The winter of 2008-09 will be brutal for many Mainers financially. A combination of record-high heating-oil and other energy costs and a tough economy, in Maine and nationally, could push some people over the edge financially.

The Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel staffs have been talking a lot about energy and gasoline costs. We've done many stories on this topic already. We also have run informative articles from our sister paper, the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, and from the Associated Press and other wire services to which we subscribe.

My daughters and I made our twice-annual pilgrimmage to central Pennsylvania last (long) weekend, to see my parents, sisters and my nieces and nephews.

It's always interesting for me to return to my hometown (Sunbury), my home state and compare and contrast that area to the state where I've lived since 1995 (I lived in Florida from 1989-95; lived in Pennsylvania before then).

Some of our bigger "enterprise" efforts -- major stories, projects or series -- coming up in the next few weeks will be about alternative energy, animal cruelty and Maine's beautiful outdoors.

On Sunday, June 22, we will examine the boom in pellet stoves and other forms of alternative heating, as Mainers react to soaring oil and gas prices.

Longer-term, we are working on an investigative project about animal cruelty and a series about sites preserved by the Kennebec Land Trust, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

Readers: I wrote a column for the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel Monday about our errors and corrections, and what we're doing to track and reduce them.

Here's a link to the column:

Double-checking our work will help us reduce errors

The Boston Celtics are on the brink of another NBA championship and they have one man to thank: Kevin McHale.

The former Celts' great, who became general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves, made the blockbuster trade last year that sent Kevin Garnett to Boston.

Where would Boston be without Garnett? They'd be decent, which is about how far Paul Pierce and Ray Allen could take them. But with Garnett, they are aggressive and there are just too many weapons to shut down.

We've received a number of inquiries in the past week or so about how the Guerrette family is doing after the May 27 home invasion that left William Guerrette and his daughter, Nicole, in critical condition at separate Maine hospitals.

One e-mail writer last week took us to task for not providing details on medical conditions and how the Guerrette family is coping with the vicious attack. She wrote that we should report less on the "villains" and more about the family members, because people in the community are deeply worried about them.

So much for one of my rare stabs at making political predictions.

A few months ago, after Barack Obama had a particularly strong week and had seized momentum, I wrote in this blog that Hillary Clinton still would win the nomination. I said the Clintons were more shrewd and perhaps more ruthlessly ambitious than Obama.

It sure looks like I was wrong -- though I can't shake the feeling that something else is happening.

That's what a friend said to me at church Sunday morning. That she'd read that high heating-oil, gasoline and other energy costs will put northern states in a real bind economically. She said some people will face a choice between living here next winter -- or having heating bills they can afford elsewhere.

I have to say it makes some sense. On the other hand, I have no desire to join a mass exodus headed to the moderate temperatures of Tennessee. Or West Virginia.