Got Gnomes?

I'm hoping someone out there can clear up a little mystery for me.

On Saturday, while I was happily putting my half-price coupon for a mani/pedi at Mirror Mirror to use in downtown Burlington, someone stuck a little lime-green card under the windshield wiper on my car. (It looks yellow here, but whatever.) Spotting it upon my return, and thinking it might be yet another coupon to bolster someone's January-thin business, I snatched the card curiously.

But no. As you can see here, the paper depicted a little pointy-hatted, white-bearded (do they come any other way?) gnome leaning against what appears to be a cut tree trunk, with the imperative message "Don't Mess with Gnomes!"

Now, had I recently been messing with gnomes, I would have a considered this a sinister threat, and also wondered, Who knew I was messing with gnomes? But as I had long ago given up gnomes for ... um, sock monkeys, all I could think was: New local band? Great name!

The Jim Douglas-Jim Morrison Connection, and Other Google Doppelgangers

Ed. Note: During the last week of the year, we asked our writers to reflect on the highs and lows of 2010.

 As a reporter, one of the easiest ways to stay abreast of local newsmakers is using Google Alerts — where you sign up to get an email every time the name of someone, or some thing, hits the world wide web.

My Google Alerts run the gamut from Vermont politicians like Jim Douglas and Bernie Sanders, to prominent local companies like Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Every time their name hits the Internet, I get an email alerting me to it.

It's a really smart little system Google has devised — but not so smart that it can distinguish between Jim Douglas the governor and Jim Douglas the television news reporter from Dallas, Texas. Or Jim Douglas the character in the 1968 Disney film The Love Bug. Or the Jim Douglas who is a judge in Australia.

Over the last year, Google Alerts has clogged my inbox with Jim Douglases, Patrick Leahys and Phil Scotts who have nothing to do with Vermont. I started collecting them last January and wanted to share my stash before 2010 went out the door. Much as former Seven Days staff writer Mike Ives discovered in his piece "Alter Egoed," I learned that once you go down the doppelganger rabbit hole, there's no telling where you'll end up.

Here, in no particular order, are my 7 best newsmaker doppelgangers of 2010:

Hedgehogs on a Plane

On the day before Thanksgiving, Jennifer Goldberg flew from Chicago to Vermont to spend the holiday with her family. Accompanying Goldberg on her journey was Thembi, an African pygmy hedgehog. Thembi is a emotional support animal — literally, he's a service hedgehog. 

You can't make this shit up. 

And of course, he has his own Facebook fan page. 

According to 21-year-old Goldberg, who was featured in the New York Times City Room blog after a chance encounter with a reporter on the airplane, Thembi helps her with her anxiety and depression.  Since getting him, Goldberg's grades at Northwestern University have improved, as has her social life. (Note to self: Get service hedgehog immediately.)  

There are Family Feuds, and Then There's This

* updated *

There are Vermont State Police press releases that reporters scan and barely read, and then there are more interesting missives, such as the one that arrived this morning from the St. Albans barracks.

VSP releases generally take the Joe Friday "just the facts ma'am" approach — sometimes even less. Occassionally you'll get a wry comment thrown in for good measure.

I'll always remember one particular line I came across in the 1980s when I worked at the Barton Chronicle. A trooper in the Derby barracks was filling out the requisite paperwork to detail the damage done to a car after it struck a deer. Just how many times can you write, "The operator's vehicle struck a deer" in a given week?

That's where this trooper decided to take some literary license, noting: "the operator's vehicle struck a doe, a deer, a female deer."

What Trooper Timothy Woch's report below about breaking up a family fight in Franklin County lacks in references to famous musicals, it makes up for in scene setting.

So, I offer this post-Thanksgiving nugget in hopes that you can say no matter how bitter the argument or disagreement that you didn't have to call in the cops. And, when you did call them, that you didn't turn on them, like this family did.

Here the report as issued to the Vermont media at 12:41 a.m.

The Unluckiest Drunk Driver Ever (Not Tom Salmon)

Vermont Auditor Tom Salmon is getting all the headlines for his drunk-driving cruiser-cam video, just ordered released by a Superior Court judge in Montpelier.

But an even unluckier drunk driver emerges in the pages of a Vermont Superme Court decision released today.

According to the ruling, Jason Young left Barre in his pickup truck shortly after 10 p.m. on a midsummer's eve in 2009. He was headed home to Marshfield. Young was out with friends after work and "had a couple of drinks."

On the way home, driving along Plainfield Brook Road, he noticed a vehicle approaching from behind. Hoping to lose the car, Young turned right onto Cassie Street "assuming the vehicle would continue straight past."

