Easy Access

Krista Young is hanging red velvet bows with gold trim on her fence, readying her corner house on Lydale Avenue in Fullerton for the holidays.With the bows, the lights and other decorations, Young is renewing a tradition in her home that began while she was growing up in the neighborhood.Last August, Young, 30, her husband, William, a technician at a brake shop on Belair Road, and two children moved into the three-bedroom, single-family house, just a few blocks from where she grew up.The 1985 graduate of Overlea High School is trying to show her husband and children, Jessy, 12, and B. J., 1, all the things she grew up with and things she wants them to share.

In baseball, they'll tell you that a loss is not always just a loss. Sometimes you learn things even when you don't come out ahead. While that may be easy to understand in sports, it's a little fuzzier when it comes to a city's population: If you're not growing, then you're losing, right? Well, it's more complicated than that. Although Baltimore's total population has declined in the past 10 years, it was the slowest rate of decline in decades. And, through forward-thinking efforts to establish data-driven measurement systems in the last decade, we have fine-grained data available to learn from these losses - and there is much to be gained from what we know now. While the city as a whole lost population between 2000 and 2010, more than a third of its neighborhoods grew.

How do you design the perfect neighborhood? If you want a blueprint, try Fulton in south-central Howard County. Midway between Baltimore and Washington, Fulton has easy access to highways and new schools. Homes, featuring a variety of prices and styles, grace the country atmosphere. Laura Montague and her husband chose to live in Fulton 10 years ago because of its location. She worked in Baltimore, and he commuted to Washington. They were happy to find a place that had accessibility to both cities and wasn't too built up. "We were more interested in land than a house," Laura said, adding that their home sits on an acre.

Sitting there in an Arapahoe County District Court room with his bright orange-red hair, his eyes downcast and manner withdrawn, James Eagan Holmes didn't have much to say in his first court appearance Monday morning. There was precious little to reveal what could possibly have caused the 24-year-old graduate student in neuroscience to kill a dozen people and wound 58 others in a crowded Colorado movie theater last week, as police allege. There is no rational justification for such behavior, of course, and even knowing whether it was the result of delusion or sickness, madness or uncontrollable rage probably won't produce much comfort for the victims, their families or their fellow Americans.

My long and narrow kitchen is definitely in need of renovation. I'm hoping to create a totally different look: less galley-like and more friendly to both the user and guests. One thing I have got to change is the layout. I do a great deal of walking when preparing a meal, because of the distance between the sink, the cook-top and the pots-and-pans storage unit. Can you suggest a possible design?I can't be too specific in the absence of a dimensioned floor plan. But I can provide you with some general ideas, many of which are illustrated in the photo.

Everything I said, you said "No!" Should we keep on trying or should we go ...? -- from "It's About Time" Rehearsing in the drummer's Clarksville basement Tuesday night -- surrounded by silver insulation and Christmas lawn ornaments -- the boys of Easy Access were all about vertical energy. They bounced on cue like kangaroos in shorts, stole stage moves from Blink 182 and generally mugged shamelessly for the camera, swearing afterward that image is nothing. It's a tried-and-true formula for suburban pop/punk/alternative bands: dress down, act goofy, pledge allegiance to apathy and jump like fleas on stage.

Sitting there in an Arapahoe County District Court room with his bright orange-red hair, his eyes downcast and manner withdrawn, James Eagan Holmes didn't have much to say in his first court appearance Monday morning. There was precious little to reveal what could possibly have caused the 24-year-old graduate student in neuroscience to kill a dozen people and wound 58 others in a crowded Colorado movie theater last week, as police allege. There is no rational justification for such behavior, of course, and even knowing whether it was the result of delusion or sickness, madness or uncontrollable rage probably won't produce much comfort for the victims, their families or their fellow Americans.

Sept. 10, 1781: The heavy artillery and baggage train of the French Count de Rochambeau camped at Indian Spring before traveling south to join American troops at Bush. This encampment gave him easy access to Bald Friar, a well-known ford and ferry on the Susquehanna River. The most southern ford of the river, Bald Friar was part of Robert West's "Maiden's Mount" property, which extended between Peddler's Run and Broad Creek. Rochambeau traveled to Bush via Trappe and Churchville, accounting for just some of the military traffic that passed through Harford County during the Revolutionary War. [Sources: The Complete Guide to Maryland Historic Markers by Joe A. Swisher; Our Harford Heritage by C. Milton Wright; research by Harford County Public Library.

Wendy Roth and Michael Tompane drove 32,000 miles and visited 41 states to research "Easy Access to National Parks: The Sierra Club Guide for People with Disabilities," being published this month by Sierra Club Books.The authors went to 37 national parks, plus national historical parks, monuments and parkways, to research the book, which is designed primarily for people with disabilities, but may also be useful for the elderly and families with small children.The book contains specific information about the accessibility of individual facilities within the parks -- whether a trail is paved, for example, or a restroom can be reached by a visitor using a wheelchair.

