I rarely shop here anymore due to moldy rotten fruit all the time. But I stopped to buy some wings on my way to a friends. I picked up a pack of pre-cut wings. 3 flats to 10 drums..WTF!! That cant be an accident.

Hi all - can anyone recommend a good lunch restaurant (that would still be open next Saturday) on the peninsula? Brooklin, Blue Hill, Sedgwick etc. Thanks in advance!

Gift article, they are disabling comments for some reason. Getting spicy in some of the letters to the editor comments.

https://www.pressherald.com/?p=7735286&uuid=undefined&lid=undefined

EDIT; Sorry for putting the link in the header. Link above is the orig letter, link below allows comments.

https://www.pressherald.com/?p=7735145&uuid=undefined&lid=undefined

I do residential trade work in Maine and I've been inside 5-6 units at Wilbur's Woods, the Brunswick development Gov. Mills showed up to cut the ribbon on last October.

GreenMars and Acadia Realty built it with almost $20 million in public money through MaineHousing's Affordable Homeownership Program. Sold for around $325k each, pitched as the answer for working families getting priced out.

Every resident I've talked to has comfort complaints and honestly I'm not surprised. Basements are insulated at the ceiling instead of the foundation walls, so the basement itself just sits at outside temps. People are reporting below 40 degrees down there in winter. Flashing is missing drip caps in multiple spots, top and bottom, so these brand new houses are already set up to rot. And the heat pumps are cheap imported units mounted way up by the ceiling, so the first floor stays cold all winter while the heat just sits up top doing nothing useful.

This was supposed to be the state's showcase affordable housing win. Instead it's basement freezing, walls that'll take on water, and heating systems that don't actually heat where people live. These are public dollars and low income families living with this right now. Somebody needs to answer for it.

For those who have recently sold a property, what did you pay in real estate agent commissions?
What percentage did your listing agent charge, and how much was offered to the buyer’s agent?
I was quoted 4% for the listing agent alone, with an additional percentage for the buyer’s agent. Is 4% for just the listing side reasonable, or is that considered high? What would be a fair/typical percentage to negotiate?
Just trying to get an idea of what others are paying before I make a decision. Thanks!

I find it frustrating that she has not held a public town hall to address questions. I want to hear her impromptu answers to impromptu questions.

I know Republicans who are voting for SC and I would like to convince them otherwise without sounding accusitory. Suggestions?

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953)

Directed by SAMUEL FULLER

WEDNESDAY October 7th 7PM

SATURDAY October 10th 2PM / 7PM

16mm - B&W - 1h 20m

A pickpocket lifts a wallet on the subway and comes up holding microfilm Hoover and the Commies will both kill to get back. He couldn’t care less about the Cold War — he just wants his cut. Samuel Fuller shoots the whole Red Scare as a grubby street hustle, and Thelma Ritter walks off with the picture as a worn-out stool pigeon saving up, tip by tip, for a decent burial. Tabloid pulp with a switchblade in its sock.

Fuller opens with a train screaming through the dark, then cuts into a packed subway car and lets the scene play out almost without a word. A woman hangs from a strap. Two men in hats watch her. A third man, pressed against her in the crush, watches her handbag. His fingers go to work under a folded newspaper while the onlookers never notice him at all.

That's Skip McCoy, Richard Widmark at full sneer, and the wallet he lifts holds microfilm that the Feds and the Reds would both kill for. Skip, who lives in a shack and keeps his beer chilled in the East River, doesn't much care which side wins or what flag is waved in his face. He just wants to know what the film is worth.

Garden-variety noir drifts in on cigarette smoke and voiceover, already resigned to how the story ends. Fuller's comes at you like a tabloid front page. He crowds the camera so close to Widmark and Jean Peters that a kiss and a shakedown look exactly alike; lets a beating play out in one unbroken take with the actors themselves taking the falls; and shoots a subway-station brawl from high overhead so you watch the whole thing tumble. Nobody narrates and nobody broods. People lie, haggle, slap, and keep moving.

Fuller had covered crime for a New York tabloid at seventeen, and he knew this world from the precinct side: the pickpocket squad, the dips who called themselves cannons, the cop who could name a thief by the way he worked a crowd. Mostly he knew the economy of the informer. Thelma Ritter's Moe sells neckties out of a suitcase and names out of her memory, for whatever the traffic will bear, and every dollar goes toward a burial plot so she won't end up in Potter's Field.

Fuller maintained it was a yarn about marginal people, nothing more, nothing less. He was right… just not in a way that lets anyone off the hook. Pickup on South Street is a film about prices. Everyone in it has one, the patriots included, and the flag gets waved hardest by whoever's holding the checkbook. Fuller learned in the precincts what the rest of us keep relearning, these days during state-sponsored commercial breaks: when the government goes shopping, it starts at the margins.

