Dr. Bear making house calls at Congressional Plaza this holiday season

The doctor is in at Congressional Plaza in Rockville. Dr. Bear has appeared at the shopping center for the holiday season. When you make a donation to Children's Hospital, Dr. Bear lights up, filling passersby with holiday cheer. Text LIGHT25 to 50555 (see photo below to double-check) to donate $10 to Children's Hospital, and light up Dr. Bear.

5.11 tactical gear store opening in Rockville

5.11, a tactical gear retail store aimed at law enforcement professionals and preppers - but now expanding into the outdoor and fitness retail markets, is opening soon at 12212 Rockville Pike. The store will be located next to Men's Wearhouse.

Parent company 5.11 Tactical began as a pants supplier to the FBI training program in 1992. That evolved into a larger retail line of products marketed to the law enforcement community. 5.11 is now broadening its reach into bricks-and-mortar sales with 11 new stores opening nationwide, including this one in Rockville.

Given that another soft-on-crime Montgomery County Council was just elected, despite surging violent crime, 5.11's motto of "Always be ready" may be a timely and appealing one to County residents.

Pour Vino n' Hops opens in Rockville

Pour Vino n' Hops is now open at 42 Maryland Avenue, in the ground floor of the Upton apartments in Rockville Town Center. Try and buy hundreds of hand-selected fine wines from here and around the world, and choose from a selection of local and imported craft beers. They also offer charcuterie and cheese pairings for your selections.

Escapology to open escape room in Rockville

Escape rooms are continuing to pop up around Montgomery County, but Escapology will be the first to open at a new, "town center" development. Pike & Rose will be the first such development to lease to an escape room in the County. Escapology will be located on Old Georgetown Road, next to the NAVA Health & Vitality Center.

Escapology's escape room games will host up to eight players at once. The first game being offered at the Pike & Rose location is Antidote. Set in 2015 in the Nevada desert, the game challenges you and your teammates to find the antidote to a biological weapon virus that has infected everyone inside a secret facility - after a clumsy member of your team accidentally releases it. Locked inside the contaminated facility, you must locate the antidote and escape before the facility self-destructs.

Photos courtesy Escapology

Derwood hit-and-run victim dies

Montgomery County police announced that one of the victims of a suspected hit-and-run collision in Derwood on November 18 has died. Oscar Eduardo Rivas-Macal, 23, of Gaithersburg was thrown from the 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt in which he had been a passenger that night. The car left the roadway and rolled over on an embankment off Muncaster Road. Rivas-Macal died Friday at a local hospital, police revealed over the weekend.

The driver of the Cobalt remains in stable condition. Police are still looking for a dark-colored Ford Mustang, which they believe may have been involved in the accident. However, detectives have released no tag number, model year(s) or other identifying information about the Mustang, making this a needle-in-a-haystack search covering cars from the 1964 to the 2019 model year.

Anyone with information about this accident is asked to call the Collision Reconstruction Unit at 240-773-6620.

GSK Biopharm seeking "best and brightest" for its Rockville expansion

Rockville pharmaceutical manufacturer GSK Biopharm is recruiting new employees for its expanded facility. The firm held an informational reception for potential employees at True Respite Brewery last week. Biotech is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise-moribund Montgomery County economy, and GSK is in the process of a $139 million expansion.

“Working at GSK Rockville has been an extremely rewarding experience for me," GSK Supply Chain Logistics Specialist Andrew Buscemi told BioBuzz, an online publication about the regional biotech industry. "The work we do here is very engaging and truly makes a difference in people’s lives,” said Buscemi, "The opportunity to provide life-changing medicines to people is further enhanced by the people and positive culture here at Rockville.  Site leaders are very purposeful in cultivating a sustainable work-life integration, which is one reason I hope to stay with GSK for a long time to come.”

Prospective employees can fill out a Recruitment Survey form online.

Rockville Town Square Christmas decorations (Photos)

The Christmas tree was lit last Friday at Rockville Town Square. Here are some photos of that, and other holiday lights around the development.