A (Typically) Busy Weekend

We started our weekend Friday night at the Sussex Tech vs Smyrna High football game. It was the final home game of the season, and therefore Colleen's last game as a fan at Tech. Tech has a very strong team this season, so we wanted to see a game. They won.

We also wanted to see Tech's marching band. Matt Wilshire, long a classmate of Colleen's, is one of the drum majors. He is good at it and the band sounded good.

We were distracted, though, by the band teacher's running commentary over the PA system during the halftime show. He tried to hype it up, but just sounded silly and drowned out parts of the performance.

Saturday morning, I took a nice walk around town. It was a blustery, overcast sort of morning that turned into a stormy afternoon and evening.

The girls, meanwhile, were in a long rehearsal for the Nutcracker (performances the first week-end in December). Karen ran some errands and then did some shopping with Christina, who had a birthday party (costumed for Halloween) that evening.

Karen and I had a fine dinner date at the new Lewes-area Bethany Blues restaurant.

This morning, the girls performed with the Sussex Dance Academy at the Rehoboth Beach bandstand as part of the annual Sea Witch Festival. They did a great job.

After, as is our tradition for Sea Witch, we had a late lunch at Nicola Pizza with Andy and Lynn and their girls and with another of the dancers, her dad, and his folks.

The extra dancer and Dad were Hannah and Joe Powers. Joe teaches physics at Tech and is an interesting guy. I always forget, though, that he is also the brother of new Castle County Councilman Bill Powers. And their Mom is a retired educator who is also politically active. We had an interesting conversation -- lots of fun.

It was a busy sort of weekend.

Sussex County Politics Vignette #25

Former State Elections Commissioner and newspaper columnist Frank Calio has a new blog. Frank is from western Sussex County and is a long-time spectator of Sussex County's unique politics.

In a post from earlier in the week, he offers a classic moment from this week's Sussex County Council meeting. The Council was discussing a proposal, by Council President Vance Phillips (R), to cut funding to the three libraries that make up the county's Library system. The libraries would still get some state funds and most have local support as well.

During the debate Councilman Sam Wilson, (R) said he had never been inside a library which prompted a reply from Republican Councilman George Cole who said, “I kinda thought that Sam, but I never thought you would admit it.”

This will give you some idea of why I like George Cole so much. He is a straight-shooter sort. I don't agree with him much politically, but I like him and I enjoy talking with him about issues.

About Sam Wilson... all I can say is that I am not surprised.

Twenty-First Golf Game of 2009

This post is a week late; I have spent much of the last week not blogging.

Last week, I had a chance to play 18 holes with two friends out in Cleveland. We were all there for the annual NSGIC conference. We managed to get out one afternoon and were nearly the last group to get around the course.

We played at Sleepy Hollow Golf Course which is part of Cleveland Metroparks. Those folks do a great job; the course is in great shape and was great fun. It is about 90 years old and is a classic hill course. Each nine holes start at the top of the hill and go down and then back up.

It was not a day for me to break 100. I'm not at all used to a hilly course. I had some pretty poor holes, particularly on the front nine. I got better on the back nine and managed a pair of pars. I finished at 115. Not great.

Sandy played solidly; we play together fairly often and he is a good player. He ended at 100.

Our third was Michael, from the Boston area. He's a very good player, with a monster drive. His score -- 84 -- shows his skills. And he is a fellow Deadhead, so we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of golf and reminisces about Dead shows.

We also talked GIS and geospatial data coordination, so it was like a continuation of the day's conference sessions.

I Went Back to Ohio...

...or, more specifically, to Cleveland. I had been there some 12 years back for a conference of the Census State Data Center network.

This time (from last Sunday through Thursday) I was there for the annual conference of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC). This is the national GIS coordination group that I am part of and for which, until this past week, I served on the Board of Directors. My second term ended with this conference and I chose to step aside and let some younger folks join the leadership; I'm still chair of the communications committee, so I'll keep a hand in things.

We had a lively conference with many and varied presentations and discussions on topics ranging from governance of public data to the new social media tools that are starting (finally) to be used by state and federal agencies. We tried some experimentation with twitter as part of the conference, encouraging attendees (and some who followed along from home) to continue discussions on-line using the hash-tag "#nsgic2009."

I was traveling on a federal grant, rather than state funds, and I chose to drive out to Cleveland to save money and be able to bring others from Delaware along. It gave us a chance to visit the "Point of Beginning," on the Pennsylvania/Ohio border west of Pittsburgh. There is a monument that commemorates the starting point for the Public Lands survey System which was used from Ohio west to lay out the rectangular township and range subdivisions of the "new" lands in the United States.

This is where state shapes started trending towards the square.

While at the conference, I was not able to get out much. NSGIC packs as much into these events as possible. We met from eight in the morning until past nine many evenings. We were never bored, but we were pretty tired-out.

