Up Portland October 2019

OCT 2019

Cruising Into The Sunset...

It is the wrap-up of another record-breaking year for cruisers coming to Portland, with 103 ships, bringing over 153,000 travellers and 64,000 crew to see us from the beginning of May thru the end of October. Our friend Lynette Spring Baker caught this Carnival Sunrise departure on her approach to the Portland Jetport.

A perfect end to a wonderful season.

VISIT US AND LEARN

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All Coastal supplements are 20% off through October.

Over 130 supplements on sale!

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Healthy Portland INDIE BIZ AWARD WINNER 2018

Something not feeling quite right?

In pain and want a professional opinion?

Struggling with ongoing injury or chronic pain?

Help is at hand!

Alliance Physical Therapy have built a reputation for getting people better quicker.

Based on site at Martin’s Point, Portland, we use unique treatment plans that combine manipulation, dry needling and prescription corrective exercises in partnership with our patients to get the best possible outcome.

Give us a call on 207 536 0702 to book in.

Still not sure? Did you know we also offer a free consultation?

For more information call us or visit allianceptme.com/free-discovery-visit

Alliance Physical Therapy, LLC 331 Veranda St, Building 6, Suite #3311, Portland, ME, 04103 allianceptme.com

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Beyond The Forecast

By Jack Sillin / Weatherman & Meterology Student Hello everyone!

We’ve had a pretty quiet September as far as weather goes here in Portland, and there’s not much on the horizon to discuss just yet now that October is here.

Last month, I talked about the outsized impact a thunderstorm over Kansas City had on the track of Hurricane Dorian. With little to discuss locally, I figured I’d dive a little deeper into what allows seemingly insignificant disturbances (a lone thunderstorm over Missouri) to wreak havoc on our forecasts (instead of hitting Florida as initially forecast, Dorian did indeed turn north after stalling in the Bahamas).

I’m also going to explore one of the tools commonly used by myself and other weather forecasters to predict what the atmosphere might do some time from now, including the tracks of hurricanes such as Dorian. This tool is known as an ensemble prediction system, the most reliable version of which is referred to as EPS for sort. Ensembles are designed to address the exact problem highlighted by that thunderstorm that ended up deflecting Dorian away from Florida, so I’ll end by explaining a little about how they work and why they’re useful.

Forecasting the weather presents a unique challenge because the atmosphere is a system governed by chaos and nonlinear dynamics. In short, this means that there’s a lot of “noise” variability in something, say temperatures or wind speeds, that is either random (or very nearly so) in the atmosphere that doesn’t follow any predictable pattern. This can be demonstrated by going outside on a windy day. Instead of a smooth flow of air from one place to another, you’ll notice variability in the wind speed and direction (in the form of gusts) that is seemingly random. We know what causes gustiness (friction when the wind encounters some rough surface, like a forest or mountain) and we can estimate about how gusty a given wind might be, but when it comes to the individual placement of gusts on a very small scale, your best bet is to throw some dice.

By itself, this chaos is a hassle when it comes to predictions about the future of the atmosphere, but that hassle becomes exponentially greater when nonlinear dynamics get involved. The mathematical distinctions between linear and nonlinear systems could be described in a variety of ways that would probably make your eyes glaze over, so I’ll stick to the practical differences here.

In a linear system, a small change in what’s going on now will lead to a small change in what happens later. Consider a ball rolling down a smooth hill with no obstacles. Its forecast position some time from now can be calculated relatively easily because we know exactly how strong gravity will pull it downwards.

If a gust of wind were to give the ball a push, at some time in the future it would end up a little farther down the hill than my original forecast expected, but not by much. The difference would be on the order of a few yards or so, depending on how steep the hill was.

In a nonlinear system, a small change in what’s going on now will lead to a very large change in what happens later. Consider the case of a leaf floating down the middle of a stream. Its forecast position some time from now takes some effort to calculate, because the force of the current on the leaf changes drastically depending on where in the stream the leaf is located, but such a prediction is possible. However, if a gust of wind were to push the leaf to a different part of

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the stream (where the current was different), the difference between where we thought it would be and were it actually is at some point in the future (i.e. the error in our forecast) could be extremely large --- potentially many miles if our time interval was long enough.

Notice that in each case above, an error in our forecast originated from a disturbance that we didn’t originally anticipate: a gust of wind. Remember that gusts of wind are chaotic: we never know exactly when one might show up, nor exactly how strong it might be (We can only make an educated guess.). In the linear system, this chaos wasn’t such a big problem for our forecast (we were off, but only by a little). In the nonlinear system however, the small change in what happened initially (the leaf’s position in the stream) resulted in a massive forecast error later on.

Hopefully by this point I’ve convinced you that the future state of a nonlinear system is highly dependent on its initial conditions (i.e. what’s happening in that system right now), and that this dependence can cause a big headache for predictions. Thankfully, there’s a solution! To improve our forecasts (significantly), we need to have a complete understanding of what’s happening right now (i.e. the presence of a gust of wind about to move our leaf), and we can make a much better prediction of what will happen in the future (i.e. where the leaf will end up an hour from now).

So what do leaves in a stream have to do with the atmosphere and ensembles?

Like the leaf in the stream, the future position of some part of the atmosphere (a storm system for example) depends largely on where it’s going right now. If we know exactly where it’s going right now, and all the various forces that might pull it off course over the next day, we can predict where it will be tomorrow.

The problem is that we don’t know exactly what each little part of the atmosphere is doing right now. If we’re wrong about one little part now, inevitably we’ll be wrong about the whole thing after some time.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a complete understanding of the current state of the atmosphere. We measure the atmosphere with a variety of tools (thermometers, barometers, anemometers, etc.) but only in certain places at certain times.

We then use that data to create forecasts for the future, but there are an infinite number of things that can change some part of the atmosphere that we’ll never know about (that’s the chaos we talked about earlier). Each one of these infinite disturbances that exist currently will change the future state of the atmosphere by some amount, meaning our forecast will be hopelessly wrong after a certain time. Depending on the exact prediction method, that time is about 10 to 14 days.

This is where ensembles come in. To create an ensemble system, we take all the data collected about the atmosphere at a given time and feed them to a computer which creates a simulation of the initial atmosphere. We now know that there are random errors in this simulation --- an infinite number to be precise.

Because we know that our initial simulation is wrong in random places, we create 50 copies of that initial simulation and add some random disturbances to each, in the hopes that we can approximate the random disturbances added by nature. We then run each of the 51 simulations out through time to create 51 different forecasts of the atmosphere.

