Envelopes

IS THAT A "live" check sitting in your mailbox, missing only your signature to turn it into instant $5,000 to $10,000 cash? Or is it a look-alike check with a much bigger payout number -- from $30,000 up -- that's not a check at all, but instead a come-on for a high interest-rate loan secured by your home?If you've been confused recently by one or more such "checks" peeking through the cellophane windows of envelopes that resemble those used by federal agencies, join the crowd. "Live" checks and look-alike dummy checks are two of the fastest-growing techniques for marketing debt to homeowners, and they're upsetting not only consumers, but some members of Congress as well.

I understand the egos of elected officials, but can't any of them refrain from having their names printed everywhere from envelopes to highway signs? Whatever the name is printed on was not "brought to you by" so-and-so official. Rather, it was paid for by all of the citizens who pay taxes. Save our money and be kinder to the environment by refraining from reprinting everything after each election. Let's put the savings toward increased funding for more important things, such as early childhood education.

Collectors soon will have another Memorial Stadium keepsake.The Oriole Advocates are selling cacheted covers depicting Memorial Stadium that will be canceled with a special postmark for the stadium's final baseball weekend. The envelopes feature a drawing of the stadium by Baltimore artist Martin J. Barry. With three envelope styles and three postmarks available, collectors have a choice of souvenirs.The drawing is in black and white on the No. 6 ($2) and No. 10 ($3) envelopes and in color on the No. 10 ($5)

Miguel De La Cuadra calls his Charles Village garden a work in progress, yet its profusion of color gives the impression of a long-completed work of art. Just three years in the making, the rowhouse garden features raised beds overflowing with lilies, hosta, astilbe and roses. A Japanese maple drapes gracefully over a koi pond. Potted impatiens, petunias and geraniums brighten a privacy fence. De La Cuadra, a human resources generalist, says he aspired to create a garden that blooms with color from spring to fall.

If your family is like mine, your kids talk and dream about being a contestant on their favorite TV game show. You can come close to making their dreams a reality and put your family "in Jeopardy" when you create your own personalized version of the popular game show.To make the game board, cut off the flaps of used envelopes and glue the envelopes in four vertical columns on a sheet of tagboard, leaving enough space at the top of each column for the names of the categories. (Or, pin the envelopes to a large bulletin board, if you have one.)

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke kicked off his latest anti-crime effort last night at a Northwest Baltimore community meeting, where envelopes were distributed in the hope that residents would identify drug dealers and open-air markets in their neighborhoods.The meeting at Pimlico Middle School was the first of nine Schmoke will hold throughout the city this month to talk with residents about their concerns.Issues such as education, zoning and sanitation were touched upon last night, but the focus was on crime, and the distribution of the distinctive envelopes printed with the word "POLICE" in black, block letters and "confidential" underlined in red."

INDIANAPOLIS - The money in the white envelopes bought one cancer patient a beautiful ham. It bought nine disabled children an afternoon of golf and giggles. True, some money may have been squandered on an addict's high. But it did buy an exhausted mother a massage. The $50 in each white envelope spread hope. And it left some people thinking they could make a difference in the world. It started one Sunday when Linda McCoy, pastor of a free-spirited church here called the Garden, preached about kindness - or as she put it, sowing seeds of love.

Baltimore's latest effort to get guns off the street comes in an envelope delivered by the police: Send it back with the name of someone carrying a concealed weapon.And police say that if you tell all you know, they will keep it a secret.It is an unusually aggressive move that Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke says will help rid the city of gun violence and, he hopes, bring the homicide rate down.Police will compile the names, look for the people mentioned most and log them into a computerized tracking system.

Have eight envelopes labeled with the word endings: _an, _at, _in, _ug, _ip, _et, _ig, _ot. Make a set of cards by cutting index cards in half, and write the following words on them: man cat bin dug tip bet big dot fan fat pin hug nip jet pig hot can hat tin mug lip get dig pot tan mat win tug sip pet wig got Give your child six cards to sort out and put into the right envelopes. As your child puts each card in the envelope, he should sound out and say the word. If he doesn't know the word, help by pronouncing the ending, say "-an, now put the sound /m/ in front.

I understand the egos of elected officials, but can't any of them refrain from having their names printed everywhere from envelopes to highway signs? Whatever the name is printed on was not "brought to you by" so-and-so official. Rather, it was paid for by all of the citizens who pay taxes. Save our money and be kinder to the environment by refraining from reprinting everything after each election. Let's put the savings toward increased funding for more important things, such as early childhood education.

