So yesterday I’m reading all the hysteria about the flu on twitter and suddenly now that Menino announced it as a crisis I guess everything that every man woman and child knew about this flu season became real for folks. But I came across this Tweet that was the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as the hysteria meter goes-
Who’d you rather I be: the guy on the T that creeped u out cause he’s wearin a surgical mask or the guy on the T that gave u the flu? #MBTA
Let me answer unequivocally that I’d rather be the dude that sucks up a couple days with the flu rather than the dope that goes a whole winter wearing a surgical mask.
I hope to god this guy is married already because he’s got zero and I mean zero chance of getting laid rocking a surgical mask out and about all winter. We’re talking about an epic case of blue balls. And you know what? If it comes between an epic case of Blue Balls and an Epic Case of The Flu, give me the Flu 100 times out of 100.
We’re talking about a flu. Yeah, a nasty flu. A really sucky fever and chills flu. Any parent that has had it or had a child with it can tell you how sucky it is but you don’t see the most paranoid Type A moms in the Hamilton or Manchester Mother’s clubs wearing surgical masks. So I’m gonna venture out on a limb here and use that as my litmus test. If the Alpha Psycho Type A Moms of the world aren’t even considering wearing surgical masks then no man should wear one.
If you are battling a life threatening illness or if you’re eighty years old and can die of pneumonia, if you have a young newborn at risk at home, by all means, but not if you’re a healthy 30 or 40 something. We’re not talking about SARS. We’re talking about a flu.
Man Up Bro.
#mancardrevoked
(I just totally signed my I’m gonna get the Flu the minute I land back in Boston card)
Anyway- here’s the poll-
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I’d just like to throw out there the premise that the smell of fresh poop masked unsuccessfully by Lysol is far more offending to the senses than straight up poop.
Am I wrong in my thinking here?
Like if you just laid down a monster turd why not own up to it rather than try to mask it with that god awful Poop/Lysol smell mix? It’s offending to the person walking in after you and it’s offending to the masterpiece you left behind in the can.
Has this ever happened to you? You’re waiting to relieve yourself and the bathroom is occupied. So you sit there patiently waiting and then the perpetrator walks out of the bathroom. You walk in an immediately get smacked in the face with a waft of nasty poop/lysol aroma so pungent you feel like Mr T just gave you a Dirty Sanchez.
You drop to the ground commando style and try to work your way out of the bathroom on your elbows like a GI ducking for cover on Omaha Beach, trying to duck below the cloud of agent orange-like nastiness left behind only to discover it’s inescapable. You’re surrounded by it like the boy in the bubble and now you’ve only got two choices- soil yourself or stand up and inhale in all that poop/lysol aroma. It’s just burning out your nostrils and leaving you dry heaving your way out of the bathroom, light headed and ready to pass out.
I’d like to propose to parents across the US- please teach your children the proper way to take a dump-
Finish your bidness, wipe til you don’t see any brown on the TP and then wipe a couple more times to make sure, wash your hands with soap and water, grab a handful of paper towels to dry them off and use the same paper towels to open the door so your hands don’t touch the bacteria laden bathroom door handles, stick out your chest and just flat out own that poop.
Pass on the Lysol. It’s just flat out more natural. Haven’t you ever read that book as a child- Everybody Poops? Poop- Natural. Lysol/Poop- Not Natural.
Anyway, vote in the poll-
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Well The NHL Players Union and Owners Have Come To An Agreement For A Shortened Season. Are You Upset That It Took This Long To Reach An Agreement? Do You Even Care About Hockey? If You Did Care About Hockey Has This Labor Dispute Lessened Your Enthusiasm For NHL Hockey? Why Am I Capitalizing Every Word In These Sentences?
Here’s The Poll-
The answer to that last question is because I started out with the caps and while on vacation I’m just too lazy to go back and correct it.
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As I was preparing my list of books to take on vacation there was one I had at the top of that list- Adam Carolla’s Not Taco Bell Material. Last year in Playa del Carmen I read his first book In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks and was laughing with every turn of the pages.
No luck on the shelves locally, I headed to Barnes and Noble where it was also out of stock and since I was leaving in two days time there was no chance of ordering it in time to take it on vacation.
So the Mrs suggests ordering it to read on my iPad. While she has a tendency to not take care of her electronics I don’t like taking mine to the beach. Sand and saltwater and suntan lotion- just way too much chance of messing stuff up. However when looking online at the Library inventory of availability I see my book available in hardback edition.
I place the book on hold at 7:30AM. Show up at 10:00AM and ask for the book. It hadn’t been pulled from the shelf yet but the librarian (total unsung hero) walks around from behind the desk, goes and finds it for me, hands it to me and I straight up walk out. With a $25 book. For free. Just by showing up! I gots it for three weeks.
Customer service? You betcha! With a smile.
