Gondola

Daniel Oakes

02-26-10

In a region where the economy rides the roller coaster of the changing, town’s people look for a new way to provide jobs and more importantly a better ride to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. Carrabassett Valley’s locals are looking for the town to help them financially in efforts to build a bottom to top gondola for the Sugarloaf ski resort. Sugarloafers haven’t seen an operating gondola since ’97.

Seth Wescott, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and Carrabasset Valley resident, has asked the board of selectmen to provide financial assistance in the development of his “vision” of a bottom to top Gondola. He recently gave a speech on WSKI TV explaining his vision of a Gondola and asking for everyone’s support. Boyne Resort, owners of the Sugarloaf Resort, is very interested in Seth’s vision but need to overcome their financial hurdles with a successful season.

In sight of the Gondola project the program, Economic Recovery Zone Facility Bonds, is being used to make this project more feasible during this repressed economy. The project is estimated to cost from 8 to 10 million dollars. If this project gets enough funding, it could provide the area with jobs during the resorts off-season.

The Gondola project could be just what the region needs. Once it starts there will be multiple companies in the area working to complete the job in a single summer. This will fill up motels, empty shelves in grocery stores, fill restaurants- bottom line it will give a much needed boost to the economy of Carrabassett Valley.

Due to the lack of funding and support of the project will not hit the grounds in 2010. They are predicting to start in the summer of 2011. Until then you can show your support by E-mailing the town manager, Dave Cota at: towncvtm@roadrunner.com or call the town office at 207-235-2645.

The Roots... and who?!

Daniel Oakes

02-19-10

With spring break just around the corner, this can only mean one thing; the semester is coming to an end! In no time, work will start piling up and the nightly cramming for exams will take the place your endless nights of finding your way to bed at sunrise. Before you decide to end you social life for the last part of the semester why not come out and enjoy a night with The Roots at University of Maine. Their appearance is planned for 7 p.m. on March 20^th at the field house.

The decision to have The Roots for this year’s spring entertainment came from the students. The Facebook group “Bring The Roots to Umaine” has 2,158 members as of 4:20 p.m. Friday. Student Government’s vice president, Joseph Nabozny said, “This is democracy in action.” For once, in my four years as a student, the student government has listened to what us students want. In 2001 The Roots came to Umaine. The performance was great but the outcome was less than stellar. The lack of numbers for the show was a major disappointment for the artists. The main reason for the low numbers was mainly in part of the time of the show. The show had little hype and was planned for an inopportune night. Student government picked a night before the kick off of spring break; when most kids are skipping their Friday classes and making their way home for the next two weeks. The total turnout for the 2001 show was just over 1,000. But the bigger question is who will be the opening act for The Roots?

As a Wells, Maine native, I’ve been following my fellow Wellsian, Spose, since his first track. Most of us have seen that he too has a Facebook group titled, “Make Spose the Opening Act for The Roots @ Umaine!” The group has over 1,000 members and is still growing. Hopefully the student government will follow suite with their hiring of The Roots and get Spose to open the show for them. If the members of both Facebook groups attend the concert there will be three times turnout of The Roots previous performance at Umaine. Umainers mark the date on your calendar for a bumping show with The Roots on March 20^th!

The Not So Typical Student

Hello Followers!

First off I would like to apologize for this being a little late. Apparently I assumed I was going to set a record land speed on my way to sugarloaf today. This week’s blog will be a profile story on my roommate Andrew. Hope you all enjoy.

Andrew is not your typical senior at the University of Maine. For starters he is on track to graduate in four years and has already completed his capstone class. For most seniors they are on their fifth, sixth, or even seventh year with an easy workload. Andrew, on the other hand, has what seems to be a heavy workload; 8 classes that make up 18 credits that he needs to complete his degree. Yes this seems to be a lot but after further investigation one might see the brighter side of this spectrum.

Andrew came from the “free” state of New Hampshire to Orono, Maine in hopes of earning a degree in Political Science. During his freshman year he was enrolled in a class that almost all students at the university know or heard of, the Art of Listening to Music. But after two days of going to class he learned from a peer that you could enroll in an online section of the class. That night Andrew switched into the online section in hope to lighten his workload and to free up that hour block on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He completed the class with an astonishing A and told me, “from then on I has always preferred the online sections of a class. Plus there is no denying it, I clearly dominate online classes!”

This semester, Spring ’10, Andrew is enrolled in eight classes. Seven out of his eight classes are online! You really could consider him a part-time student due to the fact he has one class a week that he has to physically attend. Besides every Tuesday night from six to eight o’clock, Andrew has the freedom to do what ever he wants. He enjoys the fact that he can control when he has to “attend” class. Meaning he has to sit down at his desk and do assignments for his online classes. He ended the interview with telling me about when he met with his advisor in the Fall to discuss his Spring semester. “He told me I had earned it and he would have done the same thing if he had the option to take online classes when he was a student.”

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Scissor or Scissors!?

Followers,

Today we brought up a point of if it should be "12 pairs of scissors" or "12 scissors"
http://precisionsharpening.net/about_scissors
Please view the link and let me know what you conclude.

-Dan

Big Ol' Edit

Hello Followers,

This week’s blog we will be focusing in on a recording of a local news cast. Raiha has asked me to pay close attention to the writing and make notes of what I would have changed if I was in charge of editing…

-DISCLAIMER-

I am not a professional writing and have no intentions of writing for a living. Due to this fact I will do my best to make edits to a ‘professional’s’ piece of work.

For my local news cast I picked the TV station WCSH 6, out of Portland, ME. The report was titled, Big Ol’ Fish, February 5^th, 2010. The purpose of the report is to show locals what locals have caught from the past week in Maine. Fans of WCSH 6 send in pictures, size, and the stories about the fish they caught. Then WCSH 6 turns around and presents all the big fish in an entertaining form.

The first thing I would have changed was the introduction to the piece. The two news casters that introduce the story slaughter it. They could have presented in a more professional manner rather than having it is some kid of joke.

The second thing I noticed was there was never a date given. The only time/date that was given was “this week.” I assume since you are watching this on TV you would have an idea of what week he is referring too. But for the sake of making edits this would be one!

All verbs were presented in past tense since everything that was being reported had happened in the past.

Overall this was a simple report to get people interested in the ice fishing throughout Maine. I hope that some day this winter you can find me with a big ol’ pike on this Big Ol’ Fish.

http://www.wcsh6.com/video/default.aspx?aid=56019&storyid=114146#/Local/Big+Ol%27+Fish+February+5%2C+2010/49383985001/49452227001/65011716001