From our leaf example, we know that after some time (say two weeks, which is the average length of an ensemble system’s set of predictions) the small discrepancies in initial conditions will grow exponentially into massive discrepancies later on. Thus our ensemble system will produce 51 similar two-day forecasts, somewhat different five-day forecasts, and extremely different 10-day forecasts.

Each of the 51 individual forecasts represents one possible outcome (i.e. what would happen if the initial state of the atmosphere looked like whatever that model thought). Because each of the ensemble members starts with initial conditions that are fairly close to what the atmosphere actually looks like, the final ensemble member forecasts will represent an outcome that is somewhat plausi-

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ble, even if not 100% likely. By comparing all the ensemble forecasts, we can get a fairly good idea of what the range of possible forecast outcomes is.

This is the most important advantage of ensemble forecasting. We know our forecast for ten days will be wrong, but ensembles allow us to get a good idea of how wrong it might be, and what other possible outcomes for day ten look like.

If there’s one thing you take away from this discussion, it’s that we’re not able to tell you what the exact high temperature will be a week from now, nor whether it will rain/snow, nor what time that rain/snow might start. But, thanks to ensembles, we can give you a range of plausible high temperatures, an estimate of the relative likelihood of rain/snow, as well as a range of possibilities for when that precipitation might start and how much might fall.

Now that you have a better understanding of why predicting nonlinear and chaotic systems is so hard, hopefully you have a greater appreciation for just how good our weather forecasts are. I also hope that by learning a bit more about how ensembles work, you have a better sense of why useful probabilistic weather forecasts are. If you read my forecasts each morning on www.upportland.com, you’ll notice I speak probabilistically, giving you a range of possible high temperatures (“upper 70’s” i.e. somewhere between 76 and 79 as opposed to saying 78), a range of possible precipitation start/end times (“3-5 p.m.” as opposed to 4.38 p.m.), and a range of possible rain/snow totals (“8-12 inches” instead of 10.5 inches).

Many people find this uncertainty frustrating, but hopefully you now understand why they’re a lot more useful than deterministic predictions that will always be wrong.

I’ll be back next month with my traditional (probabilistic!) look at the winter forecast.

---Jack

Jack’s Weather Terms Potential Temperature: Potential temperature, sometimes referred to as theta, is the temperature an air parcel at some altitude would have if it were dragged down to sea level. As air parcels sink, the pressure increases, and thus the parcel is compressed. This compression heats the air, increasing its temperature. This rate of this warming is constant no matter where you are (assuming your air parcel doesn’t have too much moisture), so potential temperature provides a way of comparing temperatures at stations with different elevations. If we wanted to know whether the airmass moving over Mount Washington was warmer or colder than the airmass over Portland, just looking at the Jetport’s temperature and comparing it to Mount Washington’s wouldn’t tell us much, because Mount Washington will almost always report a lower temperature than Portland due to its elevation. To have an apples-to-apples comparison between Mount Washington and Portland, we’d need to bring the Mount Washington air down to Portland’s level, which is exactly what the calculation of potential temperature does.

Boundary Layer: The boundary layer is the part of the atmosphere where air parcels (hypothetical bits of air about the size of a basketball) are free to hit the surface. Heating from the sun increases the boundary layer, allowing for the mixing of air (and wind/pollutants) through a deeper layer of the atmosphere.

At night, the boundary layer becomes very shallow, meaning that winds typically slow down and the concentration of pollutants goes up. The exact depth of the mixing layer depends on many factors and can vary significantly across both time and space. Generally it’s around 3,000 feet during the day, and less than 100 feet at night.

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Author Susan L. Ross To Speak At The Maine Jewish Museum Come hear Maine author Susan L. Ross discuss her newest middle grade novel, Searching for Lottie Sunday afternoon, 13th October at 3 p.m. at the Maine Jewish Museum, 267 Congress Street. The book, a Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award winner, focuses on a young girl, Charlie, who is trying to unravel the mystery of her great-aunt Lottie -- a young violinist who disappeared during the Holocaust. The story is largely inspired by the author's family history.

Charlotte (Lottie) Kulka was the author's mother's teenage cousin who lived in Prague, but sadly, did not survive the Shoah. Susan's middle name was given in her memory.

Susan Ross grew up in Lewiston-Auburn, where her family was among the earliest Jewish merchants in Maine. She now divides her time between Connecticut and Maine. She attended Brown University and NYU School of Law. Susan teaches writing and is on the faculty of Westport Writers Workshop. Searching for Lottie is intended for young readers ages 8-12, but Susan will gear her talk to youth and adults alike. She said she is “happy to share her family's experiences, as well as discussing the importance of storytelling.”

Attendance is free of charge and there will be a light reception and book signing to follow the talk.

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Mark: My Words

By Mark Gatti / Mark’s Hotdogs

Special Events, Not So Special “Watch out!” it’s some day in the Summer of 1984, and my food stand is being transported from dock to party boat in Portland Harbour. Against my better judgment, my friend “Tim” had convinced me to provide food for his booze cruise, sponsored by one of the bars he operated in the Old Port. The dock worker tasked with getting my cart aboard was using a forklift and had just missed bashing my stand into a dock piling. I wondered if the dock worker had helped himself to a nip or three from one of the numerous cases of booze he had loaded on the craft. At any rate, it was a rather inauspicious start to the event. Also, a sure sign that this endeavour would be counted a success if I could just get my livelihood back home in one piece once the gig was done!

Showing an acute lack of business acumen, I had let Tim talk me out of charging him a fee for my services. He insisted I would be making money hand-overfist with all the drunk and hungry revelers onboard --- I being the only food option available.

The event was three hours long, lasting until 10 p.m. A band had been hired and played some good old loud rock n’ roll. The emphasis is on loud here as all my customers had to scream at the top of their lungs to give their food orders to me. The booze cruise had been well booked. It looked to me to be around 50-plus folks, all in their 20’ or 30’s – the majority of whom were “three sheets to the wind”, in regard to level of intoxication. Adding to my stress, we were all packed in tight like a can of sardines. I barely had enough working space to serve anyone.

Financially, my one and only booze cruise job was a bust. A few reasons for my economic misfortune come to mind. For one thing, the timing was off. No stranger to late night drinking myself when a young adult, most of us don’t get the “hungry horrors” until the alcohol consumption is done. Typically, this is around the wee hours after midnight. This particular event lasted until just 10, so all present were still focused on drinking --- not eating. Also, confusion reigned as many patrons thought I had been paid up front by Tim and were puzzled when I charged them for any items they ordered. Adding to this, the music was so loud no one could hear themselves think, let alone place an order.

