MARepublican1's Blog

What was it that someone else recently said in a blog?  "My blog, I can write about whatever I want"?  Or something to that effect....  So here are my ramblings.  No complaints, no controversy, just my blog....

After many months of working part time, I've been given a clean bill of health to return to the full-time working world.  And none too soon I might add.  In the last year or so, I have cleaned my entire house from top to bottom a dozen times, painted every wall and ceiling in the house, rearranged the furniture so often my husband thinks I should become a mover, and scrapbooked everything my family has done in the past twenty five years.  Not kidding... I've done over 700 pages of scrapbooking so far, and I only started in February of this year! Can you say obsession??  I've also done a ton of volunteer stuff, attended a few zip trips, and spent lots of quality time with my family, which I will miss when I do go back to work.

Suffice it to say, after working full time for almost thirty years, I am bored stiff!  I know I need to get back out there.  I miss having a career.  HOWEVER, my career has always been at the development engineer/supervisor/management/senior management level, and I'm really certain that this is not what I want to go back to.  I want to be 'hands on' again.  I miss being a contributor to the product.  I want to be the one that fixes the problems that someone else finds, not the person that finds the problem and gives it to someone else to fix.  I want to be the $40,000/year person, not the $140,000/year person.  Does that make sense??  Quite frankly, I know my body cannot handle the stress level that goes along with my previous career path, but I just don't think that using health issues to explain this in an interview is an option.

It seems that most employers don't think so.  I've only been looking for a few weeks now, but I've been on six interviews so far, and I can't seem to get across to these people that this really is what I want.  They are all afraid that they will hire me, and then loose me because I am too over-qualified.  So what if I'm over-qualified.  They benefit drastically from my experience, and I get a job I like.  What's wrong with that?

How do I get this across to a potential employer?  I have another interview this afternoon, and I really don't know what to do to convince these people that if they hire me, I'm there to stay?  My work experience and longevity at previous employers should speak for itself with a minimum of 5-8 years at all but one job. (Two of these would have been much longer, except one was Digital, now out of business, and the other moved to Sunnyvale, California and I opted to not take the transfer.)

I want this job!  It's close to home, it's a well established company with an interesting product line, and the hours are perfect for me.  It's a $45,000 cut in pay from my previous position, and I don't care.  I had to doctor down my resume to even get the interview.  So, now what do I do?  Can you tell I'm nervous?

Ok, I'm done.... my nerves are feeling a little better, and like the little train said, "I think I can.... I think I can.... I think I can.... I can I can I can, I did it!"

Have a great day everyone!

And does not verify information before putting to print.

My husband came home from work tonight and was completely outraged by an article in today’s Boston Globe (A paper that’s no longer allowed through our front door). This is the article, along with the e-mail that my husband sent to the Globe. I’m so proud of him! I can’t believe they wrote this doggie doo-doo. I’ve forwarded this to the town officials as well, with a strong recommendation that the town demand a retraction. (BTW… the murderer was described as a menace to the town of WEBSTER… not Dudley. They couldn’t even get that right, and it was their by-line.)



-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Xxxxxxxx
Sent: Tue 7/10/2007 1:17 PM
To: 'comments@globe.com'
Subject: Slay suspect is described as menace in Dudley story

I just read the opening sentences in today's globe titled "Slay suspect is described as menace in Dudley" written by Javier C. Hernandez and Michael Levenson, I nearly choked on my lunch when I read the following "Once a booming mill town, it is now a rural outpost of 10,000, strewn with tenements and boarded-up houses colonized by drug dealers, noisy parties, and fistfights."

I live in Dudley and this description is way off the mark. I do not have any idea what town these reporters were in (if they actually bothered to even show-up there) but is certainly not Dudley. They obviously did not review any of the town’s statistics from even the easiest accusable sources (have they heard of the internet?). Or maybe they could have driven around for a few minutes.

Dudley is a town of rural character with a historic legacy of mill operations. Unlike most of the mills these so called reporters may be familiar with, ours have only just shut down in the last couple of years. Also this mill was not a very large source of employment for the town, and also drew workers from surrounding towns in Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Its shut down was barely a blip in the employment picture.

As for the comment of "strewn with tenements and boarded-up houses colonized by drug dealers, noisy parties, and fistfights", Dudley is a town of almost all single-family homes. Except for the extremely small section of town located adjacent to the site of the crime, Dudley is almost all single-family homes!! As for the area of town were the murders occurred, almost all of the "Tenements" are two and three family owner occupied houses. And while they may not be up to the writer’s standards of perfect appearance, it would be my belief they would have a hard time identifying all the boarded up houses.

