Blog from the 'burbs

Green, affordable, and right here in Rockville (soon)

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:05:27 -0500

Rockville leads the way with affordable workforce housing once more with a new project in the works: Beall's Grant II (PDF link). Undertaken by Montgomery Housing Partnership, this project will provide 109 units of mixed income rental housing in downtown Rockville, from studios to three-bedroom apartments, with a parking garage, on the site where the current Beall's Grant apartments are, and extending out to Beall Avenue. It appears to be an ideal location: within walking distance of the metro, Giant, SuperFresh (when it opens), the post office, and all the other stores and businesses in downtown Rockville. Involving the renovation of an existing building and incorporating a wealth of green features, I imagine this is just the sort of affordable housing project Ike Leggett wants to promote throughout the county. Montgomery Housing Partnership lists numerous green features (Word doc) they plan to incorporate into the buildings, from low-VOC paint and water-conserving and EnergyStar appliances, to use of native plants in the landscaping and recycled construction materials. As WECA President Patricia Woodward notes in a letter providing West End Civic Association's endorsement of Beall's Grant II, Montgomery Housing Partnership is a known and trusted partner in Rockville:

"Beall's Grant was bought and renovated by Montgomery Housing Partnership over ten years ago. In that time, they have been good neighbors who create no problems or disruptions from our special part of the city we love. Montgomery Housing Partnership has been a responsible partner, whose staff is committed to being responsive to any concerns we have ever raised. Questions regarding school numbers, parking spaces, and environmental impact have all been answered in a timely and thorough manner.

In addition to WECA, Mayor Susan Hoffman and the Rockville City Council have given their endorsement to the project, and it now awaits Department of Housing & Community Development approval of tax credits for funding. TCAT (the Town Center Action Team, responsible for envisioning and guiding our new downtown into existence) invited Rob Goldman of Montgomery Housing Partnership to present the project at City Hall last Tuesday to any interested Rockville residents, and appears ready to lend their endorsement also, pending some questions about parking issues and the height, setback and appearance of the facade facing Beall Avenue. Thank you to Bridget Newton and other members of TCAT for making this information available city-wide, and to Cheryl Kagan for forwarding me the documents linked to above. Beall's Grant II sounds like another great example of Rockville leading the way with both workforce housing and green building development.

Blip TV and The West End: a great combination

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:48:54 -0500

First of all, I'm so glad to have had the chance finally to see The West End do their thing live. What a fun show! I still can't imagine what Brad Rourke has for breakfast but whatever it is we should all be eating a big bowl of it. And Mike Shawn is a joy to listen to on keyboards (and singing), Monique is probably the sexiest drummer in the universe, and new guy Matthew Taylor sounded great on bass. (Ok, I'm no music commentator -- I just know those guys put on a show that was really fun to listen to and be part of. And I enjoyed meeting Mike's mom and CindyCG and seeing familiar faces from all over Rockville.)
I took some video and was planning to put up a couple clips at YouTube as I did previously for The Digits and Nelly's Echo. After waiting for two hours for one of the files to upload though, I googled around to see if there was a way to upload a flv instead (since that's what youtube converts it to anyway and it's much smaller), and found a mention of Blip TV, which not only allows flv uploads, but shows them with the compression you set, and at a larger size than YouTube. As a test, I uploaded 24 compressed at 300kbps/128k at 320x240 (as I would do for YouTube) to Blip TV. What a difference! It uploaded in about 10 minutes and displays at a huge 624 x 470. Kind of a strange size, but I thought I'd go all out and try my favorite of the evening, Summertime, compressed at 400/128 and full size and it looks great! Here's one more for West End junkies: No Depression.
[Update, Apr 14: FLVs can be uploaded to YouTube as well. It's a speedy upload, but I think the file gets recompressed -- the quality at YouTube doesn't look as good as locally (testing in Flash, which I used to make the flv). Here is Summertime at YouTube.]
Next X on your calendar: May 25, when The West End performs at Hometown Holidays. I'm looking forward to it already.

Good wireless, great music at Austin Grill

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:03:15 -0500

Slideshow/video

Most Friday afternoons I meet with a client in Town Square at one of the locales featuring free wireless, including Cosi, the Rockville Library, and First Watch, among others. Last Friday we met at Austin Grill for a change and were impressed with the helpful staff, who pointed out the best table for reception from Ricochet, the City's free wireless service in Town Square, didn't mind that we were just snacking, and kept us supplied with beer and chips. So, nerd that I am, I have to report that the wireless connection there is one of the best in Rockville -- strong signal and fast upload and download speeds (we drag a lot of files around during these meetings so that's important).

