2024 – Page 74

Quality of Life 24/08/15

Covid is back. Again.

A recent variant of Covid-19 is on the rise in New Hampshire. As reported by WMUR in a July 30 online article, “New Hampshire health officials said emergency department and wastewater data show that there has been a rise in recent infections, and they expect that such seasonal surges will continue.” Despite previous infections and vaccinations, it is possible to be reinfected. As described by the Centers for Disease Control on its website (cdc.gov/covid), “Reinfections with the virus that causes Covid-19 are most often mild, but severe illness can occur. If you are reinfected, you can also spread the virus to others.” According to a WMUR report from Aug. 9, the most common Covid strain right now is KP.3, a descendant of the omicron variant. “Protection against severe Covid-19 illness generally lasts longer than protection against infection. This means even if you get infected again, your immune response should help protect you from severe illness and hospitalization,” read the same CDC advisory.

QOL score: -1

Comment: According to WMUR’s Aug. 9 report, the 2024-2025 Covid-19 vaccines, expected to be out this fall, will target the JN.1 strain because it, too, is in the omicron family.

“I’ve got a bridge to sell you.”

The New Hampshire Department of Transportation (dot.nh.gov) announced in an Aug. 8 press release that it has a bridge for sale. “The NH Department of Transportation (NHDOT) is accepting proposals for the purchase, relocation and preservation of the Bridge (No. 254/180) that carries Route 127 over the Warner River, in Warner, NH,” the press release read. On its Bridge Sales Website (dot.nh.gov/historic-bridge-dispositions-bridges-sale) the NHDOT stated that bridges on its sales list are, “in general, eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and any sale will be awarded for $1.00 to the entity who develops the most responsive preservation proposal.”

QOL score: +1

Comment: The NHDOT describes Bridge No. 254/180 as an example of a steel stringer bridge and says such bridges “rarely feature aesthetic treatments and usually have standard railings or guide rails. Warner 254/180, built in 1937, is the oldest extant example of a continuous I-beam bridge in the inventory.”

Vacationing extraterrestrials?

The website Staker.com has aggregated data from reports of UFO sightings to the National UFO Reporting Center (nuforc.org), which has been compiling reports since 1974. In a ranking of most UFO sightings reported to least, New Hampshire comes in sixth, with 85 reports per 100,000 residents. According to the ranking, Washington State has the highest rate of reported sightings with 100 per 100,000 people, and Washington, D.C., has the lowest rate with 22 per 100.000. Vermont and Maine are both in the top 10, with Vermont fourth (90/100.000), and Maine seventh (85/100,000).

QOL score: +1 probably? Tourism is tourism.

Comment: It has been 53 years since Betty and Barney Hill’s reported alien abduction in Lincoln.

Last week’s QOL score: 74

Net change:+2

QOL this week: 76

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire?

Let us know at [email protected].

Paris games earn gold

The Big Story – Paris Olympics Come to an End: It was a memorable Olympics for good and bad reasons. The biggest story was the leading 40 gold (tied with China) and 126 overall medals won by the Americans in Paris. It continued their streak of winning the most medals every games since 1996.

Sports 101: Name the two athletes who were immediately sent home for making the Black power salute at their medal ceremony during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

News Item – Olympic Wrap-up – MemorableStories

Historic – Katie Ledecky: Cementing her place as the greatest female Olympic swimmer in winning her record ninth gold medal and 13 overall.

Biggest Upset – Cole Hocker: The Indiana miler left the starting gate a 21-to-1 long shot but somehow found a crack in the pack to slither through down the stretch to win gold in the 1500 meters with an American and Olympic record time of 3:27:53 — the equivalent of a 3:44.3 American mile.

My Favorite Story – USA Basketball: Both finals vs. France were closer than they should have been. But that only made their quest for dual gold more dramatic. Especially the women winning their ninth straight gold medal and the clutch shooting of MVP Steph Curry, who saved his team twice in their last two games.

