Photo from Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts website

It isn’t really feeling like spring yet. That’s unfortunate. Nonetheless, Baltimore’s spring-like events are moving forward, rain or shine.

The Baltimore Farmers’ Market & Bazaar is opening a month earlier this year, on Sunday. The day starts bright and early at 7 a.m. under the Jones Fall Expressway, and goes until about noon (although some vendors will stay there until they sell most of their produce or goods).

You’ll find all sorts of fruits, vegetables, meats, herbs, flowers, etc.  It was there I once got hooked on wasabi peas, and haven’t since been able to find their equal.

And if you’re too lazy to wake up this Sunday, the market will be there every Sunday until Dec. 18 this year.

For a slightly crazier, hog honkin’ time, the Beer, Bourbon and BBQ Festival is this weekend too. Both Friday night and Saturday afternoon, the event at the Timonium Fairgrounds will have food, music, and unlimited beer and bourbon tastings, complete with food eating contests. Tickets are $25 to $55.

Atomic Books will hold its opening night for “Vinylmore” on Friday at 7:30 p.m. The annual art toy show is free and runs throughout April. Participating artists design, paint and add on sculptural pieces to customize vinyl art toys.

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Another blow has been dealt to Columbia’s village center concept with the closing of Michael’s Pub.

Last call is Tuesday.

Since opening in 1986, Michael’s Pub has carved out a reputation as something of an anomaly in suburbia: a neighborhood bar. I’ve seen this firsthand, having lived in Columbia’s King’s Contrivance village — where Michael’s is located — for more than 10 years. The close proximity to the bar’s cold beer and buffalo wings has served me well, though my waistline might beg to differ.

As first reported by Patch and then the Columbia Flier, owner Shane Curtis said he is closing his doors due to financial strain.

About two dozen employees will lose their jobs at a place regulars describe as similar to “Cheers,” the fictitious TV bar where everybody knows your name.

Michael’s Pub will become a business cautionary tale, about government regulation, ill-timed expansion, the Great Recession and any other factors that may have led to its demise.

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The 24,000-square-foot Shoppes at Gateway Plaza in Columbia has been sold for $3.5 million to Columbia Gateway Plaza LLC.

KLNB Retail Investment Sales brokered the deal, announced Monday, for the property that is 87 percent leased. The Shoppes has a blend of small suburban businesses, including The Columbia Bank and Flavors of India, which is expected to open its second location three this spring, replacing Aida’s Bistro.

Gil Neuman of KLNB Retail Investment Sales represented the seller, Sanford Gateway, LLC, an affiliate of Stanford Properties, LC and Rick Porter, of Goldstone Realty, represented Columbia Gateway Plaza LLC. The sale price was totaled $148 per square foot.

The Shoppes at Gateway Plaza is located in the Columbia Gateway Business Community, the largest suburban office park in the Baltimore-Washington corridor with more than 120 companies and 15,000 employees. KLNB Retail Investment Sales has brokered the sale of four of the last five unanchored retail deals in Columbia.

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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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I once worked with an editor who bristled every year at this time. The reason? Stories about “Cyber Monday.”

It was all marketing hokum, he said. How are the supposed online shopping numbers even verifiable, he’d ask. He questioned running Cyber Monday stories even as every business news competitor with a homepage ran multiple versions throughout the day.

Today, it’s a hot trending topic on Twitter, and a promoted one no less, as well as ubiquitous hashtag (#CyberMonday). The U.S. Attorney General’s Office used the occasion to unveil a sting netting 82 Web domain names for allegedly peddling counterfeit goods. And various reports out Monday are predicting a record 106.9 million Americans shopping online.

Shoppers are taking advantage of one-day deals and free shipping and in the process boosting Cyber Monday sales almost 11 percent over last year.

That prediction comes from Shop.org, part of the National Retail Federation, in tandem with BIGresearch — which conducted the shopper poll — and that’s only fitting.

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The truncated work week didn’t keep The Daily Record’s business reporters from breaking some news in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

Also cracking the weekly top five for the first time is a recent installment in our new series, the Photo of the Day. The picture relates to air travel, hence the business peg, but mostly it’s just a very cool picture. Do check it out.

1. On the Move, 11/26: Northrop Grumman’s Edwards Veihoffer wins women engineers award

Debbie Edwards Veihdeffer, director of work-life integration at Northrop Grumman’s electronic systems sector in Linthicum, recently received the Work-Life Balance Award from the Society of Women Engineers.

She serves as the human resources focal point for three sector-level employee resource groups and is the project leader for two science, technology, engineering and mathematics educational outreach programs for teachers.

2. State suspends debt collection firm’s license

A collection company hired by payday loan firms was suspended by state regulators Monday because the loans were given by unlicensed companies who violated state usury laws.

