The Best Pancakes in Mount Vernon

If you're like me, then your number one concern this morning was "Where will I eat brunch?"

Today, my girlfriend and I went to Howard's of Mount Vernon (900 Cathedral St.) because we wanted pancakes.

We just recently discovered that this little diner has the best pancakes in Mount Vernon, possibly all of Baltimore. I'm not sure if I can remember having better pancakes anywhere in the city or really anywhere. They're pretty much the Platonic ideal of pancakes, a little crisp on the outside, fluffy and light on the inside, served with real butter and maple syrup at a reasonable price. I'm especially excited to visit some time in the spring, they have courtyard seating during the warmer months.

Looks like there's a reason on only just noticed them - the Baltimore Sun has some history on the changes in ownership.

A Little Public Service

So I took today off from work and just had a relaxing day.  Around 4:30 I took my garbage out (I live in Mt. Vernon/Mid-Town, and must adhere to the draconian trash and recycling rules).  I realized that it was a beautiful day and I had a couple hours before the trash people would come, so I could pick up some trash around the area!

I often walk near the sort-of park like trees and brush that border I-83.  I decided to take some heavy-duty garbage bags that I have and clean up some of the trash that gets tossed into the brush.  I found lots of plastic bags, plastic bottles, and aluminum cans.  I also found this:

That's right, I found a donut tire on a rim.   I also learned that spiders of all shapes and sizes LOVE living under and in tires.  Pretty crazy.  Here are some other things I found:

• A half-full bottle of Ken's Caesar salad dressing
• 2 un-used condoms (still in the wrappers)
• An Adidas gym bag that was home to ~1,000,000 ants
• A piece of rebar (instrumental in transferring the ~1,000,000 ants in a gym bag into my trash bag)
• A couple dozen 24 oz. cans of Steel Reserve... I sort of wonder if there's not just a guy who follows a routine of buying a beer somewhere and just always finishing it in that block
• An empty bottle of prescription medicine from 2003  (seriously, if you're going to litter, why do it with something that has your name and address on it??)
• What was probably, at one time, a can for paint thinner or some other noxious chemical (it had a spout) - it had long since lost the bottom to corrosion and leaked any harmful chemicals into the ground

Honestly, though, I get that stuff.  I mean, you're walking along and you finish your beer or get tired of carrying your plastic Coke bottle with your chicken wing bones in it and you're sort of a douchebag, so you toss your trash in the brush.  

Here's what I don't get: I found lots of plastic bags with dog poop in them.  

Really?  You're going be responsible enough to take a plastic bag out with you when you walk your dog.  You're going to pick up the dog's excrement in this bag.  Once you've got all that dog poop cleaned up, you carefully tie off the bag (so the poop doesn't get out, I guess).  Then you toss the plastic bag in the brush and walk your dog back home.   This is something you do?

Seriously, if I hadn't found multiple bags of dog poop in the brush, I wouldn't have believed it.  Who is this person that's like "I can't leave dog poop in the grass for my neighbors to step it, it's better to throw a plastic bag on crap on public property!"  What is the rest of their life like?  Maybe they're very careful to lift the toilet seat before peeing, but then pee all over the stall?   They let you merge on the highway but then tailgate you for the next six miles?  They offer to pass the potatoes, but sneeze in them on the way?  They offer to get the next round, then come back with warm Miller High-Life Light?

Anyway, I think these people suck.  I can't decide if they're worse than people that don't pick up their dog poop.  It's gross and unsanitary.  It's bad enough that you live downtown so your poor dog has to poop on the same small strip of grass as 30 other dogs - for the sake of your dog clean up after it.  And the sake of consistency, don't turn around and litter with your bag o' poop!

University of Baltimore Adds to I-83's Architectural Corridor

UB has announced the proposed designs for their new law school to be build at the corner of Charles St and Mount Royal Ave.  The Baltimore Sun has a bunch of pictures of the designs that were under consideration and they look pretty awesome.  (For actual facts you're going to have to go to the Baltimore Sun Article I'm only going to talk about how cool the building looks).

Driving south on I-83 in Baltimore is going to be quite the architectural tour once this is completed (in 2013... about the same time they finish bricking the sidewalks along Charles Street).  I'm still a huge fan of the new MICA building, but this could be pretty damn impressive.

Here's the design that won the international competition:

(This picture is blatantly "borrowed" from The Sun - if this is a problem I assume someone at The Sun will contact me and let me know.)

