Pager

Steven Fink was having lunch one day with a kindred spirit -- another aficionado of the Palm Pilot digital organizer -- when the two men lined up their Palm Pilots side by side. With a click, one Palm Pilot sent an infrared beam to the other, transferring a computer program that would allow Fink to "draw" and save pictures in his Palm Pilot. Now, when people ask about the new sanctuary and auditorium being planned for Temple Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, where Fink is a rabbi, he doesn't have to draw a sketch on a napkin.

A combined 45 years in corporate training has taught Charles A. Shields and Lynsie Hall an important lesson: Leadership seminars are great for learning, but practice is more likely to result in change. So the two experts in corporate training have developed OmniCoach, an e-learning system they hope will help people practice what they've learned, and take the two partners from the basement of a West Friendship home to the boardrooms of prominent companies. But their task will be difficult.

On their February ski vacation to Crested Butte in Colorado, Madeline Bayard and Wendy Black woke one morning to whiteout conditions and a tough decision: Should they waste valuable vacation time waiting for the weather to improve or brave the storm? Emboldened by a pair of $90 palm-size two-way radios that would let them find each other if separated, or even call for help, they decided to strap on their skis. Indeed, later that day the two became separated, and Bayard was uneasy. "It was like skiing in a pillowcase," she said.

Do you think of pagers as "those little buzzing, beeping boxes" that let you know who called?That was your father's pager.Pagers have gone literate. They bring not just phone numbers, but words - lots and lots of words. The new pagers are "alphanumeric," and the words they receive can be dictated to a phone operator or sent as e-mail from most Internet-connected computers. A few of the latest pagers carry voice.Pagers have also gone two-way. Before they could only receive. Now some can also send numbers and words back.

Mixing work with pleasure: It's not just for workaholics anymore. Take Michael Reardon. He looks like your average vacationer, strolling with his wife, Paula, and son, Dutch, down the boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. But wait. What's that black thing stuck to the waist of Michael's Bermuda shorts? It looks as if it could go off at any second. "My wife used to get upset, but I think she understands now," explains Reardon, a purchasing manager with a Philadelphia chemical company.

Harford County sheriff's deputies and Maryland State Police report: Aberdeen John Carl Lewis, 30, of the 200 block of Engle Avenue, was charged Wednesday with failure to comply with a peace order, telephone misuse by making repeat calls and harassment as a course of conduct. A caller in the area of Locust Street reported Sunday someone vandalized a vehicle. A caller in the 800 block of Lynn Lee Drive reported Sunday shots were fired behind the house. Aberdeen police report: Kenneth Guntrhop, 31, of the 4600 block of Valleyview Avenue in Baltimore, was arrested Wednesday on a bench warrant in a case in which he was charged with fourth-degree burglary.

CENTREVILLE -- Inside the 201-year-old Queen Anne's County courthouse, jury duty typically starts with a warm welcome and a hint of the fury that might lie ahead. Potential jurors are told to silence any cell phone or pager."If it goes off," sheriff's Deputy John Kerchner told a group last week, "so will the judge."For years, Queen Anne's Circuit Judge John W. Sause Jr. has been going off -- displaying a temper so quick that the county's public defender says he avoids Sause's courtroom and an assistant prosecutor worries about effects on the judge's health.

Two measures aimed at raising revenue to help close Baltimore's budget gap for next year were introduced to the City Council last night: an increase in storage fee for impounded cars and a tax on cellular telephone and pager service. Councilman Nicholas C. D'Adamo Jr., an East Baltimore Democrat, introduced the measures. His proposed increase of the daily impound fee - from $10 a day to $25 a day - earned significant co-sponsors, including Council President Sheila Dixon. His proposed 12 percent tax on cell phone and pager service does not appear to have much support.

Two former patients of Johns Hopkins gynecologist Dr. Nikita Levy filed lawsuits against him and his former employer Friday over concerns that he might have secretly photographed them, as a victims advocacy group joined lawyers in pressing for more information from an ongoing criminal inquiry. Together, the complaints seek tens of millions of dollars in damages from Levy and Hopkins, with charges including negligence, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

At the beginning of this film-inspired "Glee," we find Will and Emma dancing around all Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers-like to "You're All the World to Me" in old school black and white. But wait...didn't y'all essentially break up? I'm confused. But that's when we find out it's just a dream. In an effort to make himself feel better after Emma left him at the altar, he's been watching old movies, which serves as the inspiration for this week's theme. To be perfectly honest, I'd kind of forgotten that Will was actually in charge of New Directions and not Finn.