Not to blame Tim, who remained a faithful regular customer for years, but this gig shouted out “set fee for service”.

Thankfully, a sober appearing dock worker transported my cart from boat to wharf without incident at the evening’s end. Feeling frayed and frazzled and nerves greatly jangled, I arrived home with my cart somehow still intact. I stumbled out of my car, fell down on my hands and knees and kissed the solid ground in thanks!

I will now mention a few more not so special events.

Back in my first year, when I didn’t know anything, I had the keen idea of booking a country fair. The way this worked was that you paid a daily fee and the event coordinator placed you in a set spot. My unit being very small, I was

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happy to be charged just $50 per day. I remember the fair being a few days long located in central Maine in mid-August. My posting was at the horse and ox pulling events.

A combination of variables added up to my financial bottom line running in the red. First off, these events attracted enthusiastic fans – but not in very high numbers. Also, it was ridiculously hot and humid with no shade in sight. The location was in a dry, dusty field and the beasts of burden raised up enormous dust clouds while they manoeuvered their heavy loads. To top it off, the animals attracted swarms of flying insects --- large and small --- owing to the beasts’ sweaty exertion and excrement droppings.

A mighty challenge it was to keep the insects out of my food. Also, at the end of each day, I looked like a survivor of Dust Bowl Kansas with my body and food stand encased with a quarter inch of dirt. Because of these adverse conditions, coupled with small crowds, I came nowhere close to breaking even on my investment in this event. On the upside, the coordinator took pity on me and didn’t charge the last day fee – and my parents’ freezer was filled full of hotdogs I never sold, which must have lasted them well into the Winter.

Proving that I can be a very slow learner, I agreed to appear at a customer birthday party back in the day. Can you see a trend here? The birthday boy customer was expecting a large crowd of guests for his 40th and just knew all

We had to hire a tow truck to bring the food stand to the event and back home again. (I had left much earlier with our only towing vehicle to attend to my music job upstate). Already stressed wondering how to serve hungry masses of people quickly, my wife shared later how the transportation of the stand added another layer of worry on her plate, watching the stand teeter totter back and forth on the back of the flat bed tow truck. Luckily, the operator handled the cart with tender loving care and delivered it to Tommy’s Park for the ladies.

It is difficult doing fast-paced food service for the experienced food service professional. That Susan and Jill held up like thy did showed a lot of grit and courage, considering neither had much experience in the wild, wacky world of hyper speed food service. Doing their best under trying circumstances, Susan told me later that she started breaking hot dogs with the tongs and dropped quite a number of them on the ground at peak rush. The sisters shared a genetic challenge with math and many customers had to tell them what change was owed, too.

That night over cocktails we broke into a giddy manic laughter as Susan recounted the eventful day. Despite numerous food stock losses, and money mismanagement, Susan and Jill came home with a tall stack of cash! Lesson: I should have had them fill in for me more often.

Until next time, cheers! Please treat your food and drink servers nicely!

attending would get a big kick out of seeing Mark’s hot dog stand at the celebration. When I quoted him a fee he practically got down on his hands and knees begging, pleading, and insisting that the guests would be most generous in showering me with tips, so no need to charge him.

The right reply to this offer should have been, “thanks but no thanks.” But do I always make the right decision? Sure, the guests did get a kick of out of seeing Mark and cart at the party, but poor pitiful me took in a grand total of $17.50, all for schmoozing with folks I didn’t know for three hours.

Any upside here? Two things: 1.) I finally learned not to do events like these ever again… really – and 2.) I took my wife out to our favourite fast food Chinese joint and spent the $17.50 on a pu pu platter for two.

I finish this column mentioning an eventful event involving my wife Susan and sister-in-law Jill. The occasion was Gay Pride Day. Quite a few years ago, in its early days, the parade ended at Tommy’s Park. The event coordinators would ask me to be available with lots of food and drink. My answer to them was always “yes and thank you very much!” This day was always one of my busiest of the year and I couldn’t be more grateful to everyone. My gosh – those days were busy, I recall serving hot dogs, sausages and drinks hand-over-fist for several hours full steam ahead.

As luck would have it, one year on this day I was booked to perform with Mr. Mark’s Mighty Maine Music Machine at a location way out of town. Regular readers will recall the machine, which is a calliope. Jill and Susan stepped up to the plate big time and agreed to operate Mark’s hot dogs for the Gay Pride Event.

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Food For Thought...

Next to politics, it appears food --- what’s “good” and what is “not” for lunch --is about as divisive an issue as there is… and here in foodie city Portland that’s even more a correct statement. That’s also why I listen to what folks have to tell me, then go try the spots they recommend or diss a time or two before writing.

This month, we are keeping with something I have been trying to do most issues, too, which is one pricy spot and one that’s more affordable. And that means The Honey Paw at 78 Middle Street and The Baker’s Bench at 33 Brackett Street in Westbrook.

Proudly, they are both locally owned spots and happily few chains manage to last long in our “shop and eat local” city.

That’s a huge plus. Also positive is that nothing we had on our plates recently at either was any less than delicious. But that’s where the similarities end.

That said, we sampled several dishes off the menu at The Honey Paw (www.thehoneypaw.com), both by our choice and because the smiling staff gave us some free samples. The Chowder Ramen (menu says: pork belly, grilled littlenecks, charred corn, bok choy, soft egg) was delicious. Also, I liked the Lobster Toast and some of the other things I got to taste, but (not to sound repetitious… OK, only a little) there was not enough food on the plates for me.

My dining companions both mildly disagreed. One is a regular at The Honey Paw and loves the place. He even took me the first time. The other had never been before. Both are not the over-eaters I must be and they seemed happier than I with what was on the plates as far as quantity.

Still, for almost $25 a person, I went in expecting to feel “wow” and not “wish I’d gone elsewhere with more food!”

Will I go back? Maybe, but I live near The Honey Paw and the two recent visits were my first and second in almost four and a half years in the neighbourhood.

Let’s just say I won’t be hurrying!

The opposite is true of The Baker’s Bench, for while it’s a haul to Westbrook, I first got a hint about their food by buying their light-as-air cinnamon rolls and cream horns at coffee shops, Pat’s Meat Market and other spots on the peninsula. I am just sad it took me a couple years to actually go eat at The Baker’s Bench, because what I found (in addition to the breakfast goodies to eat in or take home) was some wonderful bread, a three-decker “Westbrook Club” (that’s it below) and a Hot Pastrami (opposite page) which rivalled much of what we had earlier this Summer at one of the New York delis.

