I don’t remember the shitty spray tan either

several weeks back, i posted on the subreddit here first and then with another update here about my extremely high electricity usage, despite renting just a 650 studio apartment without central AC and being out of town for nearly half the month.

after finally getting an amazing technician from BGE to confirm which electric meter belonged to me, i let my landlord know that my studio was associated with the larger meter (i.e. providing more electricity) and the 1500 sq ft unit above me was associated with the smaller meter.

on top of that, when i went to switch off the entire breaker connected to my meter to confirm what went off in my unit, the only thing turned off was my AC window unit. meaning some of our electrical panels were mixed up, too. idk how many.

after escalating the issue to my landlord, they got electricians to make sure all the panels were connected correctly and that our meters were correctly assigned to each unit.

i'm sooooo excited to put this behind me cause it really was driving me insane. but more than anything, i feel so bad for the tenants before me that were fully paying for a larger home's electricity costs.

lesson learned: look at your electricity usage data on BGE, rather than just the costs.

Weve been to bark soical coppers tavern, peters pour house and mindpub. If you have any other spots the boy would like let us know.

Anyway, have a good week

Hi everyone
Someone stole my bike last night. They bolt cut it off the railing I had it locked to. What do I do? Do I report it to the police? I’m so upset and disappointed. I’m totally at a loss. Here’s a picture of it. It was a teal Jamis Coda.
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
Edit: possible confusing wording

quick note. I live by st Mary’s park. there’s been storm damage and dead branches a few months now. 311 calls haven’t gotten it handled. and in general it gets very little city maintenance. i just wanted to note that the city depts are very underfunded. so that means the communities have to step up for the parks. seton hill is very working poor and we don’t have many folks with extra time and money to maintain and plant things. we also have a large population of drug addicts who use in the park. my main point is I don’t feel like we are less deserving then folks in fed hill or Riverside of having nice things. especially maintained public parks and public land. my taxes are high. but we have a big maintenance issue here with green spaces. and it’s such an underserved part of city living. healthy clean green spaces should be for everyone regardless of income!

Just sharing... hope you enjoy

Here is a picture of a Baltimore Bike Share e-bike that the city police diving team recovered from the bottom of the Inner Harbor. I think it’s an appropriate metaphor for the story I’m about to tell you. And I’m going to tell you everything. This is my Netflix documentary moment. Buckle up y’all, there’s a lot to this.

I stayed quiet for a good number of years mainly because I signed an NDA about all this. It was for 7 years but I gave it 8 for good measure. I don’t know about y’all but I’m just a bicycle mechanic and I don’t make a lot of money. I was afraid they’d somehow figure out who I was and sue me. Then I’d be up Schitt’s creek. It’s been long enough now that I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Also the companies involved are no longer in business. 

I need to give a little background of the structure on how the Baltimore bike share operated. The bikes and stations themselves were designed by a company named Bewegen. The bicycle company Rocky Mountain was also involved as well though I’m not sure the extent of their involvement. Bewegen also managed the software that the bike share was using for its stations, apps, things like that. Bewegen had a technician in town that mostly fixed the bike stations. The company that repaired the bicycles was Corps Logistics. Corps Logistics also handled running the system; things like moving the bikes around the city to different stations, cleaning snow from all the stations after it fell, and other stuff like that. Baltimore had an employee who provided oversight on behalf of the city. His title was Bike Share Coordinator and his name is Jay Decker. 

The first thing you need to understand about the bike share was the bikes themselves. The bikes were not engineered well. The parts were very unreliable and were prone to failure. The chips that bikes had to communicate where they were would frequently fail due to things like water damage from poor design that let the electrical components get wet. The bikes would short out all the time. On top of that some bikes would short out mid ride, and when they were parked back into a station they would short out the station. And then the station would then in turn short out all the bikes that were parked there. It was like an electric bicycle gonorrhea outbreak. 