On a less nerdy note, I returned in the evening with P to hear one of two musicians who I've listened to a lot online but never seen live: Nelly's Echo (or rather, Nelson and his band, Nelly's Echo). And of course I brought my videocamera just in case it was ok to tape. One of the good things about Austin Grill is that they don't crank the sound up so high that you can't talk to the people you came with, which I really appreciate, but it also means the recording has a lot of ambient noise. My favorite of the evening was Killing Me Softly, but the recording/slideshow I posted here is a bit of "Just a Dream", which you can hear a much better recording of here. Thank you to Steve, manager of Austin Grill, and to Nelson --who must surely be one of the few musicians who goes around and meets the people in the audience, even us oldsters-- for letting me tape. For those who still don't know, Austin Grill has live music almost every night of the week -- you can hear samples of a lot of it at the calendar page (click any music note) and at Austin Grill's myspace page.

"Robin party of 7, your birdbath is ready"

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:29:33 -0500

This morning about a million birds decided to grace the old maple tree in our front yard, something that always makes me happy to see and hear, and which I encourage by trying to keep the nearby birdbath full when the temperature is above freezing. Almost immediately after I filled it this morning (with the claw-tingling mixture of ice chunks and freezing water that came out of the hose), everyone in the tree descended into it. Mostly they were robins, as you can see (picture taken through the window so as not to disturb them). Some days they are joined by sparrows, catbirds, mourning doves, or an occasional woodpecker or finch, but the robins are pretty feisty about keeping the party a robins-only affair. Their interactions are always fun to watch; today is the first day I've successfully caught this particular one on camera (closeup):

Who invited him?

Update 2/18/08: Ok, now I am forced to admit how dumb it was to keep the birdbath outside over the winter. My friend Diane, who has been known to go out and wrap every delicate thing in the yard when frost is forecast, warned me that this was not a good idea, but out of inertia and love of seeing birds in it, I left it out anyway. But after taking the picture above yesterday, I watched the water drain away (the poor robins kept coming back and trying to drink the dregs anyway) and realized there is a big crack in the basin. The birdbath is made of some kind of plastic resin and I'm trying to figure out what to plug the crack with that won't hurt the birds. Caulk has all sorts of gross stuff (phthalate esters, ethylene glycol, etc that are, according to the package "known by the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects"), so that seems like a bad solution, even though I live in Maryland which apparently remains blissfully unaware of these dangers. If anyone has ideas, I'd appreciate hearing them. I'm about to go chew up a pack of gum and stuff that in the cracks for lack of a better idea. Hope they like wintergreen.

Exercising my pm mm bragging rights

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:41:42 -0500

Having spent the past weekend filming, feeding, watching and celebrating with the RMHS Poms and other RM Pom parents, I feel like I've earned a few pom mom bragging rights. I'm so proud of them! Congratulations to Sarah, Ally, Nava, Tiffany and the other 8 Poms for building up such a sharp, competitive squad, for placing well in all your competitions and looking good at RM football and basketball games too (and pep rallies). A huge thank you to Kathleen and Theresa especially, and to Shelby and Chloe and Jordan, for coming back and helping with practice and competitions. Here are some video clips from the past couple weeks. Looking forward to County's this coming Saturday. Go Rockets!

Update 2/12/08: Rockets placed 3rd (great job!) and Sarah took 2nd at counties, and the well-trained RM Bom Squad placed a definitive 1st at RM.

It's not too early to start gardening

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:41:56 -0500

I love Christa Carignan's gardening blog. When I look at the ten-day forecast at weather.com and see that I'll be freezing into the foreseeable future, it's nice to go and read about someone actively gardening even in January, thinking about gardening, planning for spring, talking about gardening, living to garden!

Today I see that Christa has published a wonderfully detailed Beginner's Guide to Growing Food in DC, made even better by the fact that it's a blog and people have added helpful comments of their own. Time to start thinking about lettuce and spinach and collecting some seeds to grow in the spring, which I have renewed inspiration to do after watching this video on how to grow basil from seed. I will also try to plant a few more things from Sara Tangren's Chesapeake Native Nursery collection. Last year, I planted spotted mint and foxglove that I bought during Mike Tidwell's Clean Energy Open House, and they both seem to have done well (of course -- they're natives).

