Chair

My Gadget of the Week is the Jiff-V-Sealer, which seals bread wrappers, frozen food bags and other packages airtight -- something you can't count on twist-'ems to do. Push the end of the wrapper through the slot of the gadget and slide it out with a professional-looking seal on the end.(The company makes a big deal of the fact that you can pull the ends of the seal apart and reseal them, but I found that was more trouble than it was worth.)The Jiff-V-Sealer, with 200 seals, costs around $13. Call (800)

M&T Bank Corp. executive Atwood "Woody" Collins III has succeeded Edwin F. Hale Sr. as chair of the Baltimore Convention and Tourism Board, city officials said Monday. The appointment of Collins, an executive vice president of M&T, became effective Friday, Visit Baltimore announced. Collins has served on the convention and tourism board since 2008 as treasurer and head of the finance committee, advising on budget management and fiscal matters for both Visit Baltimore, the city's tourism and convention bureau, and the Baltimore Convention Center.

SALISBURY -- Walk into Mark and Amy Smullen's house and the chair in the living room will catch your eye.Modern and shiny silver, the steel straight back was made by Mark Smullen, who also crafted a dozen other eye-catching pieces for the couple's home. All are made from metal.There are tables with intricate curves and designs, a unique lamp, television stand, kitchen corner stand and a big bucket that holds wood for the fireplace. He also makes headboards and footboards for beds and other items by request.

I want to express my gratitude to the members of the CA Board of Directors, to CA President Phil Nelson, and to all of the CA team members who have worked so hard this year on behalf of our community. It has been an eventful and transformative year, and it has truly been an honor to serve the Kings Contrivance community and Columbia residents for the past four years, this year as chair of the CA Board of Directors. At a personal level, I am so grateful for the many messages of support and concern I received from community members following surgery for a fractured elbow and other injuries sustained while traveling recently with Del. Liz Bobo in India.

The Eastern Shore's embattled Democrats, routinely outvoted in one of the redder regions of a very blue state, will have something to cheer about June 3 when Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz appears at a fundraiser for President Obama's re-election campaign. The Florida congresswoman, one of the party's rising stars, is expected to speak at an  afternoon reception at Carmichael Farm in Queenstown -- deep in the heart of Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Harris' district.

Gov. Martin O'Malley will serve as co-chair of the Democratic convention's rules committee this year, a high-profile position that comes amid rampant speculation in party circles about his potential as a presidential candidate in 2016. The assignment, which the Democratic National Committee announced Thursday, will put O'Malley at the head of a committee that oversees not only logistical issues for the party's convention in Charlotte but that would also decide any internal delegation disputes that arise.

"Lady, like I I've been trying to tell you, this ain't your gnocchi. " For the Little Italy Open Air Film Festival premiere of "The Godfather," Amicci's is offering door-to-chair service. All you gotta do is this. 1. Pick up a menu at the Film Festival, 2. Call Amiccis with your damn order. You can pre-pay with your credit card or have exact amount in cash 3. Tell Amiccis where you're seated and they will bring your order to you. The full menu is on ammici.com, and bottled soda and water will also be available.

Et cetera Brigances chair Fiesta 5K fight against ALS Ravens senior adviser to player development O.J. Brigance , and his wife, Chanda , will serve as honorary chair couple of the Fiesta 5K, a combination of Cinco de Mayo festivity and exercise, to benefit research in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins. The Fiesta 5K, which will be May 5 at Power Plant Live!, aims to hasten a cure for Lou Gehrig's disease.

The charitable arm of the United Services Automobile Association, the Texas-based Fortune 500 company that offers financial services to military families, has given $2 million to endow a faculty chair in ethics at the Naval Academy, the academy's foundation announced yesterday. The gift, one of the largest received by the foundation, creates the Robert T. Herres Distinguished Military Professor in Leadership and Ethics chair, named after the 1954 academy alumnus and recently retired chairman and chief executive officer of USAA.

Late Thursday morning, the green plastic lawn chair kept its vigil in front of a Formstone rowhouse on East Lafayette Avenue. Cops had taken down the yellow crime scene tape. The coroner had taken away the body. But the chair where the young man had been found slumped over with a bullet in his head remained, long into the humid day. A splotch of blood marred the seat. Neighbors shook their heads when asked if they knew the victim. They shrugged their shoulders when asked why nobody had taken away the chair.