That build is so bright that the three people in the lower left foreground are fully illuminated despite standing in the shade!  You'd think that for $107 million and all the time they spent rendering the building they could have at least photo-shopped people into the picture a little better.

I have to say that it looks like MICA and UB are in a competition to see who can build the coolest modern building (the UB student center at the corner of Mount Royal and Maryland Ave. is pretty sweet too).  Either way, Baltimore wins.

Now that the competition is in full swing I expect JHU to purchase some land adjacent to I-83 and build a gigantic building for no good reason.  I'm sure they'll fill it with labs or something and make grad students ride another shuttle to it, whatever it takes, I just can't see them sitting idly by while MICA and UB grab all the attention.  Of course, I suppose there is the fact that JHMI is a city within the city...

Mount Vernon not Tacky Enough? Call MICA!

It's an unfortunate fact that, under normal circumstances, not a day goes by that I don't hear someone remark "I hate that Mount Vernon neighborhood, especially around the Washington Monument, it's just too pleasant!"

Thankfully, MICA has offered us a temporary reprieve from not only the beauty of the Mount Vernon Place but also from the unbearable usefulness of cutting through the park to cross the street!  That's right from March 16 through March 29, project Golden Chain Link Fence is on!

Why would MICA surround the parks around the Washington Monument in cheap chain link fence that they spray painted gold?  For an answer to that, you're going to have to go to http://www.goldchainlinkfence.com, or just continue reading.

The website claims that this fence is "temporarily shifting the way the space is seen and used."  This is absolutely true:

There's only one way into the fenced-in area!  

Also, notice their motto: "An Opportunity to Experience Mount Vernon Place from an Alternative Perspective."  I have two problems with this:

1. That's not a sentence!
2. Instead of "Alternative," I would suggest the words "Ugly," "Godawful," or "Tacky."

-----

I mean, can you imagine the brainstorming session for this art installation?

"We need to do something public!  Something people will notice!"

"We need art in a public places!"

"Hey, what about experiential art?  Something that ordinary people take part in!"

"But how can we do it on our budget?  How will be get people to notice?"

"What if we put something in there way?  Like they have to walk around it?"

"A statue!"

"No!  People are used to walking around things place on pedestals!  We need something that changes the city landscape!"

"Let's close a street!"

"Let's block an intersection!"

"What if we parallel park really poorly so that there's less parking around?"

"Bad parking...how will people notice?"

"We could paint the cars gold!"

"What if we get towed?"

"Let's tear up a sidewalk for unnecessary construction!"

"How will people know it's unnecessary?"

"We could paint it gold!"

"Aren't jackhammers expensive though?"

"Jackhammers are way too phallic anyway!"

"Wait!  I've got it!  We could put up a fence!"

"Where?"

"I don't know, like around some space!  Like it'll totally change the way people use that space!"

"Yeah... I get it!  I mean, normally it's open space, but now it's fenced off!"

"It'll change everyone's understanding of the space!"

"But how will anyone know that it's fenced off to change their understanding and not just because the grass has been reseeded?"

"We could paint it gold!"

-----

What I don't understand is how they sold this dumb-ass plan to the city.  "We can spread goodwill too by using the fence to create messages!"

Styrofoam cups in the fence to spell a word?  Really?  That's the best you can do?  Don't you go to an art school?  This is your plan for life?  You're going to make art that's good enough to be sold for enough money to feed you?  I mean, I know it's an art school, but isn't there someone there who has the job of saying "Hey, I know you mean well and you really want this to work out, but you just don't have any good ideas.  Perhaps you ought to go over to ComputerTraining.com and take their Online Skills Challenge, I hear that Microsoft Certification can guarantee you a good career in IT management."

They probably sold this to the city by not actually letting on how fucking ugly their fences would really be.  Instead, they probably just showed them pictures of the art installation that don't completely suck.  There are some installed pieces that are actually a little cool, so it's not completely a waste.

Plus, as I just learned this evening, they're tearing down the fence tomorrow.  I was up there over the weekend, when it was as ugly as it could be, but by this weekend you'll apparently be free to walk around Mount Vernon Place again.

Nonetheless, it was a dumb, dumb, dumb idea.  "Visitors are encouraged and possibly even forced to 're-see' and 're-consider' Mount Vernon Place from an alternate perspective." Seriously - just because you can make it sound pretentious doesn't mean it's art.