Of course, before the planting starts, you can also be working on making the stuff your plants will grow in, as you dream about what you'll be planting in it.

Music Links in the Calendar

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:24:44 -0500

A couple days ago, Horatio Fields from UMDG/Netreach sent a link to a sound clip of the The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, who are playing at Robert Parilla Performing Arts Center at Montgomery College this coming Tuesday, Jan 22. The clip is Amazing Grace and they do indeed sound amazing!

You can hear that clip here and also via a link on the Rockville Living Calendar page. Anywhere you see a music note in the calendar, there is either a direct link to a sound clip ("Hear a sample") or to a page with mp3 links that you can select from.

Sharing Calendar and Event Data

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:05:11 -0500

I've been looking at different calendar-sharing formats lately to see which, if any, are most used by Rockville businesses and organizations. Existing calendar standards include

iCalendar, which is a text-based (but not XML) format that is the basis for iCal, a format that can used to publish and allow saving of events in Microsoft Outlook and Mac iCalendar. Barnes and Noble publishes events in the iCal format for their Rockville and Gaithersburg stores, but they are published as individual .ics files (one per event), with no way I've found to grab multiple events at once.
hCalendar, a representation of iCalendar in semantic HTML. hCalendar events can be directly embedded in web pages and styled with CSS. I didn't see any example of this being used in Rockville, but I did see it at the Boston University website.

Another option for making calendar data available is with an RSS feed, customized as needed, like the ones used by meetup.com. This is a sample calendar RSS file from the Green Home Meetup:

<![CDATA[Events - Green Home Meetup Group]]>

Copyright 2002-2006 Meetup, Inc.
Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:31:29 EST
support@meetup.com (Meetup)

<![CDATA[Meetup Get Together]]>
http://greenhome.meetup.com/101/calendar/7125041/
Green Home Meetups > Green Home Meetup Group

Charlotte, NC 28217 - USA

Sunday, February 3 at 3:00 PM

Attending: 0

Details: http://greenhome.meetup.com/101/calendar/7125041/

]]>
Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:31:29 EST

The Montgomery County Public Library system, bless their web developers' hearts, publishes an RSS feed like this for all library events at the Rockville and Twinbrook (and other county) libraries. Theirs is similar to the one displayed above, but has a very useful extra link field, for linking to a page with more information, and you can get information for any number of upcoming days -- you just specify the number you want in the URL. They do not include CDATA tags in their description fields though, and should do to make the file parsable. After adding CDATA tags, I was able to parse the library RSS files with a PHP script that writes them to a database for display in the Calendar.

It would be great if everyone (hello, Austin Grill, City of Rockville, Outta the Way Cafe, VisArts, REDI, Strathmore, Parilla, MTC, and all you other Rockville movers and shakers) offered either hCalendar or RSS feeds (for grabbing lots of events at once) and iCal files (for saving individual events to a personal calendar). hCalendar and RSS formats are straightforward to parse (except maybe for getting the date into a useable format) and make it easy to display the information in a browser without having to do much else to the data. The iCal format is more widely used by individuals and is more compact, though I don't know if you can include a link for more information with it (which you probably don't need in your personal calendar, but is useful in an aggregated online calendar). A sample of the compact iCal format:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Microsoft Corporation//Outlook 10.0 MIMEDIR//EN
VERSION:1.0
BEGIN: VEVENT
DTSTART:20080119T151500Z
DTEND:20080119T154500Z
SUMMARY;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Storytime for 2's and 3's
DESCRIPTION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Stories and activities for ages 2-3 with an adult. Child must be at least 24 months old. No registration. This a repeat of the previous program. LOCATION;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:Rockville-Children's Programming Room
UID:1020080119T151500Z
PRIORITY:3
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

If it isn't already obvious, I'd love to see more widespread use of calendar RSS feeds, as it would greatly simplify gathering and displaying calendar events throughout the area and let a wider audience find out easily what's going on in this great city of ours. I imagine more and more businesses and organizations will be doing this though, as they realize how much it is to their advantage to make descriptions of upcoming events easy to grab and save. Please let me know if yours is one of them!