Jim Siedliski is the Big East associate commissioner. He is also the chair of the NCAA selection committee, succeeding former Johns Hopkins and Towson coach Tony Seaman. Siedliski, VMI coach Brian Anken, Ohio State senior associate athletic director Heather Lyke Catalano, Hartford associate athletic director Ellen Crandall and Fairfield athletic director Gene Doris were charged with filling out the 16-team field for the upcoming NCAA tournament. Siedliski addressed the rationale behind awarding the top seed to Syracuse, the deliberations over inviting Duke, Penn State and Loyola instead of Bucknell, Penn and Princeton, and the reasoning involved in leaving Johns Hopkins out of the field for the first time since 1971.

A shave and a haircut of yesteryear cost the proverbial two bits, 25 cents. A shave alone at The Old Bank Barbers, a soon-to-open barber shop on The Avenue in Hampden, will cost $25. It won't be any old shave, though. Owner Daniel Wells promises an old-fashioned, full-face, straight-edge shave, complete with hot lather, in a leather chair with a headrest that leans back. "It's an old-school barber shop with the tile floors," said Wells, who hopes to open this month at 1100 W. 36th St., the former site of Sixteen Tons, a men's clothing store.

The bottle deposit bill may be dead in the House, but its spirit evidently lives on.  Del. Maggie McIntosh, chief sponsor of the measure that would have put a nickel deposit on all plastic, glass and metal beverage containers sold in Maryland, said this week that the House Environmental Matters Committee, which she chairs, intends to take a closer look at the proposal in the coming year. The bill, HB1085 , had the support of environmentalists, who note that the 10 states with beverage container deposit programs have much higher recycling rates than Maryland.  But it drew fire from retailers and beverage makers opposed to higher prices on their products.

A longtime Towson University professor has resigned his post as the head of the city school system's ethics panel amid allegations that his published academic articles contain content from dozens of sources without proper - or in some cases any - attribution. University officials and journal publishers say they are reviewing several articles submitted by Benjamin A. Neil, a legal affairs professor, after a librarian at another university alerted them to the issue. A Baltimore Sun review of five papers published by Neil shows passages with identical language and others with close similarities to scholarly journals, news publications, congressional testimony, blogs and websites.

Niall Dempsey, chairman of the Gaelic Athletic Association's Mid-Atlantic Division, answered some questions about Irish sports. How many teams are in the Mid-Atlantic Division GAA? We currently have nine teams in the Mid-Atlantic Division under the direction of three clubs: Washington DC Gaels have hurling, camogie, ladies football, men's football; Baltimore Bohemian have hurling, camogie, ladies football, men's football; and Mason-Dixon in Frederick, which does men's football.

President Barack Obama has named Gov. Martin O'Malley one of two co-chairmen of a panel of state and federal officials focused on defense and homeland security, the governor's office said Monday. The Maryland Democrat will co-chair the Council of Governors with Republican Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa. The panel brings together 10 governors, the secretaries of defense and homeland security, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, the commandant of the Coast Guard, the commander of U.S. Northern Command and other key officials to discuss issues related to the National Guard, homeland security and defense support to civil authorities in the event of terrorism or natural disaster.

M&T Bank Corp. executive Atwood "Woody" Collins III has succeeded Edwin F. Hale Sr. as chair of the Baltimore Convention and Tourism Board, city officials said Monday. The appointment of Collins, an executive vice president of M&T, became effective Friday, Visit Baltimore announced. Collins has served on the convention and tourism board since 2008 as treasurer and head of the finance committee, advising on budget management and fiscal matters for both Visit Baltimore, the city's tourism and convention bureau, and the Baltimore Convention Center.

The creation of a professorship is usually not a subject of great intellectual debate.But when the trendy University of California at Berkeley this year announced the endowment of a new chair, many academics paused to ponder what post-industrial society was coming to.With a $1 million grant from Xerox Corp. and its Japanese affiliate, Berkeley created a Distinguished Professor of Know-ledge -- at its business school.Never mind that some professors, particularly professors of philosophy, could not understand what a professor of know-ledge knows or teaches.

Amid a severe local outbreak of National Football League fever, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman is quick to point out that among the four Democrat politicians whose names are linked to the 2014 gubernatorial race, he's the only one who roots for the NFL's one true Maryland team. "I joke with people, I'm the only Ravens fan running," Ulman said in an interview last week, soon after filing his latest campaign finance report that showed he kept pace in 2012 fundraising with Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown.

The chair of Morgan State University's Board of Regents said the university has been "severely compromised" under the leadership of President David J. Wilson and is "significantly more vulnerable" to "legal liability and political embarrassment. " Board chair Dallas R. Evans wrote in a memo to regents Thursday that he believed the board erred by proposing late last month to draft a new one-year contract for Wilson, weeks after voting to not extend Wilson's contract after the end of the current academic year.