Another enormous turnout to celebrate the survivors, mourn the victims and raise money to find a cure for breast cancer that has touched so many lives in our community.

It's always a bittersweet event rife with tears and laughter, joy and sadness.

And let's hope that 2007 is the last time we ever need to have Run for the Cure. That's probably the most unlikely of wishful thinking, but without hope, what's left?

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

http://www.justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/sept%2030/run%20prep/IMG_3305.JPG" height="266" width="400" alt="justFRED.ca - Run for the Cure 2007 - Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada">

A perfectly spectacular fall day, if a bit on the breezy side, brought out large crowds to the market, with the more environmentally conscious spilling onto The Green to learn more about how to be a bit more eco-friendly.

We dropped into the Beaverbrook Art Gallery for a preview of the 20th Annual Atlantic Exhibit in the Marion McCain Gallery, watched some spirited canines race their little hearts out, spent an hour with the Fredericton District Soccer Association's entry in next week's national under-18 soccer championships, and dropped by Chapman Field as the moon rose over the crew hard at work turning the grass field into the city's first artificial turf facility.

And tomorrow? Run for the Cure.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

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You've read today's justFRED-O-GRAM so you know what we're looking for.

We'll announce the winner on Monday.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

The chainsaws, tree chippers, loaders and dump trucks are gone. There's only one dead tree standing...a power pole...where nearly two dozen mature Linden trees lined our street only 48 hours ago.

It's been disheartening listening to the stories change - about how it was an accident that the roots were ripped to shreds, about how the city failed to provide proper supervision, about how the trees might fall over, or would fall over, about how the plan wasn't followed, about how it was followed but actually set out the destruction of the trees, about how somebody was on vacation or out to lunch or stupid or negligent or not.

And it was even worse having the contractor who did the damage show up to rip the stumps out of the ground.

It's disheartening watching the sun beat down on dirt instead of shaded lawn.

And it's astounding to think that, except for the few people who live on this once lovely street, no one is likely to pay the price for this incredible waste.

Most days, Fredericton is a great place to live. It doesn't feel quite so terrific today.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

http://www.justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/sept%2026/tree%20cutting/AMG_1797.JPG" alt="justFRED.ca - Fredericton - destruction of mature Linden trees by Monteith Underground Services" height="266" width="400" />

As Dickens wrote in his version that encompassed London and Paris: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Five million pages. Wow. That felt good.

And the negative counter balance? Watching the first of a line of decades old Linden trees being cut down at the top of our street. According to the city's forester, the contractor and consultant hired to resurface the street screwed up by ripping out the roots on both sides of the trees - making them unstable and unable to draw water.


So what was once a lovely tree-lined walk along a quiet little street in the heart of the city is turning into a dusty gravelled track lined with stumps.

Who approved that plan? Or was a sensible plan trumped by stupidity and carelessness?

As you might imagine, there's lots of finger pointing and 'No comment' and head ducking and forelock tugging.

And tomorrow? We don't know about the best, but we do have some idea of what's going to vye for the worst: more dead trees.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

PS - No trees are sacrificed in the publication of justFRED with the exception of those little green cards we give away to people who Say Cheese! to our photographers...and that wouldn't amount to a week's worth of newspapers.

http://www.justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/sept%2026/tree%20cutting/normal_IMG_1822.JPG" height="266" width="400" alt="justFRED.ca - Fredericton - Destruction of mature Linden trees by Monteith Underground Services">

Those are shouts of happiness coming from our offices...thanks to you, justFRED.ca has served up FIVE MILLION PAGES in just over ten months of operation.

It's the result of your suggestions, ideas, visits, willingness to Say Cheese!, to sponsor our efforts...but mainly it's because so many of you visit our site every day to find out what's happening and what just happened in the Capital City.

It was really tough in the first months - between the winter blahs and the constant prattle about how it wouldn't work, how others had tried and failed, that Frederictonians didn't care about what's going on in their city, how we couldn't make it without government grants - but we kept going thanks to the happy faces we kept meeting on our travels, the surprise emails and phone calls of encouragement.

So on behalf of everyone here at justFRED.ca:

THANK YOU, FREDERICTON!!!

TEN MILLION, HERE WE COME...

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

http://justfred.ca/adpeeps/uploaded_banners/5million-pages2.jpg" alt="justFRED.ca 5 million pages served">

The great weather keeps showing up. Beautiful weekends, balmy weekday evenings. Sure, it's a bit crisp in the early morning, but it's nearly October and the leaves are barely turning.

We're starting to go through the files - looking for photos and videos that we missed the first time. And we're putting together some new material.

Later this week, the first photo-recipe in a while will show you from vine to jar: the grape jam journey of Reg & Margot Hayes. We also have a video coming of a Chinese fan dance, and today: the lost Harvest Jazz & Blues photos recovered.

Plus a few photos from the rooftops.

Enjoy.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

http://justfred.ca/cmine/albums/catherineuploads/2007/sep%2024/rooftop/IMG_1635.JPG" alt="justFRED.ca" height="266" width="400">

The winners of the contest are: sarabeth, Essieb and Tappy46. The actual time we served up justFRED.ca page 5,000,000: 12:41 pm

12:51 pm Update: Yee-ha. It's official: We have now served more than 5 MILLION pages of justFRED.ca!!! Thank you, Freddy Beach. Contest winners will be announced in tomorrow's justFRED-O-GRAM and on the web site.

 11:21 a.m. Update: The magic number for today is 9546 pages and at last count, we were 2,333 pages away. Stay tuned.

--Original Post--

Sometime today, we're going to serve up our 5 millionth page.

You tell us what time you think it's going to happen.

The three guesses that are closest to the actual time when

we serve up page number FIVE MILLION will win a prize.

One entry per member.

Cheers,

George

justFRED.ca

PS - Here's the link to the http://justfred.ca/contests.php" title="Contest Entry Form - justFRED.ca 5 million pages">Contest Entry Form.

That contest was for the folks who receive the daily justFRED-O-GRAM.

Sorry...

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

The last full day of summer and the old mercury rises to 30C? That's hot.

And here's some hot news: a newspaper is being launched in Woodstock, New Brunswick, by the former publisher (as of Thursday morning) of The Bugle, a venarable community paper acquired recently by Brunswick News. So what does that have to do with your friends here at fanatically local justFRED?

Simple: we're going to help create the online version of The Carleton Free Press. We've also agreed to be the local contact for advertisers in our respective communities. So Fredericton advertisers can get exposure in the Free Press through justFRED, and vice versa.

It's going to be nice having an friendly media neighbor upriver.

Cheers,
George
justFRED.ca

PS - We've been evaluating the responses to our justFRED-O-GRAM poll and will be making some changes over the weekend based on what you told us.

PPS - Our planned test of a new feature was delayed again today due to illness. We're going to again for tomorrow.

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