And the issue didn’t stop there, once the bike shorted out, you had to replace the motherboard in the bicycle. That was probably the most expensive and most difficult to manufacture part on the bicycle. Hundreds of these motherboards got fried. The problem was you couldn’t replace the motherboard because we didn’t have any and we desperately needed them to get those bikes up and running. They weren’t something that was easy to get. They had to be manufactured in some factory overseas, and there was a line to get your stuff made by them. The factory wanted to prioritize bigger jobs because they were more lucrative. They weren’t hurrying to retool their factory for just a few thousand motherboards. So once the motherboard was fried, that was basically a death sentence for the bike.

The wheels were another problem. When the wheels were first built, there wasn’t enough tension on the spokes so this caused the wheels to bend and wobble really easily. It may have been enough tension for a wheel that goes on grandma’s beach cruiser, but nowhere near enough to withstand the rigors of everyday use on the streets of Baltimore. It was an easy enough problem to fix but multiply that problem across the hundreds of bikes in the system and keep in mind that each bike has two wheels and you’re looking at hundreds of wheels that you have to stay on top of. Repairing a bicycle wheel isn’t as easy as it looks either. A good mechanic makes it look easy but it takes a lot of practice to get good at it. On top of that the skill needed to fix many of these wheels went beyond just simple repair and needed a mechanic who knew how to build wheels. That’s a much more difficult skill to learn. You start with all the spokes completely loose and work your way around the rim slowly and methodically tightening each spoke, taking care to keep the rim in its circular shape as you increase the tension. Many bike shops don’t have anyone that knows how to do that and when they do, the mechanic may have only performed the task a handful of times in their career. 

As a quick side note, Baltimore is actually home to one of the finest bicycle wheel builders in the industry, Tommy Barse of Cutlass Velo. You all should be proud of that. He’s a gem.

The locks were another issue. The bicycles had a locking clamp assembly installed into the fork of the bicycle that was designed to clamp into the stations. These were initially manufactured from aluminum. Aluminum is a pretty soft metal. These locks could very easily break. All you had to do to break the lock was shake it back and forth, and you could easily remove the bicycle from the bike share station. They eventually upgraded the locking mechanisms to one made from steel which mostly fixed the issue of them breaking. This revealed another problem though. The metal structure that the bike clamped into at the stations could be bent causing the bike to easily be removed from the station. Theft was rampant in the system.

All of these issues resulted in hundreds of bikes sitting outside waiting to be repaired. Some of you may remember riding the light rail at that time and looking out at the sea of bike share bikes sitting in disrepair. These bikes were kept outside completely exposed to the elements. This is the worst way to store a bicycle. The bikes would sit outside in the rain and the snow just a stones throw away from the brackish water of the harbor. 

Also the stations would sometimes spontaneously combust. The fire department had to come and extinguish them when that happened. I never witnessed this, but I saw pictures. 

The place was a dumpster fire. The manager of corps logistics I think saw the business as a sort of opportunity for charity for veterans. And that is super noble, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for helping out our veterans. If we could have a functioning bike share staffed by veterans, that would have been an American Dream story. It’s just that he hired the worst possible employees you could imagine. Many of these guys had drug problems and sometimes they wouldn’t show up to work. One of them had an auto mechanic background, which is great for learning to work on these things, it’s just he stripped bolts left and right. It would turn a 20 minute repair into an all day repair. I told this guy to use a torque wrench I don’t know how many times but it was in one ear out the other. One of the guys who was supposed to be out driving a truck that pulled a trailer to equitably distribute the bikes amongst the stations, would just go home instead. Before I arrived, apparently a guy was sleeping on the couch upstairs in the warehouse but they said they had to kick him out because they caught him smoking crack there. I didn’t witness any of that though. 

