i haven't been there in years

but all of my friends go all the time. they run, they hike, they bike. it's lovely and peaceful (well not so much any more, it's rather crowded and that's why i stopped going. when i was in high school, that was THE place to go. plus it was always almost deserted).

i don't know anything about the lawsuit. i don't know where the barrier was (but hell, i KNOW there are barriers and gates all over that reservoir) and i don't know what injuries were sustained. i cannot speak to that (although i CAN say when one 'mountain' bikes one expects a bit more than smooth sailing

i just don't ever want them to close the west hartford reservoir to the public. it IS a jewel

One of CT's Jewels May Soon Be Off Limits

By AMANDA RAUS

Cyclists both young and old use the 80 miles of trails along the West Hartford Reservoir to ride through nature.

"This is a wonderful place that offers a lot of variety of trails for different skill levels, different people and it's a very nice setting, it's peaceful, and it just has a lot to offer," said Ron Bonofiglio of Tolland.

The trails could soon be off limits. The Metropolitan District (MDC) was ordered to shell out $2.9 million to Maribeth Blonski, because she slammed into a barrier while riding. Now, the company is worried about other liability lawsuits.

"I feel somewhat upset that someone would have to find a reason to bring a lawsuit against it, because I think the organization has done a fine job sharing the facilities with everybody and making sure it's a safe area," said Rick Picard of West Hartford............

some VERY good news

again, i'm not going to get too excited because i know what happened between lamont and da LIEbs

but i sure am OVERJOYED to see blumenthal trouncing that steamin' pile o' (VERY RICH) shite known as linder 'lets show stripper-type women getting beaten up on tv because that's a good way to educate young people' mcmahon

Buoyed by a poll, Blumenthal still steps carefully toward Memorial Day

By Mark Pazniokas

..............Earlier, Quinnipiac University gave Blumenthal good news: Its latest poll found that a majority of residents believed he misspoke, not lied, when referring to service in Vietnam. He leads Republican Linda McMahon by 19 percentage points among military households and 25 points overall..............


(i couldn't find picture credits)

stupid connecticut crime

you just CANNOT make this shite up

and dang, what's a grrrl gotta do to get a picture?

Man In Diaper Charged With Breach Of Peace

By JOSEPH WENZEL IV

TRATFORD — A 41-year old man in a diaper was arrested Tuesday after he asked a grandmother to wipe him, police said.

Thomas Wellington of Vought Place got out of his Ford Bronco at the C-Town Plaza, at 360 Boston Ave., around 4:30 p.m. wearing only diaper and sucking on pacifier, Capt. Kenneth Bakalar said. He approached a woman with three grandchildren and asked her for baby wipes, Bakalar said..........

Stratford man seen wanderin in a diaper charged

• By: Erin Cox

Stratford, Conn. (WTNH) - A 41-year old Stratford man is facing charges after he was seen allegedly wandering around a parking lot wearing only a diaper and sucking a pacifier.

Click here to read the police report

An officer reports finding Thomas Wellington parked in the lot sitting in his SUV and seeing baby pacifiers all over the vehicle. "When he questioned him about what happened he really didn't answer," said Capt. Kenneth Bakalar of the Stratford Police Department. "When he asked why he was wearing a diaper he said he had problems with his intestines."................

to the family and friends of sgt edwin rivera

i am so very sorry for your loss. he sounded like one hell of a special soldier and special man.

my thoughts are with you

 

Connecticut Soldier Dies From Injuries Suffered In Afghanistan

By RINKER BUCK


Last summer, six months before he was deployed to Afghanistan for the second time, infantry Sgt. Edwin Rivera sat in his car in the driveway of his parents' house in Waterford and explained to his mother why he was returning to war.

It was the sad faces of the children that he had seen in Afghanistan during his first tour there in 2006, he told his mother, faces that still reminded him of why American soldiers were there.

"When the U.S. soldiers drive by," Rivera told his mother Gladys that night, "the children will scramble like mad in the dust just to get thrown a simple pencil from us. They don't even have pencils. I was born for this, it's my duty, to protect those families over there."

Now there is chilling immediacy to her memories, for Rivera has paid a high price for returning to those Afghan faces.................

how wonderful IS this?

i read about this the other day and wanted to post something. so of course the courant had a piece a few days later (why are we ALWAYS behind?)

Mark Twain Autobiography To Be Released In November

pic: Mark Twain, seen in 1903, lived in Hartford for two decades and wrote most of his major works here. He spent the last years of his life in Redding. (File)


here's something from boing boing:



Mark Twain's autobiography to be finally published, 100 years after his death

Cory Doctorow

.................The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.

That milestone has now been reached, and in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain's autobiography. The eventual trilogy will run to half a million words, and shed new light on the quintessentially American novelist...

"He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He's also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there."

