And hey, France makes a nice corporate jet

The latest example of corporate clulessness has apparently been averted: Citigroup has decided against spending $50 million on a new corporate jet after some folks pointed out that didn't look too cool for a firm that just received $45 BILLION in government bailout funds.

Hey Citi jackasses - fly coach and get over it. Sacrifices have to be made.

And what is also not mentioned is that the jet is made by a French company (though at least the interior is customized in Little Rock, Ark.)

-JDE2

Vive Le France!

From our main man Alan Mutter: France's plan to bail out newspapers, and why it won't happen here.

And while I love the idea of saving our jobs, the bottom line is that the "good angel" just went "poof!" on my shoulder to point out to my principled side that government aid to newspapers is a bad idea, for obvious reasons. ("How come you spiked that story on the conditions for veterans at that Walter Reed site?" "Ohhh, nothing . . . no reason. . . ")

Sigh. . . .

-JDE2

Reach out and touch someone

I know, again, I haven't posted in a while. Laziness is only part of it.

This blog was started partly as a fun exercise, and partly to dust off writing muscles that had grown stale since becoming an editor. And while I try to write this without sounding self-pitying, it's not as much fun now, sad to say.

Truth is, these are tough days in the newspaper industry (duh). And while I try not to bitch too much, it's hard to watch an industry I dearly love go down the tubes.

By nature, I'm more skeptic than optimist, so it's tough for me to see a bright side. Especially when every day seems to bring news of more layoffs across the board in all industries, not just here in the fourth estate.

Even President Obama's magnificent inaugural address, with its solid message of determination in the face of adversity, can't temper the sobering reality it also outlined: We're in deep doo-doo.

But there is one ray of sunshine when I hop on the Web now: Facebook.

Look, I work on the Web, but I don't get to play on the Web that much. It's hard to explain.

However, my wife joined Facebook and LinkedIn earlier this year, and she is now an addict. To be fair, she uses her account for mostly professional purposes. Many of her Facebook contacts are co-workers and professional colleagues.

At first, I was skeptical. First of all, I'm not the most social of people. But all it took was one incredibly nice friend invite on Facebook from someone I wouldn't have expected to open my friends list up. And make me re-think this whole thing.

Let's face it: High school, timed to coincide with all the awkwardness of adolesence, can be a special circle of hell. At least it was for me. I haven't kept in touch with many people from there.

But I have to look in the mirror for a lot of why high school sucked, too. I was a bit of a self-absorbed jerk. OK, I'm probably still a bit of a self-absorbed jerk.

Then again, our class, the smallest in our high school's history (an honor I believe we still hold) was also known for (and at the time, prided itself on) its apathy.

But with one click from the batch of friend invites I got, I got to see a childhood friend's beautiful triplets for the first time. He's not the only one with kids now. We're all at or near 40, with children of various ages. Amazing.

And it hit me: Maybe we can all grow up a bit in 22 years.

Even me.

-JDE2

Uh, Happy New Year?

Just an observation while at work today: Some people seem to be in seriously cranky moods, judging by our message boards.

We had some rather innocuous features today (to be expected on a holiday) that seemed to stick in people's collective craws. There was the obligatory first baby of 2009 story, a nice piece on how seventh-graders are trying to make the Chinook the state dog, and another feature on a guy who enlisted in the Army at 39 (Note: These stories always bring out both sides in the the message board debates, but in light of the other "lighter" stories, thought it was worth a mention).

What happened to hoping 2009 is better? Yikes.

-JDE2

Pats post-mortem

While I await a response from customer support on a work-related issue, thought I'd dash off a few thoughts on the Patriots season:

--I will never second-guess Bill Belichick again. Remember that sick feeling we had in our stomachs when Tom Brady went down on the second series of the season? As Matt Cassel came out to take snaps, my colleague Mr. McSorley texted me with the message, "The one thing we never wanted to see."
Seriously. The best QB in the NFL was down (and I knew it was bad when he went back to the locker room. There would be no miraculous, uplifting return a la Larry Bird/Paul Pierce.) And this guy, who hadn't taken a snap when it counted since high school, whose main claim to fame was backing up not one, but two Heisman winners at USC, who had spent four years wearing a baseball cap and holding a clipboard instead of a helmet and a football in games, and who had looked, to put it charitably, lousy in preseason . . . THIS was the guy who was going to take the reins of a team that came within 30 seconds of an undefeated season last year?
And the kid pulled it together magnificently. Yes, there were rough spots, which are to be expected when someone basically has to learn on the job. But 11-5? I had visions of 8-8 . . . which, come to think of it, might've been good enough to win the NFC West.

-- Yes, I wanted blood after last year. I wanted no mercy. I thought Brady sitting out the preseason was an effort at sandbagging. I came damn near close to buying a "37-1" t-shirt. But in some ways, this was more satisfying. We were treated to discovering an emerging star in Cassel, reminding us what it was like to watch Brady take over in 2001. With all their injuries, especially on defense (hey, give Cassel credit, but he still did have Moss and Welker to throw to), they still came together nicely. We as fans have really been spoiled, with no tell-tale holes in any unit on the team the past couple years. This year, the secondary was a big question mark, and once Rodney Harrison went down for the season, that was tough to overcome. Losing Tedy Bruschi and having to get Junior Seau off his surfboard and Rosevelt Colvin off from wherever was, in hindsight, probably a push - mainly because of the strong rookie season of Jerod Mayo and the continued solid play of Mike Vrabel.