News Item – The Rest Of The Week: (1) The Pats won their first preseason game 17-12 over Carolina. (2) The Sox’ playoff chances took a hit after they were swept over the weekend by Houston to fall three back in the wild card race.

The Numbers:

4 – year show-cause penalty for ex-Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh, which is the NCAA’s fancy new title for being banned that many years for a variety of recruiting violations to keep him out of the college game till 2028. Said another way: Since he has a new five-year contract with the L.A. Chargers, who cares. That’s like when the NFL suspended Michael Vick when he was in jail for dog killing and couldn’t play anyway.

9.20 – shockingly horrid combined ERA from the Red Sox starting rotation when they lasted just 29.1 innings of the six-game road trip to Texas and KC and still somehow managed to go 4-2.

21 – where the White Sox losing streak ended with a 5-1 over the moribund A’s to tie Baltimore’s 1988 AL record and fall two short of the MLB record 23 the Phillies lost in 1961. Though it didn’t do Pedro Grifol much good as he was fired as Chicago’s manager the next day.

… Of the Week Awards

Thumbs Down – Jerod Mayo: Hate to pick on the new coach after his first exhibition game. But you have to wonder why in the name of Babe Parilli a team with a highly drafted rookie quarterback desperately in need of reps would play just one series as Drake Maye did in preseason Game 1. What did that do? Especially since the horrid Panthers gave said rookie the perfect team to play against.

Nickname of the Week – Triple Espresso: The name Olympic Soccer stars Trinity Rodman, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Smith gave themselves amid lesser names the media has tried to come up with for the threesome that scored 10 of the 11 U.S. goals including Swanson’s game winner in the gold medal game vs. Brazil.

Party Pooper of the Week – Corey Seager: For the Texas shortstop wrecking Framber Valdez’s bid for the second no-hitter of his career by launching an opposite field two-run homer with two-out in the bottom of the ninth.

Random Thoughts:

If you think the embarrassing double DNP is going to drive Jayson Tatum next year, forget about it. Nope. Since nothing ticks him off he’s going to just take it in stride.

Sports 101 Answer: Gold medal winner in the 200 meters Tommie Smith and teammate bronze medal winner John Carlos were the ones sent home for giving the Black power salute.

Final Thoughts – A Little History: To the sad person lost in the culture wars who wrote on my Facebook feed that the bogus controversy over Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was “the darkest day in Olympic history” — get a life and a history book.

That actually happened at the 1972 games in Munich when the Black September terrorist group kidnapped and murdered eight athletes and one coach from the Israeli team, leading broadcaster Jim McKay to famously say “they’re all gone” after the rescue attempt failed.

Hard to imagine anything eclipsing that.

Email Dave Long at [email protected].

Newly minted entrepreneur

Plymouth State grad and his big idea

Kyle Dimick is an entrepreneur and Inventor as well as the founder and CEO of New Hampshire-based company Life-Able. He graduated from Plymouth State University in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management. Kyle discovered a gap in the market for adaptive nail care solutions following a ski injury which resulted in a traumatic brain injury requiring extensive physical therapy. The Trim-Able, which is Bluetooth-enabled, makes nail care more accessible for individuals with limited mobility. Interested investors can connect through his LinkedIn profile, where updates can be found as well.

Did you always want to be an inventor?

I’ve always been very interested in inventing…. Growing up I would always go up to my grandparents’ house up north, and my grandfather was a mechanic at the mills so he would teach me how to do wiring and how to mess around with mechanical stuff. I would go up there and help him with restoring cars and working on random projects, and that’s where I learned how to do a lot of this stuff. …When it came to actually seeing this as a viable career option, I didn’t really see that until the fingernail trimmer.

How did the Trim-Able come about?