I thanked him and told him I appreciate his service to the community.
Twenty Five Dollars Savings In My Pocket.
This is not to mention to the free museum passes that are always available, the cds you can take out and burn to your iTunes collection listen to before returning, art exhibits, lecture series, free wifi, ect, ect, ect…
Point is, the library isn’t just a place for the homeless to hang out once the shelter boots them out for the day. It’s probably one of the greatest resources in the community and it’s free. If you end up on the positive end of savings and all these resources, please consider giving back and supporting the library. http://www.sawyerfreelibrary.org/
#Boom!
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I’m gonna spare y’all the nasty photograph of my armpit hair but I have a burning question that can only be answered with a thoroughly scientific GMG reader poll.
As I get older my armpit hair much like my nose hair is growing wildly out of control. It’s disgusting. While I regularly maintain the growth in my nose hair, crazy weird wayward eyebrow hairs and manscape my junk I’m a little leery about trimming my armpit hair.
I don’t think as a man you want to take that armpit hair down to the skin like a woman but do guys regularly trim their armpit hair? I’m reaching out because I honestly don’t know and I don’t want to create a monster if I get started and then the stuff grows back three times more thickly and suddenly my armpits look like a really bad 70’s porno coochie.
Just taking off my shirt and *POOF* strike people with a big ol’ 70’s porno bush. *KAPLOWIE*
So male GMG folk, how do you handle your armpit hair situation? Do you trim away a little to keep in manageable? Do you shave it right down like a Georgia peach? Do you let the stuff grow proud and braid it occasionally?
What is your armpit hair management situation if any?
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First off obviously everyone’s heart goes out to those killed and their friends, families and communities. There’s nothing you could imagine more terrible.
I just can’t bring myself to watch cable news on days like today. I know there are people that do however.
It’s just brutal the way they rehash the same rhetoric over and over and over again. What more information do people want to hear by listening to cable news all day long I don’t know.
Do you stay glued to the TV on days/weeks after terrible tragedies?
Does it make a person insensitive if they would rather watch Seinfeld reruns for the 15th time over cable news rehashing the Newtown tragedy all day long.
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Don’t forget to bring your children down to Art Haven to paint a buoy to adorn the tree. That’s what separates our lobster trap tree from all those horribly disfigured monstrosity lobster trap trees up in Maine that are all built out of simply traps and cheap pre-made ribbons imported from China and manufactured in sweat shops with unfair labor practices.
Compare our Tree decorated with heart felt appreciation for our lobster industry and hard working fishermen by sweet adoring children form the Gloucester Community to the abomination seen below-
Gloucester’s Lobster Trap Tree Decorated With Hand Painted Buoys By The Loving Appreciative Children Of Gloucester MA-
vs.
Provincetown lobster trap tree adorned with cheap imported Chinese pre-made slave labor ribbons-
Isn’t Provincetown where all the gays are? I know the gays are better than this, much more creative and artistic. Be better Provincetown, you’re not representing well here- at all.
vs.
Then you got the terribly disfigured one from Maine where it looks more like a Christmas Spike than a Christmas Tree-
Here we go folks, the third year of our fair and balanced GMG Lobster Trap Tree poll-
When our awesome Fire Department isn’t busy saving folks from horrific fires or rescuing cats from trees they make themselves available to help adorn The World’s Greatest Lobster Trap Tree With the lobster trap wire star that Russell Hobbs and his wife Melissa built back in 2009.
Yesterday was the day that Ed and the Crew from Art Haven strung the lights on the Lobster Trap Tree. Thanks David Brooks for the photos.
Discover Gloucester could use your reader’s help choosing a “Rookie of the Year!
We’re recognizing three new-to-the-scene local tourism-minded people with special Awards at the Discover Gloucester Holiday & Awards Party on December 5, Noon at Jalapenos. We hope you’re attending!
Two of the Award recipients were no-brainers for us to decide upon, just like last year when we selected you.
We found it hard to choose a third winner, though, as the field is extensive and stellar. There’s so many fantastic new businesses that came on board in 2012 that are helping to make our destination more diverse and interesting.
This is where your readers and an infamous GMG Poll come into play!
Would you help us out by putting a Poll up on GMG that includes all our nominees for Discover Gloucester Rookie of the Year Award?
Good Morning Gloucester faithful: Would you participate in the Poll, and also let us know if we forgot a new business that opened in 2012?
Nominees for the Rookie of the Year 2012 are, in no particular order:
RSVP now to info@SeaportGloucester.org to attend the December 5th Discover Gloucester Holiday & Awards Party at Jalapenos, 86 Main Street, Gloucester.
Noon-2PM; $22 per person. Be there for the fabulous Mexican Buffet and to see who wins the “Good On Ya!” Award; the “Golden Sou’Wester Rookie of the Year” Award; and the Discover Gloucester Heritage Award!