This is the year the Preakness got the beer right! At least that’s what infield revelers seem to be saying. Trying to curb alcohol use (or abuse) led to banning the bring-your-own and replacing it with buy-your-own. That ended the parade of beer-filled coolers streaming into the infield, but long lines at beer stands made chugging difficult, even with the bottomless cup.  But Kellie Dickerson, 35, proclaimed this year a success. She came to Baltimore from Virginia Beach, her first Preakness, and said the lines were quick and the beer plentiful.

When Lynn Patterson resolved to lose weight early this year, she took a hormone normally associated with pregnancy, not dieting. The 53-year-old Catonsville nurse went on the hCG diet, named for human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone that is produced naturally in pregnant women and often used in fertility treatments to trigger ovulation. Promoters of the diet say hCG suppresses the appetite, making it easy to stick to a diet of just 500 calories a day. They also say it helps the body burn fat while retaining muscle.

This is the year the Preakness got the beer right! At least that’s what infield revelers seem to be saying. Trying to curb alcohol use (or abuse) led to banning the bring-your-own and replacing it with buy-your-own. That ended the parade of beer-filled coolers streaming into the infield, but long lines at beer stands made chugging difficult, even with the bottomless cup.  But Kellie Dickerson, 35, proclaimed this year a success. She came to Baltimore from Virginia Beach, her first Preakness, and said the lines were quick and the beer plentiful.

A planned waterfront development in Westport is among the five locations eligible for millions in state funds intended to encourage military families relocating to Maryland to settle in high-density communities with easy access to mass transit, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown announced yesterday. The other so-called BRAC zones are around the Odenton and Laurel MARC train stations near Fort Meade, in East Frederick near Fort Detrick, and at a commercial stretch of Prince George's County near Andrews Air Force Base.

Some of the grand jurors investigating allegations of misconduct by Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon have grown tired of the probe and its near-daily media coverage, one grand juror told a Sun reporter last month. The exchange provoked a cringe: grand jurors - or any jurors - are not supposed to expose themselves to news accounts of the cases they are assigned. And it raises a question that goes to the heart of the integrity of the criminal justice system: are jurors routinely violating their oath not to research cases - at home on their computers, in the jury deliberation room on the iPhones, by glancing at news reports - on their own?

My husband and I will be visiting Stockholm, Sweden. Is the city accessible to the disabled? Generally speaking, Stockholm is accessible, from museums and most attractions to many restaurants. But you'll want to avoid parts of Old Town, where streets are cobblestone and many restaurants, in old wine or potato cellars, require walking down stairs. Tina Brannstrom, a spokeswoman for the Stockholm Visitors Board, wrote this in an e-mail: "We have broad sidewalks almost everywhere. The museums are mostly accessible with wheelchairs, like the most popular attractions: the Vasamuseum, Skansen, the Royal Palace (in Old Town)

Kudos to Cynthia Tucker for her column on the tragic state of affairs in this country on gun control ("The bloody results of America's bizarre love affair with guns," Opinion * Commentary, April 9). Ms. Tucker is right: We lack anything resembling a sane policy on guns. I expect The Sun will be inundated with letters making the same tired and flawed arguments about how "guns don't kill people; people do," and that our Second Amendment rights must be protected. And of course people, not weapons, instigate violence.

My husband and I will be visiting Stockholm, Sweden. Is the city accessible to the disabled? Generally speaking, Stockholm is accessible, from museums and most attractions to many restaurants. But you'll want to avoid parts of Old Town, where streets are cobblestone and many restaurants, in old wine or potato cellars, require walking down stairs. Tina Brannstrom, a spokeswoman for the Stockholm Visitors Board, wrote this in an e-mail: "We have broad sidewalks almost everywhere. The museums are mostly accessible with wheelchairs, like the most popular attractions: the Vasamuseum, Skansen, the Royal Palace (in Old Town)

THE MASSACRE in Littleton, Colo., is a national tragedy. It is also a national indictment. It should not be seen as just a high school tragedy or a breakdown in preventive care for two disturbed teen-agers. It is an urgent call to our country for help.The recent episodes of teens and preteens murdering their classmates have sent a message that our nation is in deep trouble. We are a violent society. How many more young lives must be lost before we finally face this?We are all asking: "Why did this have to happen?"

Sept. 10, 1781: The heavy artillery and baggage train of the French Count de Rochambeau camped at Indian Spring before traveling south to join American troops at Bush. This encampment gave him easy access to Bald Friar, a well-known ford and ferry on the Susquehanna River. The most southern ford of the river, Bald Friar was part of Robert West's "Maiden's Mount" property, which extended between Peddler's Run and Broad Creek. Rochambeau traveled to Bush via Trappe and Churchville, accounting for just some of the military traffic that passed through Harford County during the Revolutionary War. [Sources: The Complete Guide to Maryland Historic Markers by Joe A. Swisher; Our Harford Heritage by C. Milton Wright; research by Harford County Public Library.

At first glance, Samantha Tish, 15, who lives in a small town near the Wisconsin border, would seem insulated from drug and alcohol use. She has good grades and a tight group of girlfriends, whose weekend activities run to shopping and watching movies rather than partying. But that doesn't mean that temptation isn't lurking everywhere. "Most parents are clueless," she said. "They have no idea what goes on at parties ... or how drugs and alcohol are everywhere. Their kids are going to do what they want to do."