Renaissance Faire

The Renaissance Faire is an annual event that takes place in Tuxedo. It's a faire or park full of events, vendors, food, and games that come from the Renaissance era. I don't think Anne and I went last year, but she used to work there playing trumpet and I've been several times in previous years. This year we organized with Kevin, Tricia, Nate, Molly, Jen Bradshaw, Shannon, Dave, and Anne's sister Jen to go together. I want to show some pictures since there were several good ones, so I'll switch into Picasa and just caption the pictures.

Edit: Yarg! I can't do easy uploading with Picasa right now because my Blogger account is in the transitional beta stuff which - you guessed it - Picasa does not support right now! I'm not in the mood to monkey with uploading images via the web interface so for now you'll have to suffer knowing that there are pictures to be seen... but that you can't ... yet.

Scoble on a rampage

So Robert Scoble spent the good portion of yesterday going nuts with second-hand information regarding Microsoft's claim to "have the most blogs in service." Who cares?! He goes on to make about advertising dollars and corporate credibility in marketing for those advertising dollars. Ugh. Scoble even spends most of the afternoon cataloguing "real" blogs on Windows Live Spaces and how they don't meet the definition of a blog.

And of course when it was noted that he's clearly angry and not thinking clearly by readers more eloquent and quicker than I, Scoble gave it a good spin and kept on going.

I like Scoble a lot! He's on my reader list. I usually agree with him. And I'm not saying I need to in order to read or enjoy some one's stuff. But seriously? What's the point? This morning I wake up and he's plugging a Windows Live Space full of XP goodness. It just feels like a stunt or a sensational effort for an afternoon much like reporting I'd expect from television reporting and it just rubs me wrong -- until tomorrow when I link to Scoble with some fantastic thing he said.

jen's step-dad's 50th birthday

Jen and her family threw her step father a surprise 50th birthday party last night. Anne and I were invited for moral support with Dave and Shannon and her boyfriend (?) Jason. I had never met Jason before and he seemed like a nice enough character.

The party was on a boat and there was open bar, so of course a good time was had. I enjoyed a few drinks and hot dogs and hamburgers. Anne enjoyed a few of Shannon's drinks - she never finished hers - and the music (a bit too much I may add). The boat cruised up and down the Hudson River. We got to see West Point from the river side and the sunset was very nice as well!

Please note that in the picture I am neither Anne or Shannon and Jen is not Dave S as our name tags indicate. Please also note that the picture was taken after much wind-blowing had occurred and I accept no responsibility for my hair!

boy scout by-laws

Not sure if I ever posted about it in the past, but I'm on a "task force" for the troop to document and publish the troop's by-laws. It's been a really interesting experience thus far. I've gotten to look at the adult history of the troop in ways I never have before. We've been examining the minutes of committee meetings back to 1999!

We're definitely making progress and I hope that our work will reunite and bind the troop as we move forward.

Of course part of the minutes uncovered a failed attempt to get a troop website going. I'm sure I'll be heading that one once we get back on our feet again. It may sound like I'm not looking forward to it, but I am - the website development aspect at least. I'm not looking forward to trying to satisfy a room full of parents all with different opinions about the internet. Some don't use it. Some think it's the devil. Others are a tad more liberal. Finding the common medium will be fun.

backlinks == on

So in the last few days, Google released a new version of Blogger (which ironically is back in beta). I've upgraded to it and they now support backlinks. If you've been linking to my blog (and I know you have), you can now do it so my blog knows about it. Use the backlink stuff!

Along with the backlinks, the new version of blogger adds some new design features so be on the lookout for a new style in the blog. I'll be playing around with that tonight probably.

the Molly party

First off, this post is being written by Microsoft's new WYSISYG blog writer, Windows Live Writer. It's pretty slick. I spent 5 minutes setting it up and will apparently post to my Blogger account! It's in beta right now so let me know if you notice anything odd about this post.

Anyway, on with the story.

Molly finished her summer contract with the YMCA camp she was working at so Anne and i picked her up. She'll be staying with us for a week - which rocks - until her parents swing by and pick her up.

When I told Foster that Molly would be coming in, he decided to change his weekend plans and conveniently end up in Chester for her arrival. Even better yet, Kev picked up Nate along the way. Molly was pretty elated when she saw them at the door. She screamed and cried :-)

Knowing that Molly, Kevin, and Nate would be all together I decided we needed to step it up to a full-fledged party. [Pictures] I called Kevin Twitty and Shaena and Steve. Anne got hold of Jen Bradshaw and attempted to get some others. However the 9 of us had an amazing night. We were all pretty wrecked - except Shaena who kept good track of some of the worse off. That, however, did not keep us from making several calls and messages to friends.

The party pretty much crashed in my living room and we woke up to pancakes this morning... made by moi! The whole lot of us went to the Castle to play mini-golf. The guys beat the girls and I think Foster had the best score of all. (I was second third)

We got some lunch at Chili's and Kevin and Nate were on their way. It was a great weekend. Earlier this evening Anne and I were talking. We both said we hadn't had this much fun in a while.

slapped in the face

I believe that an ambitious person should have a vision of how he or she wants to live their ideal life. Something to strive for on a daily basis. Something to grade your current point in life against "complete success." And I believe that the vision is different for each of us.

For example, I take my vision from the Scouting roots I learned. I try to "be prepared" and "do a good turn daily." I try and live my life according to the Scout Oath and Law. And I feel that works well for me. It inspires me to be a better person.

However, and I imagine this happens to all of us ambitious folk, sometimes I stray. I lose sight of the vision. I forget or it gets shelved during stressful times. And it's often during those times that I need the vision the most.

When that happens, as it has in the past, I find that my journey back to my vision isn't a wandering or stroll. It's not an accidental re-discovery. Going on without the vision isn't a terrible thing. I don't think it makes one evil - just lost or misdirected. People go about every day without a vision on life.

The hard part is getting it back. In fact I think that re-finding your vision usually takes the form of a slap-in-the-face epiphany. In this last instance, I was so far from my vision that I was completely speechless - something that doesn't come over me often. It doesn't really matter what happened, but just knowing that it did serves as a notice to me to rededicate back to the vision I have.

the drive home

I had the oddest feeling happen to me while driving home from work today. I was following a tow truck. One of those large ones used to haul away Mack trucks and box vans. Well it was towing a large box van... from the rear axle. The box van was staring at me while I drove behind it. I wasn't worried about the tow truck dropping it or anything - that would be like being worried about a bridge collapsing while you're on it. But it's just a common reaction to have a certain amount of dread when seeing an oncoming car in your lane. So I had the same awful feeling for 20 minutes straight as we drove back to Chester.