Recently in New England Category

No post last night as I was out and about with two blokes from my company's European affiliate. Mark and Simon are from the UK and will be servicing our equipment rather than having European customers shipping their instruments all the way back to the US for service or calibration.

I took them out to one of our local favorite places to eat and then down to Weirs Beach, the center of activity for Motorcycle Week. (It was a bit deserted due to some of the rain that started early yesterday evening. It's also a bit early to see the large crowds, which should start arriving in earnest tomorrow.)

Neither Mark or Simon have been to the US before, so it was a bit eye-opening for them. They've been enjoying themselves immensely, taking particular delight in the food. One thing they find truly different: free refills of their coffee when dining. It just isn't done in Europe!

Deb and I are out and about tonight, going over to one of our favorite eating establishments before heading over to our local concert venue to see Crosby, Stills & Nash. (As both Deb and a friend from work have dubbed it: Crosby, Stills & Nash - The Geriatric Tour.)

It's going to be a great night out!

This is "wicked pissah"*!!



*Translation: Very cool.

I think the English language should have rights, too.

Feminists view our beloved tongue as something to use for their political ends.

I'm not interested. But when I come across a clunky sentence at the end of an editorial in the University of New Hampshire newspaper--on a frivolous topic that's being blown out of proportion because of militant secularism--I can only shake my head, saying, "O tempora! O mores!"

Here it is:

When a student leader gives the pretense of acting on behalf of his/her constituents, he/she needs to actually be doing so.

No post tonight: The New England Patriots are playing the Kansas City Chiefs in Foxborough tonight!

Gee, this is a shocker.

FairPoint Communications is laying off 400 workers across its service areas, with 190 of them in New Hampshire. The company cites decreasing revenues and a decline in customers as its reason for the layoffs.

This is not a surprise to anyone paying even a little attention to the telecommunications industry.

FairPoint's purchase of Verizon's landline operations in northern New England was a disaster from the beginning. The number of landline customers had been declining for some time and Verizon saw an opportunity to divest itself of an operation in a declining market. FairPoint was stupid enough to buy it despite protests from many that it was paying too much for assets that would continue to decline in value. Once FairPoint took over operations from Verizon the problems multiplied, with a loss of 10% of its landline customers in less than 6 months. The continuing hemorrhage of customers and problems with its operations finally forced it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and its delisting on the New York Stock Exchange.

Even after reorganization its customer base continued to decline as competitors like cable companies and cell providers undercut it in price and services. Ironically one of its biggest competitors is Verizon, whose wireless operations were winning over an increasing share of customers.

FairPont isn't the first company to see its landline operations become a money losing operation. And in yet another bit of irony, Verizon has seen its own landline services suffering, prompting it to demand concessions from its union employees. This led to a strike by both the CWA and IBEW against Verizon last month. The unions figured since Verizon was making billions in profits that they were somehow entitled to a share. But it was their wireless and business operations making the profits, neither of which are unionized. The landline operations were shrinking and losing money, and Verizon wasn't about to use profits from other operations to fund higher pay and benefits for their landline workers.

Is it any wonder FairPoint is shedding excess employees as its fortunes decline?

Unlike so many others, I am not going to dwell long on the impending doom that is Hurricane Irene. All day yesterday we saw people getting ready for the coming deluge, stocking up on all kinds of supplies, from bottled water to cans of Dinty Moore Stew to toilet paper and paper towels. At more than one gas station I saw people filling up multiple gas cans (I must assume for their generators) while I made sure we had gas for the chainsaw (far more important, I believe).

One thing that stood out above all the others: folks pulling their boats out of the water all around Lake Winnipesaukee. The boat ramps and marinas were plenty busy getting them out of the water. I saw quite a few 'lines of water' on the roads surrounding the lake. (These lines are usually water draining from the bilges of boats as they're towed down the road by their owners, assuming they remembered to remove their bilge plugs.) At least that's one thing I didn't have to do as The Boat never made it into the water this year. (The renovations are proceeding and I expect it will be in tip-top shape for next year.)