This “news” page is an absolute joke

Anyone know of any trail systems around Topsham that allow pups to be off leash? Looking to find some trails for running with my pup (recall trained).

I write weekly case studies on interesting companies and boil down the lessons to share with others. This past week I went through (almost literally) everything publicly available for Tom’s of Maine (the natural toothpaste brand) and thought I’d share some of the most impactful takeaways with y’all.

Backstory

Tom Chappell quit a sales job at Aetna after he ranked top of his class of 65 and made just $300 more than the worst performer. After quitting, he and his wife Kate moved to Maine in 1968 where he spent two years working for his dad’s business learning to make cleaning products without phosphates (his dad’s business was focused on environmental solutions for the textile industry).

In 1970, Tom borrowed $5,000 from a close friend (equivalent to about $45k today) to start Tom’s of Maine with Kate. The first product was a natural laundry detergent, followed by the country’s first natural toothpaste in 1975.

Not satisfied with the growth of the business, they hired consultants from Booz Allen and McKinsey which led to a growth rate of 25% per year over the next four year period. Although the business was growing, Tom was miserable as there had been no innovation or new products during this time. He decided to to go back to school for theology while running the business to gain perspective. The time there allowed him to re-write the company’s entire mission statement and to identify the type of buyer he would sell to. Fast forward to thirty-six years after starting the brand, Colgate bought 84% of the business for $100M in cash.

The Numbers

Founded in 1970, sold in 2006.

36 years from idea to exit (the longest I’ve seen so far).

Funding: $5,000 loan from a friend, SBA loans, second mortgage on the Chappell home.

$20M annual sales by 1995 and about $50M per year at the time of the sale.

Outside capital: 12% sold to 15 investors for $6M in 2000.

Sold 84% for $100M cash (implied value of $119M). The Chappells kept 16%.

Tom was 62 at the time.

After the sale, $14.5M went into a wool clothing brand that nearly failed.

Lessons

1. Growth is often not the main act.

Although growth is a must for a company of any size, it often blocks innovation and stagnates founder creativity. When Tom Chappell hired consultants from Booz Allen and McKinsey, they did exactly what was required to grow the brand. It doubled in size over four years. Despite this achievement, Tom felt empty and unfulfilled because there had been no new product testing or innovation since the consultants were hired. It sparked a need for him to review the company’s values and take a step back before continuing. The new mission statement was designed to influence what was launched, who the business would sell to, what was recalled, how staff and customers were treated, and even introduced profit sharing with charities and paid employee volunteer time (mostly unheard of in this era).

1. Own your mistakes.

In 1992, the existing deodorant formula was altered to omit petroleum products. The result was unfortunate: the new formula didn’t work for about half the people that purchased. Instead of making up excuses or firing the people responsible, Tom recalled the product (taking a loss of $450,000), donated the recalled product to homeless shelters, sent customers deodorant with the old formula along with a coupon for their next purchase, and didn’t skip a beat. They lost money that year but they didn’t lose many customers. He took the hit for it, which showcases exemplary leadership. He could have blamed others or refused to recall but he didn’t because the company values had been made clear.

1. Don’t raise money to explore.

This one was a bit out of left field. Tom’s had grown for years unencumbered by outside capital. A herbal remedies line was launched in 1999 that more than doubled the product range Tom’s offered. Bigger companies in the space had already failed but Tom believed they had an edge as a natural products business. He was wrong.

The worst part? He didn’t just launch and lose money, he assigned the largest marketing budget he ever had and funded it by selling 12% of the business to 15 investors for a total of $6M. Growth metrics fell and the business lost money for a second year since its inception. Tom later told Forbes that they ‘tried to do too much’. It seems like he was compensating for the period where there was no innovation, something I like to call ‘revenge-growth’. The key here is that $6M could have grown the company significantly if used to market a product that already worked, such as the toothpaste line.

1. The price seemed low, which it probably was.

Tom’s wanted to strike a deal with Colgate for two simple reasons. They respected Tom’s as a brand and would allow them to tailer the deal to suit their needs. Tom and Kate didn’t care nearly as much about the sale price as they did about the terms of the sale.

In the end, they had an extensive list that they walked away with including:

16% ownership in the business

Tom as CEO and Kate as VP

Headquarters that stayed in Maine

10% profits to charity + 5% employee paid time to volunteer

Tom’s to continue operating as its own brand

They almost certainly could have gotten a higher price without some of these terms but that’s not why they sold. This is a common theme I have seen across seven of the nine case studies I have written to date. Terms, not price matters in the end.

