Labor Day Weekend: Day 3

-There is no cable at the Edwards House. The most interesting thing I can find is a Canadian-French channel. The news shows seem to blend right into sit-coms, with no apparent transition.

-I walked past the Service Employees International Union of Maine yesterday and saw a man replacing the shutters. "That better be a Union job," I yelled. "It's not. I out-bid the Union," the man said.



-I also paid another visit to Old Fort Western. And made a stupid video.

Church Painting

I first noticed this church when I was taking some pictures of what I thought was a hotdog vendor (turned out to be a barbecue pork sandwich vendor [I love you Augusta!]). This is the elim Christian Fellowship church. If anyone Protestant comes to visit me this is where I will send you.
Looking at some of the girls walking in, don't be surprised if I become Protestant very soon. But I noticed they were painting the church very slowly. Lazy Protestants!

Kennebec River Rail Trail

I went on my first run down the Kennebec River Rail Trail today. Yesterday I just walked up and down it sunning myself reading the paper. This morning I woke up around 6 a.m. dying to try out my new 'made in Maine' New Balance 857s. They worked great. I ran to Hallowell, then down Water Street- the center of their town, and looped around Front Street back up to Augusta.
On October 6 the trail will be completed and will continue to Gardiner, a town 6.5 miles to the south. I think I am going to start running down there.
This morning when I was running looking at the river I was trying to think of something poetic. This is all I came up with, cheesy in hindsight;

"the sun peels the hills' shadow
off the Kennebec
and raises the mist
off the early morning water."

Labor Day Holiday: Old Fort Western

On my second day of Labor Day Holiday I traveled approximately 1000 feet across the Kennebec River from the Edwards House Inn to Old Fort Western. At 250 years old, it is the oldest wooden fort in the Americans. In fact, it's so old it's British!
I stopped by twice. The first time they weren't open, the second time they were about to close. So check schedules before planning your visit.

Girls in Augusta

I have made it a point to walk as much as possible, even though I have entered the world of vehicle ownership. Yesterday I walked the Kennebec Rail Trail to Hallowell. I went to the library. On the way back I discovered a store filled with glamorous women, on Water Street.

German Television

I received an email from a journalist in Germany:

my name is Isabella Kempf, I am a freelance journalist from Berlin, Germany and I am working on a longer story
about a German/Turkish prisoner who was in the Kandahar detention center in January 2002. Mario Tama from New York sent me a link to a truly impressive picture you took in Kandahar in December 2001. It was taken at night through a night vision scope. On it you can see detainees who are brought into the Kandahar detention center.
One important question for us: Did you manage to take any pictures of the prisoners or the detainee area, primarily taken in Jan. 02?
We might use any of these photos in our story.
Might it be possible to talk on the phone?
Thanks very much!
Isabella

So, I am sending a few photos to be used on German television. Cool. It's a news program called Monitor.

Labor Day Holiday: Day 1

Today I decided to go against my strong feeling to by a small motorbike, and I bought a small truck instead. It is awesome. Fun to drive. Ugly. Sporty? My first drive was up Interstate 95 to Waterville to look at a Kennebec dinosaur (an old factory along the Kennebec River). Today is also the first day of my 5-day Labor Day vacation. I asked if I could work any of the days I was scheduled off, but the KJ doesn't like to give over-time hours unless it's necessary. This will be my first Labor Day as part of a union, Communication Workers of America, District 1, Local 643. It's kind of like my first Veterans' Day as a veteran, My first Valentine's Day as a valentine, my first Canadian Boxing Day as a Canadian boxer.
(It was only a month ago today I came to Augusta for an interview.)

