Recently in New Hampshire Category

I think Mondays or Tuesdays are going to become the official "Pull Something From The Archives" day here at Weekend Pundit. It makes it easier for me to make the transition from weekend mode to work day mode.

From March 2004 comes this gem, yet another in a series about recreating or living up here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. I have made a few edits (I removed a part about the exact change lanes at the toll booths as for the most part they've gone the way of the dodo, replaced with the EZ-Pass system), and removed references to some other no longer existing websites or blogs.

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I realize I've been remiss in regaling you with (mostly) true stories and northern New England wisdom, the kinds of things that will help visitors (or those thinking of moving here) survive...er...enjoy their time here.

One thing that new residents and visitors seem to have a difficulty with is time. Not telling time so much as understanding that time moves at a different pace up here. While California is often seen as the capitol of 'laid back' it was actually invented here. The old saying "The hurrier I go the behinder I get" pretty well describes how we don't do things around here.

For instance I've seen too many people up here on vacation trying to jam in a month's worth of recreating into one or two weeks. They go home more exhausted than when they arrived and then they need time off to recuperate before they go back to work. It kinda defeats the purpose of coming up here.

Folks have got to learn to slow down a bit. Not so much to the point that mañana becomes the theme of their stay, but more like not trying to do too much in a single day. No one needs to go skiing, sledding, snowmobiling, shopping, and ice skating all before lunch. Nor is it necessary to go swimming, boating, water-skiing, jet-skiing, and playing video games at the arcades all between lunch and dinner. It's OK to kick back, sit on a lawn chair in the shade and read a good book or watch other folks recreating hard or even lie back and do nothing at all. Heck, folks are even allowed to take a nap any time they want. It's not like we're going to tell on you if that's what you want to do. Take a walk. Take a hike. Ride a bike. Go to a movie, maybe even a drive-in! Stop at a roadside ice cream stand and indulge yourself and your family. But for cryin' out loud, don't try to do it all at once. All anyone trying to do that will do nothing but tucker themselves out.

For those moving here to live rather than to recreate, some of the same advice applies. Also. don't over-schedule things, particularly your kids' extracurricular activities. They don't need to play soccer, football, basketball, field hockey, ice hockey, golf, run track, cross-country ski, etc. in order to be 'complete'. Allow them some time to be just kids, to hang out and play with their friends. And whatever you do don't fall into the habit of 'play dates'. Save that crap for the city. You didn't move here just to do exactly the same things you moved from the city to get away from, did you? If you did, then why did you bother to move up this way in the first place?

Next, something near and dear to my heart - driving.

One thing that visitors and new residents learn the hard way is that the posted speed limits are pretty well enforced on the smaller highways and town roads. The police seem to give more leeway on the Interstates, but even that is subject to change without notice. While there are stretches of road that appear to have an artificially low speed limit, it's usually because there are farm or logging operations going on somewhere along that road. So the speeds are kept down in order to make it easier for the farmers and logging truck drivers to pull out onto the road. Farm tractors don't move very quickly and fully loaded logging trucks take a while to get up to speed. Give them time and space to do so. It's the courteous thing to do, something that we take quite serious around here.

Another thing - that doodad on the left side of your steering wheel is called a turn signal. Learn how to use it, and use it before you actually make a turn rather than after in order to show us what it is you just did (I believe that's something endemic to the People's Republic of Massachusetts because it's mostly folks in cars with Massachusetts plates that pull that little stunt).

One thing that a lot of folks from away have a tough time getting used to is stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks. Cityfolk might not think it's all that important, but around here the pedestrians have the right of way. That, and you must also remember that some of them carry guns. So be polite and stop for those crossing the street, even if they aren't in a crosswalk.

Okay, that takes care of the driving part of this post. Let's move on.