This particular idea came from when I was ski jumping, I was on the high school ski jumping team, and the last day I was on it I went off and wrecked pretty good. That messed up my shoulder, a bunch of stuff in my arm, also got a good concussion and some other stuff out of it. Because of that I ended up going to physical therapy. While at physical therapy there were people coming in just to get their nails trimmed, and when I hurt my arm I was like, ‘OK, how would I cut my nails?’ So I just made this little thing for myself…. Then other people came in looking for help with their nails. so I just kept making more and handing them out.

How was the process of turning the Trim-Able into a product to sell?

It really stayed as the wooden version, up until I got to PSU in 2021. I was just walking around and I heard about the Makerspace … I got a hold of Bret Kulakovich, who was the director of the Makerspace…. He actually taught me how to use a lot of the machines and taught me a lot about fabrication. That’s where I got the electronic prototype from and then I entered that into Panther Pitch, which is a Shark Tank-style competition at PSU, and ended up getting first overall and a people’s choice award, which gave me a good amount of money, which I was able to put into the preliminary patent. I continued working with Bret with some of their equipment down there and building newer and newer models and then I submitted my newest model into the Paul J. Holloway Competition a couple months ago and ended up getting second overall. I was the only PSU student to ever enter the competition and was the only solo team in the top three so that gave me $10,000, which I used for a non-preliminary patent….

What are the next steps?

I have a preliminary patent or patent-pending status, I’m protected on that, but still need to wait for the paperwork to get processed for it to be official. I’ve been talking to a good amount of possible investors and I’ve been working on registering an LLC and getting trademark protections because I want to trademark the name and trademark the company name. … Then, a little further on, I’m trying to figure out manufacturing and scaling. I was able to work with a couple of people to figure out a marketing plan and some business strategies….

What’s the No. 1 thing that has surprised you about this journey?

The amount of support from the business community. So many people have reached out and offered advice without expecting anything in return. …. It’s really shown me how connected the whole business community around here is.

Are you still able to ski?

I’m fine. I ski a lot. … I still alpine ski and Nordic ski quite often…. I’ve been skiing since I was 4 so it’s just like second nature at this point.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention or say I haven’t asked you about?

If anyone is interested in the Makerspace at PSU, they have a ton of cool resources and I think it’s a great opportunity for people to be able to invent up here. …

—Zachary Lewis

Featured image: Kyle Dimick. Courtesy photo.

News & Notes 24/08/15

NH Artist Laureate

Genevieve Aichele of Portsmouth is the next New Hampshire Artist Laureate.

She was nominated by Gov. Chris Sununu and confirmed by the Executive Council, according to a press release.

Aichele is the founder and former executive director of the New Hampshire Theatre Project and has performed, directed, choreographed and taught theater arts nationally and internationally for more than 40 years, according to the release. Under her leadership, the New Hampshire Theatre Project won the 2021 Governor’s Arts Award for its Elephant-in-the-Room Series, which uses performance and audience discussions to address a range of topics, including substance misuse disorder, human trafficking, mental health, school violence, eating disorders and attitudes around death and dying, according to the release.

In a statement, Aichele said, “The arts have positive effects on our lives in ways that people don’t always realize. As New Hampshire’s artist laureate, I look forward to continuing interacting with people of all ages and backgrounds to help them find ways to draw on the arts as a resource, both to find strengths within themselves and to make connections with others.”

The New Hampshire Artist Laureate position was established in 1997 and is a two-year honorary term served without compensation. Aichele is the 10th artist laureate in the program. Visit nh.gov/nharts.

PFAS removal help

According to a press release, House Bill 1649 was signed into law allowing the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) to continue to provide rebates for water treatment or connection to public water systems as part of an effort to assist private well users whose water supply has been impacted by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination, although administrative rules are still in the process of being adopted.

