A Splash of Color

I thought all the posts about work was getting boring and I wanted a splash of color so I dug up this photo I took a few years back with some nice autumn color. The leaves are actually under about 3 inches of water but it is hard to tell by looking at the picture. Not much color left around here as we head into December.

Calpine Booted From S&P 500

Calpine Booted From S&P 500

Just another straw on the camels back. Calpine is being removed from the S&P 500 index as the stock price plunged below the one dollar mark. This of course is not a surprise to anyone who has been watching the stock. This will force all S&P 500 indexed funds to sell Calpine and purchase Glenworth Financial who will replace Calpine on the S&P index.

Mixed news on the home front as employees were informed that the company's employee stock purchase plan was terminated and that any contribution would be returned to the employee. That's good news as we were all wondering what may happen to our cash. Other than that moral is low and everyone is wondering what will happen next.

Calpine Replaces Top Executives

Click on title to see referenced article.

Goodbye Peter Cartwright, you will be missed. The CEO of Calpine, driven out by the board on Tuesday from the company he founded and headed since 1984. Mr. Cartwright had a dream and a vision. He believed that building efficient power plants that were also environmentally friendly would be a successful business model. His mistake was putting all of his eggs into the natural gas market.

The one thing I will always remember about Mr. Cartwright is that he always put his employees first. He wanted his employees to share in his dream and the rewards of his success. He gave all employees options and good benefits. Even when the company struggled he continued to give raises and award bonuses. In the end this may not have been the best plan for the company but who can fault him trying to treat his employees with dignity and respect. Thanks for the good run Pete. We may loose our jobs but you lost your dream.

Augusta, Maine makes National News.

Click on title above to see referenced article.

Imagine my surprise when I clicked on an article on MSNBC.com about live lingerie models (sorry H. But it things like that catch my eye) when I discovered that the store in question is within minutes of my house. Let me tell you, this sort of thing does not happen in my neck of the woods everyday. Live lingerie models in downtown Augusta, you better believe it, that is news around here.

Now the sad part, no they did not shutdown the business or send the models packing, the sad part is that I was downtown Augusta on Saturday morning, on the very street where they are "performing" and I did not even notice.........I might need to return my purchase :).

Why I ate Thanksgiving dinner on a picnic table

On a warm summer day a few months ago H. asked if I would help her carry our picnic table from our backyard into our dining room. This was under the pretence that she wanted to see how a long rectangular table would look in the room opposed to our current (and in my opinion perfectly fine) oblong table. I couldn't argue with her logic of seeing how it would look so I dropped what I was doing and helped her move the table. I assumed we would soon be moving it back into the yard. I was wrong.

Having placed the table in the dining room she then took to arranging the chairs around it and placing a table cloth upon. All to better get a feel for how it would look? Now you must realize that this picnic table is not new, in fact it is almost as old as AJ. It has suffered through many a blazing hot summer days and many a cold rains and snows. It has been repainted untold times and the wood is deeply weathered and warped. But amazingly enough if you throw a table cloth on it doesn't look that bad. Just don't try and slide anything across it as the warped boards will soon spill the item.

So now that we have gotten a feel for it we can move it back into the yard right? No, now we must live with it a few days to really get a feel of how it lives. Does it get in our way. It is too long? Is it wide enough. A few days? Ok I guess.

She really likes it and decides she now she would like to get a rectangular table for our dining room. Fine I say, we will put it on "the list". The list being this semi-real, semi-imaginary list of things we want to spend money on. It is supposed to allow us to agree and prioritize any "major" purchases. We go by it about half the time. With the table now on "the list" can we move the picnic table back into the yard? Why, does it really bother you? Yes! Good then you will be more motivated to get me my new table............. I had been had! The picnic table is going no where until I produce a replacement.

She suggests I build her a table. I guess she thinks that since I built a deck, I am now qualified to build fine home furnishings. Well, as long as she doesn't mind that it looks surprising like the picnic table currently in our dining room I could build the table. I nix that idea.

