Edward's Clan

Edward's Clan
Originally uploaded by shersteve.

The members of Edward's clan that made it today.

Henry's Clan

Henry's Clan
Originally uploaded by shersteve.

The members of Henry's clan that made it to the reunion today.

Gerald's Clan

Gerald's Clan
Originally uploaded by shersteve.

The members of our clan that made it to the reunion today. Hopefully, someone else has a better shot than this and we'll swap this one out.

John's Clan

John's Clan
Originally uploaded by shersteve.

The members of John's clan that made it to the reunion picnic today.

Angela's Clan

Angela's Clan
Originally uploaded by shersteve.

The members of Angela's clan that made it today.

The Sherlock Family Reunion 2005

The Sherlock Family
Originally uploaded by shersteve.

The Sherlock family got together today for an old fashioned picnic in the park, Goddard State Park (RI) to be exact.

These are 7 of the 9 that started it all. The other two were there in spirit.

By rough count, there are about 135-140 of the extended Sherlock clan. Over 90 of the family got together on this gorgeous Saturday.

I missed getting in on the pictures for four of the clans but for the five I did get, they follow here. Hopefully, the family photo swap will bring the others out and I can update the listing.

It is Harry's fault

Well, not really all his fault, partially anyway. And if not his, certainly JK Rowling's!

Yes, I got my turn this week to read the family copy of 6th Harry Potter book: The Half-Blood Prince. We had made the pre-order through Amazon.com and it arrived as promised on July 16th. I was away for the weekend to my brother's in Chicagoland (which reminds me that I still have written about that yet, and yet it almost completely drafted). My daughter Carolyn got to read it first. Then Allison quickly followed before I could get it.

I started reading Harry this week but only took the train to Boston on two days so my commuting time to read was limited. I drove the other three days. I just finished it tonight.

It was good. I was slightly disappointed in that the significant events did not move me like I had been lead to believe they would. I won't talk much more about it. I don't want to spoil the reading for any one else.

Fault for what? Oh, for not writing as frequently as I should. I did plan in advance my entries for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Blogosphere but have not been here much and not at all to my other places.

Thank you Harry/JK for providing a respite from work and other interruptions!

I look forward to re-reading the book again soon. I find that I catch so much more the second and third time through.

Now to start catching up on some writing....

Quote & Link - Thursday

From David Wolfe at Ageless Marketing

Humor helps us get through hard times. It offers welcome relief when things get too complex. Today, that’s becoming more and more an important factor in life because the unprecedented pace and scale of change we’re experiencing threatens to submerge us in a sea of complexity.

Considering that most adults are now 40 and older (132 million to 86 million younger adults), marketers might well take seriously the idea of putting more humor into their marketing communications. But be sure its the right kind of humor – older people don’t like put-down humor, which ranked first among younger people in a study. Older people ranked put-down humor last. Both young and old put sexual humor second. Family humor came first in the mature crowd.

Have you had a good laugh today?

Quotes & Links - Monday

From Ed Batista's blog that I just found; he has three questions for Suw Charman and she says:

For vodka you just can't beat Żubrówka, a Polish vodka naturally flavoured with bison grass. It's like drinking distilled summer.

From Doug Manning at Proactive Living, On Focus:

We are at our best when we focus on the work right in front of us. If we shift our focus to those things that we could 'get' from our work, we lose effectiveness. Having experienced both success and failure in my own life, I recognize I am most effective when completely into the flow of what's in front of me. This is a wise way to focus our lives, enjoying immersion into those things that are most immediate. It is generally true that most of the results of our work will come without making them the key focus. Expect nothing and you will be amazed what comes your way.

Enjoy!

College visit weekend

My wife, daughter, and I are driving this weekend to do some college shopping. We made our first stop at St Michael's College and our second at Ithaca College. Fortunately, the Comfort Inn here in Ithaca has wireless access so I can try and catch up on what has been happening.

On the sporting front, the New England Revolution lost last night and Lance Armstrong won the 20th stage today.

We drove 250 miles on our first leg to St Michael's. 177 miles to our overnight stop in Rensselaer, NY then another 180 to Ithaca today.

A few detours for road construction provided some momentary panic as we had to wait to see where the detour would drop us, and figure out how we could continue with our AAA TripTik directions.

Fortunately, all went well.

One really good road sign I wish I had a camera for: coming south on Rt 7 out of Shelburne, VT. "Nature's Way" was the road's name. Above it, in yellow: Dead End. How true!

One detour (also off Rt 7 and then back to it again) treated us to a spectacular full band rainbow. Oh, where was the camera for this one? We had to rely on mental snapshots to record the beauty of it all.