BeezleBub is helping Farmer Andy get his farm ready for the deluge and winds. Somehow I doubt he'll have to show up for work tomorrow as the farm stand won't likely be open and there's no real place for him to work on the farm machinery where he won't get drenched.

Now I'm going to put aside the keyboard and get back to cleaning up the mess from yesterday's debacle. (See my previous "Head For The Hills!" post.)

The Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 to win the Stanley Cup! Woo-hoo!!!

In case those of you out there think we Yankees aren't up to speed on all the new-fangled exercise fads, I'm here to tell you you're wrong. And to prove it, here's Fred Marple to give you a little preview of Yoga for Yankees.

Listening to the local and national media, yet another "monster" snow storm is about to hammer the Northeast.

So what.

They're acting as if this has never happened before, as if it's something new no one here has ever experienced. (It might be if this were happening in July.) But we've had plenty of snowstorms equal to to or even greater than this one, and not all that long ago.

Perhaps we should clue the media in on this one: It's winter. It snows in winter. And up here in New England it snows a lot in the winter.

One thing I will admit is unusual for this coming storm - our operations manager decided our facility will be closed tomorrow (Wednesday) due to the heavy snowfall expected here. That's never happened before.

We've been closed because of the indirect effect of inclement weather (power was out due to a widespread ice storm that knocked out power to over 400,000 in New Hampshire alone) and because of a local power outage that we were told would last most of the day. But we've never been closed because of a snowstorm.

Not that being closed will absolve me of working. I still have a conference call and a web seminar tomorrow. At least I can do both in my pajamas!

The temperature outside The Manse was -17ºF at 6AM this morning. The pipes to the shower, toilet, and sink in the master bathroom were frozen. I didn't get some of them thawed out until 1 this afternoon.

And so ends another New England winter morning.

To hear the media spin it, the Nor'easter that visited New England today was going to be a disaster of epic proportions. But to those of us actually living here in New England it was a normal part of winter.

While I did get up a little earlier than my usual time - about 15 minutes early - I still left at my normal time. Or at least I attempted to.

I took the trusty F150 4X4 and started up The Manse's driveway, but only made it up about a third of the way before I realized I was going to have to do some shoveling. That took about 5 minutes as I only cleared enough to find the strips of sand still covering the driveway from last weekend's snow and made a path for the F150's wheels. After that it was up and out onto our road.

The trip to work was uneventful for the most part. The road conditions weren't great but that wasn't the biggest problem. It was the poor visibility. Along the 4 mile stretch of road that leads to one of the state highways visibility hovered between 100 feet and barely past the hood of the truck. It made for slow going. (At this point we had maybe 4 inches of very dry, fluffy snow.) What would normally be a 15 minute trip lasted 25. But I made it to work without incident.

At 2PM the word came from the lone manager at our lab: Go home.

After 10 minutes cleaning off the trusty F150 and digging out a bit from in front, I was on my way home. At least I had the foresight to call BeezleBub (he had the day off because school was closed) and asked him to fire up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower and clear the driveway. The last thing I wanted to do was slide down the drive way and slide into his Jeep or Twirl Girl's Blazer.

The trip home was another 25 minute drive with nary a vehicle to be seen. On my way home I counted about a half dozen snow plows, two cars and a pickup truck. One of those two cars and the pickup were off the side of the road about a mile and a half from The Manse. I stopped just long enough to see if either of them needed help. After being assured they were both alright and that a tow truck had been called I continued on my way.

When I arrived at the top of our driveway, Twirl Girl was poised on her new snowboard preparing to slide down the semi-cleaned surface. She motioned me to go ahead and I did, pulling into the garage.

I was home.

BeezleBub had cleared enough of the driveway to allow the trusty F150 to get to the garage and no more. Not that I'm complaining since I know we'll have to go out again in a few hours and start all over again once the snow stops.

And so ends another run-of-the-mill Nor'easter, the media hype notwithstanding.

