Q: What do you get when a rock crosses with didymo?

A: Rock snot.

As I learned from covering the algae story in Monday’s paper, scientists came up with this clever nickname for the dribbles of goo that cover river rocks and bugs. And after seeing pictures of it, yeah, didymo looks like snot.

Apparently the stuff is most problematic for fishing lures and bait — it covers your line with foot-and-a-half long rat tails, said Jason DuPont, a guide on the Gunpowder River. So you can imagine that must do wonders for fishing.

But it starts to grow like peach fuzz in the fall, DuPont said, and practically doubles in size over the winter. Until spring, the goop will be at its fullest bloom, if you want to catch some pretty views of rock snot.

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Late Thursday, The Daily Record broke the story that Penn National may sell its stake in the Maryland Jockey Club. This week also saw the ribbon cutting for the Inter-County Connector toll road, that officials hope will help decongest traffic. Those stories and more in this week’s top 5 staff business stories:

1. Penn National considering selling jockey club stake – by Rachel Bernstein

Penn National Gaming Inc. is considering selling its stake in the Maryland Jockey Club, including its ownership of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park.

D. Eric Schippers, a spokesman for Penn National, said in an e-mail Thursday that the company is exploring the option of selling and believes the jockey club’s interests “may be better served by a single entity ownership structure given the complexities and dynamics of any 50/50 partnership.”

2. $2.6B ICC hailed as catalyst for commerce – by Nicholas Sohr

The decades-long wait for the Inter-County Connector will end Wednesday when drivers get their first crack at the new toll road snaking through Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.

At a rain-soaked ribbon-cutting event in the westbound lanes Monday morning, local, state and federal officials lauded the $2.6 billion highway project as a catalyst for economic development in the area and a decongestant for its roads.

3. Under Armour sues Canadian firm over logo, color use – by Rachel Bernstein

Under Armour is suing a Canadian company, claiming it is using similar logos, name derivatives and corporate colors.

The Baltimore sportswear maker filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, charging that Armorline Marketing International Inc., of Langley, British Columbia, sells footwear products with branding that imitates Under Armour’s.

4. First Mariner gets 6 more months to get share price above $1 – by Ben Mook

First Mariner Bancorp, parent company of 1st Mariner Bank, has received a six-month extension to get its stock price above $1 per share after receiving approval to move trading to a new market.

On Feb. 18, the Nasdaq Stock Market told First Mariner it agreed with its request to transfer the listing of its common stock to the Nasdaq Capital Market, which until 2005 was called the NASDAQ SmallCap Market. The transfer took effect at the start of trading on Wednesday.

5. City Hall task force debates developers’ subsidies – by Melody Simmons

A city task force examining the need for public subsidies to developers debated whether to hold businesses more accountable for those tax breaks through audits and increased transparency during a heated meeting Tuesday.

The task force, formed by City Councilman Carl Stokes, is expected to issue a report with recommendations late next month, said co-chair Wendy Blair, president of W.L. Blair Development Co.

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A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the “art” of posting to Facebook and Twitter, from the perspective of an organization that is trying to reach out and share information with readers, users or consumers.

At The Daily Record, we blast out breaking news posts on Facebook and Twitter, as well as other news we hope readers will find interesting enough to click on and engage with.

But every once in a while, we also use our social media sites to send out a marketing message or two, such as:

“Purchase tickets for the 2011 Health Care Heroes Breakfast on March 23 at the Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor. More info: http://bit.ly/dEZ7ef”

This is necessary, because we have to promote our events and our paid subscription options through different media in order to reach as much of our audience as possible. But at the same time, we know that most of our Facebook “likes” and Twitter followers did not sign up for promotions. They signed up to receive semi-frequent news updates.

The downside to this double-edged sword is the ease with which a user can “unlike” or “unfollow” your page.

On Jay Baer’s “Convince & Convert” social media blog, he recently wrote a post called “Why You’re Pissing Off Half Your Facebook Fans.” He reports the findings of new research on why consumers “turn their backs on social and e-mail connections with brands.”

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Pam Haner’s a big spender. Mostly for other people, though.

I caught up with Haner while she was on a thrift store shopping trip Tuesday to talk about her fledgling vintage boutique, Salome Vintage, which is online only.  Haner and co-owner Erin Fitzgibbons started the store three months ago, and have spent much of that time working out the kinks and bugs of starting an online store without any formal Web training.

But neither are new to the Baltimore fashion scene. Haner has been organizing local runway shows for years; Fitzgibbons worked for lifestyle company Pedx.

Haner took some time to tell me what goes into making an online store happen, even with limited resources in the beginning.

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The transformation of a former convent in Fells Point has led to two things – a newly renovated Cristo Rey Jesuit High School and an award of excellence for Mullan Contracting Co. for its construction.

Mullan received the award this month from the Baltimore chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors for work at the school, located at 420 S. Chester St.

Renovations totaled $7.4 million and included the overhaul of the former Holy Rosary convent as well as installation of an elevator system and a three-story breezeway to connect the existing school building to the former convent.

Cristo Rey now has updated classrooms, a computer lab and library for its students, who come from some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods to study under a thorough college prep curriculum. Students also work in part-time jobs in the community, and employers pay the school directly, which funds their tuition as part of the school’s unique model.

