Maryland Business

This may be one of my favorite posts so far to write. Mostly because I still get giddy over fireworks. The cacophony of fireworks and constant Sousa, popcorn and fried food smells… It’s the best.

We won’t provide an entirely comprehensive list of where you can find fireworks around the state, but here are a few spots to cover the Greater Baltimore area in case you’re in need of a fireworks fix:

Baltimore’s Inner Harbor will make the entire afternoon and evening a big Fourth of July party, starting at noon Monday. Children’s entertainment will start the fun events, including the ever-popular Milkshake Duo (hear your kids screaming yet?) The Pennsylvania Air National Guard Band plays at 4 p.m., followed by the Electric Brigade at 7:30 p.m. Fireworks start at 9:30 p.m.

Annapolis will start its Fourth of July with a parade at 6:30 p.m. on Amos Garrett Blvd. The parade ends in front of the Market House. Get your seats early.

Columbia will fire up the weekend with fireworks at Columbia Lakefront. Entertainment includes live bands on two stages and children’s entertainment.

Baker Park in Frederick is the place to be if you’re around there for the weekend. The 44-acre park is a natural locale for a day that lends itself for family fun. Holiday activities in Frederick include live music, a volleyball tournament, chili cook-off and a “most-patriotic” pageant.

And for you fellow Baltimore County residents, Oregon Ridge Park will have its usual Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Star Spangled Spectacular on Saturday and Sunday this year, starting at 8 p.m. I already hear Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture playing.

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This weekend the weather should be a bit better than last weekend’s, and more suitable for letting the kiddies loose on the lawn for Easter egg hunting.

But if you’re looking for a more fun venue this year, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore is having their Bunny Bonanzoo. Free with zoo admission, children can go egg hunting in the fields of Waterfowl Lake Pavilion near the zoo’s main gate entrance.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., children who find five different eggs will receive Mary Sue candy treats. And if your child isn’t up for egg hunting, the festival also has games, crafts and children’s entertainers, as well as food vendors. The excitement starts Friday and lasts through Sunday.

For some Easter brunches, Langermann’s in Baltimore, The Rumor Mill in Ellicott City and Donna’s in Cross Keys and Columbia have good offerings for that Sunday. (Sorry for the unintentional pun.)

And if you feel pretty (oh so pretty) and want to step out for a night on the town, “West Side Story” will be at the Hippodrome for the weekend and is a good excuse to get out. The musical will run Friday through Sunday at different times, and tickets range from $22 to $77. So check out the Hippodrome’s site for more details.

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As many Baltimoreans who have been trying to place phone calls on Monday would know, it is Passover eve. And many are taking off early to celebrate and to rid their homes of leavened bread for the next eight days.

Interestingly enough, Lenny’s Deli opened in Harborplace in the Pratt Street Pavilion last week, probably to capitalize on the crowd that can’t buy more bread right before the holiday, but still needs a sandwich fix. I bet lots of places have been getting pre-Passover business.

Owner Alan Smith and his father, Lenny Smith, opened the third location after recently celebrating the 25th anniversary of Lenny’s in Owings Mills. The 3,100-square foot space offers much of the corned beef and typical deli sandwich fare served at the other two locations.

So, if you’re not that excited for brisket or figuring out how to substitute matzah for a bowl of cereal, here’s a new alternative for your last leavened meal.

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This weekend, Baltimore will commemorate 150 years since the Pratt Street Riot in 1861.

Friday will kick off with a symposium by the Maryland Historical Society titled, “Land of the Free? The Fate of Civil Liberties in Baltimore in 1861.” It’s free to the public.

Exhibitions at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum and Sports Legends at Historic Camden Station open this weekend focused on President Abraham Lincoln’s arrival to Camden Station and the sites’ significance in the Civil War.

Saturday’s celebration will feature a rededication of President Street Station as a city landmark and events at Fort McHenry that reflect the events of 1861. (Yes, there will be cannon firings.) A grand procession will start at 11 a.m. commemorating the Pratt Street Riot and first bloodshed of the war, complete with fife and drum corps. Events will be going on through the entire weekend, so check out the itinerary online.

While you’re downtown, the Baltimore Convention Center is hopping with the third annual Baltimore Fine Furnishings and Fine Craft Show this weekend. About 50 exhibitors from the mid-Atlantic will show off their best designed and handcrafted furniture, accessories, fine art and crafts.

