Friday, December 24, 2010

Flat Stanley goes skiing

Finn and I took Flat out for some runs today.

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Saturday, December 18, 2010

Candy cane kid

Those candy canes are so tempting. At 3 and 43. ;)

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Campaign memorabilia

I found some old campaign memorabilia in a box in the attic including this worse-for-wear Wellstone bus replica, that was part of that fated campaign that claimed the Senator's life in a plane crash. Also found a photo of me standing with Laura Bush after an interview in Duluth, for balance sake. I liked both of them as decent people, who believed in their respective causes.

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

Friday, October 29, 2010

Sleeping Polls #megov #mepolitics #harrytruman

I've had this quote by Truman mulling around my brain all day so I wanted to look it up tonight. From the book, "Here's Harry"

Today I wrote a story about the impact of mobile phones on political polls. It's a so-so story but interesting for those wonkish types. All the chatter about polls drudged up a partial quote from Truman this a.m. and I've been curious about the complete statement so went back to the records.

Here's what Harry S. Truman said about political polls in 1948:

"This polls are like sleeping pills designed to lull the voters into sleeping on election day. You might call them, "sleeping polls."

The same doctor I told you about the other night in Pittsburgh -- the Republican candidate -- keeps handing out these sleeping polls, and some people have been taking them. This doctor keeps telling the people, "Don't worry, take a poll and go to sleep."

But most of the people are not being fooled. They know that sleeping polls are bad for the system. They affect the mind. An overdose could be fatal."

 

 

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Saturday, October 2, 2010

Friday, September 10, 2010

Poll on LePage homestead tax issue. #mepolitics

The Kennebec Journal had an interesting story today about homestead exemptions Paul LePage's wife has benefited from. The two states have laws that prohibited people from collecting homestead tax exemptions in multiple states. LePage is the Republican party's candidate for governor in Maine. It's an interesting story and has created a dust-up in some political sectors. I'm curious as to whether people are viewing this as crooked or just a basic and honest bookkeeping error that could happen to anybody.

 

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Monday, August 30, 2010

Tough Mountain Challenge 2010. The rough edit and bad video.

This is my rather bad, but short, video -- about 1 minute long, from the Tough Mountain Challenge at Sunday River. My goal was to shoot more of the obstacles but I got caught up in the spirit of the race and also was too whipped to think about pulling the Flip cam out of the plastic bag I had it in to save it from the mud and the water. Next year a waterproof case or cam with a some kind of headband mounting system. You got to have a goal.

Here's the three stories that we wrote about this race:

The mud, the blood and the beer.

Tough nut to crack; course lives up to its name.

Sunday River's grueling debut obstacle course race draws 197.

 

One by Staff Writer M. Dirk Langeveld who was a half second faster than I.

The winners of this thing, both men and women, were amazingly fit. It was 2.1 mile run but uphill and the 12 obstacles, of which you see about three, on this video, really zapped the energy out of you. Sunday River did an awesome job putting this race on for the first time and it should only get better and bigger over time.

 

 

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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Monday, August 16, 2010

Thorn sighting.

Saw this on my run today. Figured it's a good omen.

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Taylor Pond

The boys and I went to Taylor Pond Yacht Club today. Virtually had the place to ourselves. It was so quiet Kai even took a nap.

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Saturday, August 7, 2010

Borque's Market Lewiston Sirloin. Yum.

This will feed four. At least. Lewiston's most famous steak.

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Thursday, August 5, 2010

Duct tape and carabiners #ducttape #carabiners #adventure #mishaps

I just registered the domain name ducttapecarabiners.com I'm not sure why yet but think it may come in handy, both items usually do on any extraordinary field trip.

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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Kai at Joe's.

This e-mail is a private communication addressed to the intended recipient and no one else. The private and privileged nature of this e-mail is not waived by accidental delivery to the wrong person. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message immediately and do not keep any copies. Thank you.

Sent from my iPhone.

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Friday, July 30, 2010

Fun at the Loaf today. #zipline #skime #sugarloaf

Sugarloaf and Sunday River are opening up their zip lines next weekend. The folks at Sugarloaf gave us a pre-season to ur of the set-up there today. It was great fun and during the late summer and early fall this is going to be a great way to get a kick in the mountains. The resorts are still dialing in the specifics. All and all a lot of fun in the trees. Amber Waterman of the Sun Journal photo staff got this shot of me shooting video...yes that's my tongue wagging. Thanks to Ethan Austin and Jim McCormack at Sugarloaf for their hospitality today. Always fun to get back to the 'loaf for a thrill ride or two. I've had many on that mountain during all four seasons and just a few hours there reminds me of what special place those Western Mountains of Maine are.  

 


 

 

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Monday, July 26, 2010

Fun trip for work.

Staff Photographer Daryn Slover and I had a blast covering the anniversary of the Northern Forest Canoe trail. Here's the video by Slover.

 

 

 

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Friday, July 16, 2010

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

On the balloon ride

This is from the storyland trip. Fun with the boys but sweltering warm.

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Monday, June 28, 2010

That's Finn. Nice job buddy. Finn ran the kid's race during the LADU and he made the shot..