First, costs for lunch at The Honey Paw are considerably more. Our bill for three, with no alcohol, but including tip came in at $71.16. Meanwhile, $28.24 for two of us for lunch at The Baker’s Bench did the trick, and that included three of their to-die-for cinnamon rolls to take home.

The above begs the question: Is The Honey Paw worth almost twice what The Baker’s Bench is? And our easy personal answer is: no, not really, to us.

But let’s look further. The Honey Paw is a loud, crowded restaurant which often sports a line at the front door --- especially in season or when a ship is in. The Baker’s Bench is almost invisible off busy William Clarke Drive in Westbrook, has a handfull of parking spots and a quiet atmosphere as one eats at one of three tables in the actual bakery. It is a place one goes for great baked goods and smiling staff --- but not atmosphere.

Oh, and while we are on staff… The Honey Paw crew is super, making up for what this reviewer found was lacking on the plates, with smiles, and free samples of this or that.

And please do not get us wrong: We love large portions and big meals, and while The Honey Paw has some absolutely delightful Asian Fusion cuisine (that’s a photo above), I have tended to leave half full on both my recent visits. Maybe it’s that “small plates” thing we seem to be infected with here in Portland. Or maybe even at the price point they can’t or choose not to do more food. Or maybe this reviewer just loves to overeat. I have no clue.

I just know I have come away thinking hard about a hamburger or something to fill me up the rest of the way at lunchtime. And to this reviewer, that is not a good thing, because no matter how chipper the staff and how lovely their plating and presentation, after lunch one should feel satisfied or even full. Sadly, I was neither.

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Add to this, they have a friendly staff (including the owner, whom I spoke to and raved about those cinnamon rolls) and the place is great.

It has nowhere near the “Old Port” atmosphere one finds at The Honey Paw, but what it lacks in ambiance, it more than makes up for with wonderful food, large portions and lack of pretentiousness. In short, it reminds me of Heitzman’s or Ehrmann’s --- the two bakeries I grew up with as a kid in Louisville, or Davidson’s from my days in Chicago or Roslyn in Indianapolis. It’s also somewhere I shall be returning as often as I find time for a trip out to Westbrook, or manage to get to one of the downtown spots with those cinnamon rolls before they all sell out, which happens first thing nearly every morning.

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So my conclusion: Two different things. Two different price points. Two different menus and a good chance for readers to go try either and let me know what they feel and think.

Hours, per their websites…

The Baker’s Bench: from 7 a.m. every day, but Sunday, till 5.30 weekdays and 4 p.m. Saturdays. Closed Sundays.

The Honey Paw: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday Brunch 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Tuesdays.

More bites…

There’s nothing like the memory of a drugstore soda fountain, and in this area that has meant a visit to the Reny’s store in downtown Damariscotta (left & above right), where the old Waltz Rexall Drugs fountain remains alive and in operation --sign and all.

You’re Cooking, a great kitchen and cooks store (which even has classes on various cooking styles and dishes) … info: www.acooksemporium.com, and stop by the Bath branch of Reny’s, too, which is on two floors of a former downtown store with nostalgia everywhere. Dare we say we sound like a chamber of commerce ad, but it’s all worth the drive to Bath? At least around our house a trip up U.S. 1 brings a lot of memories back to life, and we are excited about the new Wilson’s soda shop, too. Make mine a frappe and grilled cheese sandwich.

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But years after its old fountain shut down, and closer to Portland, get set for November, which is the opening goal of Wilson’s Drug Store’s new soda shop on Front Street in downtown Bath.

Currently under construction right next door to the drug store on Front Street, the owners promise a counter, booths, and a lot of the old

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soda fountain regular dishes on the menu, along with some more modern-day updates like panninis.

We will print an update when we get one, but it’s wonderful to not only see a drugstore like Wilson’s which dates to 1915 still alive and well in a time when so many locally owned drugstores have called it quits, but that Wilson’s is getting set to return the old fashioned and fun soda fountain as well.

Looks like our car will be headed the 35 miles to Bath even more frequently than it already does. And while you are up there, do not miss a stop at Now

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Sauntering With Mat

By Mat Robedee / Up Portland Adventure Writer

(EDITOR’S NOTE---This month’s column is our welcome back to Mat, whom it should be recalled on one of his adventures had on a heavy backpack, stepped wrong and while his foot stayed stationery, the weight of the pack and gravity meant his body didn’t, leaving him (after hearing a loud “crack”) with a broken fibula and a separated ankle joint. After surgery and unhappy, fidgety recuperating time, he is happily back on his feet, in his boots, his canoe and on another adventure. Welcome back, Mat!) You know that area in northern Maine where people point to on a map and say “Yeah, but who actually goes up there”? Well, one of the last weekends in September, I did – and it was magnificent.

Regular readers will recall that earlier this year I broke my leg. I would love to tell you it was the result of saving a baby from a burning building or fighting off a rabid pack of wolves. Alas, I was coming back from a hiking trip, stepped incorrectly and twisted my leg until I heard a loud snap. Surgery was needed, which resulted in a plate and five screws. All of this occurred within the first few days of July, so needless to say – most of my Summer was spent on a couch, binge watching Netflix and daydreaming of adventures. It was mid-September --- 12 weeks after the accident --- when the surgeon finally gave me a clear bill of health. The first thing I naturally did was walk over to my Maine map (like moth to flame), pour myself a cup of coffee, call my friend Jeff and begin planning an end-of-summer getaway. My body was craving sun and water, but knowing I was limited in my ability to hike – a canoe trip up north sounded like the ideal getaway.

Originally we were thinking about a simple one-night trip somewhere nearby... a small lake paddle followed by a night or two of camping under the stars. Yet when looking at my calendar, I discovered the entire upcoming weekend was free. Quickly, one night turned into two, which then turned into three…soon enough the car was packed with gear. With a canoe strapped to the top of Jeff’s Subaru, we were off on what had turned into a five-day adventure!

We left Portland late on a Thursday evening with the final destination being roughly five hours away. Aiming to be on the water for morning light and having no desire to drive backcountry roads in the middle of nowhere at night (sorry y’all, I’ve seen far to many horror movies) we decided to rent a room for the night in Millinocket.