Just to site one easily obtainable fact, the vacancy rate for our town is less than 5% of all housing units, this includes their "boarded up" as well as my neighbors 8 year old split, that is for sale. By the way, its for sale because of a promotion at work and a transfer to Arizona, and the house is on the market for $345,000. Pretty good for a boarded up tenement.

Some other Data for your writers:

Public housing units: 88, all elderly housing.

Percentage of residents with rental assistance: As of 1999, 0%. I would guess it is still practically 0. But I wonder how we can afford all these homes if we are all at parties and fighting?????

In 1999 The High School was recognized by the Federal government as one of 9 "safe and Drug free schools". The school has also been identified by US News and World Report as an "Outstanding High School". By the way, both of my boys have graduated from the school.

Here are some other stats I pulled from www.boston.com, which if I am not mistaken is owned by your paper:
Crime Statistics

Total crime index - - - Dudley 3, Massachusetts 4, Rank 35
Personal crime index - -Dudley 4, Massachusetts 98, Rank 380
Property crime index - -Dudley 2, Massachusetts 70, Rank 396
Motor vehicle theft- - -Dudley 2, Massachusetts 90, Rank 361


Now lets compare that to *another town*, which based on the statistics noted by your company, must be another town that is "strewn with tenements and boarded-up houses colonized by drug dealers, noisy parties, and fistfights."

Statistic
Total crime index -------Dudley 3, Other Town 18
Personal crime index ---Dudley 4, Other Town 12
Property crime index ---Dudley 2, Other Town 26
Motor vehicle theft -----Dudley 2, Other Town 8


What town could be this much worse than Dudley? Surely with this level of crime it must be some horrible place. Any ideas? It’s Wellesley! Man, I would never want to live in drug infested, tenement hell like Wellesley?

My point is the opening line is another example of Globe reporters taking liberties with the truth. If I were to write anything so false in my line of work I would be out of a job. Lets get reporters back to reporting facts period. If they want to make statements about anything, anybody, or anyplace they should have evaluated and analyzed all the facts of each before writing anything.

Got to go, I need to run home to my boarded up tenement and start doing my drugs!

Alan Xxxxxxxx CSMTPE
Process Engineer
XxXxxxxxx Manufacturing, LLC

By Javier C. Hernandez and Michael Levenson, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff  |  July 10, 2007

DUDLEY -- Once a booming mill town, it is now a rural outpost of 10,000, strewn with tenements and boarded-up houses colonized by drug dealers, noisy parties, and fistfights. Even in the town's most dangerous corners, Christian Muller was known as a menace.

Roaming the streets with his pit bull, he intimidated people and assaulted those not wise enough to get out of his way. Most weekends, he could be found behind a grim row of time-worn apartment buildings.

"If you watched the movie 'Fight Club.' that's pretty much what it is on an everyday basis," said Shane Curtis, 23, a disc jockey who said he often saw Muller fighting in the neighborhood. "You turn around, and every weekend there's something going. There's always fighting. There's always drugs going on around every single day."

Muller, 26, was charged yesterday in a shooting that killed two and left a third seriously injured.

Police said Muller opened fire shortly after midnight inside a third-floor apartment above a bargain goods store on West Main Street, less than a mile from where he was arrested near his usual hangout over the border on Granite Street in Webster. Authorities said the slain, a man and woman, were in their 30s. The third victim, a woman in her 20s, had been shot in the head and is expected to survive. Officials did not release the names of the victims.

Authorities declined to discuss a motive, but said Muller was known to police.

Neighbors knew him, too.

Granite Street resident Dawn Ceppetelli, 41, said Muller once fired a gun at her daughter as she drove on Main Street, cracking her windshield. She said Muller later said he had only fired a BB gun.

"He was always out on the street, stumbling around and acting messed up," Cepetelli said.

Kenny Rodriguez, 40, a welder who was bringing clothes to Muller at the Dudley police station yesterday identified himself as the suspect's stepfather. Rodriguez said he partially blamed the court system for not committing Muller to a mental institution. He said Muller has been seeing a psychiatrist since adolescence for what Rodriguez described as a history of mental problems.

"The kid's got problems," Rodriguez. "He was born like that."

He added, "I feel sorry for him and the family."

Louis Paradis, 34, a broadcasting student who lives in the neighborhood, said Muller often walked his pit bull through the streets and was often kicked out of bars for fighting. He said Muller had been an instigator among a group of young men who fought behind a Granite Street apartment building and who once left a man lying unconscious on the street.

"Even when I was in the military, I didn't ever see fights this bad," said Curtis, who said he is a former member of the Coast Guard in Massachusetts.

