New2Maine.com

She and I are finally back from our 1300 mile journey to see family and friends for the holidays. We’re tired, the car is tired, and we’re glad to be home, but it was great to see everyone. We’re getting ready to have friends over for some football, some food, and some celebrating of the coming year, so I just wanted to write a quick post to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I’ll have some more time to post tomorrow, especially with yet another snow storm on its way. There was a good deal of melting while we were gone, but we got 8″ or so after we got back last night, and another good-sized storm is on its heals. Good thing I picked up a new shovel last week!

As mentioned in several places on the Internet, such as Recording Industry vs. The People, the U. Maine Law School’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic is representing two U. Maine students in a lawsuit filed by the RIAA for illegal music sharing. This is a watershed moment in the backlash against the RIAA’s litigation campaign against music consumers. This represents the first time that a university’s legal clinic is getting involved on its students’ behalf.

While I do believe the file sharing may harm the music industry as it currently exists to some extent, I am appalled by the RIAA’s tactics as it attempts to save its failing business model. I support the decision by students at the legal aid clinic to get involved in defending their fellow students. This is both a great learning opportunity for U. Maine Law students, and a good way to show the RIAA that the people, its consumers, will not lay down and accept the dictates of the recording industry. Go U. Maine Law! You make me proud to be a new Mainer.

I was thinking about how beautiful Maine is in the summer (not that winter isn’t pretty, but when you’ve spent several hours in the last week shoveling, you begin to yearn for summer), so I thought I’d look around for some photos to remind me of that beauty.

That one is of sunrise on Casco Bay. It reminds me of walking the dog at dawn around Back Cove.

And this one is of a place called Screw Auger Falls, in Grafton Notch State Park. We’ve not been there, but now that I’ve seen this, it’ll have to be on the list of destinations for Her and I to explore next spring and summer. Google tells me that Grafton Notch is about two hours from here.

There, now I feel better. Time to grab the shovel again and finish off my sidewalk.

With Wednesday and Thursday’s storm adding another 6-7″, our pre-winter snowfall total reached the 2½ foot mark. Yes, that’s right, we got well over 2 feet before winter even started this year. Amusingly enough, with winter officially upon us now, the weather is supposed to warm up. We’re forecast to get above freezing for the first time in a while tomorrow and some of the white stuff might melt. It’s even supposed to be in the low-to-mid 40s on Sunday! Of course, it’s currently 15° F, so we’ll see what happens.

Everyone I’ve talked to around Portland is shocked at how much snow we’ve gotten so far. According to a report on WGME 13 the other day, we’d had 0.4″ of snow at this time last year. So we’ve gotten about 60 times more snow than last year. Yikes! I wonder what winter is going to bring…

Wow. I just checked weather.com to see what the rest of the week looks like and lo and behold, the National Weather Service has this to report:

A SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 5 PM EST THURSDAY.

EXPECT A STORM TOTAL OF 4 TO 7 INCHES. SNOW WILL BEGIN LATE THIS AFTERNOON… WITH LESS THAN AN INCH OF ACCUMULATION BY EVENING RUSH HOUR. SNOW WILL BE LOCALLY HEAVY LATE THIS EVENING AND TONIGHT…GRADUALLY TAPERING OFF THURSDAY AFTERNOON. SNOW MAY MIX WITH OR CHANGE TO RAIN AT TIMES…MORE SO OVER THE ISLANDS.

Another 4 to 7 inches? It’s not even winter yet!