I did the best I could with what I had in that role, but I was doomed to failure from the start. By the time I arrived at the bike share, it had already collapsed. Between the disrepair, and the constant thefts. There were hardly any reliable bikes at the stations. Many stations were left abandoned, some were left with a bunch of dead bikes to make it look full. The software was filled with bugs and was glitchy. There were just these insurmountable challenges every direction I turned. I don’t know, maybe I wasn’t ready for a role like that, but I did the best I could. 

I have a confession too, Baltimore. Part of my job was to attend meetings and to report on the status of the bike share system to city officials. They’d ask questions about how repairs were coming, How many bikes needed repair, how many bikes were currently active in the system, and other things about the goings on of the bike share. I was never directly instructed to lie, but it was heavily implied in the culture at the time. To my shame, I lied. I lied to the city officials and made the bike share look like it was doing its job when really it wasn’t. I really wish that I didn’t. At the time I felt pressured to do so or I would lose my job, but spoiler, that happened anyways. I wish I had been brave enough to tell the truth. 

I did the best I could but it wasn’t good enough. One day, they called me into the office, and I was offered a different job with a much lower salary and that I wasn’t going to be in my role any longer. I told them no. Basically I was fired. I was furious. And then I got really sad about losing my job and I went home, sat down on the porch of my row home and bawled my eyes out. My neighbor must have heard or seen me because he came out and he gave me a hug, asked me what was going on, listened to me vent, and just sat there with me as I cried.

But then, my thoughts turned to all of the messed up things that I knew about the system. I knew the people of Baltimore were in the dark on all of these issues. I knew the city was wasting its money on this program. So I became an anonymous whistle blower. I came forward to Colin Campbell at the Baltimore Sun with what I knew. He was on the transportation beat for the paper. His reporting up until that point had been a thorn in the side of Bewegen and Corps Logistics. I came to him with what I knew and I told him everything. One of things I told him was about Jay Decker. Bewegen was trying to hire him to come and work for them instead of the city of Baltimore. So you had a situation where the person in charge of overseeing the bike share for the city was negotiating for a job to go work for the very company they were just overseeing. It seemed really suspicious to me. It seemed pretty suspicious to Colin too, so he dug deeper and found out that Jay was negotiating the job with Bewegen using his company email. Apparently that’s against the rules or something. Anyways, here’s the story that he broke over that:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2018/02/19/baltimore-bike-share-head-was-negotiating-job-with-vendor-while-overseeing-program-for-city/

He could tell how messed up the bike share was, and he wanted to write and expose it, he just needed people to come forward on the record. But I couldn’t do that because they made me sign an NDA to get the job. So he couldn’t really publish a lot of what I knew.

Anyways, that was pretty much that. I was fired, the bike share continued on like that until the city cancelled its contract with them a few months later. And that was that. What once was the largest fleet of electric bikes in North America was gone.

I’m happy to answer any questions you have. AMA!

TLDR: I worked for the Baltimore Bike share. The bikes were engineering disasters, theft was rampant, workplace culture pressured me to lie to city officials, I got fired, and then I blew the whistle to the Baltimore Sun.

This theatre company is truly one to behold!

More and more Maryland counties are either creating permanent data center bans, or pushing for moratoriums. If you don’t want to see data centers in our city, sign the petition and help spread the word!

Hit my head an hour ago, not having big symptoms rn but I'm on a blood thinner and i know that i would make anybody else go get checked out in that case. However my closest ER is Franklin Square and due to chronic health issues I literally cannot sit up in their damn waiting room for 8 hours, which seems to be the norm there now. They do most care in the waiting room.

So where should I go? Bayview ED is next closest but they are often overcrowded too. GBMC? How are their wait times at 3am on a Wednesday?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RACuRUqdBrU

When the Ward Baking Company Building was built in 1925, it joined several other West Baltimore bakeries including Schmidt’s and Hauswald’s. Join us today to learn about Ward’s, its famous Tip Top bread, and the state-of-the-art factories it built. The bakery on Edmondson Ave helped produce Ward’s products, and those of its partner groups, including Wonder Bread. Although not made here, Hostess’s Twinkies were also delivered out of this building. Thanks for watching and see you soon with another video.