Thank you, Chica Brunsvold

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:56:31 -0500

Well, the front page of this site is now a complete study in garish color combinations, but I think I like it that way. I've never been particularly bold colorwise when it comes to website design, so I'm very happy that I chanced on a photo of one of Chica Brunsvold's paintings (detail below) at the Strathmore website one day, which provided the inspiration for the current look of this site. I found it a really delightful painting; fun, vibrant and endlessly interesting to look at. I love those birds!

As I had done previously with the fall version of Rockville Living, I used the painting as a source to choose colors from and built the rest of the site around it. I was a little sad when the exhibit at Strathmore ended and it was time to swap the painting out with something else (the zoning map), but Chica has generously allowed me to continue to use her birds on the other pages until it's time to change the site again for spring. Originally they also linked to her website, but she is currently experiencing some technical difficulties and it's not available. I'll post a note here when it goes back up though, as I think everyone should be able to see the wonderful whimsical work of this Northern Virginia artist.

Photos, please

So, painting gone and map in place, the latest addition to the garish front page is that goofy orange-haired girl, who is hoping to solicit photos of you, dear reader(s), doing whatever you love to do in Rockville. It's a great opportunity to get some free publicity for you and/or your favorite organization, restaurant or place to hang out. I'll post whichever are my favorites for each of the categories on the front page (eat, live, play, shop, work, create, see), as outlined here. Get your cellphones or cameras out and start snapping!

New Interactive Map

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:53:32 -0500

When I first started playing with this site almost 10 years ago, I used an Access database and html table cells to show the location of various shopping centers along Rockville Pike. It was clumsy but pretty cool given the state of Internet technology in 1998. Several years later, I turned it into a Flash map, when Flash 4, the first version that could communicate with a database, came out. I've finally started on a third version of the map, using Flash 8 and the wonderful object-oriented programming powers of actionscript. My inspiration was the zoning map I saw displayed at the second Zoning Forum at Glenview Mansion. It seemed like a perfect thing to make work interactively, so I bashed away over the holidays tracing out the zone boundaries over a map I'd already started on for use at this site. (Thanks to Katie Mencarini of the Planning Dept, I now have the beautiful big map that she created to work from).
The result can be seen here. You can see all zones and find out about each one as you mouse over it, or hide all the zones and turn them on individually to see which parts of Rockville are zoned Mixed Use Business, eg. Of course, I have a zillion plans for additions to the map, but while the zoning discussion is underway, it's a zoning map. Here's what I learned about the new zoning ordinance from Jim Wasilak, City Planner, and John Tyner from the Zoning Ordinance Review Committee at our Woodley Gardens West Civic Association meeting last Monday:
Most of the new zones are based on the ones in the existing zoning ordinance (created in 1975 and modified 200+ times since then), with changes to accommodate Rockville's current state. With most land already developed, the changes are aimed at redevelopment to support mixed uses (especially residential and commercial), to improve pedestrian friendliness, to control 'mansionization', to enhance the environment, and to keep our park and open space. It includes things like wider sidewalk requirements, specification of paved surface percentage allowed on a lot, and in addition to building dimension and height specifications, adds a specification for the transition in height between commercial and adjoining residential areas. The new proposed zoning ordinance also replaces the 9 processes previously required for site review to a single site review process, with the inclusion of different reviewers (City council, City staff, Planning Commission) dependent on the scale of the proposed project.
The zoning ordinance works in conjunction with two other City processes already in place: the Comprehensive Transportation Review (CTR), which examines the traffic impact of any proposed developments, and the APFO, which looks at schools, EMS, utilities and other infrastructure needs associated with new development. Regulation of home businesses based on their impact on the neighborhood is also included in the ordinance. For a look at the actual Zoning Ordinance Draft and information about the process, see the City website.

Happy New Year!

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:41:55 -0500

2007 was a great year for Rockville. We got our long-awaited Town Center, with all the good food, shopping, summer events and live music that came along with it. (Speaking of which, I highly recommend the recently-opened Thai Pavilion -- we had three of their vegetarian dishes last night and they were all superb). Good things happened following the City elections too (though more of you need to get out and vote in the next election!) I'm very happy to see that, thanks to the efforts of folks in Hungerford especially, reason won out in the council and once-a-week trash pickup will be implemented after all, and equally glad to see workforce housing coming to Rockville. I also salute the folks who ran for council and didn't get elected but still remain passionate about improving life in Rockville. I'll be attending Carl Henn's gathering this coming Friday (January 4, 7:30pm, 193 Hardy Place, 20852) to see his presentation on the energy/environmental future that Rockville faces and will report back here about that -- hopefully on my new actual blog that I plan to get set up soon. Happy New Year to all!