Thanks, Joey!
From Linn Parisi & the Discover Gloucester Board of Directors
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You submitted your nominations for the about to be printed new version of the GMG Sticka. printed by our FOB’s Shewsberry and Frank Ciolino and designed by Beth Swan, so here’s the poll.
(and there will be no Rubber Duck yellow option)
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Another gargoyle shot from Notre Dame in Paris. Possibly my best photo from all this vacation. Shot at max telephoto without a tripod, thanks to the great low-light capabilities of my new Sony a65 camera! The only retouching I did was to crop the photo, slightly adjust the contrast on the moon’s face, and remove some color fringing. And add the discreet copyright notice on the top ledge.
Today Loading up on Chocolate and Cheese at The Cave-
November 10, 2012
Uhmmmm, that whole priest thing, totally underrated apparently.
So I guess this begs the question- Would you give up sex to become a priest and travel the world with awesome cameras eating chocolate and drinking wine?
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When I first heard of the turbine coming to Gloucester I was angry. I felt as though it was only going to benefit one company, the company that was installing it and the money to pay for it was money that taxpayers subsidized and that most of these green energy projects are simply advertising vehicles reaching out to liberal tree-huggers who would buy any thing at any cost as long as you slapped the “It’s Green” sticker on it.
I let our Ed Collard and Sarah Kelly take opposing editorial views in a post before hand and I was still skeptical. View That Post Here-
Then I read Mayor Kirk’s editorial in the Gloucester Daily Times in which she stated that the City of Gloucester would “conservatively” have 90% of it’s energy needs paid for by the partnership and that number would be conservatively $450,000 per year.
With that huge savings for the taxpayers of Gloucester my mind was changed. Now with the Varian one erected, looking at it doesn’t bother me at all. I mean not in the least. I actually think it looks kinda cool.
Now if we look back a year from when the thing kicks off and see that the City only gets a tiny fraction of what it think’s it’s going to get I will be supremely pissed and feel duped and I’ll rail against every phoney baloney green energy claim that comes down the pike but I’m going to be cautiously optimistic that we will indeed provide those savings.
Now that the Turbine is up and you can see what it looks like on the horizon and you know what we know about the projected savings would you say that the turbines at Varian and Gloucester Engineering are a good thing or not?
Please vote in the new poll-
On our last poll in which we asked if the City of Gloucester would get more or less that $450K in Energy Savings over two thirds of voters chose under.
I’m more optimistic and I hope Mayor Kirk once the energy audit from the first year comes out gets to say “IN YOUR FACE!” to all the doubters and we get well over $450,000 per year in energy savings.
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In the tight 2004 campaign, the polls that asked Americans which candidate they supported — all the way up to the exit polls — told a confusing story about whether President George W. Bush or Senator John Kerry would win.
But another kind of polling question, which received far less attention, produced a clearer result: Regardless of whom they supported, which candidate did people expect to win? Americans consistently, and correctly, said that they thought Mr. Bush would.
Yeah, as usual we’re 2 days to a week ahead of traditional media. The GMG poll posted on October 28th. It’s just what we do, who we are- out in front baby.
If those of you who have Facebook or Twitter or Google+ could share this I’d love to see a really large number of votes to get a true picture of what most people want, Thanks. (You can share it by clicking the little icons below the post)
Holy Canoli Batman there were a lot of responses to this. Some which I think are completely ridiculous due to the space available where Five Guys was located up at Gloucester Crossing.
Anyway here are your options, vote away!
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The Mrs just put up this great wall of frames. Over/under on the time before any pictures get placed in the frames is 2 months and I’ve got the over. What cha got?
For those of you who participated in the Poll Back on the 2nd of April as to whether the wall of frames someone I may or may not be related to through marriage tastefully attached to our hallway wall would be filled with pictures within two months time, I have an update-
Brandon Bernard, left, and Joe Maisonave carry one of 44 photovoltaic solar collection panels toward its place in a solar array on the roof of Reversing Falls Lobster Wharf in Harpswell recently. Each panel weighs about 44 pounds and can harness 240 watts of energy.
OK, let me first state that if this is true, that they could get all their energy to run their commercial lobster dock from these solar panels that would be fantastic. The clean air, fantastic. Less reliance on big oil, fantastic.
HOWEVER-
I’m not as sharp as I was when I was in college and practicing my math skills on a daily basis but from what they are saying in the article-
“44 panels which can harness 240 watts of energy each.”
That means you can power a bunch of lighting fixtures, right? Assuming in an industrial space you are using 100 watt bulbs. More than likely in huge industrial spaces I’m thinking your bulbs use more than 100 watt bulbs so maybe you could light the joint with 44 big lights? 44 panels times 240 watt lighting fixtures. But someone once told me you could have every light in your house on but as soon as you turn on the toaster oven it uses way more energy than a bunch of lightbulbs.