Doing so put us just an hour and a half away from our final destination – which was a gorgeous lake located a bit north east of Moosehead Lake (the largest lake in Maine) and about 25+/- miles west of Mount Katahdin. Famed for being one of the state’s most beautiful bodies of water – with sweeping views of nearby mountains, incredible fishing and shorelines naturally covered with large sandy

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beaches. The name and exact location, I leave for you to discover….

After the mandatory morning coffee, we were off on the dusty roads before sunrise. The remaining one and a half hours were on back roads --- a good stretch of which was along the famed Golden Road; a 96-mile private road built by the Great Northern Paper Company that extends from Canada to Millinocket, Maine. This is one of my all-time favourite drives due to the vast amount of absolutely nothing.

Before using the road, a small fee must be paid at a gatehouse - which we were both fine with paying considering the Golden Road is in far better condition than half of the ones find throughout Portland. Upon arrival, we unloaded the canoe, parked the vehicle and after a couple quick conversations with local fisherman about insects and weather (the top two conversation starters amongst Mainers) we were off.

We put the canoe in on a small stream, which was a calm and tranquil paddle for nearly two miles before the stream opened up into the lake.

The view of the lake was absolutely stunning, the sun lit up the foliage like fire spread throughout the mountainsides. We paddled across the bay and soon claimed a spectacular campsite: a rocky point with a fire ring, picnic table, outhouse and two private sandy beaches.

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Being within the Penobscot River Corridor, the sites are managed and maintained by the Maine’s Bureau of Parks and Land. Best of all, there were no other campsites or humans nearby. A permit is required to camp on the lake, which is purchased at the gatehouse before entering the Golden Road.

Unfortunately, there are no reservations for the sites, which means that you have to find one when you arrive and there is no guarantee that all of the sites won’t be occupied. Thankfully, lady luck was on our side.

For three nights and several days we home-based from our tent site. We had no reception, so no way to make a call or receive even a quick text, which alone was magic. To say we were remote would be an understatement.

Daytimes we paddled throughout the endless inlets and isles, swam in the most pristine chilly waters and fished from both shore and canoe. All the while, silhouettes of Katahdin and various mountain peaks filled the horizon line while bald eagles flew gracefully overhead. During the evenings we cooked fresh caught fish while watching the sunset and drank bourbon around a blazing campfire until our eyes grew heavy. One night we even took the canoe out and paddled in silence, under a sky filled with stars that reflected glimmers of light on the lake water. The greatest gift of all, though, was the weather, which was flawless. So perfect in fact, no rain fly was necessary for my tent and I was able to lay in my sleeping bag, while falling asleep to the sound of loons echoing their haunting night songs and gazing up at the stars.

Upon researching the area more, I discovered that Henry David Thoreau actually explored many of the areas we saw that weekend. This was before all the roads, logging trucks or tent sites were established. Being one of the most influential people in my younger years, I am humbled that I was able to share the same sights as he. This just adds to the deep love and appreciation I harbor for Maine and all its diverse natural beauty. Some places, like the one I just visited, can certainly be a challenge to reach, but with proper planning, the journey is worth every minute. Time is non-refundable – use it with intention.

“We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigour, vast and titanic features, the sea-cost with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.” Henry David Thoreau

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The Standard Reviewer

By Randy Dankievitch — TV Critic / TVOvermind

The Five Shows Saving Network Television With Netflix, HBO, Hulu, AMC and the like clawing at each other for Emmy recognition, it often feels like network television's been forgotten. Save for the never-ending Law and Order franchise, and whatever CBS drama is entering its 93rd season (how is NCIS still so popular?!!), network television's mostly been delegated to second-tier status, as the streaming and cable networks throw money at prestige creators (like Ryan Murphy's nine-figure Netflix deal) and high concept adaptations (this Winter alone, HBO will air a Watchmen and His Dark Materials series) in order to garner all the critical attention and recognition.

And yet, network television trudges on... its tried-and-true formulas for comedy and drama cycling through a collection of quickly-forgotten new series and old shows, as they've done for the past 50 years. Call it archaic, call it frightened, call it safe – but there's a reason this formula's worked for so long – and more importantly, continues to do so. In case you haven't been paying attention, the 2019-20 network television season is the strongest in years (arguably since the pre-Netflix 2012-13 year), a collection of ambitious new and existing series poised to make the necessary tweaks to the familiar rhythms of CBS, NBC, ABC, and The CW (which, in this critic's mind, has basically replaced Fox, which airs all of 12 original scripted series, nearly half of which are animated), to keep them thriving as we head into Streaming Wars II. As the title promised, here are the five shows leading the network revival: Superstore (8 p.m. Thursdays on NBC) – arguably the best comedy on television right now, Superstore's grown quite a bit since its days as a young, fairly pleasant little workplace comedy. Now in its 5th season, Superstore's transformed itself into an impressively versatile vehicle for touching character stories intertwined with socially relevant ones. Everything from immigration, to automation, to labour unions is on the table for NBC's show about a big box retailer and its goofy, endearing employees; it is blatantly political, morally challenging – and most importantly, absolutely hilarious, quietly becoming the anchor for NBC's iconic Thursday night comedy line up (a title once held by everything from Seinfeld to The Office to 30 Rock).

Evil (10 p.m. Thursdays on CBS) – from the network that brought you 14 CSI series, eight thousand NCIS spin offs, and the laughably awful Bull comes... perhaps the single most promising, evocative drama pilot of the year. I hesitate to say it is the long-awaited successor to Hannibal (the best network drama of the 21st century not named LOST), but there's certainly something to the shockingly deep psychological drama, littered with religious metaphor and accentuated by some truly haunting moments of violence. Centered on a female psychologist and a former pastor investigating unnatural phenomena, Evil's first hour is an intoxicating mix of genres, ideas, and characters, an extremely impressive first offering that could blossom into something truly special.

Stumptown (10 p.m. Wednesdays on ABC) – As we finally begin to reach the end of the antihero era catalyzed by Tony Soprano, Walter White and most characters on Game of Thrones, Stumptown steps in to prove that the genre isn't quite dead --- it just needed a radical change. Enter Cobie Smulders (The Avengers, How I Met Your Mother) as a private investigator, who spends her time

either drinking, investigating, or mourning the death of her love in a traumatic military battle. Fans of Jessica Jones know exactly what this show is: a drama about a woman kicking ass and drinking scotch, bringing along fantastic character actors like Jake Johnson and Michael Ealy for the ride. The pilot is rough around the edges, but the noir-ish potential of this series is eye opening, in its many bright spots.