One thing that we really like up here in northern New England is the scenic beauty that surrounds us. We try hard to keep it clean for both visitors and the folks living here. All that we ask is that you do your part, too. In other words, clean up after yourselves. Trash belongs in a trash barrel, not along the side of a road or a hiking trail, and certainly not in the rivers, lakes, or streams. While we enjoy the fact that tourists like to come here, enjoy our scenery, partake of the various recreation opportunities, for the most part we are not your servants and we don't take kindly to people trashing our home.

I'll close out this post with a quote from Weirs Times columnist Lorrie Baird that explains a very important concept that visitors must understand:

Only the people who live here and pay taxes have earned the right to complain about local services - which is almost a sport around here.

Indeed.

This post comes from the Weekend Pundit archives, in this case back in October 2002. I have made a few minor edits, mostly grammatic, though one change was more along the lines of "this sounds awkward so I'll change these three words." The post below was actually part of a much larger post covering a number of topics, a precursor to my regular Thoughts On A Sunday posts.

This one was near and dear to my heart, dealing with seasonal visitors opining how great it would be to "live out in the country." The problem is that quite often they don't have a clue what that entails.

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Have any of you urban or suburban dwellers out there have ever wondered what it would be like to live out in the country? I hear this quite often from visitors to this state. Usually it's from someone spending a week or two of their vacation time at the lakes, up in the mountains, at some campground in one of the many forests, or at one of the ski resorts. All they've seen or experienced of New Hampshire (or Vermont, Maine, or upstate New York) in the limited time they're here is what is aimed at the tourist trade.

Many have no concept what it means to live someplace where pizza parlors and Chinese restaurants don't deliver; where the nearest convenience store might be 20 miles away down a dirt road; where winters can be harsh and deadly; and where you haul your own trash to the dump. There are no Starbucks, Taco Bells, or tofu burgers. The closest thing to a Sak's Fifth Avenue is the L.L. Bean outlet store in one of the shopping meccas in the heart of tourist country.

Most have never experienced cabin fever after being stuck inside for a week or more because of the brutally cold temperatures and heavy snowfalls in the winter. The same can also be said of mid-spring - the black flies are out in force making any time spent outside uncomfortable to an extreme.

Few are cut out for small town life, where everybody knows your business. For some of us hardy Yankees, it's no big thing. But for others it can be quite trying. Up here, neighbors watch out for neighbors, even if that neighbor lives on the other side of town.

Some people have trouble with the concept of town meeting, where the residents of the town gather once a year to decide how the town will or will not spend their tax dollars. It can be a very personal thing, town meeting. Though it is local government at its best, people also have to contend with egos, feuds, and the ubiquitous anti-flatlander mentality. Most new folks make the almost fatal mistake their first time speaking at town meeting by starting their remarks with, "Back where I come from....". Most folks at town meeting could care less about where you come from or what you did there, unless you're going to use the reference to show how something the town is thinking of doing is a bad idea. Then they might let you get away with it. Maybe.

Something many others moving to the country end up learning the hard way is this: Never piss off the Town Clerk, the Road Agent, or the Police Chief (assuming the town actually has a police department). Getting on their bad side can make living in a small town an extremely uncomfortable and frustrating experience.

One thing anyone wanting to move out to the country will have to get used to is guns. Lot's of folks around here own guns for hunting, protection, or just plain plinking. By association, they'll also have to get used to the various hunting seasons. Getting all misty-eyed about the Big Bad Hunters out stalking Bambi so they can carve him in to venison steaks will earn you no points up here. It's more likely to get you talked about.

And one other thing: You are expected to take responsibility for your own actions. It's not 'society's fault'. It's not because your mother didn't breastfeed you. It's not because you ate too many Twinkies. That kind of pseudo-psychological BS won't fly out here in the sticks. Folks out in the country don't have time for it. We're too busy making a living, raising our kids, working on our homes, and paying our taxes.

If all of that sounds appealing to you, then we'll welcome you with open arms. Otherwise, don't even think of moving to any place like this. You'll hate it.

It's a teaching moment, as legal Second Amendment scholar Evan Nappen relates, on a man in Newton being ignored after filing the paperwork to carry a sidearm concealed.