Finn's in the tie-dye t-shirt, everybody had a No. 1. what fun. Our team did pretty good too.   LADU.

Nic shot Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

 

 

 

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Bud Light Lime? Really? Isn't that what veep drinks or one of those brews? Is that sketchy? #uppercheleonproductplacements

I found it only partially amusing that Rolling Stone is quoting McChrystal saying his favorite beer is Bud Lite Lime?

 

That seems only slightly implausible to me but wholly possible. A reporter today said that, in the end may be the general's biggest transgression, saying Bud Lite Lime was his favorite beer? Still, what a product placement that is.  I'm not criticizing the general or the beer but just saying. You know.  It's not what you expect the commandos to be drinking. The other interesting part of the story is Budweiser is now more or less owned by a French or maybe Belgium company -- google it -- again just saying. Odd switcheroo in Afghanistan. In the interim the Brits are in charge, which is probably actually not a wholly bad thing -- I wonder what the British dude's favorite brew is?

 

 

 

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New American gestapo emerges. Talk about scary. #policestate #scary

Should recording public servants, paid with state and federal taxes, at work be made illegal? That's what is occuring in three state's where it is now against the law to record police in the process of making an arrest -- seriously. Here's an interesting story from the perspective of what it means for journalists, but really what it means for the American people is concerning to me. Have we slipped this far?

 

Funny we haven't heard any Tea Party concern about this scary new trend. Also did anybody ever answer the question about where they were when rights of habeaus corpus were being suspended during the previous administration. I can't believe these three states that have adopted this law and would be very concerned to see how the sitting U.S. Supreme Court handles this. Freaky...

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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Appears somebody has some 'splainin' to do. Talk about the hot seat. #afghanwar

News today about General McChrystal's comments to Rolling Stone has Washington in a buzz. Interesting story from the Associated Press on this issue.

 

 

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Friday, June 18, 2010

IPA in a can. Not bad.

This could bode well for Livingston plan for Lewiston craft brewry.

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Monday, June 14, 2010

Lots of federal attention and funding for offshore wind energy R&D #windenergy #maine

This is an interesting visit of an important cabinent-level official to Maine. The visit comes with some serious federal funding to help advance off-shore wind energy in the U.S.

Northeastern U.S. states are also working to streamline siting regulation for federal waters. If we can plop deep-water oil wells in federal waters without too much regulation why not wind energy -- ever here of a wind spill?  Here's the latest Sun Journal and AP report on Chu's visit to Orono.

 

This is a deep-water turbine as it was being installed in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland. (Company file photo)

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Ok the primaries are over but the news hasn't stopped

What a busy day even two days post election and we are "out straight" so to speak. The biggest story of interest for me today was the change in management at Saddleback which appears to be a friendly transition of power.  I find this story interesting, mainly because I'm a skier, but also because I think highly of Cook personally. He's a real Maine leader in both business and charity and a quiet but thoughtful man who has done a lot for the state and the community in Franklin County. Besides that he's a former Marine and a strong supporter of our veterans and an advocate for healthy outdoor activities for kids. The next big story will be what he does next. IMHO.

Saddleback along with Sugarloaf and Sunday River are among our gems here in Maine for skiing -- some of the best skiing in New England and me thinks the U.S. because I'm biased towards Maine but also because all three of these mountains are very family-friendly and all have outstanding Ski Patrols.  :)

 


 

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Saturday, June 5, 2010

Friday, June 4, 2010

Don't ask just watch....#sledgehammer

"I'll be your ....sledge hammer... this is the new stuff... come on, come on, come on ... help me dude..."

 

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Thursday, June 3, 2010

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Wind power from the Gaspe' to Maine. #mepolitics #mewind #greenenergy

We recieved a few messages from folks concerned we hadn't done enough to show the negatives of industrial wind energy in regards to the story of Gaspe' and the update on where Maine was headed. One complaint was the economics of wind energy was fully explored. Sun Journal Staff Writer Kathryn Skelton did an excellent two-part series on this precise issue and several related issues especiall they topic of subsidies for green energy.

You can read Kathryn's stories here and here.

 

Our weekend report on Gaspe' was meant to show a region that has been dealing with a wind energy build out for the last decade and how that region had become known as a leader in the field contrasted with the where Maine was at in it's efforts to carve out a slice of the green-energy pie.

The weekend stories can be found here and here.   I've recieved a good deal of feedback both positive and negative and also some good ideas for other stories in this genre, if you will.  We owe a great thank you to the people of Gaspe who helped us with this story and also the folks within Maine who made themselves so accessible even while many of them were out of state during the interviews.

If you want a quick synopsis of the Gaspe story, Russ Dillingham's excellent video below is a great primer on the Gaspe' experience.

 

 

 

 


  
  

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Friday, May 28, 2010

Would you call this a fence or a wall? #politics #palin

Don't fence me in -- yikes.

 

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Signs continue to multiply

It's so riddiculous in on spot a Poloquin sign is sandwiched between a LePage sign on one side and a McGowan on the other, popping above it is a Rosa sign. Oh which party, which candidate?

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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

This footage is pretty scenic at times.

Did you know that in french, we don't say Gaspe Coast, but Gaspésie?

 

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