Structure

Greg Cantori plans to downsize when he retires. Really, really downsize. His retirement home is 238 square feet — one-tenth the size of the average new American house — and sits in his Anne Arundel County yard. He and wife Renee can hitch it to a truck and take it with them wherever they go. "It's so cheap — that's what's so cool about this," said Cantori, 52, who envisions a surf-and-turf future, alternating between the house and a sailboat. "We bought the house for $19,000.

Maryland officials agreed Wednesday to buy the historic Annapolis post office building from the U.S. Postal Service for use as part of the government complex surrounding the State House. Without dissent, the three-member Board of Public Works agreed to pay $3.2 million for the 13,000-square-foot building on Church Circle. Built in 1901, the structure is listed on the Maryland Historical Trust inventory of historic properties. Under the deal, the state will lease space back to the Postal Service to continue services for eight to 20 months until it relocates.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's call for public hearings to explore the relationship between Constellation Energy Group and its subsidiary, Baltimore Gas and Electric, may strike some as a purely political exercise. After all, it's not as if the genie of deregulation is headed back into the bottle. It's doubtful any new information can be gleaned that will result in the company's breakup or rebates for customers. But BGE's sticker-shocked 1.1 million customers deserve to know more about the utility's relationship with its parent and whether there are steps the Maryland Public Service Commission or General Assembly could take, if not to bring down electricity rates, at least to lessen future rate increases.

Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has proposed to use a substantial portion of stormwater fee revenues - the "rain tax" - to lower the city's overwhelmingly high property tax ("Faceoff over city water fee plan," May 6). The mayor's relentless assaults on city residents in an attempt to generate ever more tax revenue to cover the major cause of its financial problems - namely its expenditure of 20 percent of revenues on retirees - are not even thinly veiled anymore. The city's large tax and fee increases, including speed cameras, trash fees and now the rain tax, have been enacted in an attempt to lower the property tax without a corresponding reduction in city expenditures and are nothing more than a shell game.

The first question most people have when they're considering building an addition to an existing structure is: How will it work; how will it attach to the existing building?The answer, like the old joke, is "very carefully."The care becomes even more important when the new addition is being built on top of a previous addition. In that case, the problem becomes how to securely attach the new structure to the old one at the sides and at the floor/ceiling in a way that distributes the load, or weight, securely.

Baltimore building inspectors condemned the House of Welsh tavern yesterday, which might indefinitely delay opening a $1 million nightclub in the 170-year-old structure. Inspectors determined the building, at Guilford Avenue and Saratoga Street, was not safe, so investors must submit plans for repairing it before work can proceed, said Zack Germroth, spokesman for the department of Housing and Community Development. They must also submit design plans for the nightclub and obtain work permits, Germroth said.

April is a propulsive force in the north. Snow melts and the flotsam of spring appears: a child's mitten in the mud, a soap bubble ring; the lilac bushes bud, a light haze of green shows in the tops of trees. The cry of the lawn mower is heard. Mating begins, females ruffling their tail feathers, young males biting the alpha male in the rump to drive him off. And soon, suddenly, all of nature will open up, leaf out, burgeon, thrive and prosper. And then in the midst of it comes the anniversary of the massacre at Virginia Tech, with "survivors" talking on NPR about their pain and the healing process and how vulnerable they feel and how their lives have been affected.

The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association has appointed a 10-member committee to examine the structure of its football playoffs.But executive secretary Ned Sparks said it is too early to speculate on whether recommendations might include expanding the playoffs from its present eight-team format to 16 in each of the state's four enrollment-based classifications.The committee was charged "to review the MPSSAA football tournament format by examining its structure for equitable, safe and educationally sound competition and make recommendations to the MPSSAA's Board of Control," Sparks said.

Construction workers digging a foundation in an empty lot apparently caused the wall of a neighboring old building to collapse yesterday afternoon, sending brick and splinters of wood onto the intersection of West and Light streets in Federal Hill but injuring no one, city police said. A building inspector condemned the vacant structure and it was immediately demolished -- sending up a cloud of dust that drew a crowd of neighborhood children, and leaving a pile of rubble at a corner where new construction is under way. "It's a shame to see an old building like that go," said Officer Adam Long.

Q: I have a big bust and cannot wear the simple slip dresses. I also find it embarrassing to show too much bust. What do you suggest?A: Forget about the simple slip dress and look for one with a built-in bra. Many designers realize how impractical the basic slip is for most women.In Paris, Emanuel Ungaro explains: "I have always believed in dressing real women, and real women need structure in clothes. Even when I use the most fluid fabrics I add structure. It's concealed, but it's there."

