Graduation Party

Steve, Jerry, Carolyn and Helen



Dan shows how to ace the ladder ball game




First pass at the food spread




Lining up for the second pass, this time for desserts




And the Sherlock cousins rest for a moment to take a picture

Graduation day

Carolyn graduated from Northeastern University on Friday. Her hard work for 5 years, including 3 co-op positions and one semester overseas, culminates in a well earned degree and a job starting Tuesday.




Congratulations, my dear. I am very proud of this moment!

Bert Jacob's advice

The University of New Hampshire Class of 2010 graduated on Saturday, May 22. Someone made a mistake in counting/allocating chairs for the graduating class so the ceremony was delayed while there was a scramble to set up additional chairs.

Once underway, the miscue on chairs was forgotten. Bert Jacobs, co-founder of Life is Good, gave the commencement address. He delivered his remarks with a dose of reality and spiced them with some Frisbees tossed into the crowd.



His message was to live life with simplicity, to live with optimism (the glass half full), and to give oneself to a worthy cause. If one did all three things, he said they would be successful and happy.

What has the picture of the red shoes got to do with the slideshow?
Well, they were worn by one graduate. At one point, clicking the heels together to go elsewhere may have crossed their mind like it did mine. They stayed for the ceremony (just as I did) and hopefully took in the three important points that Bert shared.

With Bert's approach to life, you wouldn't need to click your heels to go somewhere else. Where you are would be important enough to stay.

Life is good, enjoy!

West Point Graduation 5/31/08

One of our good family friends, Nathan Bastian, graduated with honors from the US Military Academy at West Point, NY on May 31, 2008. It was an honor for us to participate in this special event. The following video attempts to capture some of the flavor of the pomp and circumstances for this event.



To Doug, Cathy, Jennifer, Brian and the remainder of the Bastian family, you have every good reason to be proud. Nate will be a good officer in the US Army.

Congratulations, Nate!

Home sweet home

The hectic travel (both business and personal) schedule experienced over the past 6 weeks is not complete. It was all good and full of wonderful learning. Much writing to catch up on now.

For those interested in the Franklin Override coming up June 10th, the audio segments for the information session held on 5/28/08 are now available. Posting these segments pushed Franklin Matters over 700 posts since it began in November 2007. So if you thought I have not been writing much here, that may be a bit of the reason why.

The West Point graduation this weekend saw the Baslocks get together to congratulate Nathan on his great accomplishment. Second Lieutenant Bastien is now off for 60 days of vacation time before heading to work on a Fulbright Scholarship in the Netherlands in September. What an honor it was to witness this graduation! Pictures and some video (with a little luck) will be coming up this week.

Assumption College Graduation 5/17/08

Assumption College Graduation 5/17/08, originally uploaded by shersteve.

degree conferred, with all the rights and privileges thereunto appertaining - wonderful sense of pomp and circumstance

It's official

It's official
Originally uploaded by shersteve

Meghan has completed her college degree at Harvard. Yes, that Harvard.

The same one where Bill Gates returned yesterday to obtain an honorary degree with his former classmates who were celebrating their 30th reunion.

Adam Sandler was also amongst the crowd in the proceedings at Winthrop House as one of his relatives was in Meghan's class. While his presence created something of a stir, he was quite gracious about posing for pictures.

Note: Meghan is the oldest amongst the 13 grandchildren in Gerald's clan.