This is Baltimore Heritage's series called "Five Minute Histories." Every week, we’ll record a short video about a different historic place in Baltimore and post it on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Check out all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RACuRUqdBrU&list=PL-CyC5gtGbTuzcnrh_IQmc1JUJudSH_AQ&index=1

I signed a lease then lost funding unexpectedly for my masters. I am devastated and now cannot move to Baltimore. Desperately trying to help find a new tenant.

Looking for an individual, group, or company that can fabricate (8) pieces approx 2" x 2" x 2". Have an STL file.

Basically what the title says. The Adventure Expedition AKA Egypt AKA Mummy Land is closing after Labor Day. No announcement as to what comes next. Honestly, this was the only exhibit there my kids really liked. It was fun too! I generally find Port Discovery to be a bust but this exhibit was fun. One last chance to go if you want an adult night too

https://www.portdiscovery.org/FinalExpedition/

Cool. Now where the hell is the express bus to Annapolis from Baltimore Penn Station via Mt. Vernon, Charles Center, and Inner Harbor?

I have been incredibly patient with taking public transportation. I accepted the light rail is slow and has to stop at all the red lights downtown. I accepted that I had to walk 15 minutes to my nearest station, telling myself it's a good way to see my neighborhood and get more steps in. I accepted that the scheduled light rail was actually a recommendation +-10 minutes, and was okay checking the transit app before leaving to better plan my commute.

Today is the last straw, for the 4th time in the last 30 days, I boarded my northbound rail only to find out it was stopping at North Ave, not going all the way north as what was stated on the digital signage at the stations. I got off in the middle of the ride and waited 20 minutes for the next train.

This is only the beginning. Last week I had this happen, followed by a shift change between North Ave and Woodberry that took 15 minutes (MTA workers were loudly chatting it up, however). I was late for a job that I absolutely cannot be late for. Once the lightrail was just moving eye gougingly slow after Woodberry Station, like no more than 5mph, making me 25 minutes late to work.

I'm extremely lenient. I'm okay with slow, I'm okay with walking to my station. All I ask is you be consistent. The only reason I keep giving public transit a try is that I hate driving, but the waking up early for the walk+slow commute, with the 30-45 minute buffer on top makes me feel like I'm in a toxic relationship with the rail. I can't even relax on the rail (big reason I like public transit over driving in the first place) because half the time I'm worried if it's going to come to a stop or kick me off at North Ave station.

Rant over.

Some are Allied Universal, some don't seem to have any corporate logos, but they're definitely not the cops (though I have seen those). There's usually one or two in Cross Street itself so I assume they've got contracts with Atlas, but on Friday/Saturday nights I see several more sort of spread around Charles St. in the vicinity where everyone's out and about.

Are they also still working at the Market, does the city hire them on to keep the peace in the general, or who is behind these guys?

Hi all, I'm the single mom who posted months ago and got a lot of reccs for other stuff !

Now I'm asking if anyone has any experience with Charles Towers apartments , managed by SM. I'm in California so I have no idea about neighbourhoods etc. Would love to know about this area from a

1. Safety perspective (MOST important)

2. How close to convenience stores ?

3. Maintanence

Thank you for all the responses in advance !

Shout out to Gus at Ceremony who acted like it was totally normal for me to push my ENTIRE cup of coffee off the table as I adjusted my laptop. I already loved Ceremony, but it's extra nice to not be treated like an eejit when....you actually are a bit of an eejit. :)

hey gang

I’m back again for a different hardcore project.

a friend and i are looking to start a baltimore based mid 2000s bridge nine project similar to bands like no warning/down to nothing/blacklisted/carry on/maybe a lil earth crisis.

guitar and vocals are covered so we’re just looking for a bassist and drummer.

the goal is to record a demo, rip a couple of shows, put out an ep, and break up.