What did they have for breakfast?

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:39:55 -0500

See Brad sing. See Brad jump. Go Brad, go! The West End (yes, our very own) look and sound like they enjoy every minute on the stage. Here are some videos of the band from their latest gig, at Austin Grill last week, shot by Rockville Central blogger CindyCG.

Like it? They'll be back February 23 in the same place: put a big West End X on your calendar.

Workforce Housing Coming To Rockville

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:37:55 -0500

A victory occurred quietly yesterday evening, one which reminds me of all that is good about Rockville. A motion was passed by the Rockville City Council, in their first session together, that allows the County to move forward with plans to make existing residential units above the shops in King Farm Village Center available for sale to people who live and work in Rockville and other parts of the county, as part of the County's commitment to providing affordable housing for residents and would-be residents.

It sounds like a simple enough thing, but all sorts of behind-the-scenes work had to be done, and done quickly, to bring it about. First of all, the County recognized an opportunity some weeks ago to enact legislation passed in summer of 2006 that ensures the creation of housing for teachers, firefighters, and other crucial members of our community who work here but would otherwise be squeezed out of the housing market. Residential units in King Farm Village Center had been offered to a seller for redevelopment or rental, and the County moved to exercise its right to purchase such property at the same rate as the seller for conversion and sale as workforce housing, contingent on the approval of the municipality (Rockville) of which the housing is part.

Rick Nelson of the Department of Housing and Community Affairs was the key player from the County. Both he and Rockville City Manager Scott Ullery apparently worked many long hours (including over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend) meeting with members of the King Farm Citizen Assembly (who held several emergency town meetings) and working with KFCA President Andrew Gordon and Eric Gotting of the KF External Affairs Committee to try and negotiate an agreement that would allow the County to proceed with this model workforce housing implementation before the deadline on the transfer of property expired, and still assure the residents of King Farm that the standards set forth for workforce housing would be strictly adhered to by the County for the duration of the project, and allow legal recourse for KFCA if not.

It was fascinating to watch the players at work in the (televised) council session last night. Mr Nelson was an articulate spokesman for DHCA and the worthiness of this County endeavor, but also recognized the concerns of the KFCA, represented equally articulately by Eric Gotting. Mayor Susan Hoffmann and Mr Ullery kept the proceedings moving forward, with new councilmember John Britton pointing out language changes needed to make sure both the City and KFCA retained their legal rights in the document, and councilmembers Marcuccio and Robbins affirming the worth of the project. City attorney Paul Glasgow addressed each legal issue and question that came up, and by the end of the session, a motion was passed that appeared to satisfy everyone. It was a gratifying conclusion to a complicated matter, and none too soon, as the extended deadline for the County to act is tomorrow. I look forward to seeing how the actual implementation of the project proceeds, and hope it will be a successful model for future affordable housing ventures in Rockville.

More Digits

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:35:53 -0500

After their successful benefit concert last summer, the Digits were back on stage last Friday, this time at Outta The Way Cafe. I took my new video camera and posted some clips and stills here.

I Like the Gazette Endorsements

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:33:41 -0500

Hooray for the Gazette, who have endorsed my two favorites for City Council, John Britton and Carl Henn (they also endorsed Piotr Gajewski and Theodric Anderson, and Susan Hoffman for Mayor). Take that, whoever stole our yard signs! This is what they said:

"Our top choice is John Britton, who has served on the city Planning Commission for five years and was part of the committee that authored the proposed citywide zoning revisions now before the council. A private practice attorney who seems to have a command of land-use and environment issues, we believe he will serve the city well as it decides how Rockville will look for the next generation. He is one of the most impressive candidates Rockville has seen in several terms.

Carl Henn also earns our endorsement for his strong commitment to keeping Rockville a community that continues to serve its residents well. Mr. Henn never sways from his commitment to the environment - most intensely on the need to become less dependent on oil - but at the heart of that ardor is his knowledge of the issues important to the city. He is a well-intentioned, hard-working man who will bring civility back to the council."

Bring on those elections! (And don't forget to come out tomorrow night, Saturday, October 27 at 7pm to UUCR to listen and ask questions if you haven't made up your mind yet).