"These guys fight all the time, but it's not for sport," he said. "They've got a gang of them together, and they'd beat the hell out of people, not only themselves but anybody they don't like, anybody that comes on 'their block.' "

"It's so bad I won't even go to the store alone anymore," said Ceppetelli's aunt, Dot Franek, 71, who has lived on Granite Street for 42 years.

Another neighbor, Orlando Diaz, 25, painted a similar portrait. "There's always partying; there's always fighting," Diaz said. "It's a really rough neighborhood."

Neighbors on West Main Street said a steady stream of strangers came and went. A police report says the 21-year-old woman who rents the apartment was charged with drug possession June 29.

Muller is to be arraigned in Dudley District Court today. 

I live in the small close-knit community of Dudley.  Everyone knows everyone, and it's usually such a wonderful place to live.  We're quiet, we're quaint, and we're safe... or always have been.

Today all that changed.  Well, today was just the icing on the cake.  At about 12:45 this morning there was a triple shooting less than two miles from my house.  Fifteen hours later, the murderers are still at large, and we are living in fear.

In the last six months, we have had some horrible things happen in our town.  We had a young man that killed himself on the property of his best friend.  A few weeks later, there was a horrible accident where two local teens died.  Shortly after that, two teens were illegally passing on one of our rural roads.  There was a young girl coming in the opposte direction and they hit head-on.  The passenger in the passing vehicle, a local teen, was killed.  Soon after that, a local woman and her boyfriend were in an altercation at a local bar.  When the boyfriend tried to leave, the woman ran him down in the parking lot and tried to kill him with her truck.  Then she barricaded herself into her house (my neighbor!), and it took the SWAT Team to remove her.  Kept us up all night with the sirens, the spotlights, the cops in my back yard, which abuts her back yard.  Now, today we have a double murder, triple shooting, and no one will give us any answers.

And this is just the really big stuff.  We've also had the local bank robbed, the local grocery store robbed, the local package store broken into, fires started, and numerous drug busts, including two intent to traffic cases.

I wonder... will our community recover from all this tragedy in such a short timespan?  I have my doubts.  I never used to lock my doors when at home.  Lately, they are locked all the time.  It seems like the crime rate is awfully high for a community of less than 10,000 people.  I have never felt that way before and I've lived here for ten years.  I've always felt safe in my home.  I don't any more.  I don't like that.

(I condensed down everything from the original blog and updates.  They are listed below this new entry for anyone that did not follow the first blog.)

It is nearing the end of day four, and I heard from the group at about 4:00pm our time.  They have set up camp on Mt. Adams at about 8600 ft altitude, and are going to sleep.  They had to use the satellite phone to call as there is no cell phone reception, so no new photos today.  They are all tired and sore, but having a wonderful time!

Weather today is clear, and earthquake activity has dropped off.  If it holds out, they will try for the summit shortly after midnight tonight.  When they reach the summit, there is a slight chance they will have line of sight to a cell tower, and I'll get more photos.  Otherwise, you'll have to wait until they come back down the mountain some time late tomorrow.

Here are some of the photos they have sent so far.  These, and others are in my photo album.  I hope you enjoy them!

Here's the original blog entry, and updates through Monday night.

ORIGINAL BLOG POST:

     At 4:00 this morning, my husband, along with ten of his closest climbing buddies boarded a plane to Washington State.  Over the next ten days they will climb Mounts Adams, Baker and Hood.  And, do you know what the most important thing, in my hubby's view, was packed in his backpack?  Two boxes of frozen Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies!  8*)

      They will hike to Sunrise Camp via South Trail and across the Mazama Glacier of Mt Adams on Saturday and do crevasse rescue practice for the balance of the day.  They will attempt the summit on Sunday, then again on Monday, if needed (weather pending).  Hike out will take place on Monday afternoon, then they drive to Mt Baker.  Tuesday begins the Mt Baker climb via the Heliotrope Ridge Trail and across the Coleman Glacier, making this their base camp at 5900 ft elevation. They will spend three days on Baker, attempting to summit at Grant's Peak Wednesday or Thursday, hiking out on Thursday afternoon and then the drive to Mt. Hood.

     Friday is the biggie... they begin their ascent of Mt Hood.  They will climb to approx. 8600 ft altitude, and spend 24 hours acclimating to the altitude.  Routes will be determined when they get there and meet with the rangers, but it looks like it will be Pearly Gates route to the left chute, with a 70 foot technical ice climb in the chute.  On Sunday, July 1st, at 1:00am they will attempt to summit Mt. Hood.