We managed to escape the worst of the so-called "Blizzard of 2010", receiving less than 8" (20cm) of snow here at The Manse. Nearby Laconia received over 12", but I think the disparity can be attributed to the fact that The Manse is located on the western side of a hill which shielded us from the direct onslaught of the storm and reducing our snowfall total somewhat.

Not that the 8" of snow didn't require removal. That meant firing up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower and tackling the job of cleaning up the driveway. The high and gusting winds didn't help things much, making it difficult at times to see what I was doing. After 75 minutes the job was done and Deb would be able to make it out to get to work. (I did insist she take the trusty F150 4x4 if for no other reason I could be reasonably sure she'd be able to make it up the driveway and out to the state road.)

I know I'll have to go out again either sometime tonight (before Deb is due home) or first thing tomorrow morning to clear the snow the winds have drifted back onto the driveway.

And so ends the first 'real' snowstorm of the Winter of 2010-2011.

I'm going to read this to my students on Monday, a delightful speech given by Mark Twain, identifying 136 weathers in one twenty-four-hour period in spring--a time not to be praised, necessitating New Englanders' killing of poets who do so.

The students are heading off Wednesday to Rome for two weeks on a special trip to see members of the order be consecrated priests and meet the Pope. Yippee! No school for me.

We had just been talking about it. Some boys from Louisiana find the "sumptuous variety" (Twain's words) to be annoying. I like it.

Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is only one thing certain about it: you are certain there is going to be plenty of it.

Friday I hiked Mt. Israel between jobs in a T-shirt! One of my favorite hikes, the summit, by pure happenstance, being named for the original farmer who lived near its base, is the precise elevation of Jerusalem. That's cool

The question was only in the timing: How long until FairPoint Communications files for bankruptcy?

Now we know.

FairPoint filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing its $2.7 billion (that's billion with a 'b') debt. It hopes to reduce that debt by $1 billion.

The three states most affected, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, are likely to seek protection as well. New Hampshire has already said it will intervene in the reorganization of FairPoint to protect New Hampshire's interests.

On more than one occasion I and others have warned that the deal that sold Verizon's wireline assets in northern New England to FairPoint was a bad idea. Even the three state's utility regulators had doubts. But the deal went through and now we'll all be paying for it.

Can you hear me now?

How's that $787 billion stimulus workin' for ya? For three New England states it's not helping all that much.

So far the stimulus has saved or created 20 jobs in Connecticut, 28 jobs in Vermont, and 22 jobs in New Hampshire. As Jim Hoft put it "Obama would have done better if he would have opened a McDonalds in each state."

The most I've seen of the billions in stimulus spending so far are the signs along a couple of highways touting that certain projects have been paid for via the ARRA stimulus bill.

At least the sign makers are making a buck from all this stimulus money.

It was the start of a new season of Monday Night Football, with the New England Patriots playing the Buffalo Bills. Surprising to me (but apparently to no one else), both teams were wearing 'vintage' uniforms, with the Pats wearing their old red home game colors with the cream colored helmets bearing 'Pat the Patriot' ready to snap the ball. Talk about a flashback!

The game was a squeaker, with the Patriots pulling ahead with less the 2 minutes left in the game and finally winning it 25-24.

Is it the beginning of the end for FairPoint Communications in northern New England?

Vermont's Department of Public Service is asking for an investigation because FairPoint has been unable to correct problems with customer service and billing issues. The issue is not unique to Vermont as New Hampshire and Maine have also suffered ongoing problems with the beleaguered telecommunications company.

Over the objections of consumer advocacy groups and numerous residents in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, FairPoint Communications bought the wireline assets of Verizon in northern New England. Many, including yours truly, were against the sale because it was a matter of a small rural telephone company with a spotty track record taking on the assets (and problems) of a much larger competitor and paying far too much money for them.