-- Speaking of defense, someone raised this intriguing possibility: Why not trade Cassel and trade Brady? The resulting draft picks and players could be used to shore up the defense.
As we've learned from the Lawyer Milloy situation in 2003, Belichick recognizes that what makes the team better now is what matters. Yes, I'd love to see Brady finish his career with a Flying Elvis on his helmet. But if the team truly believes in Kevin O'Connell (and from accounts, they seem to) a move like that wouldn't and shouldn't shock folks.

--Part of me wonders if this works out better for Cassel's possible free agency. Leading a team with a decimated defense to a fighting chance of a playoff spot looks good on the resume, perhaps better than if said defense had been run over in a first-round blowout, overshadowing any QB's performance.

--This is not Pats-related, but hey, Brett Favre: 9 picks and 2 TD passes in the final 5 games? That doesn't look good, even on your HoF resume.

--Again, when all is said and done, it was a fun ride. Let's hope it doesn' t end this soon in 2009.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Bruins bandwagon to jump on. . .wearing my new Celtics fleece, no less.

-JDE2

Ice Storm, Part Deux

We have power at our house once again, after 172 hours and change - more than a week for you math-challenged types.

Here's a few thoughts:

-- Plenty of people still don't have power. Many will go without power on Christmas. But the job the utility companies did getting as many people back online within a week was remarkable.

-- And of course, it may not be over yet: We got about a foot of snow in some spots yesterday and another big storm is forecast for Sunday.

-- My minor bitching aside (and it was minor: You should see our comment boards at unionleader.com . . . even the ones we didn't let through! Hey!), this thought occured to me: We are a bunch of wimps.

Seriously, the myth of the "hardy New Englander" was somewhat demolished this past week, especially after seeing some people upset they were without power . . . for hours.

Somewhere, our Pilgrim ancestors are laughing their buckled shoes and hats and knee breeches off at us. Granted, a major reason they stopped here was because they ran out of beer. In hindsight, don't you think an extra barrel or two of porter or stout would've helped them settle in warmer climes?

Anyway, I've been through the Blizzard of '77, the Blizzard of '78, Hurricane Gloria in '85, "The Perfect Storm" in '91, the "Storm of the Century" in '93, a 39-below air temperature in '93, the Ice Storm in '98, and probably a few other weather phenomena I forgot to mention. I can't remember any storm ever displacing me, until now.

And full disclosure: My in-laws got power back Friday night. So for a week, my wife and I and our two toddlers got to crash there. We had hot meals, hot showers and a warm bed. (Granted, at midweek our 4-year-old son confessed he missed his room. Even a playland like Nana and Pop-Pop's has its limits.) I honestly don't know what we would have done if they didn't get power back. So my criticism can be taken with a grain of salt.

At any rate, I actually saw someone compare the situation here to Katrina. Come on: You may have had to throw away a fridge full of food (in our case, a fridge and stand-up freezer-full, though we were in time to salvage the holiday birds), you may have frozen your tuckus off in your home (38 degrees in my house when power was restored), you may have even gone without a shower for a week . . . or longer (yikes!) . . . but you weren't on the roof of your house, watching water rise, praying for rescue as everything you owned was swept away.

Communication was tough to come by. Funny how that switch to the cable phone system seems a bit short-sighted now. Previously, I remember the phone always working in a power outage. But the way we saved trips back to the house was to call. If voice mail picked up, it was still dark. It got to the point where my wife and I couldn't stand the sound of my voice saying, "Hi! We're not able to come to the phone right now. . . "

Look, was I prepared for this? No. Guilty. And yes, I've made fun of all those folks who crowd the supermarkets before a storm to stock up on things. Sufficiently chastised, especially after a run to grab batteries on Friday, I won't again. And a generator is on the to-do list now, as is looking into a wood stove, something I had in my previous house that worked brilliantly during the 1998 ice storm.

Yes, our ancestors were hardy sorts. But they were lucky to bathe once a year and, ahem, relieved themselves outdoors. I like indoor plumbing and modern conveniences.

So I'm a wimp, too.

So be it.

-JDE2

This Abe Lincoln/Amish/Living-Off-The-Grid/Little House on the #!@&ing Prairie Life Sucks

We haven't posted in a while, and while I can't speak for Matt, my issue for what will have been a full week now as of midnight tonight is a lack of electricity. I'm writing this from work.

The question everyone has been asking when greeting an acquaintance in Southern NH the last few days isn't, "How are you?" or even, "How's the Christmas shopping going?" Nope, it's been "Got power yet?"

Last Thursday night, a massive ice storm hit the state and region. Those of us whose previous reference to "a bad ice storm" was the one we had in December 1998 were totally unprepared for the scale of this one.

Do the math: In 1998, my previous house was without power for four days. Some 70,000 customers lost power in the state. A staggering 424,000 customers (note the term, as that probably means far more people) were without power a week ago tomorrow after the storm. The fact that the number has gone down to below 70,000 as of this morning is a testament to the hard work of the crews who have come from as far as Ohio and Maryland to help out.

I really can't complain: My in-laws got power restored within a day, and my family and have had a warm place to stay, hot meals and hot showers for the week. And we should get it restored to our house this weekend, weather permitting. Many folks won't have power for Christmas.

Still, it's been a disheartening experiece to pull up to our dark, cold house (39 degrees inside when I checked this morning) and hear the roar of my neighbors' generators still going after a week.

As I post this, the house is going on its 160th hour without electricity. Amazing.

-JDE2