It also enables a NH resident to have a loaded firearm in one's vehicle while driving.

The law is black and white which, for whatever reason, the police chief violated.

Nine states are 'may-issue.' which means the courts would tend to side with the discretion of the state issuing authority. A state is not good if it's shall issue. (Story below the fold.)

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.

Ice Out was declared on Lake Winnipesaukee this morning, the earliest Ice Out since records have been kept starting in 1887. The previous early Ice Out was March 24th, 2010 and March 28th, 1921. The latest Ice Out was May 12th, 1888. The latest Ice out recently was May 2nd, 2001.

Ice Out is defined as when the ice that has covered Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire since December or January has melted enough that the M/S Mount Washington cruise ship can make all five of its ports of call, those being Alton Bay, Center Harbor, Meredith, Weirs Beach, and Wolfeboro.

Town meetings have been in full swing since late last week here in New Hampshire. Many take place this week, this coming weekend, and next week.

It is American democracy writ small.

My little town had its town elections today, where our townspeople elected some town officials, voted on the the town and school budgets, and approved or disapproved various warrant articles that dealt with everything from buying a new fire truck to funding some non-governmental agencies to changing how the town sets up default budgets to imposing a property tax cap.

This election has probably garnered more voter attention than some I've seen in the past. I had to wait in line for a voting booth to open up, as did a number of other townsfolk. When I voted (just after work) over 1400 ballots had already been cast and there was still a couple of hours left until the polls closed. The parking lot outside our middle school, the town's polling place, was rapidly filling up as I left after voting.

It will be interesting to see which warrant articles passed and those that didn't.

One last thing -

As the saying goes here, "If you didn't vote at town meeting, then you have no right to complain about how things turned out."

Just sayin'....

By way of Facebook comes this photo which I believe correctly illustrates what many people think of my home state.


Click on picture for larger image

It's town meeting season in New Hampshire, with many towns holding their town and school district meetings over the next 6 weeks or so. (It depends upon the town calendars and whether they hold traditional town meetings or what are called SB2 town meetings. More on that later.)

Ours started at 7PM last night. There were 29 warrant articles to discuss, mull over, and/or amend. While not the largest number of warrants articles we've seen, it was still a goodly number.

We finished at after 11PM.

I wish I could say the voters spent the 4+ hours going over each article in detail, showing due diligence and carefully shepherding our constitutional obligations. But I can't.

Instead, almost 2 hours was spent on what I must derisively call "How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin" triviality. The lost 2 hours dealt with only three of the articles, and two of those were moot.

One article dealt with the purchase of a new fire truck. That topic in and of itself was no trivial matter. Instead, it was an amendment to the article that, when broken down, didn't do anything any differently than the original, merely changed some language. The proposed language would not change the process or the amount of money spent, nor would it change the plans of the Fire Department in any way shape or form. Yet we spent almost an hour debating an amendment (as well as a follow on amendment) that, in the end, was defeated.

Then there were two petition warrant articles. (Any registered voter in town can get an article placed on the warrant through petition. All that's required are enough signatures of other registered voters on the petition to have it added.)

The two petitions, while they may have had the best interest of the taxpayers at heart, were horribly flawed. Both violated the constitutional separation of powers, laid out in both the US and New Hampshire constitutions. (The articles dealt with personnel policies, something exclusively the purview of the executive branch, in this case meaning our Board of Selectmen.) This meant that at best they were advisory articles and could not be enforced. These two articles were debated and amended ad nauseum. It surprised me how much time and effort went into debating two meaningless warrant articles. You'd have thought this kind of effort would have gone into debating portions of the budget, something that has a direct effect on all the taxpayers in town. But no, all of this energy and emotion went towards something that was trivial.

I wish I could say this was an unusual case, but in all my years of going to town meetings in the towns in which I have resided, I have seen this kind of scenario played out again and again.

Welcome to Town Meeting!