After months of browsing through home magazines and local ads from furniture stores she shows me an ad from an unfinished furniture store. A large rectangular "farm house" table and a price that doesn't make me cringe. You see there is nothing "techno" about a table and therefore I don't get real excited about spending cash on it. Now a new wireless laptop for the house and you would have my interest peaked. Anyway, on the day after Thanksgiving, after having eaten my turkey upon an old wobbly picnic table we purchases the unfinished large rectangular table and I have now spent the last two days sanding and staining.

Though it will be a week or so before the table is ready to grace our dining room, last night she allowed her brother and I to carry the picnic table back to its rightful location in our back yard. I had finally won? Right, she had known what she was doing all along.......

How I Spent My Weekend

"The Table" after its first coat of stain. The table top is chopper block style and weighs a ton. The wood is called Parawood? Some type of wood from Thialand or that part of the world. It is supposed to be similar to maple. We chose a fruit wood stain.

The Smell of Money

Know locally as the "smell of money" the papermill is shown in all its glory in the early morning light. Our facility can be seen on the far right back in the days when we actually operated. This photo is actually a composite of three separate photographs.

The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

It almost seems fitting that one year to the day after my employer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that our parent company is named #1 in the weekly "Dumbest Things on Wall Street" article. On the day after Thanksgiving 2004 our plant which is an LLC partially owned by the company named in the article (I am being purposely vague but it is not hard to figure out) filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection after having shutdown on Thanksgiving morning. Prior to that we had operated 24/7 365 for nearly 5 years. Only taking outages as required to make repairs and perform preventative maintenance. If you read the linked article you will find that the mother ship is now also in dire straits. Many think it could join us in Ch11 within a few months. Would that mean we would then be in Ch22? All in all it is not a good situation.

I am actually amazed that I am still employed. If you had asked me a year ago if I thought I would still be employed at my current location a year from now I would have said there was less than a 50% chance. We have basically been shutdown for an entire year. We did operate the plant twice, once in April and once in September to meet some testing obligations. You would think that I was really bored at work, well not most days. We have lost about half of our staff, luckily none through layoffs as all have left on there own accord. We have lost some quality people and I have lost some good friends. Well, not lost but I don't have the pleasure of working with them daily. The staff reduction has been good on one hand as it has left those of us that remain with that much more to do. Equipment continues to need maintenance and equipment continues to break even when it is not used daily.

The most difficult aspect has been dealing with vendors. Amazingly enough they don't want to sell you anything using purchase orders when you are bankrupt. I basically have to run the entire facility using my company American excess card. My 5K/month limit doesn't go very far. Actually the worst part is not taking it personal. When the company you work for is bankrupt you feel as if you failed, even if it had absolutely nothing to do with your performance. Every time someone refuses to ship you a needed part because of your bad credit you feel like a dead beat. Sometimes it has a direct effect such as the letter I received today from the American Lung Association stating that the $450 pledge that my company had made to sponsor me in the Trek Across Maine had never been paid. Great, now I am stiffing a non profit. I may have to cough up the coin myself just to clear my name.

So where do I find myself one year after the Ch11 filing? I was promoted because of our staff reduction (but I also got to keep my previous job also because we can't hire anyone). I get to deal daily with employees that know they may loose their job at any given time (a great lesson in motivation skills). I wonder if I should be looking harder for a different job (I look casually) but the job outlook in my area is crap and I don't want to move. I wonder if I should change careers (not easy at 41) but this is all I have ever done. I think about going to school but I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. So I get up, go to the gym and feel good every time we get to Friday and I still have a job. How long can this last? Well one thing I have learned while going through this whole mess, one thing you can really count on is that lawyers and judges are terminally slow. If the future depends on a lawyer to act or a judge to rule, the future is a long way away and so far that has been a good thing.

Happy Thanksgiving

Our first white Thanksgiving in a few years. A couple of inches and still coming down pretty hard. I may brake out my xcountry skis before the day is over. Work off some of that bird. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Hope you are amoung family and friends.

