Archive for the ‘local stuff’ Category

Oh if you are interested in what Happened here in Fitchburg…

Posted: November 4, 2009 by datechguy in local stuff
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I must say I feel a bit like Pauline Kiel because the only person I knew who was proudly in favor of Mayor Wong was my wife.

Wong won with 60% of the vote. The write in candidate Donnley got 25% which to my mind really reflects poorly on the electorate, how 25% could support him is totally beyond me.

The city is in rough shape but the people must be confident in the folks currently running it, not only did every incumbent win but a former city counselor Rosemary Reynolds won the empty slot. It’s interesting to see that no incumbent counselor took less than 3000 votes. Here are some numbers:

DiNatale finished first with 3,412 votes, Hay finished second with 3,214, Conry finished third with 3,132 votes, Tran finished fourth with 3,035 votes, and Reynolds finished fifth with 1,704 votes.

Michael DiPietro came in sixth with 1,633 votes.

This tells me that despite the city’s problems people think it is on the right track. If Anne DiMartino had not left the counsel she would have taken that last spot from Rosemary. What symbolizes it the most? Halloween!

An afternoon session of downtown trick-or-treating was an overwhelming success, according to organizers, children and their parents.

“This is the best thing in Fitchburg. It’s beautiful,” said Maria Padilla-Oquendo, as she strolled down Main Street Saturday afternoon. “It’s amazing. I never thought it was going to be like this.”

Padilla-Oquendo, 44, was referring to the first Trick-or-Treat on Main Street event, coordinated by the Cleghorn Neighborhood Center, and Twin Cities Community Development Corp.

Marc Dohan, executive director of Twin Cities CDC, estimated about 1,000 trick-or-treaters made their way to the 45 participating businesses to collect candy on Saturday.

This is was a good idea particularly with so many street lights off, but more importantly it was a creative way to highlight Main Street business. There have been a lot of little innovations like that and frankly she hasn’t been afraid to take a shot.

It means that the Mayor will have a chance to complete the deal, will she be able to? I don’t know but we will find out.

The Lesson of the night? Listen to the wife.

Election Day: Go Vote

Posted: November 3, 2009 by datechguy in elections, local stuff
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I’ve been all NY-23 all the time here over the last two weeks or so, (Vote Hoffman!) but there is an election in my city too today.

Here in Fitchburg we have a mayor’s election and between Lisa Wong, nice lady, smart lady but friend of Patrick and shared a stage with Obama and Michael “Fuzzy” Voisine who is known for Pizza and sub in town for over 20 years.

At the last minute Tom Donnley has jumped into the race as a write in, the Unicow who I rarely agree with is right about this:

Just how stupid does Donnelly think the people of Fitchburg are, anyway? Judging from the comments on Sentinel articles, most people who aren’t rabid anti-Wong loonies have in no way forgotten what the guy’s all about, or that he helped create the problems Wong has been trying to fix for the last two years. They also see through the whole “I’ll swoop in late and avoid any actual campaigning” gambit.

To know Tom Donnley is to not vote for Tom Donnley, my mother won’t go near him because of issues with taxes and I’m certainly not going to write him in.

There is a lot of opposition to Mayor Wong. She is a competent person who is very smart and means very well. There is no chance she would solve Fitchburg’s problems in one term and the Ice Storm certainly didn’t help. I think she is being groomed for larger things in the Democratic party (she gets an AWFUL lot of state press, we never did before) but I think she would be better on a local level.

When I heard about Donnley I laughed at this apparent ego trip…

…until I went to the K of C meeting last night. It was Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy, everyone was for Fuzzy, I was shocked. These are all working class guys and not a one of them was against Fuzzy and not a one of them was for Mayor Wong. I haven’t made a final decision but I was likely the most pro-wong person there.

If you told me yesterday that Donnley was there to take votes against Fuzzy I would have laughed at you. Today I don’t know, and frankly I haven’t made up my mind yet.

Unless the fact that this City is a drug Hub and that the Gangs have been allowed to establish themselves is addressed all the other stuff isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference.

In the end we get the government we deserve, no matter who wins, no matter where you are, it’s up to you, go vote!

If you don’t then I’d better not hear you whining.

John gives Apple a lesson…

Posted: October 28, 2009 by datechguy in local stuff, personal
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…on customer service.

I’ve already told you about my son and his Apple and how poorly things were handled in a Customer Service bit:

Oh and did I mention the sheer anger of my son? He has a half a century of buying of computers ahead of him. He is very catholic and will have kids. How many apples do you think he will buy? How many times do you thing this story will be repeated over the decades?

By an odd coincidence his car needed serious repairs, Brought it down to John’s place (oddly named Paul’s Auto Repair even though he is the only guy there) and in addition to parts it was going to take over a full day for the physical repairs. I had an old radio to put in but the wires were cut and it couldn’t be used.

He was booked up for quite a while when I dropped the car off but this morning we went to pick it up. I made it clear to my son that he was paying for these repairs himself and when a friendly great Aunt offered to help I requested that she not so he would learn about expenses.

Well much to my surprise when he gave the price it was under $500 ($460 to be exact). In addition he found a used radio and put it in so he finally has music.

After my VERY grateful son left I thanked John. He said he knew it was his first car and his first car bill so he wanted to give him a hand, and he also knew about the Apple and figured he might need the extra money to pay it, and he didn’t want to leave him without a radio. (The car had none).

So for the rest of his life my son will remember this mechanics and the favor he did him, he will also remember that the money he didn’t have to pay to fix the car was enough to pay a 3rd party to fix the Apple.

Where do you think he is going to get his cars fixed for the next 2 decades? Where do you think his brother will go? He friends? How many times will this story get repeated? Who do you think he will be tweaking on Facebook?

And most importantly with all the money he will save over the years dealing with John how many PC based systems will he buy for his kids and himself instead of Apples?

Even if he never gives him another discount again he has earned his business. Hey Stevie Jobs and company you paying attention?

Talked to a state rep today concerning the Obama visit…

Posted: October 25, 2009 by datechguy in local stuff, opinion/news
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that Jules Crittenden wrote about today:

The recently elected Democratic President of the United States can’t fill a room in bluest Massachusetts. Surveying the nearly half-empty Westin Copley ballroom, 2008 “Yes We Can” Hope-and-Changer Barack Obama says on behalf of his longtime political doppelganger Deval Patrick, who in 2006 was the “Together We Can” template O drew on:

“There really should be no doubt that this guy gets a second term. But let’s be honest. This is going to be a tough race … ”

Boston Herald. Geez. I’m sure Deval is glad to have the $600,000 grand, but maybe Barry should have done him a favor and stayed in D.C. To avoid the Bush-like embarrassment of low turnout and protestors. And we aren’t even a year into the first term yet.

Boston Globe helpfully plays down and buries five long graphs down but can’t quite ignore Obama’s low draw.

I asked him about the event and his words:

You couldn’t give the tickets away

The real question is this, is president Obama not much of a draw (remember Hillary crushed him in Massachusetts despite the support of every poll in the site) or is it Governor Patrick is just a bad governor? I’d say both.

Full disclosure, I met the governor when he did an event 8 doors away from my house back in the days when 3 was running 3rd in the democratic primary, it was sponsored by the then owner of the coffee shop and both of my son’s attended. I have a picture of one of them with him. He is a soft spoken man and was very tolerant of my opinions as a republican and made his arguments in a cogent fashion. I of course didn’t support him but he seemed like a decent intelligent and reasonable man. I’m really surprised that his has been just a disaster.

I’d be happy to have him as a neighbor, nice guy, decent man, lousy governor.

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