Fire extensively damaged a vacant house on Aberdeen's east side late Friday night, investigators said. The cause of the fire in the two-story, single family house in the first block of East Bel Air Avenue remains under investigation, according to the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office. The fire was reported by a passerby about 11:58 p.m. Sixty firefighters and equipment from the Aberdeen Fire Department, Aberdeen Proving Ground Fire Department and the Susquehanna Hose Company of Havre de Grace brought the fire under control in about 90 minutes, according to a notice of investigation from the Fire Marshal's Office.

M. Faysal Thameen, a retired structural engineer who headed the city's role in the 1980s construction of the Fort McHenry Tunnel, died of cancer April 9 at his home in Millbury, Mass. The former Parkville resident was 75. "He was a quiet force in the Interstate Division," said former Maryland Transportation Secretary William K. Hellmann, who was recently appointed to the state's Transportation Authority board. "He was soft-spoken, knew his business and was the key coordinator with the designers of the Fort McHenry Tunnel, which was then the largest single contract in the history of the Interstate Highway System.

One of Pikesville's most charming and well-loved buildings - a 1937 Art Deco structure fronted by a stately marquee - could soon open its doors to movie patrons for the first time in 30 years. The Baltimore County Council will be asked on April 15 to approve a zoning measure that would allow two 80-seat theaters to be added to what currently is the Pikes Diner on Reisterstown Road. "Even though the Pikes Diner operated as a movie theater for many, many years, for some reason that's not currently one of the permitted uses of that facility," said County Councilwoman Vicki Almond, who has drafted a change to the current zoning classification that would rectify the oversight.

Before it became "The Wall That Ate Some Cars," it was just a stone wall on Mulligans Hill Lane, bracing a 20-foot-high embankment - stalwart as the steep hills that give Ellicott City's historic district much of its character. Then in early September 2011 came the rains of Tropical Storm Lee, and in the dead of night a section of the wall that had stood since before the Civil War collapsed. Six cars parked along the wall were crushed or damaged. Parking spaces vanished under tons of stone quickly trucked in to shore up the embankment.

CA needs to think through the proposed elevated tree canopy walk for the Inner Arbor Plan. The reality is that during construction the contractor will clear cut trees for a 25- to 50-foot right-of-way along the walkway route for construction vehicle access and delivery of materials and for underground utilities (electric power, fire plugs water line, sewer line). Then a 25-foot-wide permanent paved or gravel emergency and maintenance access road will need to be built along the cleared right-of-way.

The rhythmic thud of the drum filled the air of Baltimore's Waverly community, alerting residents that something special was taking place in the neighborhood. The joyous sound of children's laughter and eventual singing reinforced the sense of community organizers envisioned when they planned Sunday's parade and subsequent concert in a 25-foot-by-25-foot translucent bubble. "It's whimsical. When people see it, they want to go in and enjoy it," said Seattle-based conceptual artist Nola Elsewhere, who dreamed up the concept of the bubble that housed the singing and music.

LOS ANGELES -- In the lexicon of lying, there are white lies and bare-faced lies. Facts can be fudged, forged or shaded. There are fibbers, fabricators and feckless fabulists. By whatever clinical term, the truth simply is not in some people. Now scientists have an anatomical inkling why. A new study from the University of Southern California, published in this month's issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, suggests that the talent for compulsive deception is embedded in the structure of the brain itself.

Akron, Ohio Evidence of what is being described as the oldest structure ever found in North America has been discovered in Sharon Township in Medina County, according to David Brose, the chief curator of archaeology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.Results from a carbon-dating study received about two weeks ago placed the remains of the structure at about 10,200 B.C. -- 7,000 years before the pharaohs of Egypt.The inhabitants would have been hunters and gatherers in what Mr. Brose described as a "lush" environment.

For about eight decades, the 258-foot Melvale Gas Holder has towered above northern Baltimore. In seven seconds Sunday morning, the storage tank will be brought to the ground. BGE plans to implode the steel structure, which hasn't been used since 1997. Preparations for the implosion have taken months, and demolition experts have been working at the site near the Jones Falls Expressway and Cold Spring Lane for about four weeks to set up. The implosion will take place as soon after 7 a.m. as possible, BGE officials said.

There are many people wondering why the Republican Party has run campaigns that are not well coordinated, are divisive on some issues and can't seem to get their messages to impact on the American people the way that Democrats do. Here's the real problem: They don't have a well organized structure to hold them together and make things happen. Sure, there are powerful people like the Koch Brothers who push a conservative philosophy, and there are many rich folks who support the Republicans with finances.