Stuff about me
My name is Keith Michaud and this is “Letters From Away,” a blog written by a Mainer living outside the comfortable and sane confines of New England. The blog is intended for Mainers, whether they live in the Pine Tree State or beyond, and for anyone who has loved ’em, been baffled by ’em or both. Ayuh, I am “from away.” Worse still, I live on the Left Coast – in California. Enjoy! Or not. Your choice.
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Monthly Archives: February 2010
Maine lawmakers call for jobs bill
Maine businesses unite to find best ways they can aid Haiti
Coalition will provide money,
materials or expertise once
greatest needs identified
Some well-known Maine businesses have formed a coalition to identify needs in Haiti and determine how they can be met with resources from Maine as that country attempts to rebuild from last month’s earthquake.
The leadership of MaineLine Haiti includes Preti Flaherty, Unum, Kennebunk Savings Bank, Reed & Reed, CD&M Communications and Mainebiz. Other companies that have signed on are Baker Newman & Noyes, Organic Fair Trade Coffee and Woodard & Curran.
The coalition will work with Darcy Pierce, senior partner at Envoy, a Maine-based firm that attempts to connect the corporate world with work in developing nations. Members of the leadership committee will meet Thursday to talk with Pierce.
The plan is to have Pierce go to Haiti, work with non-governmental organizations there to identify the greatest needs in the rebuilding, and determine needs that MaineLine could address.
Pierce has been an early responder and provided on-site assessment after disasters, including the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the earthquake last year in Indonesia.
Pierce said he has seen what happens in the wake of a disaster.
“Everybody floods it with money, everybody floods it with food and water, which is important – but there’s going to need to be services and solutions that are out of the box,” he said. “There’s not a great system set up to connect corporate America into that. That’s where this coalition idea came from.”
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Matt Wickenheiser of the Portland Press Herald.
Learn more about MaineLine Haiti at http://www.maineline.org/.
Tagged aid, Baker Newman & Noyes, CD&M Communications, coalition, Darcy Pierce, developing nations, donations, earthquake, Envoy, Haiti, Haitians, Kennebunk Savings Bank, Maine businesses, Mainebiz, MaineLine Haiti, non-governmental organizations, Organic Fair Trade Coffee, Preti Flaherty, rebuilding, Reed & Reed, relief, Unum, Woodard & Curran
Taking a dip in the recycling stream | Portland Press Herald
Posted in Economy, Environment, Maine
Tagged Ecomaine, Maine at Work, Ray Routhier, recycling, recycling sorter
Coffeehouse observation No. 38
The other day I was walking to the coffeehouse and a song by Prince – is he Prince or the Artist Formerly Known as Prince or the Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince? – and it came out slightly, um, different. “She wore a rosemary beret …” I suppose that is not the type you find in a second-hand store.
Go to Coffeehouse Observer for more coffeehouse observations.
Posted in Coffeehouse Observer
Tagged Artist Formerly Known as Prince, brew, coffee, coffeehouse, java, joe, Prince, Rasberry Beret, rosemary, second-hand store
Coffeehouse observation No. 36
The WiFi at coffeehouses often are not the best option for surfing the Net or Web or whatever it’s called this week – slow or weak connections are typical. And some coffeehouses limit the connection to, say, two hours, which is not nearly enough time. But if you add coffee and pretty woman or two walk in the door, things are OK. Yep, coffee and pretty women make even a slow WiFi connection OK.
Go to Coffeehouse Observer for more coffeehouse observations.
Posted in Coffeehouse Observer
Tagged brew, coffee, coffeehouse, Internet connection, java, joe, Net, pretty women, slow connection, surfing, Web, WiFi
Items help trace Bowdoin graduate’s career | Portland Press Herald
College’s president buys a Civil War veteran’s Army memorabilia and gives it to the school for exhibits
Items help trace Bowdoin graduate’s career | Portland Press Herald.
Tracking down Public Enemy No. 1 in Bangor
You gotta love a good gangster flick, especially when it’s the real thing. Here’s today’s DownEast.com trivia question.