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It’s been an on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand kind of week for anyone trying to get a handle on the state of our economic health.

It started with word from the Cambridge, Mass.-based National Bureau of Economic Research that the recession — the longest the U.S. had endured since World War II — had ended in June 2009.

Oh, really? As the Associated Press dryly pointed out, Americans are still struggling with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate, meager wage gains, struggling home values and sales, and a foreclosure plague that shows little sign of slowing.

And on that note, there was plenty of real estate news this week — none of it very good. Sales of previously occupied homes crept up in August, but not enough to keep the summer from being the slowest for sales in a decade. New home sales were actually worse in August — the second-slowest pace on record. One economist called it “a pitiful performance.”

On the other hand, home construction is up 25 percent from the bottom in April 2009. But on still another hand, it is 74 percent below the peak in January 2006.

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If you’re a “Sex and the City” fan — or if you’ve just ever set foot in Manhattan — you’ve probably heard of Tasti-D-Lite, the frozen yogurt shop.

Now the New York-based company is opening its first Maryland location as part of its plans to expand to 500 locations in the next five years.

According to a news release, mid-Atlantic franchise owner Ben Pascal wants to open 12 to 15 shops in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia in the next five years and has selected the Park Plaza shopping center in Severna Park for the region’s first Tasti-D. The location will also serve as the local headquarters and operations center.

So far so good, right?

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Bethesda-based Discovery Channel’s Mike Rowe is a man after my own heart. Here’s why:

“Frankly, I’ve never understood the whole notion of jamming yourself into a dressing room with an armful of new styles to find the ‘perfect look,’” said Rowe. “And from what I’ve seen, I’m not alone. The guys I know aren’t going to spend a hundred dollars on a pair of pants with rhinestones and fake stains and zippers to nowhere. And don’t even get me started on jeans with rips and holes already in them. Madness.”

Actually, he’s a man after my archaeologist husband’s heart … I think I’ve literally heard him say the same thing.

Rowe’s quote is from a news release I received today titled “Saving Men From $250 Embellished Jeans.” It’s announcing Lee Jeans’ new advertising campaign featuring the star of Dirty Jobs, a show in which durable jeans are a must-have. Rowe’s idea of the perfect pair of jeans is simple:

“They should last. They should fit. They should fade. They should never cost more than fifty bucks. And they should be blue.”

Rowe is your typical “man’s man” (although I can think of some women, myself included, who also subscribe to the simple shopping school of thought.) Rowe is no frills, straightforward and he abides by the policy that clothes should be durable and worn literally into the ground before they are chucked.

The tactic Lee Jeans is taking is unusual but it’s a smart diversion from other clothing companies that urge you to fill up your closets each season with the latest styles for fear of mass ridicule. The partnership and new ad campaign will include Rowe sharing his perspective on jeans shopping and will feature him in Lee’s new Premium Select, which retail for $42 at Lee.com, Kohl’s, JCPenney and Sears. Ads debut in print, broadcast and online today.

And just to stick it to the fashionistas, Rowe and Lee will be launching a new website, shopphobia.com, where Rowe says “enough is enough – he has Shop Phobia and isn’t going to take it anymore,” the release says.

As much as I love this idea, the business reporter in me is wondering — if Lee Jeans are as durable as they say, how do you get people to come back each season and buy more? Even if you’re appealing to people who have dirty jobs, my husband’s field jeans last him more than one season before he’s forced to buy another pair. Where’s the impetus to keep your customers coming back on a regular basis?

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The news from market research company NPD Group Inc. sure makes Under Armour’s latest earnings report look even better.

According to the Port Washington, N.Y.-based company, the worldwide sports market (apparel and equipment sales) declined 4 percent in the U.S. last year. In Japan, sales declined 5 percent.

Worldwide, the trend is showing a stronger demand for “sports use” products — footwear, equipment, etc. — than “sports style” products. And if you’re watching your spending, that makes sense — you don’t want to give up playing your sport, so replacing necessities like old shoes and equipment is a must. But you can live without the new pair of workout leggings this season.

Lastly, here’s the good news — demand is expected to go up in 2010, NPD says. The group is forecasting a sales increase of 1 percent worldwide.

“We have just ended the 2010 World Cup and we know that from past tournament years this is a key driver of sales in the football market and in turn that will help to push the overall sport market back into positive territory,” Renaud Vaschalde, NPD global sports industry analyst, said in a statement.

The World Cup is certainly a driver for apparel sales, as I wrote about in my retail story, “Soccer means business” in June. And let’s not forget the Winter Olympics held this year too. But what about 2011? With this slow and steady recovery, will 2011 — without a major, worldwide sporting event — look bad in comparison?

Thank goodness for the Summer Olympics in 2012, huh?

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