Shay Totten just called from the gubernatorial candidate debate in Waitsfield. Apparently the wireless signal is not as robust as he hoped, so he’s not sure how much he’ll be able to post, if at all.
He says the debate is being held in a pole barn. He’d stand outside to get the signal, but it’s pouring rain.
When he called, he told me he was having some problems, and then I heard some noise in the background. He went quiet for a few seconds.
“Well,” he said, “Peter Diamondstone just got arrested. And he’s being led away by two state troopers.” He didn’t sound surprised.
Check back for updates — he’ll post ’em when he can get a signal.
This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2008.
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@Shay – I hear you about the service issues, that’s always a bummer. I used to say there was a 20-mile wireless dead zone around my home town of East Corinth – it’s gotten better, but not by much. Perhaps wireless coverage and encompasing topics such as the E-State initiative (which seems to have some rather ambitious goals to accomplish in under 2 years) will fit more prominently into the next debate.As for typing with your thumbs, there are other alternatives that might be worth keeping in mind, such as mobile audio and video services. Twittergram and the forthcoming Twitterfone are services that let you call in and leave messages that are posted to your twitter account as links to audio files. Qik is a service that lets you post streaming video from your cell phone (though maybe that would be something for after the upgrade). These are all short format tools, but then that’s the nature of live blogging.Anyhow, it’s been fun watching y’all do the live-blog coverage – keep up the good work!
Justin. Thanks for the suggestion. I actually do have a personal Twitter account and could have used that, I suppose. Unfortunately, I have a phone that is not easy to text with and it probably would have taken me the entire evening to type up something resembling the English language. And, besides that, I had maybe one or two bars on my cell phone as it was and dropped two calls I tried to make before the event started. You gotta love those rolling hills, valleys, and cell-phone free zones courtesy of Mother Nature. I know, I know, time to upgrade. I’m holding out for an iPhone in VT that I can get with a VT address.
As far as the technical difficulties go, this would have been a good opportunity to put something like Twitter to good use. Can’t get a wifi signal? No problem – just text your updates to your Twitter account via your cell phone. Combine this with a Friendfeed account and you can have comments and discussions around each update. Just something to consider for next time – always good to have a plan B when live blogging an event :).
Hey all, just got back into Burlington from the debate a little damper than I left, but no worse for wear. For some reason, my Mac just couldn’t pull up the signal long enough to blog. But, the good news is that I figured out how to live blog and will plan on doing that at more events — possibly Pollina’s Montpelier presser tomorrow, or the next debate.Overall, the debate offered no real surprises from any of the candidates. They all hit their tried-and-true soundbites and slogans, and I will say I think Gaye Symington has improved the most of the three in terms of debating. Then again, someone told me this was her first real debate. Must be those Jericho House races never heated up. Still, Gov. Jim Douglas was able to get his message across and deflect the criticism from his opponents around Vermont Yankee, Vermont Compost, and cleaning up Lake Champlain.Finally, it was pretty clear that Anthony Pollina was the hometown favorite (he lives just up the way in Middlesex) getting plenty of hoots and hollers from the crowd. He’s also the one who’s worked on ag issues perhaps the longest of the three.No clear winners in my opinion. All three took polite jabs at the other throughout; Symington focused on Douglas and ignored Pollina; Pollina took some shots at both his opponents, though focusing mostly on Douglas; and, Douglas took his jabs at his rivals.I’ll be writing more about the debate, tomorrow’s filing deadline (as I suspect there will be some surprises), and plenty more in Wednesday’s column.
Just remember folks the VNRC said all major parties, and LU is a major party by state election rules i e they got five 5% on a state wide race. If VNRC did not mean major parties they should have said so and stated they were inviting whomever they wanted to. But they should not have said major parties. Let us not forgot save for the grace of god it could be one of us with a different agenda.
Remember the show Bosom Buddies? If Bernie Sanders is Tom Hanks, then Peter Diamondstone is…the other guy.I just double-dated myself.