Assessment panel for MASSACHUSEETS state seal, motto disbanded. A FAILURE ONCE AGAIN.

The Boston Globe:

Assessment panel for state seal, motto disbanded.

Report suggests a revised working group be formed to ‘carry forward’ its work

 “The state commission originally faced an October 2021 deadline to produce recommendations, which it missed amid a series of logistical hurdles and questions over its mission. The Legislature then gave it three separate extensions — and $100,000 in funding — ultimately setting a Wednesday deadline for it to produce its recommendations.

The Legislature ultimately would have to approve any changes to the seal, motto, and flag."

NO. ANOTHER PANEL SHOULD NOT BE CREATED. 

We should just use this FLAG from ‘Flags for Good’ and move on.

Sandwich Boardwalk

We visited The Sandwich Boardwalk at low tide. It's pretty narrow, with bump outs to stand in to allow people to walk by.

It was low tide, so there wasn't any water underneath us. I think I'm pretty happy about that because I can't image walking along the Sandwich Boardwalk when there is water underneath it!

Check out this video of our walk:

More photos:

Sandwich Boardwalk.

• Parking
• $10 per day
• Resident and non-resident stickers available
• Directions:
• There are three entrances to Town Beach and the boardwalk. To park, visitors can take route 6A to Town Neck Road. There you will find a small parking lot next to Horizons restaurant. If this lot is full, continue down Town Neck Road until the dead end at Wood Avenue, then take a left into the next parking lot. To access the beach via the boardwalk, take Jarves road from route 6A and follow the signs for the boardwalk parking lot.

Sylvester's Restaurant, Northampton, MA

Sylvester's Restaurant
111 Pleasant St
Northampton, Massachusetts 01060

American Restaurant · Breakfast & Brunch Restaurant · Coffee Shop

Starving Artist Cafe and Creperie, Lee, MA

Starving Artist Cafe and Creperie

Address:
40 Main St, Ste 2, Lee, MA 01238-1688

The Starving Artist serves freshly made sweet and savory crepes, panini sandwiches, soups, salads and baked goods, fair-trade and organic pour-over and drip coffee, organic teas and other gourmet foods using quality local and organic ingredients. All of our food is made fresh to order. The menu changes seasonally.

Enjoy the free wifi internet, artwork, and comfy couch seating!

We source local ingredients from High Lawn Farm, Equinox Farm, Berkshire Mountain Bakery, The Inn on the Green, Farm Country, Klara’s Cookies, Barrington Coffee Roasters, Harney & Sons Tea, SoCo Ice Cream and more.

Lovely spot for breakfast, with crepes made right in front of you. You hardly ever see that anymore!

The day we were there, these gentlemen were playing music.



After ordering at the counter, you are given a number for your table and if you ordered coffee, a cup to serve yourself. Your meal is promptly and cheerfully delivered to your table.

Big Elm Brewing, Sheffield, MA

Big Elm Brewing.

Address: 65 Silver St, Sheffield, MA 01257

"We (Bill & Christine) met working for Victory Brewing Company in 2003. We both had some experience at smaller breweries before, and one of us (Christine) actually has a diploma for brewing from the Siebel Institute and the Doemens Academy! With this background we set out to start our own brewpub and in 2005 we opened the Pittsfield Brew Works. After five years of fun and hard work we decided to leave the brewpub business to try to start a production brewery dedicated to making just beer and smiles. It took some time and we had a couple of kids along the way, but with a ton of help and support from our friends and family just as we were about to give up we found our new home. 65 Silver St. needed a bit of elbow grease to get it to what it is now, and in the fall of 2012 we brewed our first batch of beer. Since then we have been focused on bringing our neighbors fresh quality beer."

Inside the tap room. These new high top tables are nice.









Beer list.



The beers:

413 Farmhouse Ale - This Belgian ale is brewed with barley, wheat, chamomile, orange zest, hops, water and a Saison yeast. Our unique recipe is meant to highlight some familiar farmhouse flavors while also breaking from the mold of the traditional. 6% ABV

IPA - This west coast style IPA packs a well balanced one-two punch. Brewed with barley, water, American ale yeast and a whole lot of west coast hops. This IPA has hint maltiness to back up the bitter style letting the piney & citrusy flavors of some of the best American hops shine through. This beer is Double Dry-Hopped! 7% ABV

Gerry Dog Stout - Our oatmeal stout is an ode to our loyal companion Gerry. This smooth dark beer is brewed with barley, wheat, oats, water, American ale yeast, and hops. The reserved use of dark malts and the addition of oats help to make this beer amazingly easy to drink, even for those who usually stay away from the dark side. 6.5% ABV

American Lager - Brewed with American corn, barley, hops, water and a super clean American Lager yeast, this beer is the definition of easy drinking. The use of corn is a classic American technique that helps give this beer a light sweetness and harkens back to simple days. 5% ABV

Lion's Ale - We brew this smooth English-style amber ale with our good friends at The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, MA. This beer has been crafted to pair greatly with most every meal and works well during any season, it is most often enjoyed at the historic inn with food and friends. 5.3% ABV

FAT BOY - Our super hopped Double IPA is bursting at the seams with heaps of piney, citrusy and tropical fruit flavors and aromas. During the brewing process we add a massive amount of hops to give you big bitterness as well as all the flavor of joy. Once fermentation is complete we dry hop this big boy a ton, giving you the awesome hop explosion. We use Citra, Simcoe and other hop varieties to create this monster. We hope you enjoy our FAT BOY! 8% ABV

Massachusetts Health Connector: FIND A DOCTOR

Massachusetts Health Connector goes Live, November 15, 2014 at 8:00 AM.

NOTE: The URL is http://www.mahealthconnector.org, not .com



Shopping for Plans
When shopping for plans, the Massachusetts Health Connector site WILL NOT let you enter in your doctor to see which plan s/he is in.

You'll need to visit each plan site to see if your doctor is a member of that plan.

Available plans:


FIND A DOCTOR

when you are selecting a plan, it is very important that you check that your doctor is in that plan’s network (a network is the group of providers that participate with a certain health plan).

You will find links to health plan websites on the Health Connector website.

Be sure to visit the “find a doctor” tool (Provider Search) on these websites before enrolling in a plan to ensure that your doctor will be available to you.

That's 15 plans!

Oh wait, that's 16 plans!



The DENTAL and MEDICAL plans are mixed together here. Would be better to separate DENTAL to make it easier to search.

Also, some plans are for BUSINESS ONLY. I've noted that below.

Each link to a plan goes to an intermediate page. From there you click through to the plan's SEARCH page.

I've provided direct links to PLAN SEARCH PAGES here, and put DENTAL plans at the bottom.

Ambetter from CeltiCare Health

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan

Fallon Health

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Health New England

Minuteman Health

Neighborhood Health Plan

Tufts Health Plan

Tufts Health Plan – Network Health

UnitedHealthcare

DENTAL

Altus Dental

Delta Dental

Dental Blue

Guardian Dental - PLANS AVAILABLE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES ONLY

MetLife - PLANS AVAILABLE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES ONLY

PolitiFact:

Obama: 'If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan'

Barack Obama says that what he'd said was you could keep your plan 'if it hasn’t changed since the law passed'