The school has an enrollment of 320.

Mullen was founded in 1904 as a general contracting firm that specializes in commercial office, retail, hospitality, healthcare and institutional industries.

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There’s a new Ray-Ray in town.

It’s a baby addra gazelle at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. The calf was born Feb. 5 (a day before the Superbowl), and weighed 11 lbs, 6 oz. at birth. Zoo folks named the calf “Ray-Ray” after Ravens players Ray Lewis and Ray Rice. Cute, right?

“When deciding what his name should be, Zoo staff thought of the Ravens,” Don Hutchinson, CEO of the Zoo, said in a statement. “Ray Lewis epitomizes the strength of the gazelle and Ray Rice the speed. Naming him Ray-Ray seemed a fitting tribute.”

Wonder what the Zoo’s ravens think of that one.

Also interesting is that his mother, Pearl, is 11 years old while the father, Makuru, is 4 years old. Pearl didn’t take to her calf after birth, so Zoo employees are hand-rearing little Ray-Ray.

The early intervention was important to Ray-Ray’s health, especially since addra gazelles are an endangered species. They typically live in Africa’s Sahara Desert region, and Ray-Ray’s birth is part of a nation-wide plan to breed more of these gazelles in zoos .

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Max’s Belgian Beer Festival starts Friday.

For three days, the bar will serve some 165 drafts, and 190 different bottles of Belgian and Belgian-style beers. It’s the seventh year for the festival, and has come a long way for Casey Hard, the sole hand-picker of Belgian beers. I spoke with Casey this morning about what he’s expecting for another year of the burgeoning festival and how he picks out those beers to debut in the U.S.

How did the festival start out seven years ago?

Hard: It was a lot smaller than it is now. It was maybe 40 or 50 drafts. Maybe 100 bottles. And it’s become extremely a lot bigger. It’s kind of taken on a life of its own, an extremely huge event. We’re proud that a lot of stuff debuts for the first time in the U.S. at this event.

Where did you first get the idea?

Hard: A couple years ago the Belgian beers had been getting extremely popular in the U.S. More and more breweries are getting into the U.S. But we first had this Belgian beer dinner, and we got a huge response. I got a lot of e-mails saying, “You guys should do this again.” So we decided to take it from the small size of a beer dinner to a three full-day festival. Belgian beers have a huge following unlike other beers. It’s just one of those styles from crosses all lines, from the Miller Lite drinker to the connoisseur.

How do you go about picking out the Belgian beers to bring to the U.S.?

Hard: I always looks for new stuff, I look to talk to brewers. I get help from importers, and I’ve made contacts with a lot of these people over the past seven years while I’ve been there. I also attend a lot of beer festivals while I’m over there, and that gives me an idea about who to contact. In a week and a half after this ends, I’ll be going to Belgium for next year’s festival.

What’s the most difficult aspect of picking out the beers?

Hard: Language barrier is one. I don’t speak French or Dutch. And it’s a busy time for them. I’m very fortunate they take the time out for me to talk with them. When I go out there, a lot of times I go in blind and see what happens. A lot of these brewers are interested in selling their beers in the U.S. They get really excited when people come over and talk about bringing beer into the U.S.

What Belgian beers are you most excited about at this year’s festival?

Hard: I’m really excited about two cult brewers going on there right now: Alvinne and De Struise. I’m really happy we have at least 10 beers from each one of those breweries on draft. And we’re actually going to debut a beer, a Max’s beer, Belgian-style made for us by Stillwater Ales.

What are you expecting tomorrow and the weekend to be like?

Hard: Turnout is always huge. It’s bigger than Fells Point Festival for us. There’s always a line around. We have on Friday morning 200 people waiting to get in. Same thing on Saturday and Sunday.

Have you had to hire extra help?

It’s a long 18-hour day for all the bartenders. We usually do about four or five bartenders on a weekend, and we’ll have six to seven behind the bar for the festival. We’ll open all three bars from 11 a.m., which we don’t usually open until later in the night.

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Responding to a rising chorus of complaints about rush-hour crowding and service breakdowns on the MARC Penn Line, the Maryland Transit Administration unveiled a plan to group the trains into six- and seven-car sets — compared with six, eight or nine cars — and run them more often.

The result would be about 1,000 additional seats per rush hour, MTA officials said. And given the negative fallout from the “hell train” incident last summer — when a Penn Line train broke down en route to Baltimore, trapping about 1,200 passengers aboard MARC 538 as temperatures approached 90 degrees — you could see where the MTA would be anxious to get the word out.

An e-mail hit my inbox Monday at 9:41 a.m. about a “significant Penn Line schedule change” effective March 14, pending approval by the Maryland Board of Public Works. At 10:09 a.m., I got another e-mail — this one about the MTA website “operating very slowly or not responding at all” thanks to heavy traffic to the site sparked by the Penn Line announcement.

Sure enough, #marcfail tweets filled Twitter in short order. “#MARCfail = not making prior arrangement for extra server capacity for the @MTAmaryland website prior to a major schedule change email,” wrote @insidecharmcity, a persistent MARC critic.

A tweet by @mtamaryland at 10:16 a.m. informed followers — and @insidecharmcity specifically — that the site was back up and running.

Sometimes the Maryland Transit Administration must feel like it can’t catch a break.

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