And! Don’t forget to support your local record store this Saturday, on Record Store Day. The holiday’s website features a list of participating stores in Maryland, of which there are about 20. So go find one near you and pick up a big ten inch record.

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In case St. Patrick’s Day doesn’t have you thoroughly wiped out through the weekend, there are still some things to do around Baltimore. Or maybe you’re just not into the green spirit anyway.

The Second Annual Foodie Experience will be at the Hippodrome Theatre Saturday, starting at 8 p.m. Food Network’s Alton Brown will headline the event, which will have post-show tastings featuring food from local restaurants and caterers. Tickets for the event range from $94 to $250.

And if you’re looking to celebrate any other ethnicity besides that Emerald Isle one, the first annual Baltimore Greek Week will kick off Sunday. Participating counties will celebrate the 190th anniversary of Greek Independence with specials from area restaurants and stores, featured Greek wines, guest speakers, artwork and dance that incorporate the culture. The kick-off event will be hosted at Ikaros Restaurant.

Also, in case you haven’t seen these exhibits yet, check out some art while you’re recovering from St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe go see them again. The Walters Art Museum has a new exhibit on reliquaries, the containers of saints’ remains. The Baltimore Museum of Art’s modern photography exhibit, Seeing Now: Photography Since 1960, has some great pieces from Cindy Sherman, Helmut Newton and Gary Winogrand.

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Foreclosures, holiday shopping and troublesome text messages — these staples of the modern-day news diet dominated the list of the top 5 most-read business stories this week at The Daily Record’s website. There was also a very scary tornado that touched down in Baltimore; luckily, no one was hurt.

1. Former Baltimore Sun editor resigns from UNC over racy text messages

Journalism school Dean Jean Folkerts says she contacted the university’s lawyers after the student’s former boyfriend confronted Monty Cook about the texts.

2. Bank of America making changes in foreclosure process

Among the changes, the legal documents used in the process will each be reviewed by the signer and promptly notarized, said Barbara Desoer, president of the bank’s home loans division.

Read the rest of this entry »

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I will look for just about any reason to insert “snowpocalypse” into a sentence this week.

So for today’s excuse — if you haven’t gotten that Valentine’s Day present yet, now’s probably a good time to hop online and order that trinket for overnight delivery before high winds hand you a power outage. With the area’s malls closed again today because of the blizzard, stores could be a war zone on Friday and Saturday as people rush to escape cabin fever and snatch up some last-minute gifts.

And if you’re thinking you’d like to find something different this year instead of the usual flowers, jewelry or candy, you’re not alone. According to the National Retail Federation, practical gifts are stylish this year, with 14.4 percent of shoppers planning on buying a sweater, winter accessory or another clothing option for their loved one. That’s up from just over 10 percent last Valentine’s Day.

In addition, the NRF says men will spend nearly twice as much as women on the holiday this year ($135 compared with $72), and most shoppers will head for discount stores and department stores. Or in the Mid-Atlantic’s case, that may translate to Target.com or Macys.com.

And even if you’re splurging on shipping to make sure your gift gets here by Saturday, you can still make up for that in savings online. Target’s having a Treasure Hunt Deals sale, visit DealCatcher for hundreds of coupons for flowers or electronics or you can be sneaky at Macys.com and buy something for yourself and receive a Lancome gift set for her (or buy something for him and get the gift set for yourself) AND they’ve thrown in free shipping. Sears is also having an online sale of its MP3 players, cameras and digital picture frames.

So as you watch the snow slowly pile against your windows, be thankful you can still look like a superstar to your significant other while barely lifting a finger. Imagine what a pain snowpocalypse would have been in the days before the Internet!

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It’s that time of year again — when the shopping for others is completed and now it’s time to shop for yourself and spend all those gift certificates you got for the holidays.

According to the National Retail Federation, more than 5 percent of consumers will buy a holiday gift after Dec. 25 and more than 60 percent of Americans will be out shopping for themselves.

The general talk among retail industry watchers is that the discounts won’t be as steep as last year when stores were just dying to get rid of their excess inventory after a dismal holiday shopping season. In 2009, retailers were able to plan ahead for lower demand and weren’t left holding the bag.

But there are still plenty of bargains out there. Word on the street so far from Retail Eye Partners, a New York-based retail consulting company, is that promotions are continuing to drive traffic.