To Young's dismay, the vehicle followed him. So he turned right again, at the next opportunity, this time onto Valley View Circle. Again, the car followed Young.

So Young looked for a driveway to turn around in. He found one and pulled in "assum[ing] the vehicle behind [him] would continue past," the court decision says.

It did not. Young thought that, "coincidentally," the person in the car must live there. He was right. The person did live there. And that person was an off-duty cop.

Video: Spooky Breakfast

Sitting in a room with a fog machine, a passel of twentysomethings in costumes and eating a breakfast of Halloween candy is not usually on my Saturday morning to-do list. I made an exception last Saturday, when Burlington's Spooky Society invited me to its "200th annual" Spookfast. Watch the video to see what I thought of the club's carefully prepared "zombie toes," "brains" and "spooky seeds."

Gingko Redux: Barfberry as Delicacy

File under: Not everything that smells like a overflowing Dumpster in mid-August tastes like an overflowing Dumpster in mid-August.

Earlier this week, I received an email here at 7DHQ from a fellow named Rob who recently moved to the area. He wanted to thank me for a blog post I wrote last year about Gingko trees and their fruit, which I refer to as "barfberries" for their puke-like stink. Apparently, Gingko berries, or more specifically the nut contained inside, are a delicacy in Asia and our good friend Rob is quite the connoisseur. 

Rob writes that when he moves to a new place, he always searches out articles slamming the female Gingkos for their stankness. Those stories typically lead him to the source of the best nuts — in this case, North Winooski Avenue in Burlington. 

Nightmare VT Haunts Abandoned South Burlington Cul-de-sac

    Talk about a ghost town: The houses on South Burlington’s Picard Circle, just minutes from the Burlington International Airport, sit deserted — and have for a while. Their proximity to the airport made the former residents eligible for a federally funded program that allows the airport to purchase homes within a 65-decibel-and-above noise zone, says Robert McEwing, the airport’s director of planning and development. 

Owned by the airport for a couple of years now, the abodes are “marked for removal” that “probably won’t occur until spring,” says McEwing, because they need to be checked for asbestos and lead before deconstruction. So, the houses continue to sit empty.

Fringe Friday: Stephen Cain

For week nine of "Fringe Friday," we feature independent candidate for U.S. Senate Stephen Cain, whose solution to Middle East conflict is to move Israel to the Nevada desert.

We mean no offense by "fringe." Vermont has a strong tradition of putting independent and third-party candidates — and their radical ideas — on the ballot. The reality is, these candidates seldom win more than 4 to 5 percent of the vote and remain on the fringes of the state's political system.

For more Seven Days fringe profiles, click here.

Candidate: Stephen Cain

Party: Independent

Office Sought: U.S. Senator

Age: 58

Hometown: Burlington

Education: University of Vermont (BS in political science, 1974)

Occupation: Prep cook at The Vermont Pub & Brewery. (Fun fact: After college, from 1975-77, Cain worked as a U.S. Senate elevator operator at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.) 

Family: Cain comes from a family of prominent Burlington Democrats. His uncle, Francis Cain, was mayor of Burlington from 1967 to 1971. His father, John Cain, served as probate judge, state representative and state senator. Cain himself ran unsuccessfully for state Senate in 1992 and 1994, as a Democrat.

Website: None

Platform: Create "green" jobs by putting 300 Vermonters to work manufacturing "compact bathrooms," using "NASA technology" to get a "zero-effluent" bathroom. The bathrooms would cost $5000, offset by an undetermined federal rebate, according to Cain.

We caught up with Cain last week for an interview at Muddy Waters coffee shop in Burlington.

Seven Days: Let's talk about your zero-effluent toilet idea. Can you describe what "NASA technology" it relies on?

Stephen Cain: I can't right now. I think it comes out as a solvent, which can be carted away and placed to do some other job. It wouldn't be toxic. I haven't fully flushed it out.

Maritime Museum Withdraws from Moran Redevelopment

The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum has withdrawn its plans to develop a shipwreck center as part of Burlington's ambitious effort to redevelop the former Moran electric generating station on the city waterfront.

The news came late Monday and drew a swift response from Mayor Bob Kiss.

"While I'm disappointed that the Maritime Museum has decided to withdraw from the Moran Project, the city’s financial plan has been structured to allow for this possibility," said Kiss."The redevelopment of Moran continues to be an exciting opportunity for Burlington's Waterfront and the city’s future."

This is the second time a local nonprofit has bailed on its plans to become one of three tenants at the site. The other two anchor tenants are Ice Factor, a Scottish-based company that wants to create an indoor, family adventure center, and the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center. The Vermont Children's Museum was originally part of the three anchor tenants, but withdrew about one year ago.