In other sections of the autobiography, Twain makes cruel observations about his supposed friends, acquaintances and one of his landladies.......................

a very interesting piece on that piece o' steamin' shite

known as linda mcmahon. he has a few other postings on her as well. i didn't have time to go through his blog like i should have (to be better informed is what i mean) BUT let's just say the king and i are diametrically opposed on almost everything EXCEPT it appears, linda!


from
the king's view

Connecticut Convention Hell - Republicans should hang their heads low

The Republican Party boasts of being the party of principle and open process. Yet on Friday night at the 2010 Connecticut Republican Party Convention, I and many others witnessed behavior that brought shame on the party, its officials, and its Chairman - Chris Healy. The Linda McMahon campaign along side of State Central officials worked endlessly to threaten, intimidate, and force delegates to switch sides and support Linda McMahon over Rob Simmons. Many of these delegates switched from Peter Schiff to Linda McMahon after it was clear that Schiff was unable to barely get to a quarter of the support needed for a win.................

flowers at

the half door

may 22, 2010

i didn't read the story

there is NO need to. just get a load of the headline:

Search For Monkey Called Off

i just want to say those peeps at sonic

are genius. for (what seems to me at least) a couple of years they've been running commercials on local tv stations. i know i've asked 'is there a sonic around here?' every time i've seen the commercial.

it's a good way to get it in people's minds. no sonics (yet) BUT commercials. get the fine citizens of connecticut thinking about it and they will have NO CHOICE but to get in their cars and drive on over (once it's actually built and open that is)

(on another note, my parents used to bring me to the yankee silversmith and i have fond memories of it)



Ground-Breaking Today For Sonic Restaurant In Wallingford

by Mara Lee

Usually it's chain-restaurant-deprived folks who start a Facebook page begging for a company to open a location locally.

But Robert Mesite, who grew up working in his father's Villa Capri restaurant in Wallingford, turned that notion on its head when he asked Facebook users in November where they'd like to see a Sonic restaurant.

Mesite, who breaks ground on the state's first Sonic location in Wallingford today, has plans for several more Sonic outlets in Connecticut. He didn't take the Facebook users' advice — the No. 1 choice was the Berlin Turnpike, which has a moratorium on drive-throughs — but it's all part of the buzz as a fast-food chain expands into the state.......

ok, let's help mo get home

ok, adam wakefield is in the military and he's deployed. the LEAST his fellow citizens of the great state of connecticut can do is HELP HIM GET HIS PUP HOME (from afghanistan)!

wait a sec, wait a sec, i just went to donate AND THEY'VE REACHED THEIR GOAL! that is such joyous news! thanks peeps o' connecticut. even though you elected da liebs, you done me proud with this one!







Conn. Army Sniper On Mission To Send Puppy Home From Afghanistan

A Connecticut Army sniper is on a mission to send Mo, the puppy he adopted in Afghanistan, to his home in Clinton. The Army has told Adam Wakefield, 24, that the dog cannot stay with him at the Army base. A website, sendmohome.bbnow.org, is raising money to help bring Mo to Connecticut and pay for quarantine and vaccinations...........

pic:

Adam and Mo

(Photos courtesy Brian Wakefield)

Connecticut Army sniper Adam Wakefield wants to get his four-legged friend Mo on a flight back to the States.

i don't have a dog right now but

i still would love a dog park. i think they're great. well all the one's i've visited are

i hope the money can be raised. of course zoning is a dog horse of a different color. west hartford is NOT the easiest town to get something passed in. don't know if people are aware of that, but it's NOT

Site Found For West Hartford Dog Park; Hurdles Remain

By BILL LEUKHARDT The Hartford Courant

WEST HARTFORD —

The town's first dog park — a fenced place where canines can run free under owner supervision — will be in Fernridge Park if the citizens group seeking the plot can win zoning approval and raise money to pay for site improvements.

A town council subcommittee working with the 300-member West Hartford Dog Park Coalition decided Wednesday night that a small section of Fernridge could be used for the park. It was one of five spots under review by the town and the coalition.

"It's a huge milestone we've passed," coalition President Mandy Pike said Thursday of the group's two-year search for land for the dog park. That search sped up last December, when the town council voted to help the coalition find a site.

Nothing can be done until the proposal wins town planning and zoning approval, which is required for any new use of parkland, Town Manager Ronald Van Winkle said..........

park street, king eddie and (alleged) corruption

sort of sounds good together, no? only time will tell oh and hartford needs it's OWN buddy cianci doesn't it?

Perez Trial: City Official Testifies About Developer's Shoddy Work
By JOSH KOVNER The Hartford Courant

