Ready for rain?

If you or your children (or your dogs) enjoy playing in the snow, be sure to get out there and play today. WGME 13 meteorologist Sarah Long is forecasting warm temperatures and heavy on Monday. We’re going to lose a lot of the snow.

She’s recommending that people clear snow from roofs and storm drains. The snow will absorb a lot of the heavy rain, and it will make snow on roofs and drains extremely heavy.

Keep your boots handy. She doesn’t expect flooding of rivers or streams, but if storm drains are blocked, street flooding could become a problem for drivers.

— Bonnie Washuk

Second trek for Robitaille

LEWISTON — Don Robitaille of Lewiston, nearing 79 years old, is organized for his second solo cross-country bicycle trek. He plans to leave St. Augustine, Fla., in March to cross the 2,300-plus miles to San Diego. He’ll be riding his trusty Trek, a bike that already has 100,000 miles on it.

Robitaille didn’t pick the route. He’ll use an Adventure Cycling map that lists campgrounds, hostels, bike shops, motels, restaurants and grocery stores along the way. The map also includes brief histories of the towns he’ll pass through, and a little bit about the average temperature and the elevation data he’ll need to pace himself.

The Florida-to-California route is a shorter stretch than Robitaille rode in 2001, when he trekked from Bar Harbor to Seattle over a three-month span.

Robitaille, retired from Coca-Cola 20 years ago, is a regular participant in the annual three-day Trek Across Maine to raise money for the Lung Association of Maine. Living in Maine in summer and Florida in winter, he makes a point to take a daily bike ride, including running errands on his bike. He has participated in well over 50 organized bicycle tours in New England, Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio and Louisiana since his retirement.

Robitaille’s first bike? A one-speed Schwinn he used to deliver the Lewiston Daily Sun as a boy.

— Judith Meyer 

Modeling the digital age

LEWISTON — There’s something new at the Lewiston School Committee meetings: laptops. All nine committee members have new Dells.

At a recent meeting, Chairman Jim Handy asked the audience “to bear
with us” as they learned how to navigate the computers. A few had puzzled
looks on their faces. “Some of us are challenged with technology, but
we’ll get through it and be better in the end,” committee member Tom Shannon
said.

The laptops will eliminate piles of paper reports, Superintendent
Leon Levesque said. Before, a school department employee spent an afternoon
photocopying reports. Another person delivered the bundles to each
committee member before meetings. The packages were so heavy that they were too expensive to mail, Levesque said.

The laptops cost $700 each. Providing the School Committee with laptops
is part of a strategic plan to increase the use of technology, Levesque
said. “We’ve done it with a lot of students. As School Committee
members, they need to model the digital age.”

— Bonnie Washuk