Closed out the day with dinner at the Main Moon, an "all you can eat" Chinese buffet that did provide a great variety of good food.

Need to get some rest tonight, we have about a 340 mile drive to return home tomorrow.

Catch you later!

Attention Parents of College Age Kids

Hear ye, hear ye... this is good writing and something you and your children should read.

From Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users

"Mom, your degree was exercise physiology. You spent your first five years out of college as a glorified aerobic instructor. Then you taught yourself programming, took a few night classes at UCLA, and made a huge career switch into computers, and found you loved it. You have your own computer book series. Yet you told me you had just a single computer class in college, and you hated it. So... tell me again why college was so great for you?"

Read the full article here.
Have your college kids read the article.

Then think about it.
And have a good healthy family discussion about it.

Quotes & Links - Wednesday

From Steve Griffiths at ?IC@TomorrowToday.biz

To me, the issue here is one of perception. We have known for a long time about the UK Pension Gap. We have known that Gen X is not investing in Pension Funds. We have known that the retirement age is likely to increase. However, the media image is of a generation that doesn’t care enough to think beyond Today. It would seem that the exact opposite is true. Maybe Gen X is the most sacrificial and caring Generation of them all…

From Elana Cantor at FunnyBusiness

The article then quotes Gordon Wainwright, author of "Teach Yourself Body Language." who says the way to compensate for a lack of good looks is to "maintain eye contact, act upbeat, dress well and listen well."

Let me get this right.You're earning less money because you're not attractive, but you've got to spend more money on clothing to compensate. That cheers me up.

But my favorite part of this article is the medicine that's recommending for all of us who are not fortunate to be "lookers". Here's what Wainwright says will make everything all better:

"Stand up straight, tuck in your stomach and smile at people."

From D at Under the Palms

New York legend and patron saint of the intellectual, Allen has unwittingly become the hope for every socially-awkward, male Mensa candidate everywhere. All knit-picking neuroses aside, the idea that an ugly little man can transcend life's usual limitations to obtain a tall, beautiful woman by shear wit and intellect--well, it just seems like what it actually is: fiction.

I have heard several female friends describe their experiences with this prototype: the vertically-challenged, chronic complainer who attempts to glorify his miserable existence with mildly insightful, yet ultimately depressing quotes from Proust and Nietzsche. As anyone who's experienced this phenomenon can attest to, if there's anything worse than an ugly little man, it's a whiny, boring, ugly little man.

Enjoy!

Quotes & Links - Tuesday

Tom Asacker has an interesting "flog" over at A Clear Eye. Check it out!

This is a test. This is only a test.

You know and I know that, as a medium, the Internet is still in its infancy. Podcasting is certainly not the endpoint of innovation.

So in the spirit of trying something new, I thought I'd try my very first "flog." Check it out by clicking this link. And please let me know your thoughts (good, bad or indifferent).

Ronni Bennett at A Sense of Place discusses Auto Inconvenience

From Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users

I need to remember this. Every user is new and different. Every reader is new and different. And as long as the user is new, then the experience of their interaction with the product, service, book... is new and different. Every new user breathes new life into what we create and deliver.

Enjoy!

Links & Quotes - Monday

From Lorraine Berry at Culture Kitchen we find this excerpt:

What is it for a man to surrender to a woman? Is it to imagine what it is to be the glove, rather than the hand. To be the sheath. That is what vagina means, you know. Sheath. From the Latin. I find it fascinating that a part of the female body, the canal through which women bring forth new life, the first journey we experience as human beings—sliding through a fleshy tunnel into the light and cold—that the name for that conduit is not related to its function in birth, but rather, bears the name of a holder of a weapon. A scabbard—the covering in which you insert your sword.

I urge you to read the whole thing.

From Graeme Codrington at ?IC@TomorrowToday.biz

In the “Connection Economy”, we argue that one of the most important features will be a focus on creating experiences for clients. No longer can you differentiate your products from your competitors’ simply by relying on functionality, price, quality or anything intrinsic in the product/service/offering itself. You and your competitors are selling similar stuff, at the same quality, to the same customers, at similar prices, distributing through the same channels, advertising in the same media using similar techniques, and you even swap staff every few years. To differentiate yourself from your competitors you need to provide an experience linked to the purchasing moment as well as the product/service/offering itself.

Enjoy!

Vacation Time

I am heading into central PA for some quality time with my wife and some close family friends.

There will be no internet connection so I might be able to finish a couple of those books that have been started but not completed, and for those that I have completed, I might even be able to get a book review drafted.

We'll see how much time is available for this.

If the weather is good, it may be better spent hiking in the woods.

Catch you later!