Chrome

It's long been known that one surefire way to draw a crowd in Harford County is to hold a vintage car and hot rod rally and show. Saturday was no exception. Under bright blue skies, scores of beautiful cars and hundreds of people converged on Jarrett's Field in Jarrettsville for Romancing the Chrome, a show put together by the Harford County Public Library and the Jarrettsville Lions Club. The show was organized to help promote the exhibit "Cars: A Harford County Love Affair" that opened April 12 at the Jarrettsville library and runs through May 19. The show also provided a perfect prelude to the annual Night Out at the Jarrettsville Library that evening which featured an appearance by Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads," a history of the interstate highway system.

More than 200 cars and 1,700 spectators gathered in Jarrettsville on April 13 to celebrate Harford County's car culture at the 2nd Annual Romancing the Chrome Car Show hosted by Harford County Public Library and the Jarrettsville Lions Club. Car enthusiasts and onlookers alike enjoyed a beer garden, live music by The Diamond Heads and concessions by Pond View Farm and Pit Crew, WOLO gourmet food truck and catering and Jarrettsville Creamery and Deli. Attendees explored a variety of exhibits from vendors including the Jarrettsville Volunteer Fire Company, the Harford County Sheriff's Office, Harford County Public Library and several of the event's sponsors: Keene Dodge, Mr. Tire, Harford Sanitation/Waste Industries, WXCY, Race On LLC, Bill Schilling & Chad Shrodes/Long & Foster Realtors, Liberty Mutual, Atlantic Tractor, WAMD and the Jarrettsville Friends of Harford County Public Library.

The acreage around the former chrome plant at the Inner Harbor should be developed, in the opinion of 120 of 185 callers to SUNDIAL (64 percent). The other 65 (35 percent) say it should not be developed.Similarly, 117 of 183 callers (63 percent) say the site should be developed with appropriate health warnings, but 66 callers (36 percent) say it should not be developed even with such warnings.

I post a lot of pictures of my kids on social media. I know it's probably too much, but it's like I can't help myself. Hopefully I haven't ended up on stfuparents.com or anything, but you never know. That said, there's now a way for my overburdened friends and contacts to de-baby their newsfeeds: Unbaby.me . A couple of dudes built an extension for Chrome that replaces the baby pictures in your Facebook feed with "awesome stuff": default is cat pictures, but there are other options, too. Now I can spread the word and feel less bad about the whole situation.

Shortly after Google Inc. unveiled Chrome, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the new Web browser "represents some of the best Google can do." He encouraged everyone to try it. But not many people are. Chrome gained market share within the first 24 hours of its release Sept. 2, but since then, it has given back much of those small gains to the leaders, Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. That's according to Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of marketing and strategic alliances at Internet measurement firm Net Applications.

The owner of one of the last undeveloped parcels along Baltimore's downtown waterfront moved closer yesterday to making it a vibrant link between the Inner Harbor and Fells Point.Representatives of Allied Signal Inc. joined with Baltimore City Council members and neighborhood leaders to introduce legislation that would allow the company's former chrome processing plant to be transformed into a waterfront community."We've reached a significant milestone in . . . introducing ordinances that will enable development of this site," said Allied Signal senior project manager William R. Blank.

The massive five-year effort to demolish the chrome-contaminated Allied-Signal plant is about 40 percent completed, officials said last night, but added that they still had no plans for the Inner Harbor site.That admission disappointed some of the 40 or so people who filled the community room of Lemko House on South Ann Street for the company's presentation."They have to make a decision before they cap the site, so to say that they have no plans now is a bit disingenuous," said Steve Bunker, of the local Waterfront Coalition of community groups.

Attorney Peter Angelos said yesterday that Maryland should compel Honeywell International to clean up more than a half-dozen chrome waste dumps around Baltimore's harbor - and said he's willing to fight a legal battle to force the issue. Angelos, who built a reputation with asbestos and tobacco litigation, is representing the community group Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) in an attempt to require the New Jersey-based manufacturing company to remove chromium beneath the Dundalk Marine Terminal and elsewhere.

When Martha Pawliske-Herman asked about the lime-green liquid flowing from a huge storm drain at Dundalk Marine Terminal two years ago, state officials at first told her it was algae in the water or a chemical used to test for pollution.Only after repeated telephone calls did the East Baltimore woman learn the truth.Ground water and storm water running into the Patapsco River from the state-owned port property is laced with chromium, a toxic metal that can cause skin rashes and sores on contact and lung cancer if inhaled.

Allied-Signal Inc., which is spending up to $100 million to clean its old chrome chemical works on Baltimore's waterfront, is lobbying regulators to relax rules on how much contaminated dirt must be removed from the site.No decision has been announced. But a Maryland environmental official says the soil cleanup requirement is likely to be eased, despite objections from environmentalists and from New Jersey officials, who have been dueling with Allied over cleaning up contaminated sites in that state.