What is Maine’s best-known gun battle?
Answer:
On October 12, 1937, federal agents killed Public Enemy No. 1 Al Brady and two cohorts on Central Street in Bangor in the bloodiest shoot-out in Maine history.
There has been quite a bit of this written about this gunbattle. And I believe they reenact it in Bangor from time to time.
Posted in Maine trivia
Tagged Al Brady, Bangor, Central Street, federal agents, gangster, gunbattle, public enemy, reenactment, shoot-out, trivia
Friends, family pack church for shooting victim’s service – Bangor Daily News
Posted in Maine
Tagged Bangor, Bangor Daily News, gangs, service, shooting, shooting death
Benefit dinner tops off efforts at Colby College to help Haiti
Colby students hope to raise
$25,000 for the Stand for
Haiti Campaign of Partners in Health
WATERVILLE, Maine — For Jessica Frick and Yanica Faustin, it’s personal.
The Colby College seniors were among those in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, when last month’s devastating earthquake struck, leading to a death toll as high as 200,000 and leaving hundreds of thousands injured and in need of shelter, food and water.
Now that they are back for their final semester at Colby, Frick and Faustin are among a group of students – led by Colby’s Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement – who have organized a series of initiatives for the college and greater Waterville community aimed at raising money for Haiti relief. Their efforts will culminate with a benefit dinner later this month.
At that event, Frick and Faustin will speak about their experience of surviving the earthquake and witnessing the devastation while they were in Port-au-Prince, visiting members of Faustin’s Haitian family.
All told, the Colby students hope to raise $25,000, which would be donated to the Stand for Haiti Campaign of Partners in Health. About $7,000 has been raised so far.
“I want people to know,” Frick said. “They need food and water and shelter.”
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Scott Monroe of the Waterville Morning Sentinel. (Note: I used the link to the Morning Sentinel’s sister paper, the Portland Press Herald, because it included a photo, which the Morning Sentinel did not. – KM)
COLBY FUNDRAISER
WHAT: Colby for Haiti Benefit
WHEN: Friday, Feb. 26
Reception, auction: 5:30 p.m.
Dinner: 6:30 p.m.
FOR TICKETS: dfgarin@colby.edu
Maine Event: The audacity of slope | Portland Press Herald
Reviving Haiti brick by brick, mind by mind
Portland professor and architect
has plans to fortify the Justinian Hospital,
wants his students to design houses
that can be quickly and easily built
He’s never set foot in Haiti, but Portland architect M. Curt Sachs has used his skills to benefit a terribly poor hospital in the country’s second-largest city.
Sachs’ first career was as a cancer therapist. He went back to school to become an architect, and has specialized in designing health care facilities.
The story of his work on the Haitian hospital began two years ago, when he sat next to a water engineer from the Woodard & Curran engineering firm on an airplane flight.
“We got to talking, and I said I was an architect, and my dream forever was to spend time designing better health care facilities for Third World countries,” Sachs said.
The engineer mentioned that her boss, Hugh Tozer, worked with Konbit Sante, a Portland-based nonprofit that has been working for about a decade with Justinian Hospital in Cap Haitien, in northern Haiti.
Sachs connected with Tozer, and he soon began working with the nonprofit, studying building plans for the hospital. He worked with Konbit Sante’s executive director, Nate Nickerson, and with doctors and others who had spent time at the hospital over the years.
Click on the link for the rest of today’s story by Matt Wickenheiser of the Portland Press Herald.
Know Hope, O Bearded Sons of Maine!: DownEast.com
(I have had a beard off and on since I was 17. No need to rush to the desk drawer for a calculator. That’s 30 years. The mustache has been around the entire time, even though I have shorn the beard from time to time only for it to return in various shapes and colors over the years. Here’s a link to a DownEast.com blog on Maine men and their beards. – KM)
Posted in Maine
Tagged "beard love", Andrew Sullivan, bear, beard, bearded, DownEast.com, John Locke, Richard Grant, shave, shorn
Letters From Away 