Customers

Charles Kelley stands in Baltimore's historic Lexington Market, chowing down on a Faidley's overstuffed crab cake sandwich. It doesn't bother the 37-year-old North Carolina man that the market doesn't have gourmet coffee, wine or cheese shops. He's OK with the faded signs and the dirty floor. As jumbo lump crab meat spills out of his sandwich, Kelley is in a state of bliss. "I've had crab cake sandwiches all over," he says, "and this is the best. " While devotees such as Kelley, who come from long distances for the renowned seafood at the 231-year-old market, are content with their surroundings, city officials are hoping to attract a broader audience.

A quarter of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers had three or more outages last year, a rough stretch that included the damaging derecho windstorm and Superstorm Sandy. BGE's annual breakdown of its performance, released by the company Tuesday, attributed nearly half of the 2012 customer outages to those two major storms. But slightly more had other causes, including smaller storms, equipment failure and cars running into poles. BGE attributed 1 in 4 of the outages to equipment problems, a category that could include some failures during bad weather.

Managers of West Baltimore's historic Lexington Market are looking for a consultant to help them plan a multimillion-dollar renovation to transform the market into a regional draw. Lexington Market released the call for consulting services on Monday and expects to pick a firm by September. The 231-year-old market wants a face lift that will make it into a "food destination" attracting a "broad mix" of customers, according to the request for consulting services. Owners want the renovation to make the market better looking inside and out, improve the flow of customers in the building, and for the consultants to give recommendations on whether to promote things like healthy eating.

Dear Whomever is in Charge of Customer Service for DirecTV: All I wanted was to watch the game. I was back in my hotel room after a long day, and I figured, what better way to unwind? Now, the game wasn't available on the hotel channels, but I've got that League Pass service you offer and one of its perks -- supposedly -- is that you can watch the game right on the ol' iPad. So I got out the ol' iPad and I fired up the app and I retrieved the password and I tried to sign in and nothing happened, so I called you guys and the robot lady answered and told me to OPRIMA NUMERO DOS if I wanted to conduct my business in Spanish, which I didn't, so I didn't and I said yes when the robot lady asked if I was a subscriber and I gave her my phone number when she asked for it and then she asked me to tell her what I wanted, and I tried to explain twice but she didn't get it, so I told her I had a question about League Pass and she gave me this long spiel about how I could buy League Pass, which I didn't need to do, since I already had it, so I asked the robot lady to connect me with technical support and she said she would and that's about when she hung up on me, so I called again and I went through the whole thing again and this time I got to a human being who listened to my problem and what I had done to solve it, expressed remorse, then told me to do the same things I had done, which had not worked the first time, and when I did and it didn't work again, this person...

Concerns about utility smart meters are frequently dismissed as tinfoil-hat paranoia. But it's not so easy to dismiss Jonathan Libber. The Baltimore man delivers his arguments against the wireless devices in the calm manner of an attorney. He is, in fact, an attorney - retired from the Environmental Protection Agency, a point he notes when he reminds people of the country's spotty record of figuring out environmental hazards before they're widespread. As the force behind Maryland's smart-meter opposition, Libber is spending the early part of retirement in a way he'd never envisioned.

Driving the back roads that hug the periphery of Maryland's shoreline, there is no singular characteristic that defines the homes. The ones that date back to summer-only retreats are usually one-story clapboard structures with the give-away air conditioning unit in a window or two. Some are two-story, farmhouse styles. Many are built with their backs to the Chesapeake Bay or its tributaries. While many of this style remain, there is a new kind of construction on the block: multistory, year-round homes, with the back of the home boasting sheets of glass in a variety of casements that frame the major attraction: the water.

Southwest Airlines took another step in completing its integration with AirTran, announcing Monday that customers can purchase tickets to all 97 destinations served by the two carriers in a single transaction. The newly connected booking network will handle sales for all flights starting April 14. "With a connected network, we can offer customers more itineraries, more destinations, more low fares," Bob Jordan, chief commercial officer at Southwest Airlines and president of AirTran, said in a statement.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. said Monday that it will hand out 9,000 free trees to customers - first come, first served - to help cut down on energy use. BGE said it has earmarked $300,000 for its new Energy-Saving Trees Program, which is receiving technical support from the Arbor Day Foundation and Davey Institute. BGE said the funds are a donation and do not come from customer fees. Customers can request up to two free trees at http://www.arborday.org/BGE . They must call Miss Utility at 811 before planting, to avoid damaging underground utility infrastructure.

  Annapolitans are loyal, and the city has an impressive list of long-running restaurants. Once a place clicks, it tends to stay. That's not too surprising for a political town. Call it the incumbency effect. In 1986, Jean-Louis Evennou opened the original Cafe Normandie on Main Street in Annapolis. Five years later, he and his wife, Suzanne, moved the restaurant five doors down, where it's been ever since, serving a reasonably priced menu of French cafe classics like escargots, bouef bourguignonne, bouillabaisse and roast duck.

Legislators heard an outpouring of complaints Thursday about smart meters from Maryland utility customers who want to be allowed to opt out without charge. Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and other Maryland utilities are installing the meters — which send wireless data about energy use and allow the companies to pinpoint outages — as part of a nationwide push to jettison analog meters that require in-person reading. Utilities say the new technology will reduce costs and enable customers to better manage their energy use. But here and elsewhere, the shift has kicked off a countermovement of smart-meter foes with concerns about health effects, privacy, the cost of installation and other issues.