Conveyor Belt

JUDGE LENORE R. GELFMAN'S elevation to the Circuit Court could bring headaches to the bench she recently departed unless the governor acts soon to replace her and retired District Judge R. Russell Sadler.The county's District Court handles an enormous load of lower-level civil and criminal cases and traffic cases, but is operating at half-speed. Two judges are doing the work of four.Eventually, delays and postponements will come. District Judges James Vaughan and Louis Becker as well as police officers, prosecutors, other attorneys and parties are accustomed to having cases move with the efficiency of an assembly line.

After a two-alarm fire broke out at a UPS Customer Center in southwest Baltimore County Friday morning, a spokeswoman for the company said the facility has reopened. Baltimore County firefighters were called at 9:43 a.m. to the facility at 3901 Vero Road, and was extinguished 10:15 a.m. No injuries were reported. Susan Rosenberg, a UPS spokeswoman, said a customer center in the building was reopened at 11:15 a.m. She said fire officials are still investigating the cause of the fire that occurred at a conveyor belt.

Normally, rain flushes garbage down Baltimore's storm drains to float in stomach-churning blobs around the Inner Harbor's tourist attractions. But yesterday looked different. After one of the heaviest downpours of the year, not a single plastic foam cup or dead rat bobbed around the National Aquarium. Instead, a mound of litter had been caught by a garbage-grabbing gizmo installed in February where the biggest outfall dumps into the harbor. The invention worked pretty well during its first major test - with some human intervention by its creator, who wielded a rake to break apart knots of sticks.

Cookouts aside, Labor Day is meant to celebrate the American workforce, and its achievements. But these days, even though people are more thankful than ever for their jobs, there's still room to gripe about the absurd, the mundane and the nearly unbelievable things they've done in exchange for a paycheck. Whether it's crazy responsibilities or a terrible boss, everyone seems to have a job-related tale of grief and woe. We invited Sun readers to share stories from their worst jobs.

Sviatoslav V. Sedov, a Russian learning the ways of American business, has seen some unusual things during his stay at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, especially the time an America West Airlines employee fixed a competitor's luggage conveyor belt.Such an act would have been unlikely in Russia, said Mr. Sedov, financial director of Intekap, a small production firm of Venetian blinds in St. Petersburg."We in Russia think to destroy, to butcher, to conflict with another company," said Mr. Sedov, 25.The act of an America West employee freeing a competitor's conveyor belt was "a real example of cooperation.

After a two-alarm fire broke out at a UPS Customer Center in southwest Baltimore County Friday morning, a spokeswoman for the company said the facility has reopened. Baltimore County firefighters were called at 9:43 a.m. to the facility at 3901 Vero Road, and was extinguished 10:15 a.m. No injuries were reported. Susan Rosenberg, a UPS spokeswoman, said a customer center in the building was reopened at 11:15 a.m. She said fire officials are still investigating the cause of the fire that occurred at a conveyor belt.

NEW YORK -- Shortly after Trans World Airlines Flight 800 crashed on July 17, the airline said that only about 40 employees had had direct contact with the airplane in the three hours that it had waited on the ground at Kennedy International Airport.In the weeks since, law enforcement officials investigating the crash have found that dozens and perhaps hundreds of other people could have entered the baggage area, the tarmac around the plane or parts of the terminal through which bags checked for the flight were transported.

Revenue Authority OKs garage funding Baltimore County's Revenue Authority board voted yesterday to spend $18.2 million on a new parking garage for Towson Circle III, a private retail development in the county seat. The authority's board of directors approved funding the 630-space garage, to be built above the $32 million center, by a vote of 3 to 1, with one member abstaining, said George E. Hale, chief executive of the Revenue Authority. Plans for Towson Circle III, a joint development by Heritage Properties and the Cordish Co., include a 14-screen, 2,200-seat, stadium-style movie theater, 21,500 square feet of restaurant space and 11,000 square feet of retail space, according to county officials.

ATLANTA -- "You don't want to eat these things naked," says Marvin Roberts, pronouncing it "nekkid." But a lot of people do.Relax. Roberts, 50, of Atlanta, isn't naked and neither is his hot dog. In fact, it's loaded with chili and cole slaw -- a specialty of The Varsity, a 70-year-old Atlanta institution. "Nekkid" hot dogs, an ungarnished sausage on a plain bun -- "They just aren't any good," says Roberts.The Varsity is decorated like a 1950s-style diner with yellow-and-white Formica tabletops and vinyl seats.

Brown paper packages tied up with string are not the favorite things of the people in the shipping business.I learned this bit of information right after I had carried six -- yes! six -- brown paper packages into the United Parcel Service warehouse. They were Christmas gifts being sent to distant relatives.Part of the UPS warehouse floor had been converted into a little store to help amateur shippers. Right inside the door there were tables you could throw your heavy packages on as you filled out forms.

Normally, rain flushes garbage down Baltimore's storm drains to float in stomach-churning blobs around the Inner Harbor's tourist attractions. But yesterday looked different. After one of the heaviest downpours of the year, not a single plastic foam cup or dead rat bobbed around the National Aquarium. Instead, a mound of litter had been caught by a garbage-grabbing gizmo installed in February where the biggest outfall dumps into the harbor. The invention worked pretty well during its first major test - with some human intervention by its creator, who wielded a rake to break apart knots of sticks.