HARTFORD

On May 8, 2006, a top city official wrote to a bonding company about major, long-standing problems with city contractor Carlos Costa on the multimillion-dollar restoration of Park Street. Assistant Public Works Director John McGrane asked the company to pull Costa's performance bond and meet with city officials about terminating Costa's contract for the project. The project was woefully behind schedule, plagued by shoddy work, and inflated by claims for extra payments by Costa that threatened to drive up the cost of the $5.3 million job, according to city records. Eight days later, on May 16, 2006, Charles Crocini, director of capital projects for the city and a man who reported directly to Mayor Eddie A. Perez, wrote a letter to the bonding company rescinding McGrane's call for action. The letter kept Costa on the job, which was eventually finished 2½ years late and with $2 million in additional claims from Costa still pending. .............
Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez listens to his lawyer, Hubert Santos, left, talk to the judge during the opening minutes of his corruption trial Wed. morning, the first day of his trial, a trial that is expected to last 6 weeks. At right is defense atty. Hope Seeley. (STEPHEN DUNN, Hartford Courant / May 12, 2010)

man i'm pissed

i live in a 3 family in west hartford. i've lived here for YEARS AND YEARS. i have been getting mail (which i've left in my box with a note that the addressee is NOT me) and NOW phone calls from creditors for someone who used to live below me. she must have given them MY phone number. i just called back one of the creditors and told them i'm not who they're looking for and to knock it off

i am so effing pissed someone would do that to someone else. anyway, i'm not going to go after her (as in contact her and tell her i think she's an asshole, NOT physical by any means). she's got some issues (and i'm being kind here) and she has two teenage sons.

i just wanted to vent. you know.

i'm done now

i'm just asking...........

i'm wondering why king eddie (and almost everyone else) is concentrating on park street so much and LEAVING ALL THE OTHER HARTFORD AREAS IN DIRE STRAIGHTS. how about concentrating on let's say the WEST end or the NORTH end. they too are vibrant but can be more so. i found out what the mill rate is in hartford and was shocked off of my chair. i thought west hartford was bad. NOPE, hartford is almost TWICE that of west hartford. it's 70 something, the HIGHEST in the state i believe. what's up with that king eddie (who by the way wants to raise it). what are the businesses going to do? what are the homeowners going to do? hartford must have change in order for it to thrive.

don't get me wrong. i'm HAPPY for park street (i just drove down on friday so i've seen the brick walks and the new street lights and the new curbs and the like). i'd just be happier if king eddie SPREAD THE WEALTH

Park Street Life: Hartford's Hispanic Thoroughfare Has Retail Vibrancy Downtown Longs For

By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN The Hartford Courant
It's been well known for years that Park Street has the retail vibrancy missing from downtown Hartford since the heyday of the department stores in the 1950s.

But what's surprising is how much more vibrant it is.

A recent, first-ever study of the Park Street retail corridor by the city showed a storefront vacancy rate in the single digits, compared with 43 percent for retail spaces downtown. Both have approximately the same amount of total space — about 500,000 square feet.

So why the difference?

The 2-mile-plus Park Street retail corridor — running from Main Street to Prospect Avenue — has an enviable mix of restaurants, clothing boutiques, bodegas, jewelry shops and grocery stores, partly the result of planning and support by the local merchants association.

"Mostly, it just happens," said Marisol Monserrate, small business coordinator for the Spanish American Merchants Association. "It's just the way the street is. There is a lot of energy on Park Street. People see empty properties, get interested and get right on it."

Some of the success has to do with the smaller retail spaces and far lower rents on Park Street. Most of the storefronts have apartments above them, with well-populated neighborhoods close by, providing crucial, ready-made foot traffic of the sort that downtown still lacks.

Then there are the shoppers like Edith Rivera, who live nowhere near Park Street.

Once a month, Rivera drives 45 minutes from New London to visit La Plaza del Mercado grocery store and a Spanish bakery on the section of the street that runs through Frog Hollow.................

From A Friend: 'Actress Lynn Redgrave Has Died At Age 67 - Entertainment News Story - WFSB Hartford'

me has sent you a link: "Actress Lynn Redgrave Has Died At Age 67 - Entertainment News Story - WFSB Hartford"

The link:
http://www.wfsb.com/entertainment/23433214/detail.html?taf=hart

there's a pet adoption through sunday

at the ct expo center in hartford

go check it OUT

By

Bonnie Phillips
Look at that face -- isn't it adorable?
That's Gus, and he's my rescue dog.

pic from the link above

ALPHAVILLE reminds us what

the 14th amendment says

this isn't a woman's issue

it's a HUMAN issue. if this is true, if she was fired for being ill (and/or carrying the breast cancer gene) then i'm sure men could be fired just as easily for carrying a let's say, prostate cancer gene (although i don't know if that exists yet)

because the bishops corner office

isn't crowded ENOUGH (that's sarcasm in case you didn't know). i'll just stop in the windsor or bloomfield offices instead.

LaSalle Road Post Office Branch Likely To Close
By BILL LEUKHARDT

WEST HARTFORD —

The LaSalle Road post office branch, the town center's spot for stamps, mail and conversation since 1952, likely will close this year, to be replaced by a smaller storefront facility elsewhere downtown.

The U.S. Postal Service is planning to sell its 0.79-acre parcel at 102 LaSalle Road, town officials said Monday. It is one of three branches that the USPS has in town.

Town Manager Ronald Van Winkle said the property to be sold is a rarity — developable land in the town center. Very few properties in the center ever come up for sale, he said. The parcel is assessed by the town at nearly $1 million, but likely would be sold for more.

The brick post office, built in 1952 and altered several times since, covers about a third of the property.
.............