When you think about traditional Maine icons, a certain set of images comes to mind: lobster, blueberries, puffin, lighthouse, moose, and lupine, blooming now in…
Columns
Lupine might be the one exception to the oft-repeated rule that being born in Maine doesn’t necessarily make you a Mainer
Consumers beware...
Maine has very good consumer laws and this is an avenue for you and I to explore them, either for our own benefit or to pass along bits of information that may help someone else.
The Maine…
Tim Sample: Stories I Never Told You
When I was 15, I got the perfect summer job. The fact that it involved driving cars should surprise no one.
Having had the good fortune to enter my teens just as America…
I miss my father. I'm not a kid. At 64, you'd think I could function on my own. I do all right, but I miss my Dad. He had a great life and he was a great man. I never met anyone that had a bad…
Notes from abroad: BELFAST—BELGIQUE
I have had two pets in my lifetime. The first was a rare African frog that arrived in the mail, a surprise present from my grandparents. The second was a red-backed salamander (that I christened "…
Financially Speaking
Maximum 401(k) contributions have increased by $500 this year, up to $17,500. Older workers born before 1964 can put in as much as $23,000. Those limits are the same for the similar 403(b) and…
Opinion: What have Gov., LePage, Commissioner Bowen done to address safety of our citizens, our children?
Flag Day, though not a national holiday, is a day set aside for all Americans to honor the great Red, White and Blue. Flag Day was officially sanctioned as a day of…
Week ending June 7
This week's economic releases showed that the global economy was not deteriorating, but was still not robust. Friday, the stock markets rallied after the release of the May U.S. Employment Report…
Notes from abroad: BELFAST—BELGIQUE
NORMANDY, France – Belgium has a complicated relationship with France. On one hand, France offers sunny beaches, snow-capped mountains, picturesque countrysides, and vibrant cities…
Financially Speaking
Senior citizens who want to stay in their home and need a stream of income may find a reverse mortgage an attractive option. Instead of having to pay a mortgage, a reverse…
Chapter 4: Maine Consumer Law Guide
This week the topic is a continuation of Chapter 4 of the Maine Consumer Law Guide. We are at the point of discussing implied warranties and what you can do if those warranties are breached by the…
Father Bill speaks
I'm thinking that studying is my future. Not going for a Ph.D. or local adult education, although you won't get a better value than the local school or vocational center's adult ed. courses. These…
Design Notes
"Architecture is surely not the design of space, certainly not the massing or organizing of volumes. These are auxiliary to the main point, which is the organization of procession. Architecture…
Opinion
There are many things I like about Rockland and, yes, a few I find annoying. One of my favorites is to look at old photos of Main Street, from a hundred years ago. These photos are traditionally…
UMaine Hutchinson Center Notebook
BELFAST — Summertime and the living is easy…It’s finally summertime in Maine. The traffic is increasing. More boats are anchored in the harbors. Lawn mowers are firing…
Opinion: A response to 'Let the people decide about changing the town charter'
Those in favor of changing the Lincolnville Town Charter want to remove the requirement for the town to have a police department. They insist that their amendment to the town’s governing document…
Notes from abroad: BELFAST—BELGIQUE
NAMUR, Belgium – Last summer, I worked as a handyman at the Belfast Municipal Airport. I passed a very agreeable two months mowing the lawn, weeding the garden, repainting the…
For the past two years, the politicians have been popping their corks over the need for school reform. Citing spurious data that suggests America’s school plummeting to…
Chapter 2 (continued): 'Maine Consumer Law Guide: Consumer Contracts in Maine'
This week we will explore a little more of Chapter 2 of the Maine Consumer Law Guide: Consumer Contracts in Maine.
Please remember this information, in detail, is available at…
Tim Sample: Stories I Never Told You
As often as possible, my wife and I try to spend Memorial Day weekend at our camp in Washington County. If we’re lucky the sun will be out. But, whether it is or not, the black flies…
Transformations: A story
My father's been gone a long time. So long that at times it seems his very existence is more like an assertion or a bit of received knowledge than a fact borne of my own experience. But he was my…
Industrial Arts
May 19 - 25 was Emergency Medical Services week. We tend to think of the folks who show up in the ambulance as heroes. They are, sometimes, but they are also… us. These…
A little silver bell rings in my head when I think of fish chowder. My brain starts to drool and I am in the west of Ireland. Our vacation there turned into a chowder-tasting tour. We’d hike a…
Financially Speaking
Uncle Sam may help cover the loss when you suffer property damages, but you have to follow the rules for a deduction.