As he walked to work each morning, John Kellett had a view of the Inner Harbor, downtown Baltimore's tallest buildings and the mouth of the Jones Falls. The trouble with Kellett is that he couldn't keep his eyes off the trash. "People would look off this bridge and say, `This harbor's disgusting,'" said Kellett, referring to the soda bottles, takeout food containers and candy wrappers floating in the water under a footbridge. "A lot of people's first impression of the harbor was this trash."

Not so long ago, going to the supermarket was a pretty pedestrian act -- you stocked up on necessities and got out as fast as possible. Now we want to know: Is there local produce? Gluten-free cereal? A beautiful dinner we can heat, but not cook? Upscale supermarkets are growing to meet our demands. In the Baltimore area, the latest comer is Fresh Market, which opened in July at the Shops at Quarry Lake. Its arrival led us to investigate what the premium market had to offer, and we checked out four competitors in the northern area of Baltimore -- Eddie's of Roland Park; Graul's in Ruxton; Wegmans and Whole Foods.

Revenue Authority OKs garage funding Baltimore County's Revenue Authority board voted yesterday to spend $18.2 million on a new parking garage for Towson Circle III, a private retail development in the county seat. The authority's board of directors approved funding the 630-space garage, to be built above the $32 million center, by a vote of 3 to 1, with one member abstaining, said George E. Hale, chief executive of the Revenue Authority. Plans for Towson Circle III, a joint development by Heritage Properties and the Cordish Co., include a 14-screen, 2,200-seat, stadium-style movie theater, 21,500 square feet of restaurant space and 11,000 square feet of retail space, according to county officials.

Say you were an empty Doritos bag, dropped in the street in the outskirts of the city. The first heavy rain would send you on your way: along the gutter, down the nearest storm drain and through miles of twisting concrete pipe until, at last, you were flushed out - either into the Inner Harbor, or a stream that would lead you there. And that is where you'd meet Joe Finnerty. Casually working a series of throttles and levers, he would pilot his slow-moving vessel toward you. Its mechanical arms would spread, as if preparing to embrace you. Its angled conveyor belt would dip into the water, slowly carrying you up, until you fell through a few feet of air and landed, most indecorously, into the pile of glop he's already snagged - a reeking heap that might include plastic pop bottles, foam containers, errant Frisbees, tree limbs, diapers, gum wrappers, tires, cigarette butts and the occasional bloated animal carcass.

ATLANTA -- "You don't want to eat these things naked," says Marvin Roberts, pronouncing it "nekkid." But a lot of people do.Relax. Roberts, 50, of Atlanta, isn't naked and neither is his hot dog. In fact, it's loaded with chili and cole slaw -- a specialty of The Varsity, a 70-year-old Atlanta institution. "Nekkid" hot dogs, an ungarnished sausage on a plain bun -- "They just aren't any good," says Roberts.The Varsity is decorated like a 1950s-style diner with yellow-and-white Formica tabletops and vinyl seats.

As he walked to work each morning, John Kellett had a view of the Inner Harbor, downtown Baltimore's tallest buildings and the mouth of the Jones Falls. The trouble with Kellett is that he couldn't keep his eyes off the trash. "People would look off this bridge and say, `This harbor's disgusting,'" said Kellett, referring to the soda bottles, takeout food containers and candy wrappers floating in the water under a footbridge. "A lot of people's first impression of the harbor was this trash."

Say you were an empty Doritos bag, dropped in the street in the outskirts of the city. The first heavy rain would send you on your way: along the gutter, down the nearest storm drain and through miles of twisting concrete pipe until, at last, you were flushed out - either into the Inner Harbor, or a stream that would lead you there. And that is where you'd meet Joe Finnerty. Casually working a series of throttles and levers, he would pilot his slow-moving vessel toward you. Its mechanical arms would spread, as if preparing to embrace you. Its angled conveyor belt would dip into the water, slowly carrying you up, until you fell through a few feet of air and landed, most indecorously, into the pile of glop he's already snagged - a reeking heap that might include plastic pop bottles, foam containers, errant Frisbees, tree limbs, diapers, gum wrappers, tires, cigarette butts and the occasional bloated animal carcass.

John Higham, pastured nigh 10 years now, still has things to say. Well, history itself goes right on; shouldn't an endowed-chair Johns Hopkins historian, for all his emeritusness, still be reaching conclusions? Those honors, titles and books on immigration history - what a platform for an overview.This time, the book is "Civil Rights and Social Wrongs" (Penn State, 223 pages, $23.50). Its contributors (Diane Ravitch, Nathan Glazer, Lawrence H. Fuchs, other big names) address U.S. black-white relations since 1945 - then Higham, as editor, delivers a powerful summing up:"The civil rights movement of the mid-20th century is generally regarded as a 'tragic failure,' and so too its predecessors.

JUDGE LENORE R. GELFMAN'S elevation to the Circuit Court could bring headaches to the bench she recently departed unless the governor acts soon to replace her and retired District Judge R. Russell Sadler.The county's District Court handles an enormous load of lower-level civil and criminal cases and traffic cases, but is operating at half-speed. Two judges are doing the work of four.Eventually, delays and postponements will come. District Judges James Vaughan and Louis Becker as well as police officers, prosecutors, other attorneys and parties are accustomed to having cases move with the efficiency of an assembly line.