Mom (9 p.m. Thursdays on CBS) – television's most subversive comedy quietly keeps chugging along on CBS, now in its 7th season of stories about recovering alcoholics. But Mom is so much more than that; it's about the most difficult, challenging moments in life, about finding empathy in one's failure, and the Sisyphean struggle to stay optimistic in a world seemingly engineered to beat you down. Over the years, Mom's grown from being a touching story about a family trying to hold it together, to a nuanced, powerful ensemble comedy about a community of women trying to assert themselves in the world – and of course, managing to stay sober doing it. Touching, hilarious, devastatingly honest... even after 100 episodes, Mom still has the ability to make me laugh and cry at the same time --- an absolute rarity in modern TV. Legends of Tomorrow (returns to The CW in January 2020) – after a rough start to the Arrow-verse back in 2012, the DC universe has grown to an absolute behemoth for The CW, spawning a half-dozen series, dozens of iconic characters – and most importantly, Legends of Tomorrow, the closest thing to a super-powered version of Community on television. Following B and C-tier characters like White Canary, The Atom, and Firestorm may not seem like a recipe for success, but Legends of Tomorrow slowly transformed itself over its first season into a scrappy dramedy built on tons of cinematic references, lots of goofy time travel, and a sense of family even The Flash or Arrow could never match. Though it may not be the anchor of the DC extended TV universe, it is far and away the best series: a wild romp through time and space like nothing on television.

Maine Jewish Museum

Exhibitions: September 12, 2019 through November 1, 2019

Faith Regained

Interpreting the Silence

Early Works - Spiegel Gallery Later Works - Fineberg Family Community Room

Third Floor Sanctuary

Mark Baum

Jessyca M Broekman

Maine Jewish Museum

267 Congress Street, Portland, ME 04101 (207) 773-2339

Monday - Friday 10am-4pm + Sundays 12pm - 4pm or by appointment mainejewishmuseum.org

Nancy Davidson, Curator in Residence Nanci Kahn, Photography Curator

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Up Portland Is A Proud Member of the

November Edition Deadline

Friday 1st November Papers On Street: Tuesday 5th November

Up Portland is edited in Portland and printed the last week of every month in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We may be contacted at the e-mail or phone number below. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy and fairness, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors. Liability is limited to the cost of said ad. Ads not cancelled by published deadlines may be billed at agreed-upon price.

Ads may be edited or rejected for content at the discretion of the publisher. All items appearing in Up Portland, as well as the name, logos and design are copyright 2019 by BBS, A division of High Speed Delivery Fork Ltd. & Ted Fleischaker and may not be reproduced in any form without prior written approval.

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Layne’s Wine Time

Layne V. Witherell / Up Portland Wine Critic

Siddharta Rumma is a local chef of Italian/Indian heritage who continuously reinvents himself and his art --- namely, the making of fabulous pasta. For me, his greatest claim to fame is that Accu Split Pro Survivor A601X Stopwatch Chronograph embedded in his brain, enabling him to produce al dente perfection under the best and worst of kitchen and restaurant circumstances. I have seen him in broom closet-sized kitchens turning out magic and we have followed him in each of his restaurant incarnations... and since I am a wine writer/critic we will look at the beverages of his life in restaurants.

LATEST INCARNATION: Ada’s Fresh Pasta at 642 Congress St., Portland. A kickoff event for the new Portland Ada’s Kitchen was held at the Sagamore Hill Cocktail bar in Portland. Influencers, bloggers, beautiful people, and cocktails with pasta dishes? Am I making this up? Are we still in Portland?

Three delirious pasta dishes paired with three invented cocktails --- here goes: Sid’s dishes are magic: the rest of this is an influencer, blogger and foodie bloggers dreamscape where well-appointed bar snacks are usually the order of the day. Mixed metaphor beverages are served up with classic Italian food.

The Dish: Ada’s Pasta --- fresh bucatini, lemon, butter, thyme, caviar. The Drink: Congress Hall, a cantaloupe and Prosecco cocktail. Tasty with the dish, but better yet, it was the most classic photo worthy opportunity. Can you go wrong with Prosecco? No, you can’t. I was longing for a chilled glass of Pinot Bianco for authenticity, but the Prosecco made me smile.

The Dish: Homemade Ravioli with sweet peas, ricotta, pink peppercorn sauce.

The Drink: Victory Garden of vodka, cucumber, snap pea simple syrup. Every tiny smart phone in the place was ablaze over the fresh tropical wonderland look of this cocktail. It worked well. It would have been a fun tasting to pair it up with a chilled Soave.

The Dish: Papardelle Al Ragu with a four meat Bolognese sauce. The DrinkOyster Bay: a totally improbable blend of bourbon, Luxardo, mint, cherry bitters. It tasted like an Instagram amusement park with an ill-conceived ride.

I immediately bolted to the bar in search of a red wine to pair with this impeccable dish.

Sid and his sous chef Chelsie created a Bolognese with pasta that literally melted in your mouth. Even though I was in search of an Amarone, Chianti Classico or a Montepulciano d”Abruzzo, I found a little bit of comfort in a $12 glass of Catena Malbec in spite of the fact that they didn’t carry an Italian wine.

“Gastronomy is the most intimate tourism, and no dedicated tourist can resist a glimpse of the preserved, the pristine, the way things really are,” said Red Wine with Fish by Josh Wesson and David Rosengarten.

of owners. I managed to save several of their wine lists after multiple visits and they, at most times, resembled the products of a biodynamic kale chip wine bar with a Crux air dryer. Funk ruled the day.

There was a little “manifesto/ statement” running down the centre of each wine list extoling the glories of all the naturalness and small wildness of the ill fitted “natural” wines to the flavours of classical Italian dishes. The ultimate mixed metaphor experience that simply didn’t work with the food.

The must-read article on these kinds of wines is “How the Orange-Wine Fad Became an Irresistible Assault on Pleasure” by Troy Patterson, which appeared in The New Yorker magazine on the 7th of September this year.

Ada’s Kitchen, 2018, 449 Main St. Rockland. In 2018 we promptly headed to Rockland to see the master at work. He delivered, and the restaurant delivered. All the classics, plus a real no-holds-barred Italian wine list that accentuated his flavours. This is what the Portland outpost of Ada’s will (and hopefully,) should taste like.

Ada’s Kitchen, 642 Congress St., Portland. Dish: Spaghetti alla Carbonara, Tagliatelle al Ragu (4 meat Bolognese), Margherita Pizza (classic freshness) Raviolo del Giorno (butter and sage), Sapore di Mare (seafood special) floral.