You can deduct the losses resulting from disasters like floods and…
Opinion: Alexander Armentrout
The proposed School Administrative District 28 and Five Town CSD 2013-14 budgets will be presented on Tuesday, May 28, at meetings to be held in Strom Auditorium, at the Camden Hills Regional High…
Father Bill speaks
I was sitting on a side street in Bangor the other day by the Civic Center waiting to get to Main Street while a trailer truck was backing into the new Cross Insurance…
ROCKPORT — Observe! Rockport’s Memorial Day Parade will be held Monday, May 27, starting at 11 a.m. next to the Rockport Post Office. As usual, the parade includes the Camden Hills Regional High…
Tim Sample: Stories I Never Told You
I spend a lot of time driving around the back roads of New England. Lately I’ve caught myself mentally updating an informal inventory I seem to be keeping of venues I’ve performed at…
Part III, Conclusion - What now?
During his inconsistent first 20 years in a business environment, Tom Dowd learned lessons, both positive and negative, which transformed into shared professional success. The experiences…
Financially Speaking
It may be possible to get money from a 401(K) plan to use as a down payment on a house-but it's not a good idea.
If you take the money as a distribution, you pay taxes-plus a 10 percent…
Part II, Chapters 61, 62, 63, 64, 65 and 66
During his inconsistent first 20 years in a business environment, Tom Dowd learned lessons, both positive and negative, which transformed into shared professional success. The experiences…
Sightings
Spring. Well, it's here…. Nature’s sweetest blessing.
The kiss of more light and balmy temperatures. And winds that caress, not cut.
Week ending May 10
Fewer initial jobless claims in the U.S. and reaction to Japanese easing policies were the driving economic forces affecting the capital markets this week. Continued weakness in European numbers…
Transformations: A story
My mother liked to make newcomers to our neighborhood feel welcome and happy to be living in North Hope, so it was sometimes my assignment to take a cake or a pie or a pot of soup over to the new…
Chapter 2: 'Maine Consumer Law Guide: Consumer Contracts in Maine'
Sorry for missing a week or two but you know time flies when we are having fun.
This week we will explore Chapter 2 of the Maine Consumer Law Guide: Consumer Contracts in Maine
…
Financially Speaking
Yes, you can sort of "borrow" funds from your IRA for short-term needs, but beware! The money must be returned to the IRA within 60 days, or the amount you took out will be considered a…
Tim Sample: Stories I Never Told You
I occasionally present workshops on storytelling and the oral tradition. Among other topics, we explore the role of dialect and colloquialism in the traditional tales of New England.…
Tis the season...
Black fly season in Maine is those weeks in late spring and early summer when you are demoted to the bottom of the food chain. Black flies have been called the piranhas of the north woods and live…
Father Bill speaks
For as long as I can remember, kids have gotten grades in schools. The kids who did well and worked hard thought the grades were fair. The kids who struggled and the…
Part II, Chapters 56, 57, 58, 59 and 60
During his inconsistent first 20 years in a business environment, Tom Dowd learned lessons, both positive and negative, which transformed into shared professional success. The experiences…
April Vacation Week success...
The April Vacation Asian Art Celebration was a roaring success and Coastal Children's Museum would like to thank everyone who supported this week of programming. Our sponsors - P&A Bookkeeping…
Tim Sample: Stories I Never Told You
I almost swallowed my Trident gum when I stumbled upon a recent news story. It listed the astronomical figure of $1,800 per pound as the market price of a commodity, for which (until…
Part II, Chapters 51, 52, 53, 54 and 55
During his inconsistent first 20 years in a business environment, Tom Dowd learned lessons, both positive and negative, which transformed into shared professional success. The experiences…
Conversations about how our built environment affects us...
"We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us" - Winston Churchill
Design Notes is a series of conversations about how our built environment affects…
Of all the wildlife I dealt with during my 33-year career, beavers generated more phone calls from angry citizens than any other animal. Mainers either admire beavers…
Mad about Town
Why does everything have to smell? Sorry—that sounds pretty indelicate. Let me try again. Why does everything have to have a scent? After spending the last few days ripping up the wall-to-wall…
Meditations: migrants look different in flight... birds with a purpose. They don’t hang around
As I drove down the coast from Camden to Pownal, I finally had to shut off the radio. Boston was in full lock-down mode as police tracked down the surviving Boston…
Celebration of her life today, in Glen Cove
In 1972, Glenna Plaisted approached John Hill, then president of the Rockland Savings Bank, about obtaining a loan for the property that would become Riley School. Even with a down payment in hand…
Tim Sample: Stories I Never Told You
Following a recent after-dinner speaking engagement, I mentioned to a friend that the group (150 or so registered Maine guides) had been “a great audience.”
…
Financially Speaking
The biggest change in Social Security taxes this year is that we all will pay a little more. The two-percentage-point payroll tax reduction expired at the end of 2012, and Congress did not extend…