Tonight is our School District Meeting, where we will do the same thing, but this time dealing with our school system and how much we will spend to support it. Hopefully we won't be dealing with the trivialities seen at town meeting...but I'm not holding my breath.

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There are two forms of town meetings in New Hampshire - the traditional "everyone shows up and votes on the warrant articles" town meetings, and SB2 town meetings. (SB2 means Senate Bill 2, the legislation that created this alternative form of town meeting.)

In SB2 towns there are actually two different town meeting sessions. The first is called the deliberative session, where voters will meet to go over the articles in the town warrant. They can approve them for inclusion on the town warrant as written, or amend them and then approve them for inclusion. But they can't vote them up or down until the second session.

The second session is Election Day, generally a month later. Voters will elect their town officials and vote on the articles in the town warrant.

Our little town is an SB2 town, which means we won't actually vote on the warrant articles until next month.

Winter weather finally arrived, albeit about a month late.

We got about 7 inches of snow here at The Manse, and unlike the first two snowfalls we experienced at the end of October and just before Thanksgiving, this was pretty much all powder. It made for slick roads, snow drifts, and the occasional white out. It required the use of 4WD to make it up the rather steep driveway this morning.

If nothing else it gave BeezleBub an excuse to fire up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower and give it a try.

With about 54% of the districts reporting, it looks like Mitt Romney has won the New Hampshire GOP primary with ~37%, with Ron Paul coming in second with 24% of the votes.

After work I headed down the our local election polling place, in this case located in the gym of our middle school. One thing I noticed right off was not so much something that was there but something that wasn't: volunteers holding election signs. There were none.

It wasn't until I got to the entrance to the school that I saw a few campaign signs lying side by side on the ground. But no one was outside holding the signs of their candidate. That is something I haven't seen in all the years I've been voting. It could have been the time of day as I got out of work a little earlier than usual as I wanted to avoid the post-work crush at the polls. The volunteers may have shown up after I had already voted and headed home.

While there was a lack of campaign volunteers, that was not the case for voters.

When I finally entered the gym there were moderately long lines at voter check-in. And while I didn't have to wait more than a couple of minutes in my line (the lines are separated alphabetically), others had more than a dozen or so people in front of them waiting to check in and get their ballots.

Voting itself took all of 30 seconds, with the most of that time spent looking for my candidate's name. (The candidates are listed in random order chosen by lot rather than in alphabetic order, a change made to New Hampshire's election laws some time ago.)

On my way to drop off my ballot in the ballot box I asked the town clerk if it had been busy. Her response: "Since the moment we opened the doors!" Apparently that's been the case just about everywhere across the Granite State, with a heavy turnout, particularly for the Republicans.

As I write this the last of the polls should be closing and we should start hearing the results any time now.

It's voting day in New Hampshire, where the voters will make their preferences for president known. More to follow later!

The GOP primary madness in New Hampshire is starting on its upward swing, with so many media people in the Granite State that you can barely go anywhere without running into someone from the multitude of media. I figure we've just about reached saturation, with the peak to come some time Tuesday after the polls open.

One thing I have noticed is the very large number of campaign signs, specifically GOP signs, in places you wouldn't necessarily have seen them in previous election seasons. This is something that has also been noticed by Andrew Boucher, and as he writes, it means trouble for Obama.

With the exception of a few die-hard Obama-Is-Our-Savior brainwashed Leftists, most folks in the Granite State know he's been a dismal failure. A lot of them are unabashed Republicans, Libertarians, or contrary independents and they are making their displeasure with the president known. Some are disillusioned Democrats. All one has to do is look out on lawns and along streets to see the signs everywhere.

In any case, many of us here in New Hampshire are waiting to get past the campaign insanity and get back to living our lives. We're waiting for the media hoopla to die down and the myriad campaign volunteers to move on to other venues. We'll have a respite until the full blown presidential campaigns start early next fall.

