices too, like braised short ribs ($24) and a pasta with chicken carbonara ($16). Vegetarian choices include sauteed spaghetti squash topped with mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes ($15).

Local beers, including some from Union Craft Brewing, Key Brewing and the new Guinness factory in Halethorpe, are in bottles and on draft, and the owners are aiming to have one of the best bourbon and whiskey collections in the state.

My main criticism of State Fare is inconsistent service. On my first visit, it was just about perfect–swift, friendly, professional and unobtrusive. But a couple of weeks later, I had a different experience. Our water was warm, and when we asked for ice and lemon slices they were slow to arrive. Though our food came on time, we were so neglected toward the end of our meal that 45 minutes after our table was cleared, we had to flag someone down to get a check.

If State Fare gets that sorted out, it could be the rare restaurant that nearly everybody likes.

State Fare, 748 Frederick Road, Catonsville, (410) 788-3273, statefaremd.com.

Final Grade: B

Bottom Line: Family-friendly yet stylish, State Fare has a large menu of elevated comfort food and a lively bar scene.

A tree-despising Grinch in Southwest Baltimore County just couldn’t let local residents enjoy their new trees.

The Catonsville Tree Canopy Project, an initiative to plant 1,000 trees along streets and in public areas by 2020, shared on Facebook this week that someone has carried out a nasty crusade against their work. The photo of the scene (above) is gruesome for tree-lovers: it depicts the lower end of one of the freshly planted Kwanzan cherry trees with big, fat hole drilled into it, and a slice taken out of the trunk.

According to the group, someone “cut, drilled [and] poisoned” dozens of trees that volunteers had recently planted along the Edmondson Avenue median to beautiful the neighborhood. In a subsequent post, the project referred to the attack as a “terrorist act” and urged any tipsters to call the Baltimore County Police Department.

WBAL-TV reports the gashing affected 32 trees in all, with five of them pronounced dead, and the rest critically injured.

“I think it’s a low kind of person who would do something like that, after all the work they put into making it look nice,” one resident aptly told the station.

The project has been ongoing for years, with hundreds of trees planted at the town’s library, Melvin Park, multiple elementary schools, Catonsville High School and various neighborhoods. Baltimore Gas and Electric and other private entities and individuals have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to support the eco-friendly effort.

Volunteers are now working to save the ailing arbors. “We worked all day today to try [and] salvage what we could but only time will tell if some or any will make it,” the Facebook post read.

Meanwhile, police are looking into it. A spokesperson for county police said the department is “actively investigating.” She said the incident likely occurred in the overnight hours between Sunday and Monday of this week, judging by when volunteers noticed the carnage.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama is scheduled to stop by the Islamic Society of Baltimore in Catonsville. It will be the first time he’s made an official visit to a mosque since he became president.

The president will use the mosque visit as an opportunity to speak about religious freedom, the White House said. Unsurprisingly — but depressingly — the planned mosque visit has already spurred plenty of chatter, controversy, and racist memes.

“The president believes that one of our nation’s greatest strengths is our rich diversity,” White House spokesman Keith Maley said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “As the president has said, Muslim Americans are our friends, and neighbors; our co-workers, and sports heroes — and our men and women in uniform defending our country.”

It will be a religiously-themed week for the president: Over the next few days, he’s also scheduled to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast and at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Israeli embassy.

Abraham Lincoln died 150 years ago this morning, after being shot by Confederate sympathizer, actor, and former student in Catonsville, John Wilkes Booth.

No one likes being  associated with Booth, but here we are. Not only is Green Mount Cemetery his final resting place, but Booth spent a brief but “transformative” time as a student at St. Timothy’s Hall preparatory school in Catonsville, the Baltimore Sun reports.

“John didn’t hear anything at the school that didn’t confirm his thoughts about slavery,” professor of history Terry Alford told the Sun. “That was a thoroughly Southern school.”

Also, this just in: he wasn’t a weird loner. He had rationale; he had a crew. So said that selfsame professor of history on NPR’s Morning Edition. He was so hot and popular, fans tore at his clothes. He needed someone to keep the masses from mauling him as he walked out of a theater. Cool.

I find it hard to think of Booth as anything but an Abraham Lincoln killer. I certainly can’t imagine him as an occasionally heroic (he once saved a woman whose dress was on fire), devastatingly handsome actor who just happened to love slavery and hate Abraham Lincoln. But as a thought experiment, I’ll try.

The first piece of information I want to relate to you is that Angie Johnson and Angie Kennard (both Mount de Sales Academy, class of ’93) “have been going on cruises with [New Kids on the Block] for the past six years.” So, going on a cruise with NKOTB is apparently a thing. And it’s been happening every year since 2009.

Anyway, Johnson and Kennard were cast in the reality show Rock This Boat: New Kids on the Block, which premieres Wednesday at 8 p.m. on Pop TV (currently TV Guide Network). The show was shot during the 2013 concert cruise and follows seven different groups of fans. In an email pitching their group of friends to the show, Johnson mentioned that one friend — Dannyelle Zywan — was looking to hold her wedding on the cruise. The producers bit.

Below is a promotional clip for the show. For a split-second you see a group of friends tending to a women in a bridal gown.

Remember that Netflix DVD that never arrived, or that check that never showed up in your mailbox? It may well have been in the possession of Jeffrey Shipley, a Baltimore postal worker who’s been accused of stealing more than 20,000 pieces of mail over the past 20 years.

Shipley’s preferred theft objects were gift cards, credit cards, prescription medications, DVDs, and (gulp) passports. According to WJZ, he mostly stole from the Parkville Branch and the Catonsville Carrier Annex.

Recently, a Georgia postal worker accused of stealing checks was sentenced to 15 months in prison, and a seasonal worker from Oregon got 18 months for pocketing more than 50 gift cards. Of course, those guys didn’t have a 20 year history of postal theft behind them…

Surely you’ve heard of the development in Remington and have questions.  Is it a good time/place to invest?  How will it impact the community?  Now’s your chance to hear it from horse’s mouth.  Rare opportunity to chat with Jon Constable.

The Women Investors of Real Estate Group is a premier real estate educational and networking resource for women. It was founded to become a valuable resource to educate and aid women in a greater understanding of investing in Residential and Commercial real estate.

Don’t want to hurt anyone but love to cause a needless stir? Try leaving things that look explosive — but aren’t — in public view.

On Sunday, a “suspicious device” was spotted at a Catonsville apartment building; police were called in; and the building was evacuated. Turns out there was good reason for the suspicion — the object was in fact a grenade, albeit an inert one, no longer capable of exploding.

Maybe something’s going around, because last week, a similar pandemonium machine brought a bomb squad to Fairfax County, Va., shutting down traffic.