In response, NHDES will reinstate the PFAS Removal Rebate Program for Private Wells for eligible applicants on Monday, Sept. 9. The department still continues to process rebates for applications submitted prior to the program suspension on Monday, June 10, according to the release. The NHDES will release a new application form for submission starting Sept. 9. Highlights of the program terms include rebates up to $5,000 to assist in the installation of a treatment system designed to remove PFAS or up to $10,000 for a service connection to a public water system completed after Sept. 30, 2019; applicants are limited to owners of residential properties in the state of New Hampshire that use a drinking water well impacted by PFAS and who have not been offered or are not being provided alternate water, temporary or permanent, from a potentially liable third party, and provisions will be made available for income-qualified applicants to request rebates be distributed directly to a treatment installer or contractor, according to the release. Program specifics will be made available on the PFAS Removal Rebate for Private Wells website as soon as possible. Visit des.nh.gov.

Political sign rules

According to a press release, the Department of Transportation is once again reminding candidates and their campaign workers about proper placement of political signs. The law prohibits placement of political signs on the interstate highways, including the entrance and exit ramps. The law also prohibits placement of political signs on or affixed to utility poles or highway signs, including delineators; signs that create a traffic hazard or obstruct the safe flow of traffic will be removed and it should be noted that signs affixed to bridges create a traffic hazard and will be removed. Signs will be removed to perform maintenance, and this is prime mowing season. Placement of signs on private property requires permission from the landowner; signs on private property that obstruct traffic signs or signals, or restrict a motorist’s field of view at an intersection, will be removed as a traffic hazard. (RSA 236:1, 236:73). Candidates are required to remove all political signs by the second Friday following the election, unless the election is a primary and the advertising concerns a winning candidate (RSA 664:17). Visit dot.nh.gov.

Legionnaire’s alert

Five people were diagnosed with Legionnaire’s Disease in June and July after visiting Lincoln, possibly from exposure to contaminated water droplets from a cooling tower behind the RiverWalk Resort in the downtown area, according to a New Hampshire Dept. of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health Services press release from Aug. 12. “Legionnaire’s disease is a bacterial pneumonia caused by inhaling water droplets contaminated with Legionella bacteria,” the release said. “Many people who are exposed to Legionella bacteria develop only mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. However, the bacteria can cause a more serious pneumonia …. Symptoms usually begin 2 to 14 days after exposure and can include fever, cough, and shortness of breath.”

DHHS confirmed the presence of Legionella bacteria contaminating the cooling tower and RiverWalk is partnering with DHHS to address the contamination, with additional test results for the cooling tower expected next week, the release said. For more information about Legionella, see dhhs.nh.gov.

The Sunflower Soirée is from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through Sunday, Aug. 18, at Brookford Farm in Canterbury (250 West Road). Children 4 and under are free. Children ages 5 to 12 are $7 ($10 at the door) and those 13 and older are $10 in advance, $14 at the door. Visit brookfordfarm.com.

The New Hampshire Telephone Museum and Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum will host a program called Code Talkers at Warner Town Hall on Wednesday, Aug. 21, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Judith Avila will be discussing her work Code Talker, which is the memoir of Chester Nez, one of the original Navajo code talkers of WWII. Tickets are $10 and children 10 and under are free. Visit indianmuseum.org or nhtelephonemuseum.org.

Head to The Word Barn in Exeter (66 Newfields Road) for The Call to Adventure, an evening of storytelling around the fire pit in the meadow with professional storyteller Alex Foy, on Wednesday, Aug. 21, at 7 p.m. Bring a chair or blanket. The program is free and open to all with a $5 suggested donation. See thewordbarn.com.

Season of laughs — 8/08/2024

It’s a hot season for comedy, with summer spots hosting big names, like Kathleen Madigan at the Casino Ballroom, and Jimmy Dunn’s annual comedy festival at the beach. Michael Witthaus takes a look at these big shows and runs through some of the big upcoming comedy events, including even more places to see some of the festival’s comedians.

Also on the cover The Rex Theatre hosts the Manchester International Film Festival Friday, Aug. 9, and Saturday, Aug. 10 (page 14). See fields of flowers in Concord at Sunfox Farm’s 6th Annual Sunflower Bloom Festival (page 16). Londonderry celebrates its 125th Old Home Day with events starting Wednesday, Aug. 14 (page 17).

