Friday, October 3, 2008

We took our foliage trip!

Being almost consistent with my proclamation that I don’t watch debates, I only watched a few minutes of last night’s vice presidential one. Those few minutes were more out of curiosity about how Gov. Sarah Palin would handle herself facing Sen. Joe Biden. I was impressed. But I was more impressed this morning reading about it as even NBC, perhaps the most liberal and biased of all networks, praised Gov. Palin and mildly criticized Sen. Biden. I’d doubt the ultra folk on the Today Show this morning will echo too many of the analysts comments of last night.

I was very impressed with the comments I’ve read from critics, bloggers, and forum contributors this morning. Now we’ll have to wait and see how the debate played on “Main Street” and if it will sway any voters.

I wonder if the Democrats will ever learn that President Bush isn’t running for anything.

The House of Representatives will vote today on its plan to bailout the financial market. The Senate, as you know, passed a very bloated plan Wednesday. Both candidates for Maine’s First District Congressional seat, Charlie Summers (R) and Chellie Pingree (D) said yesterday they would, if they were now serving, vote against the plan. Summers and Pingree are vying for the House seat being vacation by Tom Allen (D) who is challenging Sen. Susan Collins (R) for her Senate seat.

Summers sent out his ideas on the plan in an e-mail yesterday. He said, “Were I a member of Congress tomorrow, I would be voting 'no' on this bill. While I am glad that it appears our legislators have come together to work towards a solution, the bill they produced is not the clean piece of legislation we need to deal with the problems in our economy. We face a crisis of confidence in the United States. Americans are angry with the mess on Wall Street, and the majority of them do not believe that our elected officials are capable of handling this situation.

Summers then offered four points that he said need consideration: “No bailout of Wall Street executives, all taxpayer money must be recouped, insist on accountability and transparency, and temporarily suspend the capital gains tax.” Unfortunately, I checked with his web site this morning and I couldn’t find a link to his e-mail this morning. And I’m not on Pingree’s mail list so I don’t know if she offered anything or not.

Gator Wife and I finally successfully got to take our foliage ride yesterday. By mid morning the clouds that blanketed the sky when we got up were beginning to dissipate. Although many of those clouds were still there, we could see patches of blue sky so decided to head in the blue direction. Thankfully the blue was toward places we had been told earlier were showing patches of good color.

Our trip took us to Biddeford, Alfred, North Berwick, Berwick, Somersworth and Rochester, New Hampshire, Lebanon, Springvale, back to Alfred then along routes 202/4 as far as the turn to Scarborough. We did run into some shower activity in Somersworth, but the rest of the trip was in sunshine. The leaves were glorious. We thoroughly enjoyed the leaf peeping, but it also appeared that even in Southwestern Maine, the days are numbered.

At one point I wanted to take some pictures to share with you. As I reached for my camera, I realized it was still on my kitchen counter where the batteries were charging. We do have a cell phone, but if you read this spot a few weeks ago, you know I gave up on my quest for get a camera phone. I now wish I had been a little more persistent. Now, like us with our memory, you’ll simply have to imagine the beauty we passed this day. Maine, and even a rainy New Hampshire, is certainly a haven of remarkable beauty this time of year.

This Friday started off looking like a glorious day. I’ll bet those leaves are absolutely beautiful this morning. Unfortunately, our oak trees have made another huge deposit on our driveway. Have a great day.

GiM

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