Now that we've made it past the first of the year, the focus here in New Hampshire turns in two directions: the upcoming Presidential Primaries and annual town/state budgets. Of the two, the primaries are receiving the most attention by both the populace and the media.

With the New Hampshire primaries scheduled for January 10^th, the media attention has been cranked up to "11". The various presidential wannabes have been spending every free moment in the Granite State, minus time in Iowa in preparation for tomorrow's Iowa Caucuses. (The one exception seems to be Jon Huntsman, who sees New Hampshire as the key to his moving forward.) There will be one last 'big' debate amongst the GOP candidates on the 7^th, with national coverage by ABC.

It's going to be intense for the next eight days.

The lesser of the two events, the annual battle of budgeting for the towns also start in earnest. Not that there hasn't been a lot of behind the scenes work on assembling proposed budgets for the various departments and schools.

Here in my small town the town and school budgets have been undergoing a lot of scrutiny by the board of selectmen, school board, and the budget committee. Everyone wants to cut spending, but of course it's always "someone else" who should cut their budgetary requests. It's never a pretty process and at times emotion can get in the way of logic and reason. When a position is cut in one of the town departments, many of us realize it means that someone we know, perhaps a friend, will lose their job. (That's happened to a friend of mine in the planning department. Her full time position - with benefits - was cut to part time. She couldn't justify staying there under those conditions and left for another job.) In some cases open positions have been eliminated for the time being, leaving some departments short staffed. But those are the choices that have to be made in order to keep spending in check when everyone is having a difficult time making ends meet, particularly those on fixed incomes within our town.

Once the various boards and committees have done their thing it will be up to the voters in each town to vote on them, either at town meeting or during the town elections in March. (A few towns hold their town meetings in April or May.) Towns with a board of selectman/town meeting form of government fall in to two categories: traditional town meeting and SB2.

The traditional town meeting is usually held in some time in March, and all registered voters are encouraged to attend. The voters will discuss and vote on all of the articles presented on the town warrant, some covering budgetary items and other with changes in zoning ordinances (assuming a town has any zoning at all). A second town meeting, usually called the school district meeting, deals will warrants pertaining to the towns school expenditures.

SB2 towns do things a little differently, with two different sessions for both the town and school portions of the warrants. The first session deals solely with discussion and amendments to the town and school warrant articles. The second session of each meeting takes place on election day in March, with the voters deciding whether to approve the various warrant articles discussed the previous session.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems, but they seem to work pretty well. In any case, the tax money that will be spent in the upcoming fiscal year is vetted by the very people that will be paying those taxes. (There are a few taxes which the town voters have no control, those being the county and state assessments levied upon them to run county operations and for some education funding, respectively.)

The state will be dealing with some supplemental budget items during the upcoming legislative session (the state runs on a two-year budget cycle). Sometimes adjustments are made if there's an unexpected expenditure needed to deal with unforeseen circumstances. Sometimes it's the other way around, with some line item that was approved but never implemented, meaning there are surplus funds that can go to other purposes to fill shortfalls someplace else. Sometimes the surplus goes towards the state's so-called rainy day fund, a savings account that can be used to fill revenue shortfalls under very specific circumstances.

All we can do is hope they folks in the state capitol don't go on some kind of a mindless spending binge. But then it does help that the GOP holds supermajorities in the state Senate and Executive Council and a majority in the state House.

It was Thanksgiving dinner here at The Manse, with a good portion of the Weekend Pundit clan in attendance, including my dear brother, his missus, one of this three offspring. (Another of his kids, the oldest, stopped by before dinner to show off his new offspring before heading off to Thanksgiving dinner at his girlfriend's father's home.) Two of the WP sisters made it as well, the oldest with her youngest son, and the youngest with her two girls. The WP parents were also here, assisting with food preparation (Mom made one of the three turkey's we consumed. More on that later.) The WP In-Laws were also here, arriving late yesterday morning.