      This is not the highest mountain in the climb, but it is the most difficult and dangerous.  With the massive flooding this past winter on Hood, many of the trails are washed out, shifted, or gone completely and replaced with 100+ foot cliffs and enormous ice chutes and crevasses.  At the end of each leg of the trip, they will be e-mailing me, hopefully with pictures.  I'll post them as I get them!

      There were several things we did over the last few months to prepare for this trip that I thought were odd at the time. Now, looking back, I'm glad we did.  We sat down together and went over all of our insurance policies. Not just his life insurance, but everything. We went over all our finances, all our bills, all the bank accounts, and all our on-line bill payment accounts.  We made a list of everyone going on the trip, their cell phone numbers, emergency contacts, and a description of the main outer clothing and packs they would be carrying.  One of the most important things we did was to review the topographicals and trail options TOGETHER. Not because I was going to have a say in what route they took, but because my husband wanted to be sure I understood where they were going. If, God forbid, something goes wrong, and I have to sit down with some rescue person, I can lie out a map and point out comfortably every one of the possible options for their location.

      Of course, again if you asked my husband, he would tell you the most important pre-trip prep work he did was to order all those extra Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies back in March....

All the updates, with the extra chat removed to avoid repeats.  Please don’t be offended.  It was only done to reduce space.

SATURDAY UPDATE:      Day one, and I just received some photos. I've created an album for them, and listed them in the entertainment category. Feel free to view. These are of the Colombia River. I hope you all enjoy watching their progress.  My husband has a severely debilitating spinal deformity. The only time he is actually NOT in pain is when he has that 50 pound backpack on. The doctor says it has something to do with the redistribution of the vertebra. I could never hold him back from doing something that he loves so much. Besides, I get to reap the rewords of this wonderfully fit man. At the age of 48, he is in amazing shape, and I like that. 8*

EARLY SUNDAY UPDATE:  There was a micro quake (2.5mag) on Mt. St. Helens Saturday morning that caused ash clouds from the volcano to be swept towards Mt. Adams. The team was forced to turn back because of the air conditions, so they drove down to Mount Hood and are going to complete this climb first.  If all went well, they were planning on leaving their base camp and heading to the summit of Mt. Hood at about 2:00 this morning local time (11:00pm Sat. our time), and they should already be at the summit. It is rather likely I will not hear from them again until late tomorrow.

LATE SUNDAY/MONDAY UPDATES: A few days before they left, one of the team members suggested they all bring some of those long green bamboo garden stakes with bright orange caution tape tied to the ends. They could use these to mark their trail in the snow and ice when ascending the mountain. With these, and their GPS System, they would be able to find their way easily back down the mountain if the weather turned.

      They got up at 1:30am, the weather was clear, so they prepared for the ascent. They almost left the stakes at their base camp, but decided to bring them, just in case... I think you can see where this is going. This idea, and those simple garden stakes, may have saved their lives. The team got to about 10,000 ft. elevation, and a raging snowstorm erupted. They continued on for about another hour, but as the sun came up, it was clear to them that the storm was not going to let up. With less than 1000 feet of elevation to go to get to the summit, they were forced to turn back. The visibility was so low that they had to tie everyone together with a climbing rope.

      They spread out along the glacier, and using the GPS coordinates for the stakes, which they had programmed on the way up, they were able to find their way back to their base camp. There were a few hairy moments along the way.  They came upon two large crevasses that had been partially covered over by the snow. They did have one member of the time slide a few feet into one, but because they were all tied together, and all wearing crampons, it was a quick easy rescue.

      I posted a photo of my husband at about the 10,000-foot elevation point. You can see from the photo, that the visibility was almost non-existent already... yet they continued.  This is the part that scares me. I know they are all very intelligent, highly educated and would never do anything truly stupid. I know that every single one of them feels their lives are more important than the summit. I know they are all seasoned climbers. They have all climbed Rainier, they have all climbed Washington in the dead of winter, and four of the team has climbed Denali, three Everest. But...

MONDAY UPDATE 2: The ash cloud is gone over Mt. Adams, so they are driving back there today to re-attempt that summit.

      Copied from The PNSN web site: A moderate earthquake occurred at 7:32:25 PM (PDT) on Sunday, June 24, 2007. The magnitude 5.1 event occurred 57 km (35 miles) W of Trinidad, CA. The hypocentral depth is 10 km (6 miles).

      This earthquake registered on every short period webicorder in the northwest. The strongest readings came from Hogback Mtn, Huckleberry Mtn, and King's Mtn, all in Oregon. Several hours later, very early this morning, (4:18am local time) there was a 5.1 earthquake in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Seismic activity on the west coast appears to have increased in quantity and strength in the past 48 hours.

