I’m about 90% done with the new site redesign at The Valley Voice. I’ve include many new features including an animated slide show with title AND excerpt. The event calendar is now in the tab and the Polls will be updated more often.
Please be certain to give me feedback, suggestions and praise so I can improve the site even more. If you want something of yours to appear on the site please send it to:
beheard@thevalleyvoice.org.
-Cheers!
I found this wonderful promotional item online and felt it was worth sharing. 
Facebook's New Browser, Rockmelt
It’s currently named “RockMelt”. I’m not quite certain if this new browser being created by Facebook will be worth it. But I have to admit it’s very compelling. The screen shot looks interesting enough. What I’d really like to see is a Twitter browser, now that would be worth it!
You can go to www.rockmelt.com and sign up for any info as it becomes publically available. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for this one.
One really interesting thing is Marc Andreessen, creator and inventor of the first internet browser, Mosiac, is backing Facebooks journey into the browser war.
This is going to get interesting!
So I’m sitting here in Hattie’s Chowder House when I’m told that two men have been shot dead in their home at Rumford. The article at WGME says:
The Home where two men were shot to death.
Friends and roommates Victor Sheldon, 22, and Roger Day, 48, lived at 244 Pine St., where they were shot at about 9:30 p.m. Police said both men were shot in the head.
A third person inside the home at the time was in a different room and called police.
Police have questioned several people but have made no arrests. Crime scene tape remained at the house Tuesday, and police didn’t obtain a search warrant until the mid-afternoon, which allowed detectives to photograph and videotape the crime scene, News 8′s Jim Keithley reported.
This is sincerely one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard of happening in Maine. Almost as crazy at the guy who butchered his boss and family down in coastal Maine.
Though none have been this big, Maine is certainly getting some activity!
Really this is quite interesting news. Tornados happening in Maine, though seemingly rare, have started to come up a bit more often lately. The lastest one was reported to have hit East Bethel, travelled a mile and a half then disappeared. It was apparently only 100 yards in diameter or so and considered an F-0 with winds up to 80 mph. This is a very strange thing to hear about, kind of like an earthquake happening in Portland. Not very likely.
Should we take heed to this change? Does this mean that global warming is actually a factor? If so why has this summer been so incredibly cold? Never the less we need to pay attention to these things!
[poll id="2"]
New Footage of Tornado in Western Maine!
I recieved a text message while at Hattie’s yesterday evening it said:
FWD: Lewiston maine AMBER ALERT: 3 yr old girl taken by a man driving a new silver truck plate 72B381 -keep it going til they catch them!
Naturally I tweeted it to my 100+ followers on twitter and my 700+ friends on facebook, only to discover it was false. According to an article at WMTW the police say it started at around 7:30 pm and is completely fake, there are no missing kids reported in lewiston. One of my contact said that the letter in the middle of the plate number proves it’s fake. Nice call Micah!
The saying is incomplete here:
"The LOVE of money is the root of all evil."
Money has no life of its own and it itself cannot be evil, money is a "thing".
If you freely give it away you could be doing very wonderful things, no matter how much money you have.
What if Charlie Brown were in 3D? Not so endearing anymore is he!?
I was looking around for illustration of comic strip characters. I stopped on this one by Tim O’Brien. This was apparently an entry into an exhibit for July 11th called “Monsters”. I have to say this one is certainly an unsettling example of what a monster can really be! Charlie Brown is not as cute as I would have thought!
From his site:
I started with the usual Charlie Brown head but when I started the face, I kept going, imagining his features realistically. Later, away from the studio at the side of a lake, I did a watercolor. Casual at first, I thought about his eye. The effect I wanted was that from a distance, someone might think it’s just Charlie Brown and as they approached the piece, the realism hit them. Therefore, the eye had to be coal black but real. The watercolor worked it out but then the question of how the skin would look, why was he bald and how old is he arose? Who knows?
With all the preparation work completed, I did the piece. It’s freaky. Maybe not a monster but not normal.
A day later while I waited for it to dry I had to prepare for a talk I am giving this weekend.
I have at least one glass of wine every night with dinner, usually more. I've been doing it for quite some time and I will only quit if they stopped making wine completely. I mean all at once EVERY vineyard would have to become poisoned and extinct — I'd consider quitting then.
My first kiss was awkward and wonderful. It was a brief immature meeting of lips with Jamie Granger who ultimately fell for the "bad guy" in our class which created my first feeling of jealousy and betrayal at the young age of nine years old.