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Natural thing

Barefoot Festival returns

One doesn’t need to look far to find music and arts festivals that are struggling this year. Several have been cut back or canceled altogether. So it’s heartening that the Barefoot Festival, which started in 2023, is returning for a second time. The two-day event’s philosophy is back as well: It’s about both music and mindfulness, with local acts and movement classes getting equal billing, along with a strong visual arts component.

A key difference between Barefoot and other festivals is its scale, founder Jen Bakalar said in a recent phone interview.

“We’re calling it a micro festival, kind of the sweet spot where we’re hoping for a few hundred people, everyone feeling comfortable, safe and not too overwhelmed,” she said. “It does seem like an antidote to the big festivals, having been to a couple of those this summer.”

Performing on Saturday are Freakquonox, Danny Kemps, Ian Galipeau, Yoni Gordon, Superbug, Great Groove Theory, Party of the Sun, Princess Kikou, the Evocatives, and Hug the Dog. On Sunday it’s Matt Litzinger, Andrea Paquin, Tyler Allgood, Sara Trunzo, Saguaro, Deep Seize, Kendall Row, Modern Fools, Caylin Costello Band, and DJ Flex. The lineup reflects last year’s with several returning artists.

“We kept the music pretty local; I think the farthest act is coming from Maine, and we’re bringing in some new singer-songwriters and a few new bands,” Bakalar said, adding she’s looking forward to the jammy Saguaro. “We wanted … a good mix of genres and styles so everybody had something that they would want to dance to and listen to. It was nice also to have bands returning, because they kind of know the vibes and people know them.”

Organizers also want the festival to be substance-free. There are no alcohol sales, similar to last year, but this time around the message is more forward.

“It’s about connection,” Bakalar said. “We also want to stress that the venue is a wellness retreat. … We’re not telling people they can’t bring alcohol, but we would love for people to not make that the focus.”

Opportunities for “intentional movement” abound and are included with festival admission. Bakalar hopes this will inspire participation. “The spirit of the whole thing is we’re connecting and we’re sharing,” she said. “We’re presenting things that maybe people haven’t tried yet. Maybe they’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t really do yoga’ or ‘I don’t know what that is,’ but this is a way for them to get their toes in. Maybe it’ll be like, ‘Wow, that’s something that I want to do.’”

She expects a couples massage session led by Alex Lorenz to be popular. “That’s one I’m looking forward to personally,” she said. “I think that’s just like such a cool thing to share with people. That one is probably going to be full, we’ll have to squeeze people in, but you don’t have to sign up.”

A variety of art installations are planned, including Sophie Sanders, whose work will be a stage backdrop, a new addition to the festival. Video artist Albie will project his works on a nearby screen. Adam Schepker is back to create interactive works that hew to a playful philosophy stated in his festival bio: “I feel adults lose their childhood sense of fun and joy due to their adult responsibilities and some strange code of conduct that many adults feel tied to.”

Attendees should prepare for a few things, Bakalar cautioned. “Wear your sneakers, be ready to walk,” she said, adding that last year’s “leave no trace” policy is still in effect.

“If you didn’t pre-buy your ticket and you’re not spending the night, then you’re going to park probably a little bit farther. We heard from people last year that it’s not easy to find, so we’re going to do a lot more with putting up signs to get people to the farm. But once you’re there, you’ve got everything you need.”

Barefoot Festival
When: Saturday, Aug. 10, and Sunday, Aug. 11, at 10 a.m.
Where: Bethel Farm, 34 Bethel Road, Hillsborough
Tickets: $45 to $80 at barefootmusicandarts.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Year: 2024

Quality of Life 24/08/15

Paris games earn gold

Newly minted entrepreneur

News & Notes 24/08/15

Season of laughs — 8/08/2024

Natural thing

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