BLOG MOVED FROM NEWS TO ENTERTAINMENT HERE

Well, over the weekend at the Rhode Island Air Show, a retired school teacher was arrested for using his camera to take photographs up women's dresses.  This man was in his 60's.  He said he got the idea from some of the pornographic web sites he visited.

And we think there is a problem with today's youth?  Look at what they have for role models.  This is disgusting.  What makes people do things like this?  It's just so wrong.  There isn't already enough porn out there for them to get their rocks off on?  (Can I say that here?!?!)

There was an incident in my town a few years ago.  In the mornings, the kids would go to the local convenience store while waiting for the bus.  They would hang out at the candy, right next to the registers.  One day there was a big brawl at the highschool.  Turned out that one of these hanger-outers was using his cell phone to take pictures up women's skirts while pretending to select candy.  He was showing the pictures around the cafeteria one morning, and another student recognized one of the victims to be his MOTHER.  Beat the beejeezers out of the 'photographer'.

Well, they are off!

At 4:00 this morning, my husband, along with ten of his closest climbing buddies boarded a plane to Washington State.  Over the next ten days they will climb Mounts Adams, Baker and Hood.  And, do you know what the most important thing, in my hubby's view, was packed in his backpack?  Two boxes of frozen Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies!  8*)

They will hike to Sunrise Camp via South Trail and across the Mazama Glacier of Mt Adams on Saturday and do crevasse rescue practice for the balance of the day.  They will attempt the summit on Sunday, then again on Monday, if needed (weather pending).

Hike out will take place on Monday afternoon, then they drive to Mt Baker.  Tuesday begins the Mt Baker climb via  the Heliotrope Ridge Trail and across the Coleman Glacier, making this their base camp at 5900 ft elevation. They will spend three days on Baker, attempting to summit at Grant's Peak Wednesday or Thursday, hiking out on Thursday afternoon and then the drive to Mt. Hood.

Friday is the biggie... they begin their ascent of Mt Hood.  They will climb to approx. 8600 ft altitude, and spend 24 hours acclimating to the altitude.  Routes will be determined when they get there and meet with the rangers, but it looks like it will be Pearly Gates route to the left chute, with a 70 foot technical ice climb in the chute.  On Sunday, July 1st, at 1:00am they will attempt to summit Mt. Hood.

This is not the highest mountain in the climb, but it is the most dificult and dangerous.  With the massive flooding this past winter on Hood, many of the trails are washed out, shifted, or gone completely and replaced with 100+ foot cliffs and enormous ice chutes and crevasses.

At the end of each leg of the trip, they will be e-mailing me, hopefully with pictures.  I'll post them as I get them!

The salads on this morning's food segment looked so good that it was actually depressing for me.  In a nut-allergy-conscious America, are we causing more problems for people with other allergies that are just as serious, but not as widespread?

I’m allergic to citrus – lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, etc.  We are talking epi-pen, anaphylactic shock allergic, not just hives and inconvenience. Over the last 20 years it has become more and more popular to make every household product we use with these fruits.

            Cleaning Solutions

            Salad Dressings

Hair Care Products

Laundry Detergents

Marinades, BBQ Sauce

And the list goes on and on!  New recipes that sound so wonderful until you get to the lemon juice, orange slices or mayonnaise… great diet foods that all contain citric acid… restaurants that use lemon on practically everything on the menu… they even use lemon slices to distinguish between the regular and diet beverages on their serving trays.

I can’t have iced tea unless I make it at home; I make my own dressings; I’m down to one shampoo and one laundry detergent that I can use; the choices for dish soap and furniture polish are few and far between.  I’ve written letters to over a dozen product manufacturers looking for a solution to my problem.  Anyone care to guess how many of these folks responded to my concerns with even so much as a form letter acknowledgement?  NONE!

Tell me what you think...

As a Dudley resident, I attended the Zip Trip to Dudley, MA today, and something struck me as odd.  Several businesses from the surrounding towns showed up.  We have a pizza place in Dudley.  Why does one from Oxford come over?  We have a Dunkin Donuts in Dudley.  Why does the one from Southbridge send over coffee, when there's already a wonderful DD Spread supplied by the fabulous teachers at the Mason Street Elementary School?

I heard several comments about this on the grounds of beautiful Nichols College, so I thought I would put the question to all of you.  I know how I feel... I won't be giving any of these 'party crashers' any of my business in the near future, and from the comments being made this morning, neither will many other Dudley residents.

Next stop Belmont.  How would these residents feel about businesses from Waverly and Arlington crashing their Zip Trip?  Isn't the whole point of the Zip Trip to highlight that particular town and it's local businesses?

So tell me how you feel about this.