Since the changeover from Verizon's to Fairpoint's system at the beginning of this year, the number of complaints has skyrocketed and the slow bleeding off of wireline customers has turned into a hemorrhage, with many customers dumping their FairPoint landlines in favor of cell phones or VoIP digital phone service from their local cable companies.

FairPoint has tried to answer their critics with campaign ads, while adding an executive position created to solve the ongoing problems with customer service.

That's all well and good, but TV ads and the addition of yet another vice president in and of themselves do not solve the problems. If FairPoint doesn't get its act together it can count on at least one state - Vermont - to invalidate its license to conduct business there, meaning they would no longer be allowed to provide telephone service within Vermont.

This is no surprise.

There's no doubt at this point that Christmas in New England will be a white one. Friday evening into early Saturday morning we got about 8 inches of the dry fluffy stuff, with another 12 inches forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning. The temps have been well below normal for this time of year, meaning the snow we will be getting Sunday will be like that we got Friday, dry and fluffy.

I'm beginning to wonder if we're going to see a repeat of last winter, with one snow storm after another dumping a few inches here and there, but adding up to about a foot of snow each week.

Does anyone want to tell me about global warming again?

I stole the piece below from The Barrister over at Maggie's Farm. It pretty well explains the feelings of a lot of us Yankees up here in New Hampshire, particularly those wishing to maintain the N'Hampsha' way of life, the feeling of community that so many other places have lost and aren't likely to regain any time soon. (Note: The Barrister resides in Connecticut, but the same principals apply there as here. We've both seen seen changes in our respective towns that are not to the betterment of the townsfolk, or the town.)

Unless they happen to be in the tourist trade or the mini-mart business, the Yankee native does not tend to welcome visitors to his corners of the woods. Maybe this applies to all of small-town USA.

You get the feeling that the old families don't welcome out-of-towners, much less furriners. And whenever they see a New York license plate in town, they worry and grumble. I'm sorry, but it's just the way the folks are: "Please respect our space and our ways and we will try to tolerate yours as long as you keep them somewhere else."

City people might term it parochial, but it's actually a strong sense of proprietorship and protectiveness towards something valuable - "Our town."

I guess we like things as they are, or, preferably, as they were. The old-timers still refer to my place as "Peck's farm," even though old Amos Peck, the fourth generation on that land and a member of a founding family of the town, ascended to his reward in 1932 and his kids sold the old chicken and dairy farm to a dairy farmer down the road who was looking to expand his herd. One wonders whether there is a covert message in it: "You don't really belong there - you are just a transient with a mortgage."

It takes two to three generations at minimum, I think, to get past being a newcomer. To be an old family, I'd guess five generations minimum. (That makes sense to me. It is an indication that your family might be committed to the town, and not just passing by the way people often do these days, viewing land as real estate rather than as a place to anchor for your future generations.)

Yes, it's about different views of land and of "place". Ideally, your ancestors would have helped build our simple 1742 Meeting House/Congregational Church, which remains the only place of worship for seven miles.

That pretty well explains how it is up here in New England, and northern New England in particular.

I've lived in small towns where change comes slowly, and then only after lengthy discussions and deliberations. I've always been welcomed in every town I've resided, usually because some of the folks in town already knew me through business or other friends, and because of my reputation as a cheap...uh...frugal fellow, not wanting to spend what the town didn't have, and in some cases, didn't need. I've never been one for change for change's sake. But I've also been a proponent for change when it met the town's needs or saved the town money or made the town government or schools more efficient.

While I knew I'd never be a real 'native' in those towns, I was never seen as a "flatlander", a title that can hang around a resident's neck like the proverbial albatross. No one takes flatlanders seriously, mainly because they bring too damn much of their city foolishness with them, wanting to fiddle with the way things are because they aren't like "back home". That always beggers the question, "If things were so great 'back home', then why the heck did you come here?"

This gets me thinking I'm going to have to repost some of my instructional scribblings about how things are in small town America, particularly around here in northern New England (Well, more New Hampshire and Maine. Vermont has got problems of its own with all the silly New Yorkers moving in.)