Trip Downeast Summer 2005

I posted a couple of my favorite pictures below from a trip H. and I took "Downeast Maine" this summer. We stayed in a B&B in Jonesport and explored the coast in the fog and rain. We ventured as far north as Eastport and even into Canada for a few hours.

West Quoddy Head Light

West Quoddy Head Light. The most eastern point in the United States. East Quoddy Head is in Canada. Yes it was foggy there also.

Jonesport Harbor Fog

Jonesport Harbor during one of the few moments the fog rolled out enough to reveal the harbor. Tide is out.

Idiot of the day? Week? Month?

I wish I had a link for this but I could not find it at the online version of the paper. In the 11/23/2005 Sun Journal page A2:

"Tim St. Pierre of Lewiston Maine shows off his fresh tattoo of the autographs from "Big and Rich", the country musicians who visited the Auburn Wal-Mart on Monday morning. He had a buddy do them at his house Monday night. "When someone signs an autograph, you loose it", said St. Pierre. "I won't lose this one!" His hair will grow back normally if he ever decides to cover the tattoo."

The picture shows St. Piere sporting the tattoos of the signatures of the country singers Big and Rich across most of his bald head. Who the hell is Big and Rich? They must be something special as they were signing autographs at the Auburn, Maine Wal-mart and we know only the biggest acts show up there.

The Birthday Boy (whoops adult)

Sporting a recently cropped head of hair and some fine hand me down flannel he contemplates the ever important birthday wish. Somehow I suspect the wish may not be suitable for print. Rumor has it that H. has stored the candles for use on my 81st birthday. You don't have to guess what I will wish for then.........

AJ turns 18 but not elected Mayor

As we celebrated AJ's 18th B-day yesterday I thought it funny to include a link to an 18 year old that was just elected mayor in Michigan. This may lead to free music downloads for that town and perhaps the return of junk food to the school cafeteria.

We had a few people over for the traditional cake and ice cream. H's parents were over as well as AJ's mother and her husband J. We also got our first sighting of AJ's friend Tanner who has made an unceremoniously return from college. It was good to see AJ and Tanner together again as they make a good team and seem to be good for one another (no matter what T's parents say).

I got the feeling AJ was just humoring us with his presence as he probably would have rather been somewhere else. There is such an expectation with "milestone" birthdays that is hard for them to ever live up to what we expect. I don't even remember my own 18th or 21st birthdays. I am sure I attempted to mark them in some special way but it has long slipped from my memory (no surprise there). I do remember turning 40 as we celebrated that on St. John with some real special friends. That is the way to turn 40.

We wanted to mark AJ's becoming a legal adult in some special way so we took the opportunity to present him with a digital stage piano. I had been thinking about getting him one for sometime as he has been branching out from his primary instrument (guitar). Hopefully he will be able to use this to further his career in the music biz. Not to mention that we all enjoy hearing the music coming from his bedroom.

I will try and post a picture or two later when download the camera.

Cable vs. Satellite (and how I ended up with both)

Two years ago I celebrated the day I got to give the old cable company the "finger". Finally the satellite company was able to offer the local networks and I no longer was slave to the monopoly of the local cable company (Adelphia). I needed the local networks to feed my habit of watching the local sport teams so I had suffered through the poor quality picture and constant increases in pricing. Fast forward to 2005 and the cable company now has two things that satellite cannot offer, High Speed Internet and Networks in HD.

Living in the willywacks has its advantages, you can pee off your deck, you can discharge firearms in your back yard and you can play your stereo as loud as you would like. One major disadvantage has been the only way to connect to the internet is through good old dial up service. So while the rest of you have been enjoying streaming audio, watching videos and downloading music, I have been waiting 10 minutes for Yahoo to load. This would not be so bad but I do have a good connection to the internet at work so I knew what was possible and it made using the internet at home just plain painful. In fact I hardly even logged on at home and if you ever sent an email to my old home address you realize how seldom I actually checked it. Not to mention I share the computer with two teenagers. That can be a subject in the future.