Walking in Augusta

Here are some pictures I took while walking to work. I have worked 9 days straight. Last night I got a beer on the walk home and sat on the porch and drank it at 1am, before I went to sleep. I watched a van hit a telephone pole and just drive away, while right next to a police car cruising in the opposite direction. The cops had trouble finding them ironically. They went the entire way around the block, and it took some drunken dude from the Edwards House Inn to run out in the middle of the street and whistle at the sheriff to point out where the guy had parked and turned his lights off. I saw the driver come up from the parking lot behind the Edwards House Inn and run into the housing across the street. I could see a man in a wheelchair getting out of the sliding door of the pulled-over vehicle. I heard a girl from the van call his name. "Chris!" or something? Then I finished my beer and went to bed.

Tides in Augusta Maine

One of the most unique things I've found about Augusta (and one of my favorite things), its river has tides. The Kennebec River is one of the strongest pieces in the identity of all of the towns along it, from Waterville, and then Augusta at the northern-most navigable width of the river, to the salt flats around Merrymeeting Bay. I still don't have a car, so I only know this through word of mouth and through reading the paper.
Everyone who's from here remembers a time when mills crowded both sides of the river. Now they are big rusty carcasses lying between pine trees and the Kennebec. Like dinosaurs or elephants that starved to death and eventually died by the drinking hole. But there are some good things sprouting out of the death of the industries here, like more of an emphasis on state education. This is the first year it became mandatory for all graduating students to take the SATs.
The loss of factories took away a lot of jobs, but the river is becoming cleaner. It seems like local agriculture and smaller farms are seeing a bright spot (at least better than Pennsylvania), because there are so many farmers' markets. Of course, a lot of people going to these farmers' markets are single people driving giant 4x4 pickup truck/nearly tractor-trailers.
There are a lot of strange things to see in Maine, so far I think I've seen very little. I was sitting by the Kennebec today writing postcards. You could see the river flowing north on the edges, and being pulled south in the center, strange. I think the fountain in downtown Augusta has got to have the cleanest tasting water of any city fountain I've ever drank from. Not the usual dirt flavor. But some of the people walking around here might make you think something is in the water. It's interesting.

One Man's Farmers' Market, Another Man's Wal-Mart

Augusta has an awesome farmers' market. They have a few a week in different locations, but I went to the one a half block from where I live on Water Street. It is on the site of an old mill. Across the river there are remains of another mill that hasn't been operating in a long time. The city approved a plan to build a pavilion for this market in particular. The farmers' markets in the area really make Augusta attractive.

Lunch w/ Chuck

Yesterday I went to an event at work, that I heard was supposed to be for new employees, called 'Lunch with Chuck.' It is a lunch with Chuck Cochran, President of Blethen Maine Newspapers, the company that owns the newspapers I work for. About 10 people attended and I was the newest employee by far. I had been there for 8 days, the next employee had been there for 6 months, and most had been with the company well over a couple years, one woman for 27 years! He seemed like a really nice guy, well-informed, interesting to talk to. We talked a lot about the direction of newspapers. Why mid-sized papers like the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel are fairly stable compared to larger papers.
Main points about the declination of print newspaper subscriptions:

1) THE INTERNET- because the population in more rural cities like Augusta have a lower percentage of younger people than larger cities, we are not hit as hard by this. (However, the obituaries are filled with canceled subscriptions.)
2) NO TIME- During the 'lunch' a woman from circulation mentioned that many of the people who cancel their subscriptions simply have no time to read the paper. Parents sharing more work and domestic roles have less time to sit down and read the paper. (So they say, I wondered how many of them make time to sit down and watch television for 3 hours every night.)
3) ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIENCENESS- People have become more environmentally conscience. They don't like to use paper. I am pretty conscience, but I still like tactual paper reading, even though I get a lot of my information on-line.

Chuck also gave an example of when multiple factors come into play, making it worse for print circulation. When someone who doesn't have time to read the paper, sees untouched issues piling up in the recycling bin, they think about the money they've spent on unread papers.
I say stop watching television, get out a pen, and sit down with a newspaper and take note of what is going on. Drink some iced coffee while your at it. Recycle, repeat.
Chuck also mentioned that, today, people have the opportunity to get more information from the internet, so Blethen Maine Newspapers is working on expanding through their web presence, MaineToday.com