They left the Maryland Historical Society tucked inside the coat pockets and notebooks of Barry Landau and his assistant, but the historical documents returned in manila envelopes, neatly packed inside a gray cardboard file box. Authorities continue to reunite more than 10,000 items "of cultural heritage" to museums and libraries along the East Coast that were targeted by Landau and his assistant Jason Savedoff. This month the Maryland Historical Society has received about one-third of 60 documents stolen.

The U.S. Postal Service issued an illustration of a bank swallow by Maryland artist Matt Frey Friday as a stamped envelope, the second in a four-part series of swallows by Frey commissioned by the organization. The bird is the smallest swallow in North America, and adorns the seventh stamped envelope issued by the Post Office this year. A Baltimore native, Frey graduated from Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts with a degree in illustration in 1996. He has done illustrations for Discover Magazine, National Geographic Magazine and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, among others.

Opening the envelope at an awards show is the suspenseful buildup to the announcement of a winner: best picture, top dog, most original costume or whatever. The only winners if the development envelope, Harford County's chief planning tool, is opened are likely to be a few well-positioned developers. It's been 14 years since Harford County expanded the territory it regards as prime for development, and that territory still includes a fairly substantial amount of land prime for building.

Nobody does investigative journalism on TV like Public Television's "Frontline" -- nobody, and that includes "60 Minutes. " And Tuesday night at 9, the venerable series revisits Ft. Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, and the case of anthrax researcher Bruce Ivins who killed himself in 2008 as the FBI zeroed in on him as its prime suspect in the case of deadly envelopes of anthrax sent through the mail. According to this hard-edged report done in partnership with McClatchy Newspapers and Propublica, the FBI did more than zero in. Under tremendous pressure to solve the case that started in 2001 with anthrax mailed to U.S. senators and network anchors, the agency squeezed Ivins hard -- using every trick in the book to get a confession out of him even as he insisted on his innocence to the end. Ivins was a troubled guy with some distinctive kinks, the report acknowledges, but even FBI consultants in the case now admit that the agency overstated its evidence and never found a smoking gun to prove the researcher's guilt.

At the foot of the altar in the cavernous church, six coffins — three of them child-sized and all but one white — lay in a semicircle, surrounded by a forest of flowers. Photographs of the dead sat atop each casket, along with balloons and stuffed toys. Hundreds of mourners packed the pews Wednesday, seeking solace in song and prayer as they remembered six members of a family who perished when their house burst into flames on a frigid night last week. Sobs pierced the hymns and chants.

Manufacturer Oles Envelope Corp. in Baltimore has been bought by a Virginia rival, but will maintain most of the current workers and operations, the companies announced Monday. Double Envelope of Roanoke, Va., closed on its acquisition of Oles, which employs about 115 people, on April 27. The name of the plant will eventually be changed to that of the new company, said John Draper, vice president of sales at Double Envelope. Top management will lose their jobs, but most of the other workers will be retained, Draper said.

As the final eight days of the tax filing season approach, Maryland officials said yesterday that they are expanding assistance to tax procrastinators scrambling to meet the April 15 deadline.To help anxious taxpayers, the revenue administration division of the state Comptroller's Office said it will extend hours for its telephone assistance lines and its 20 taxpayer service offices, and offer free help Saturday."Some people are natural-born procrastinators and they wait until the 11th hour," said James M. Arnie, revenue administration director.

The Baltimore Post Office is issuing a commemorative postmark for this year's 131st Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course. The postmark features an image of the 2006 Preakness logo. Envelopes with the image will be available at the track. The Post Office will open Preakness Station at the race course from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on the second floor of the grandstand. The postmark will be available free for any item with first-class postage. People also can get a postmark by mailing a request - and a self-addressed, stamped envelope for return - to Preakness Station, Main Office Window Services, USPS, 900 E. Fayette St., Baltimore 21233-9715.

Now here's a courting ritual perfect for a big-city mayor: Leave $1,000 in Target and Best Buy gift cards in a plain envelope -- no note, no name -- at her office in City Hall. It might look fishy, especially if the guy dropping off the cards is a big developer doing business with the city. But at her trial Thursday, Sheila Dixon's defense claimed that what looks like corruption was actually romance, with a mad-cap mix-up thrown in. The mix-up is this: Dixon assumed the gift cards delivered to her office in December 2005 were from Ronald Lipscomb, her one-time boyfriend.

The check was almost in the mail, to Florida. The city of Baltimore needed 4.2 million envelopes to send out water bills and asked companies to bid for the job. At the end of April, the city's Board of Estimates picked a Florida company called Cardinal Unijax. But the decision didn't sit well with Mark Jones, a customer service rep from Oles Envelope Corporation, which has been in Northeast Baltimore for almost a century. He offered the envelopes for $101,000. It was $13,000 less than the Florida company's quote, and the lowest of seven bids.