Salumi and Formaggi Board. Wine: Elena Walch Chardonnay, Alto Adige. Full and round white, Rosso di Montalcino. Sangiovese grape long and complex, Colli Senesi Chianti. Velvety finish red, Poggio Animo Grillo. Dry, aromatic white, Falanghina del Sannio. Ancient Roman grape. Almond and floral, Indigenous Nebbiolo d’ Alba. Ripe flavor with spicy finish red. The menu and wines are from Ada’s in Rockland and are both classic dishes and pairings.

The reason for this Mixed Metaphors piece was a germination of ideas presented in an editorial in the 31st October issue of the Wine Spectator by executive editor Thomas Matthews. It is an homage to his mother-in-law Nancy Lester on her passing at age 91.

She got way into a fascination of wine before any of us were born, becoming a life-long connoisseur. But what struck me with the piece were several quotes: “wine’s first duty,” in her opinion, “was to complement the food it accompanied…” and she was always willing to try something new. Her only demand: “that it harmonizes with the food”. Nancy passed holding and drinking one of the liquid treasures of mankind --- a glass of 2016 Chateau d’Yquem.

Creative cocktails with bar snacks and biodynamic/natural wine with nettle soup, are all well and good; just don’t mess with Sid’s classics, they have been around for a long time.

EARLIEST INCARNATION of Sid: Trattoria Fanny, 3 Deering Ave., Portland.

Permanently closed: 2017.

(Editors Note: Layne is a professional in the wine business with over 40 years experience. He can be reached at lvwitherell@gmail.com for talks and consulting. His website is http://winemaniacs.wordpress.com

Sid’s menu was classic Italian, as expected, featuring his Pappardelle al ragu, a carbonara to die for and delicious pork with sage, among others. Unfortunately, chefs, unless they own their restaurants, are itinerant wanderers to the whims

Layne is hosting an event “Layne’s Wine Gig” every 3rd Friday of the month (4.305.30 p.m.) at Port City Blue 650 A Congress St. Portland. $12 gets you four threeounce pours and a rollicking schtick of a good time. Be there.)

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The Spirits of 1820 200 Years of Maine Statehood

Eastern Cemetery

224 Congress St.

$10 - Adults $5 - 12 & under

Seven spirits tell of the perils & promises of attaining Maine statehood.

October 17-19 & 24-26 6:30 -7:30 pm Sunday, October 20 & 27 5:30 - 6:30 pm Groups enter every 20 minutes | First come, first served | spiritsalive.org/wats Page 19

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Go Big Or Go Home:

Annie’s College Search Begins

By Annie Sillin For Up Portland As a kid, especially a teenager, when a parent says they want to take you to go see their old college campus and relive the “good old days,” it does not usually end up being as exciting as they make it sound. It usually involves teary tours and lengthy stories, long walks and a whole lot of feigned excitement on the kid’s end.

For me, however, when my mom told me we were going to visit the university where she spent a year studying abroad, I was definitely more pleasantly surprised than I expected to be.

As a high school student just starting my junior year, I had not previously put much thought into where I wanted to go to college, or even what kind of colleges I would look into. But, when my stepdad announced that he had to travel to London to participate in an American college fair for British students and asked if I would like to come along to get a sense of which colleges sounded interesting, I was all ears.

To be fair, I was more interested in the skipping-school-to-go-to-London aspect than the college fair, but I still agreed to go and pretended I was excited about that part, too. My mom also suggested that, since we would be in the area, she wanted to show me around Oxford, where she spent a year on a study-abroad programme from Williams.

Oxford and its many colleges were beyond anything I had ever seen before — the grand buildings with intricate designs carved into the sides, the towering spires of churches, and the endless serenity of the blooming gardens with winding paths and communal benches all captivated me instantly, leaving me infatuated and with a sudden urge to follow in my mom’s footsteps and spend at least a semester (or a year) studying abroad there. The tutorial system especially intrigued me — it was an exciting, if scary, prospect to be able to work so closely with professors and better my skills.

The day following the Oxford visit was the college fair. I had no idea what it was going to be like, as I had never attended one or even known that something like that existed until I was going to it. My mom, as she is the college counsellor at the school I currently attend, guided me with a list of tables to visit and questions to ask. At first, I was excited — but after talking to two or three representatives, each college began to sound exactly like the rest, and statistics no longer registered in my mind.

Still, a few colleges stood out in particular, and it was nice to get a sense of which colleges sounded appealing and which qualities were most important to me, especially going forward into the beginning of my college search.

The trip was, overall, a fun and enriching experience, as travel seems to always be for me. It also definitely got me thinking about college in a way I hadn’t previously thought about it and opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities — not just schools in America, but those abroad, as well as study abroad programmes from different colleges across the U.S. It was an unconventional way to begin my college search, for sure, but it ended up being exactly what I needed to start thinking about what I am going to be looking for in schools in the next year or so. And, who knows — I may even end up back at Oxford at some point, showing my own kids around my old stomping grounds and watching as they realise that this was a worthwhile trip to drag them on after all.

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Processed Media

By Randy Dankievitch — TV Critic / TVOvermind

The Double-Edged Sword of Gaming Subscriptions Growing up as a kid, the most exciting part of any week was going to the mall to check the shelves of EB Games and KB Toys for the coolest games. At the time, it was quite the expensive hobby, one that ensured most families would only be able to afford three or four new games a year.

Fast forward to 2019, the age of free-to-play games, affordable indie titles, constant discounts by major publishers... and now, “games as a service” products like Xbox Game Pass, Playstation Now, and the recently-released Apple Arcade, all taking full advantage of the entertainment industry's trend towards Netflix-like subscription models.

On the surface, it seems a natural progression; charging players anywhere from $5 a month (Apple Arcade) to $20/month (Playstation Now) to an ever-expanding, changing library of games new and old to enjoy. With the absolute surfeit of video games hitting the digital shelves every week, it seems a perfect solution to a growing issue: too many great games, and not enough money for any normal human being to begin affording all the experiences they want to enjoy.

On the developer side, it makes sense, as well: with so many fantastic titles releasing every month, a subscription service encourages more people to try things outside their comfort zones, greatly expanding the potential reach of any title --- be it an AAA game like Gears of War 5, or smaller, more niche experiences like What the Golf? or Sayonara: Wild Hearts.

This can pay massive dividends for both publishers and gamers alike; but it's one that comes with a potential dark underbelly... one we're already seeing exposed with the revolving door of content on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.

Back in the days of yesteryear, gamers bought a game knowing they had ownership of it; they could play it as frequently and as often as they wanted, with the lifespan of the disc or cartridge the only limitation to how long someone could enjoy, or simply own, the content they bought.