“We found malls to be busier than off-mall stores like Best Buy, Kohl’s, Target, Wal-Mart, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc. as shoppers finally turned their attention to specialty and apparel stores after weeks of looking for bargains and gifts at the off-mall stores,” the company said in a press release.

Macy’s is currently offering 15 percent off all online purchases, JCPenny has a code for 30-70% percent off their items with 99-cent shipping and numerous retailers have slashed their clearance and sales items to even lower prices.

Click on this link from shopping-bargains.com for some of the best sales and clearances going on out there from now through the first week of January.

Happy bargain-hunting!

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How desperate are high-end retailers? They’re so hungry for customers this holiday season, they’re willing to literally give away thousands of dollars to shoppers who buy something from their Web site.

The promotion is called “Mystery Money” — those who are on stores’ e-mail lists are sent a gift card number, but the dollar amount isn’t revealed until online checkout. The gift cards range from $20 to $1,000, and stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdales are sending e-mails to their customers encouraging them to shop online to see what their gift card amount is.

After a couple tries this morning with TDR’s Danielle Ulman, we figured the gift card amounts are based on what you spend — if you pop a $140 make-up cream in your online shopping cart, you’ll get $20 off at checkout. If you spring for a $500 pair of shoes, you’ll get $50 off. In other words, it’s just like a percentage discount coupon…only it sounds nicer.

Bloomingdales is actually a little less mysterious than Saks — their e-mail promotion (which is for Wednesday only) gives you the option to enter your gift card number and see what the amount is before you start shopping. We tried that too…and came up with $20. Good luck finding anything at Bloomingdales remotely close to that amount!

All in all, the promotions reek of desperation. And why not? Macy’s which owns Bloomongdales, lost $35 million last quarter. And aside from the second quarter this year (from May through July), its net income line has been in the red for more than a year.

Saks hasn’t done much better. Saks Inc. made $6.3 million last quarter but that was the first gross profit the company had made in more than a year. It lost more than $59.3 million during the second quarter this year. The company also announced Wednesday it is cutting 116 jobs at its flagship store in New York.

Meanwhile, how is competitor Nordstom doing? Thanks to a boost in online sales and sales at its off-price alter ego, Nordstrom Rack, the company posted a 2.2 increase in year-over-year sales in November and its net income has ranged from $68 million to $105 million over the last year.

Seems like the public has spoken — a $2,000 handbag just isn’t cutting it anymore.

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While clothes and books were the big attractions for in-store shoppers on Black Friday weekend, Cyber Monday — so far — is all about consumer electronics.

I spoke to Graham Jones, vice president, merchant accounts for PriceGrabber.com, midway through the day, and he said online shoppers were already creating a clear trend. GPS devices and Nintendo Wii-related items were overwhelmingly taking up the top slots in sales halfway through the day (on the East Coast).

“The big story in previous years was HD-TVs and plasmas,” said Jones. “They were at the top last year, and now they’re not even in the top 20 this year….People still want to buy electronics, but they don’t want spend as much [as prior years].”

Jones also said more people are buying practical gifts this year, and PriceGrabber is seeing an increase in traffic for home improvement and auto service purchases. PriceGrabber is an online comparison shopping site that tracks its traffic by its referrals to merchants.

“So you have people wanting to gift but to [help the recipient] save money also,” he said.

The online spending typically begins around 9 a.m. Eastern and continues until about 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST, corresponding with the workday. Peaks are typically around lunch hours (between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. EST) and towards the end of the workday (between 4 and 6 p.m. EST), according to PriceGrabber’s statistics.

So fess up…who here’s been shopping at work? And what did you get?
Top products for Cyber Monday as of noon EST
1. Wii Console
2. Apple 8GB iPod touch – Black
3. nuvi 255W Wide-Screen Automotive GPS
4. iPod touch 16GB MP3 Player (Internal Flash Drive, 22 Hours)
5. Wii Fit
6. nuvi 265WT GPS
7. Office 2007 Home and Student (Full Product, PC)
8. Digital Rebel XSI 12MP Black Digital SLR Camera w/ EF-S 18-55mm Kit
9. nuvi 765T GPS
10. D90 SLR Digital Camera Kit
11. Xbox 360 Premium System
12. Apple 8GB iPod nano Blue
13. nuvi 205W GPS
14. Apple 32GB iPod touch – Black
15. Nintendo DS Limited Edition Pokemon Pack

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