Last week, the Insider got invited to a pretty cool event called Ignite. Its tagline? Enlighten us, but make it quick. It works like this: Each presenter is given five minutes to speak on a subject that’s important to them. The presentation can be about anything – a business plan, flying monkeys, alien invasions – whatever. Each presentation is accompanied by 20 slides. Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds,…

The Food Snob made a pilgrimage to Gamil's Egyptian Cuisine last week. Like a culinary archeologist looking to unearth Concord's dining treasures, I made my way to the fertile shores of Pleasant Street, unsure of what I would find. Was Gamil's at the top of Concord's food pyramid, or did it rule the Egyptian food scene simply because the people were only given one choice…

A few years ago, Rose Whitney had heart surgery. Confined to a hospital bed, she was feeling pretty low, when a woman walked by with a yellow Labrador retriever. The dog went right up and put its head on the pillow beside Rose's own. This was the moment when Rose Whitney found her calling."I just felt so good after that dog came," Whitney said. "It just warmed my heart. I felt like I could jump…

Concord's rich and famous stripped down to the skivvies and sat on a chair of ice over the weekend to raise money for the Special Olympics of New Hampshire.The event, dubbed Concord's Coolest - On Ice, brought in over $2,000 and will support the ice-sitting team, which will plunge into the Atlantic Ocean next weekend. Local Special Olympics athletes were there to lend a hand,…

And now, everyone's favorite shots in the dark for love - in all their unedited Craigslist glory. From Match.com to Panera - m4m - 41I've seen your ad on match.com, and then I saw you a few weeks ago at Panera in Concord. I very much wanted to introduce myself, but you were dining with three other people and I didn't want to intrude. In the unlikely event that you see…

I have hiked the seven miles of the Oak Hill trails, but not all on the same day. The final ascent to the Oak Hill fire tower, which I have reached from both the Oak Hill Road and the Shaker Road, is rather steep. Just before arriving at the top, you get a perfect photographic view of the fire tower.This part of the woods was lumbered in 1988, and some of the trails created by logging skidders were converted into hiking trails during the summer of 1989. The Dancing Bear trail, a recent addition to the network, leads to the Swope Slope vista from which you can see a wide swath of New Hampshire landscape,…