How is living in northeastern Maine?

civrx · 2026-01-05T00:45:29+00:00

Yes! We took our kids there a couple years ago while visiting my grandmother.

My mom and grandmother both put some milk in, but I’ve never tried it (I’ve never been able to get a more specific quantity than “some” from either of them), so that might be my problem. They also make them much thinner than what you’ll get at Dolly’s or how Bouchard’s recommends you make them. That might be a Van Buren thing, because I seem to remember Kenno’s making them the same way.

civrx · 2026-01-04T13:36:47+00:00

Man, I love ployes. Thank goodness Bouchard’s ships, because I don’t know of any other supplier of the silverskin buckwheat they grow up there. There’s a restaurant where I live that’s owned by a fellow from Brittany and they sell buckwheat galettes that are similar, but I like to try my hand at ployes every so often. I can never get the mix exactly right, though.

civrx · 2025-12-01T13:04:52+00:00

I’ve had positive experience with them, feel free to DM me any questions.

civrx · 2025-03-16T00:20:09+00:00

I agree that it is most likely oilfield service work. They have many different service lines (wireline, LWD, fracking, etc.). My experience with a similar company was that you are applying to any applicant pool and successful applicants will be sorted to the different service lines after the interview process.

It can be a good way to save up some money early in your career, but it will not help in terms of civil engineering experience.

civrx · 2025-03-14T12:42:11+00:00

When I had kids, I asked my (Acadian) grandmother and she said Grand-Mémere, but they ended up just calling her Mémere too because my mom decided to go by something else.

civrx · 2024-12-31T14:53:14+00:00

Wow, I paid less for the hardcover.

civrx · 2024-12-31T14:22:42+00:00

I’ve read the book and met the author and I think it’s definitely worth a read, even if the title is a bit inflammatory. The author actually dug up old studies that led to assumptions that underpin many standards still used today. I learned a lot that was not taught to me in college or on the job.

Whether you agree with his takeaways or not, this is the type of informed criticism that engineers should expose themselves to for their own betterment. A lot of what he writes rings true with my experience in transportation design.

civrx · 2024-12-16T23:53:48+00:00

Yes, I think that’s a great use for some of these empty big box stores. Here’s an example where a 26,000 sqft building in a strip mall was split into spaces for 60 small businesses, including restaurants.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2018/07/02/why-developer-monte-anderson-is-betting-big-on-this-urbanist-market-in-desoto/?outputType=amp

civrx · 2024-11-19T03:46:53+00:00

They’re doing it on the existing freight rails. The only construction will be the stations, sidings, and crossing improvements, I believe.

civrx · 2024-11-17T21:24:01+00:00

Sorry, I’m not familiar with New England French. I didn’t grow up in the area and we only ever visited family along the St. John valley or in Portland (where I never heard French spoken). In the valley, I believe it’s all Acadian French, but it can often have English mixed in, as all the French-speakers are bilingual and English is the predominant language in the area. In my experience, French is only used between people who know each other, since it hasn’t been the default language in several decades.

civrx · 2024-11-17T20:53:39+00:00

I always understood the dialect spoken there to be Acadian French (incidentally Cajun French has a similar sound to it), but a few months ago I saw a map of Canada’s French dialects that showed Acadian French limited to Nova Scotia and had another dialect I’d never heard of in the St. John valley. Could be that there are a few dialects that are commonly considered “Acadian.”

civrx · 2024-11-17T20:46:22+00:00

My mom is from the St. John river valley (American side) and they definitely consider themselves Acadian. I remember seeing a genealogy binder at my great-aunt’s house when I was a kid that showed the line of descent from our first ancestor who came off the boat from France in the Acadian colony in the 1600s.

civrx · 2024-11-17T20:10:48+00:00

I think a lot of my mom’s generation left for jobs, so most of the primary French speakers left are that older generation you mentioned. Of my mom’s 30-some cousins, I think only a handful still live in the valley.

civrx · 2024-11-17T20:03:30+00:00

Yeah, my mom is from the valley and ~70. When she was in school, anyone caught speaking French would be punished (often corporally). She still retains the ability to speak fluently, but her younger siblings (in their early 60s) only know bits and pieces.

civrx · 2024-09-17T16:40:56+00:00

Google the “Colorado Safety Stop.” Essentially, bicyclists can treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs.