Take our dock for example-
I have a seriously hard time believing that the juice that our 5 lobster tank recirculating pumps at 2.5 hp to 5 hp and are sucking water in large pipes 20 feet up from low tide up to the tanks and run 24/7 is equivalent to a bunch of lightbulbs even if you were lighting up a monstrous building.
In my very conservative estimation the recirculating pumps use about 1000 times more energy here at our dock than whatever piddly money our lighting expenses are. Then we have refrigeration and huge refrigeration compressors for our bait cooler where the pallets of bait are stored.
Guaranteed that the energy those compressors pull are far greater than what 44 panels that can harness 240 watts of power when the sun is shining and not when it’s dark outside and our recirculating pumps are still pumping and our bait cooler compressors are still cooling.
Oh but wait, then there’s the winches. If you’ve seen the huge motors that turn the winch heads you know those bad boys are sucking down a huge amount of electricity to be able to lift three crates of lobsters at a time at close to 400lbs or tuna that can get to 1000 lbs, or three totes of bait at close to 450lbs. These motors run those a good part of the afternoon and early morning.
So to me, the numbers in no way add up. No way, no how.
But the media looooves to grab onto these stories because the green folks will always accept whatever the headline is as fact and run with it. Once the things are half paid for with government (read taxpayer) subsidies and installed, they’re not going anywhere.
I have a very hard time accepting that this commercial lobster dock is going to power their entire operation from solar power even though they will market themselves that way and all the green lemmings will trip over themselves to go buy lobsters there for $2-3 more a pound because they are using green technology that they as taxpayers footed half the bill for.
Hey if I’m wrong with the numbers and they can somehow squeeze 100 times more than 240 watts of power out of 40 panels and indeed run their lobster company with some type of new math, then congratulations!
The point for me is not if this was or wasn’t a good financial investment for the guys up in Harpswell. I wish them the best, I really do. What bugs the hell out of me though is the media’s acceptance of all these green technology wild claims because they know people eat that stuff up as it makes for a feel good story regardless if the numbers add up or not.
Smells fishy to me though.
Read the two mad scientists analysis and vote in the poll below as to who has it more right.
It’s Paul Morrison and his Rubber Duck vs Damon Cummings In A Brainiac Deathmatch
Paul Morrison Analysis-
240 watt panels times 44 equal 10,560 watts or 10 kilowatts. For every hour the sun shines 10 kilowatts of power (kwh) is fed back into the power grid. That is a lot of power. If they switched to some LED lighting, efficient refrigeration and made sure their winches had no shorts, that amount of power could cancel out their entire electric bill and more. I would not be surprised that next summer the electric company is sending them cash instead of the other way around.
The fact that the power is produced at the peak time the power company needs it (sunny days when people are running their AC on max) means if more solar panels go up then an extra power plant might not need to be built to cover those peak usage times. One less power plant, a little less coal burned, a little less emphysema, seems a logical course of action to me.
Damon Cummings Analysis-
The 44 pound weight of the panels roughly checks with the 240 watts optimistically. 44 * 240 = 10560 watts = 10.5 Kw Given reasonable efficiency estimates of electric motors that is around 10 horsepower total. A residence might have 100 amp service at 220 volts which is 22 Kw. I think they must have a lot more than 44 panels. I bet the pumps and compressors run in the dark as well.. They must have a huge battery bank. I suspect they just run their office and perhaps some lighting off the panels.
By the way a kitchen toaster is about 1000 watts, 1 Kw, all by itself (about 10 amps at 110 volts) so they can run about ten toasters . A 20 amp fuse at 110 volts is 2200 watts or 2.2 Kw so their 10.5 k Kw would blow five 20 amp fuses. That is a residential, not industrial, load.
Vote Here-
Vote here-
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People in everyday life acting as if they were running for office or were in some corporate job 24/7 campaigning for a raise. Everything is supposed to be vanilla, no one is supposed to raise their voice, we’ve literally handcuffed the poor teachers from disciplining students, everyone gets a trophy, eliminating MVP awards to not make anyone feel inferior.
For Christs sake when does it end? Are we creating a nation of weak, dry, humorless politically correct robots?
What would our Grandfathers say about all this? Probably just shake their heads in disgust.
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John McElhenny submits – On Wednesday a German photographer stopped by to take hunky pin-up calendar photos of Joey down the dock. Today, there’s our Joey again in a photo spread in the Gloucester Times. He’s been profiled and quoted in magazines and newspapers way more times than anyone could count. We know Joey’s rugged good looks are like nectar to photographers. But is there a danger he’ll become overexposed and people will tire of his George Clooney-like mug?
Joey C. and Justin Bieber: Which one gets more media? It’s a close call.
This is a big concern for Joey’s future modeling career. So it’s important that we ask readers:
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. 
Good Morning Gloucester 