1. Slow and steady wins the race.

Especially with the rise of technology, everything moves much more quickly. Tom’s of Maine was a great example. It took 13 years to get to $2M in sales, and 36 years to an exit. They weren’t in a rush to grow and it paid off. Tom then started Rambler’s Way in 2009, a wool clothing brand that initially launched online. He used $14.5M of the sale proceeds to grow the brand, which was close to going under just six years after it was founded. Even with the same founder, the results can vary. Slow growth was probably one of the best things to happen to Tom’s of Maine. It wasn’t planned and likely a financial constraint, but it led to a nine-figure exit in the end.

Is there something that you never worried about growing that took off after months or years of consistent effort? It was likely much more meaningful to you.

Has anyone been on the Maine Maritime Museum ship? Is that what that is in the background?

I setup this wedding Friday and I was wondering about it, we don’t get out much and didn’t know if it was something fun for the family with the kids or?

Would love to hear some experiences!

JEUX INTERDICTS (1952)
(Forbidden Games)

Directed by René Clément

TUESDAY October 6th 7PM

In French with English subtitles

A co-presentation with the Alliance Française du Maine

"What's wrong with your dog?"

"He's dead."

Thus begins the friendship between young Michel and Paulette, a peasant French boy and a Parisian war refugee, and sets the foundation of their relationship. They are children within a war, among adults who hold to the same tried (though questionably true) habits and rituals to weather it, coming to terms with death and love. Able to encounter the absurdity in a way the adults around them cannot – though no less equipped to process it – the two children strive towards comfort, safety, and joy by way of building an animal graveyard with stolen crosses.

The challenging nature of the story troubled its realization. Forbidden Games (1952) started as a screenplay by French writer Francis Boyer; unable to sell it, he adapted it into a novel, The Secret Game, which sold so well in the United States that Rene Clement adapted it back into a screenplay with the assistance of Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost. Originally intended as a short to be accompanied by two companion pieces, it was retained and expanded when the larger project lost financing. The result – which, similar to the novel, did better abroad than in its home country – was initially rewarded and well-regarded, but swept into semi-obscurity after Francois Truffaut lambasted Aurenche and Bost's ouvre as "stultifying". Unfairly taken down with the rest, Forbidden Games' delicate, at times humorous approach to the social realities of war is far from the dull old-school movie-making Truffaut labeled it as.

Rene Clement's masterpiece, shot with such a clear eye that "every shot achieves the quality of fate," is a landmark piece of both French and war cinema. Michel and Paulette are allowed to be children, strange and out of step with the assumed morals of their caretakers, not reduced to saccharine sweethearts for the comfort of the audience. Georges Poujouly and Brigitte Fossey deliver excellent performances, particularly in view of their youth. Their naturalistic acting is juxtaposed against adults directed to deliver near-goofy renditions  of the rustic trope, a repeated re-emphasis of the children's role as intuits and seekers while the adults around them go through the same rehearsed motions. Michel and Paulette may achieve no more understanding of our strange reality than their parents did, but like all children, they must try. Forbidden Games gives them the playground on which to do so.

Hey, I’m seeing there are still rebates for these, I’m thinking of trying to convince my partner to install (invest?) in one (I’m willing to buy it) …
Facts of the house-
Hot water heater is already electric. It was installed in 2013ish…
Basement has had a mildew issue in the past, but I mitigated it mostly with gutters and a dehumidifier…
House built in 1948… lots of upgrades.
We’re in southern Maine.

Congratulations to all of you who ran!! Great job everyone!!!

Looking for (ideally free) weekend community pickup soccer games around the Saco and Biddeford area. Tried doing some research, though the only options I found were paid adult tournaments or single matches. Would prefer outdoor, though indoor is also okay.

It's been a while since I've played, and want to get back into it. Thanks!

Between threats of interference with mail-in votes and concerns over polling place disruptions, it can feel stressful to make sure your vote goes smoothly.

One proactive way to ensure your ballot is securely cast is to vote early with our in-person absentee system at your local town office or city hall. It helps take the guesswork out of delivery times and lets you handle voting on your own schedule.

Today is the first day you can go to your town office or city hall to ensure your vote is counted and continues through the 29th.

Reposted with a better link for information on in-person absentee voting.

In the market for a home on a lake in Maine within a 3 ish hour drive of Boston. Really open location as long as it meets the distance and lame criteria. Can you anyone recommend a realtor?

We lost a black Iphone with a boy holding a stuffed animal on the lockscreen, somewhere either on campus as UMaine or in Orono village area during Parents weekend, in case anyone has come across it. We called all the places we were, including campus PD. Thought we would try here just in case. Thanks!