So now the evil cable company can offer me a 4Meg down load speed (better than I have at work) and I could be watching football in High Definition. Ohh yeah I was drooling. I am a techno geek (as much as the fact pains my wife) and I love all things techno. I have more than one ipod. I have had a digital camera for more than 5 years. I have an HD TV. That could only receive one channel in HD (PBS) through its antenna. But now if I just crawl back to the cable company I can have it all (or so I thought).

I called the cable company and verified that yes it was true, that now even in the woods of Maine, they can offer me both HD TV and High Speed Internet. I talked money and I compared the costs and yes it was more than I was paying but not that much and it offered "so much" more. I took the plunge, I set up a time for install. I have to admit I was excited but I still thought once the cable guy actually came to my house he would laugh and say "high speed internet here? On your road? Ha, you got to be kidding!" But no, he showed up at his appointed time (yes, they even make appointments now) and he installed it and yes I now have both HD and a 4Meg internet connection. Too good to be true.......Yes!

The high speed works great, the HD is sooo cool to watch (in fact it is hard to watch anything else now) but there are a few problems. The first problem and my biggest complaint is that for some reason they do not have CBS in HD. Every other network in HD but not CBS, Why? They do not provide a good answer. So what you say? Well, my prime motivation to get HD was to watch football, not just any football but the World Champion New England Patriots football! And what network to they play on most of the time? Yes, the AFC is on CBS. Crap!! Now that leads right into my second complaint. The channels that are not digital (channels 2-70) look like crap. So not only can't I watch CBS in HD, the regular CBS channel looks like fuzzy and grainy because it is still the old fashion analog cable broadcast that I hated 2 years ago.

Where does that leave me? The satellite box is still connected and sits on top of the cable box. I have been unable to bring myself to cancel the satellite because I fear watching the Pats on the fuzzy cable channel. I did however reduce my satellite to the minimum subscription. I know, it is foolish waste of money and when I finally come to my senses and cancel the satellite I will have to climb up on my roof in the middle of winter(after football season) and remove the dish as it must be given back if I cancel my service. That may be a good story in itself.

Here is the Blog Dog as a puppy. 9 weeks old. He is 4 years old now and I will post more recent photos in the future. I love this photo. I often thought it could be used on a calendar for Labs. Black dogs are very difficult to photograph as the lighting has to be just right to see any texture or features. The lighting here was perfect. 

Roth IRAs Often Beat 401(k)

Roth IRAs Often Beat 401(k)s [Fool.com: Motley Fool Take] November 15, 2005

One of the great draw backs in working for a company in Ch 11 bankruptcy is obviously the distinct possibility that one might lose their job at a point in the very near future. The part that might not be so obvious is that it really puts all other financial type decisions on hold for an undefined amount of time. No vacations. No major purchases. Another example, is the Roth IRA. I have known for sometime that it is a great place to save for retirement and that the benefits out weigh those of a traditional 401(k) but I have not been willing to commit the funds to a Roth because I feel I need to keep my assets liquid. I continue to contribute to my 401 (just at a lesser amount). I guess I could back out even further and commit that money to a Roth but real point is I feel I am stuck in limbo land. Unable to move in any real direction. If there was an end point I guess I could form a plan and act on it but we just continue to drift on the sea of Ch ll. I should be careful what I ask for though, Drifting is better than sinking.

Unpaid food critic Vol. 1

The best "Un-flavored" Potato Chip in the world is:

GRANDMA UTZ'S
HANDCOOKED POTATO CHIPS

Three ingredients:
Potatoes
Lard
Salt

Sooo Good and Sooo bad for you!

The First Hurah

Just a short note to see how this blog process works. What in the world do I have to say that anyone would be interested in reading? I guess time will tell. Does anyone really look at these things anyway? If nothing else it may limit the number of emails I write if I can get friends and family to read the blog. More soon!