It's long been known that one surefire way to draw a crowd in Harford County is to hold a vintage car and hot rod rally and show. Saturday was no exception. Under bright blue skies, scores of beautiful cars and hundreds of people converged on Jarrett's Field in Jarrettsville for Romancing the Chrome, a show put together by the Harford County Public Library and the Jarrettsville Lions Club. The show was organized to help promote the exhibit "Cars: A Harford County Love Affair" that opened April 12 at the Jarrettsville library and runs through May 19. The show also provided a perfect prelude to the annual Night Out at the Jarrettsville Library that evening which featured an appearance by Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads," a history of the interstate highway system.

Home style trends follow fashion. Similarly, the metallic finishes of hardware, lighting, plumbing fixtures and some furniture follow trends in jewelry. After decades of gold jewelry, white gold, silver and platinum eventually took over as the dominant materials. Now, that silver look is starting to skew cold, and warm golds are returning at the high end. Where jewelry goes, the kitchen and bath will soon follow, according to industry professionals who often refer to hardware as jewelry for the home.

Five years ago, pundits were quick to cast doubt on "Cars. " A version of "Local Hero" or "Doc Hollywood" starring a high-speed auto? How misbegotten and outre! It turned out to be one of Pixar's most profitable pictures — and one of its best-loved. Creating a cast of automobiles with human features — eyeballs in the middle of their windshields, eyebrows at the top of them, and mouths and teeth under the grilles — director John Lasseter pulled off an ultra-contemporary yet homespun fable about a hot-shot racer who wins big when he slows down and smells the desert roses in the Southwestern town of Radiator Springs.

Perfect for Google fanboys like myself or for those of us whose fingers sweat profusely. I know it's April 1st, but I don't think this is an April Fool's Day prank.

HORSE RACING Tiz Chrome euthanized after collapsing at Churchill Downs Tiz Chrome, a 3-year-old horse training for a final Kentucky Derby prep race, was euthanized after collapsing during a workout at Churchill Downs. Trainer Bob Baffert said the colt had a fatal fracture of the left front sesamoid during a workout Sunday morning. Tiz Chrome was scheduled to run in the Derby Trial on Saturday. Baffert said the colt was working with another horse and the two were heading into the far turn on the one-mile track when the injury occurred and Tiz Chrome fell, sending exercise rider Dana Barnes tumbling to the track.

Of course, we all know who to cheer for when David challenges Goliath. But what happens when Goliath is staring down, say, a worldwide corporation that makes tens of billions of dollars a year? In other words, whom do you root for in Microsoft vs. Google? Perhaps, at this point, we should simply cheer that there's any competition at all. Through the years, it's become easy to mistrust Microsoft, a company that began as an upstart itself but now boasts a global market (an estimated 90 percent of the world's computers run on Windows)

A little-known Baltimore Quaker geologist, whose passion for some greenish-black rocks off the Falls Road enabled him to become the founder of the American chromium industry, is being inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame tomorrow. The belated honors go to Isaac Tyson Jr., whose bronze plaque calls him the "Renaissance man of the early U.S. minerals and chemical industries.""The mining industry is so dominated by the West, it is unusual for an Easterner to get some recognition," said Harald B. (Johnny)

Home style trends follow fashion. Similarly, the metallic finishes of hardware, lighting, plumbing fixtures and some furniture follow trends in jewelry. After decades of gold jewelry, white gold, silver and platinum eventually took over as the dominant materials. Now, that silver look is starting to skew cold, and warm golds are returning at the high end. Where jewelry goes, the kitchen and bath will soon follow, according to industry professionals who often refer to hardware as jewelry for the home.

Shortly after Google Inc. unveiled Chrome, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the new Web browser "represents some of the best Google can do." He encouraged everyone to try it. But not many people are. Chrome gained market share within the first 24 hours of its release Sept. 2, but since then, it has given back much of those small gains to the leaders, Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. That's according to Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of marketing and strategic alliances at Internet measurement firm Net Applications.

BAGHDAD -- The midnight run into the combat zone, in a hard-used Air Force C-130 turboprop built during the Kennedy administration, was typical in one respect: Just as it touched down with a belly crammed with combat-loaded troops, one of its four engines flamed out and went dead. That was after the flight computer blew out, a radar malfunctioned, the navigator's headset stopped working so he couldn't hear anything, and the air conditioner failed. That spiked the temperature well over 110 degrees, and as the flight known as Chrome 31 bucked and heaved on final approach through gusty crosswinds, first one and then another soldier became violently ill. "OK, I am about out of troubleshooting options," declared Chrome 31's exasperated flight engineer, 28-year-old Staff Sgt. David Baker, whose job is to keep things working.