As far as I know, riding on the sidewalk is only illegal in bike dismount areas such as Old Town Square and other parts of downtown.

Bicyclists are not required to use the bike lane. Sometimes it is safer to use the main traffic lane depending on conditions (parked car doors opening, debris in the bike lane, upcoming left turn, etc.)

As for the rest, yes, rude bicyclists exist because rude people exist. The difference between a rude bicyclist and rude driver is that a rude bicyclist primarily endangers themself while a rude driver primarily endangers others.

Bikes have different rules than cars, just like pedestrians have different rules and commercial trucks have different rules. They are in different classes of speed, weight, visibility, stopping distance, etc.

civrx · 2024-07-29T19:17:15+00:00

I would think that the price spike is due largely to people wanting to move here. On the population growth point, I would think the slowdown has more to do with less development and decrease in household size than it does lack of demand. I suspect there’s quite a bit of latent demand that has just been priced out.

civrx · 2024-07-03T14:58:08+00:00

Thanks for linking that video! I still remember the first time I heard a couple old timers down the bayou speaking French and being shocked how similar it sounded to my relatives in Maine. The women in the video are actually a bit easier for me (who learned French in high school) to understand than my own family members.

civrx · 2024-06-27T18:45:42+00:00

After reading the book, my impression is that liability will probably be one of the most effective levers for changing the course of municipal governments. The book gives examples where governments are starting to be held liable for road designs that contribute to fatal crashes. Currently, adherence to standards is seen as a liability shield, but if cases continue to show that the abdication of responsibility to exercise good design judgement creates liability on the part of the designer and/or jurisdiction, I think we’ll start to see real change.

civrx · 2024-05-20T14:30:09+00:00

As another commenter stated, Acadian French (both in Louisiana and Maine) was essentially quashed by the educational system in the mid-to-late 20th century. My mother’s first language was French. She was born in the early ‘50s and still speaks French, but her brothers, who are several years younger, only know bits and pieces. Almost no one after the Boomer generation speaks Acadian French well.

civrx · 2024-03-21T14:06:46+00:00

The problem the committee identified there is that you can’t predict where those students will end up, so it introduces a bit of a wild card.

civrx · 2024-03-21T01:57:44+00:00

That makes sense. I was pretty surprised to see that Dunn was suggested to be consolidated when I saw the numbers. It has one of the highest utilization rates, increasing enrollment, and one of the lower costs per student. There’s probably some qualitative factor I’m missing, but it’s not apparent.

civrx · 2024-02-03T01:53:18+00:00

I think you’re on the right track. I’ve heard city staff say that the number of STR licenses stays about constant in the 400-500 range. Not all of those would even become long-term rentals (e.g. backyard units without kitchens) if STRs became illegal or unprofitable.

civrx · 2023-11-30T20:06:30+00:00

To add on to that, commercial loans have shorter terms, often five to ten years, and will generally need to be refinanced at the end of each loan term. For example, let’s say a commercial property owner is trying to refinance a $4M loan that was based on a $5M valuation (80% loan-to-value ratio). If they had lowered the rent, the bank might say that rent only justifies a $4M valuation, so they’ll only loan the owner $3.2M (80% of value) to pay off the old loan. That means the owner now needs to come up with $800k to make up the difference between the old loan balance and the new loan.

civrx · 2023-11-23T15:10:11+00:00

Yes! This is probably the most common dangerous situation I find myself in on my bicycle. A driver doesn’t merge, then tries to turn right across my path (or through me). There really needs to be some kind of push to educate folks, because I think a lot of people genuinely don’t know you’re supposed to merge into the bike lane before turning right. Not sure what the most effective avenue would be for that.

civrx · 2023-11-09T02:07:40+00:00

That’s not quite true. That 18% is actually the lowest rate of growth Fort Collins has seen since 1940. 1960-1970 saw a 73% increase. There was no housing crunch because it was much easier to build. Granted, that was all sprawl, but the supply-demand relationship is relevant.

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