But at the whims of algorithms, publishing deals and corporate desires, games could literally disappear at the drop of a hat.

Imagine spending three years playing a game, only for it to one day be completely removed from the service – or even worse, permanently deleted from existence when a company decides to take it offline forever.

The lack of guarantee is frightening. It completely changes the optics of what a game's life span can be; a double-edged sword of feast and famine whose impact we won't fully grasp for years. In their fledgling states, these services are extremely promising – especially Apple Arcade, a product designed as a healthy alternative to the aggressive, micro-transaction driven mobile gaming industry of recent years.

The ability to download an ever-growing library of games is also extremely enticing, but at the same time, the possibilities for large corporations to define and shape our gaming tastes as they see fit, is... concerning, to say the least. For now, it's a great, affordable way to play a wide variety of new and classic games (especially Apple Arcade and Xbox Games Pass) – but where it could go in the future is equal parts exciting and dangerous --- a trend that could fundamentally change the games industry, and how we experience those titles, as we know it.

EXPLORE THE MAINE COAST

GUIDED ADVENTURES on the Maine Island Trail

LESSONS, TOURS & RENTALS at East End Beach & Crescent Beach

With subscription services, that sense of ownership is not absolute: not only do players not own a physical copy of the game they've bought, but they've sacrificed ownership of the very content itself. Having a subscription to Playstation Now or Nintendo Switch Online is but a limited license --- one privy to the whims of the corporations in charge of them.

If Microsoft decided one day to no longer offer Sea of Thieves, for example, on its service, it would disappear forever. Even if one put a thousand hours into adventures on the high seas, that experience could be lost to the sands of time, with the simple flip of a switch.

What it can lead to, as we've seen with the video streaming behemoth, is a heavy recency bias: the life cycle of a normal game has great potential to live on past its initial release window, growing through speed running communities, multiplayer factions, and the never-ending quest to explore every nook and cranny of a title to unearth all its secrets and flaws.

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PortlandPaddle.net

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207-370-9730

Hackin’ The Net

By Ted Fleischaker / Publisher Quick! What’s the current Portland temperature? If you are like 95% of my friends, you just glanced at your Apple watch, phone or computer screen to come up with an answer. But what if (gasp) that info is wrong? And what about data on stocks, scores and even news?

That’s my point this month: what and who to trust on the basics you just glance at a screen to find out these days. It won’t really, in the great scheme of things matter if your watch says 58 and my phone reads 54, but do you ever think about that (or other) information, much less where it comes from?

It’s one thing to check the National Weather Service’s (NWS) local office website at https://www.weather.gov/gyx/ and quite another to just look at and take as true that number on your watch face or tablet, because each and every one of those different sources has their sources. And while they all should agree (or use the “official” reading taken by the National Weather Service at the Jetport) they don’t always do so.

I can think back, back, back… into the foggy days when to discover the temperature at 4 p.m. meant either waiting for the morning newspaper the next day, which had the “hourly grid” or tuning to the local AM radio station to hear what they had to say it was after the hourly NBC or CBS newscast finished.

A bit later, we got NOAA Weather Radio. It’s still alive and well (https://noaaweatherradio.org) and my day always begins with a few minute listen (while shaving and brushing) so I can hear not only the official temperature and forecasts for the next week, but some more, shall we say, arcane things… stuff like the water temperature in Sebago Lake… or the higher summits forecast for where the snow line will be.

The former is fun to know since our water is from Sebago. How cold or warm it will come out of the faucet depends upon how warm or cold the lake is. And those higher summits are good info if you are a skier, boarder, climber or want to take the Auto Road up Mt. Washington before it shuts for the season.

The Portland station also has a slug of marine forecasts which I can listen thru… things like the wave heights and the water temperatures at Isles of Shoals or conditions on West Penobscot Bay. Or if I want to skip those, I turn to the station on Mt. Washington, which, being further from the ocean does not broadcast those wave heights and marine conditions.

But back to my first question: what’s the Portland temperature? Give a glance to the Time & Temperature building and you will get the number from a sensor up there somewhere. And try one of the seemingly endless parade of weather “sources” at our fingertips these days and there are likely to be other choices.

There’s everything from the official National Weather Service page to AccuWeather (www.accuweather.com), WeatherBug (www.weatherbug.com), The Weather Channel (www.weather.com) and a ton of local meteorologists, including Up Portland’s very own Forecaster Jack (www.forecasterjack.com).

If you really want other Portland temperature options, they, too, are available from a plethora of weather “bureaus” and “services” with some great, sometimes fascinating, links on the World Meteorological Organization’s home page (above right, at www.worldweather.wmo.int/en/home.html) There, you can see forecasts and numbers from nearly everywhere around the world. Going to Bermuda? There’s a link to their weather service. Same for Australia, South Africa

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and even Afghanistan. But let’s get back to where we started: where do all these numbers come from, and which one(s) should you believe?

The first answer is likely the official National Weather Service observation station here in Portland, then to the weather service’s Southern Maine office in Gray and on from there. Of course some may come from private services or use different ways to get those numbers, but let’s be honest: Unless you are doing scientific research or something very complex, what’s the difference in a degree or two?

And to go along with temperature and forecasts, there’s time. That three degree difference between my National Weather Service webpage temperature and your Weather Bug may well be because one of us has later or earlier data, especially if there are rapidly changing conditions.

So let’s just say there are a lot of choices and we have come a long way from my first copy boy job when I’d dash into the “wire room” at the old Peoria Journal Star to see what the weather teletype said was happening. Before radars, before Weather Radio and before cell phones or computers were ever thought of, that was about the only way to really find out with immediacy. So yes, we have come a long, long way, though along with all that progress we have added just a hint of uncertainty.

Finally on this topic (and before you ask) I like the National Weather Service best by far. I think most of the others just re-transmit or tweak their information, so I’d rather get it current, updated and from the free source we all fund with our tax dollars. I do not need to “subscribe” or let my phone use GPS to determine where I am. It’s all right there and I can see as much info as I want.

The days when we could all “just trust” are long past, and just like the time years ago when a now-disgraced former senator tried to get us to have to use just one weather source based in his home state of Pennsylvania and get charged for it, who’s to say any of the numbers you and I see are accurate? Even time can be “off” as while most devices auto set, it is possible to change the time zone or clock, meaning it may be close, but not split second, accuracy. As they say: Let the buyer beware, and compare several sources if you want to be 100% sure.

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