I had a bit of work to do outside The Manse before everyone arrived, scraping down the walkway and sanding the steep incline on the driveway to assure maximum traction for those braving the treacherous slope.

I won't go into the details of our repast other than to say we tried something other than the ubiquitous Butterball-style turkey, in this case range fed Narragansett turkeys. Though smaller than the supermarket turkeys with less breast meat, they were quite tasty, more so than the usual turkeys. (We got these turkeys from Farmer Andy.)

Everyone had a great time!

We didn't have to wait very long, that's for sure.

We got about 6 inches of snow here at The Manse overnight, giving us an opportunity to try out the new Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower.

I have to admit it took a little getting used to because its controls are so different from the previous Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower. For instance, the positions of the traction control and auger control are reversed compared to the old one. Also, the auger control locks in the 'on' position as long as the traction control is engaged. (I see that as both a plus and a minus.) The electric discharge chute controls were positioned so the can be controlled with the thumbs without the need to remove hands from the handles. The old one required me to release the auger control, reach down to a crank to change the azimuth of the chute, then re-engage the auger control, something that was a real pain-in-the-ass at times.

All in all, I like it.

Yes, I know there was no post last night, but I have a good excuse.

I was attending one of the rare gala events in our small town: the opening of our new supermarket.

Well, it's not really new so much as it's in a new location, with more retail space, more selections, a new sushi bar (must be for the tourists as most of us up here at Lake Winnipesaukee prefer our fish cooked), fancy new coolers (the lights turn on in the coolers only when there's someone actually in front of them). There was all kinds of food at the gala, with everything from cheese and crackers to prime rib, lobster bisque, scallops, and clam chowder. Drinks ranged from ice cold cider, locally bottled soft drinks, and coffee. Of course there was also a large selection of desserts. (I hit the dessert table before partaking of the other delightful foods as I live by the credo "Eat dessert first. You never know when something will come up and take you away from the dinner table!")

The gala was attended by all kinds of important folks, like two of our three selectmen (the third selectman and his wife work for a rival supermarket chain so his decision not to attend was unsurprising), members of the planning board (that's why I was there), various business leaders (Farmer Andy and his missus were in attendance, just to name a couple), and civic organization representatives.

The old location closed at 8PM last night and the new one opened at 7 this morning.

I think it will be quite popular, ayuh.

While snow is expected here in New England every winter (and sometimes in late fall), I admit to a little surprise and dismay to find snow on the ground when I left for work this morning and another 4 to 8 inches expected to fall by sometime Sunday.

We have not yet secured a new Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower, but the missus has suggested buying it sometime tomorrow (but not until after we finish doing some shopping to replace the furniture damaged when we suffered the 'flood' inside The Manse last month).

Tonight was also the first time we fired up the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove. With all the post-flood repair work done, the new paint dried, and the chimney having been cleaned by the chimney sweeps earlier this week, it seemed the time had come to fire it up and to stop burning expensive propane to heat The Manse. At least we have just under a cord of firewood stored in the garage. We're still waiting on the first delivery of the four cords of wood we ordered from Farmer Andy, something he usually starts just after Halloween.

I have a feeling it's going to be a long cold winter.

It was easy to tell the holiday weekend had arrived.

I had to make trip to my employer's Massachusetts facility Friday morning to conduct an interview of a candidate to fill one of our many open positions. I was done by 11AM and headed back to our home office. As soon as I hit the north side of the highway heading towards New Hampshire I knew my trip back was going to take longer than usual.

The traffic was heavy. Very heavy. And it wasn't even noon yet.

On more than one occasion on the trip back north traffic came to a standstill. This is something you usually see on the evening commute, not at noon. Once I crossed the border the ratio of out-of-state license plates to New Hampshire plates on northbound vehicles didn't change. Most of the out-of-state vehicles had obvious signs of people heading to vacation spots - lots of luggage in the back or on top, bike racks filled with bicycles, canoes and kayaks on roof racks, and lots of camper trailers.

It's the end-of-summer vacation blowout.

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.)