I did have a chance to visit the rock and Roll Hall of Fame, though. We had our off-site social there one evening and it was great fun. There are others among the GIS group who share with me a love of both punk rock and the Grateful Dead, so we made small pilgrimages together to different parts of the museum. The Hall features a Bruce Springsteen collection just now.; that also brought me back to my childhood.

And we found just a sliver of time for golf. But of that, more later.

At the Craft Fair

Karen and I went downtown today to wander around the annual Craft Fair hosted by the Lewes Historical Society.

The day started out overcast and wet, but the rain held off enough for us to have a pleasant walk into town.

The Craft Fair was scattered around the Historical Society grounds in a variety of tents and pavilions. There were painters and jewelry-makers and weavers and glass artists and metal-workers and everything in between.

The bluegrass band Bitter Creek were there. They have a very tight, very pleasant sound. They added a nice touch to the day.

And they were an inspiration to at least one other artist.

I was pleased to see the glass artist Justin Cavagnaro was there. I have admired his work for a while, particularly his glass-headed golf putters, one of which I photographed in 2007 at the Bethany Beach Boardwalk Arts Festival.

It was a great way to spend a morning, and we both came away with ideas for Christmas gifts that we'll have to follow-up on at a later, more discreet, date.

Things Military

There's been a fair amount of military activity around life lately. There was a "welcome home" ceremony outside my office this afternoon for the 261st Signal Brigade. This is the Delaware National Guard unit that includes our State's Attorney General Beau Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden.


There was a "send off" ceremony for the 361st almost exactly a year ago. In that case, VP candidate Joe Biden spoke. Today he was back as the sitting Vice President. In both cases, that meant a strong Secret Service presence and security details. Things were a bit more intense this time around.

Meanwhile, last week, my parents hosted my father's cousin Mary Frances and elements of her family for a few days for the burial, at Arlington National Cemetery, of her husband. He was John Dunn, a retired colonel who served, to great distinction, in World War II and in Korea.

Colonel Dunn was a remarkable man, and a great hero. His memory is sacred to the many soldiers who survived a Korean prisoner of war camp thanks in part to his leadership.

His burial was suitably impressive; I'm sorry I was not able to go. My brother John, who was there, summed it up well in a tweet he posted afterwards:

Full honors military service at Arlington today: horse-drawn caisson, band, bugler, 3-volley salute, honor guard, flag ceremony, plus mass

Karen and I had dinner with my folks last night. They regaled us with the story of the Arlington ceremony and the honors to Colonel Dunn. I was thinking about that as I watched the welcome home for the Delaware National Guard troops today.

New Blog!

I released a new blog into the world today. It is meant to serve as a communications tool for the Delaware Geographic Data Committee -- the DGDC -- which is a part of my set of responsibilities for the state of Delaware.

I already maintain a standard web site for the DGDC. The new blog gives me a chance to create an on-going conversation and regular news updates. I have also created a new twitter stream for DGDC; it is called DelawareGIS.

Both were created under a new social media policy (PDF) approved by the Delaware Department of Technology and Information. (Full disclosure: I sat on the committee that helped draft the policy)

The policy allows us, with approval from agency leadership, of course, to use some of the new tools known generally as "social media" to increase our communications among state agencies, with county and local government and other partners, and with the public.

I'm an information-pusher. Putting information out is what I enjoy.

I Thought She Looked Familiar

I've been watching the show Swords on the Discovery Channel. It's a documentary series about swordfishing boats and their crews working on the Grand Banks, in the Atlantic.

One of the Captains, Linda Greenlaw, has looked very familiar to me, but I could not figure out why.

Now I know.

My Alumni newsletter from Colby College in came in by e-mail today. The Out of the Blue newsletter for September 2009 includes a brief note that explained it to me:

Linda Greenlaw '83, author of The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey and five other books, is one of the captains on a new Discovery Channel series called Swords: Life on the Line, about swordfishing boats around New England.

She's an old school mate. I'm class of '84, so it's likely that I met this woman somewhere on campus a bit more than a quarter-century ago.

I had thought that she seemed familiar because of her New England accent. I had noted to myself that she reminded me of my college days and the sort of folks I new when I lived in Maine.

Turns out that I was right.

A Barn in the Spotlight

This old barn, at the intersection of Clay Road and kings Highway, outside of Lewes, Delaware, has been much in focus lately. It is on a tract of land that is proposed to be turned into a regional shopping center.

This proposal is strongly opposed by most people in the Lewes area. It's an unpopular place for a shopping center and, I think, a bad idea from an economics standpoint -- we don't need more shopping and this could threaten existing retail outlets.

As a result of all the concern, I think, I've noticed a strong increase in people stopping along the road to take its picture.

Now, I note, local painter Kim Klabe is talking about making it the subject of one of her canvases:

...just in case the developers win and the barn gets torn down. Saw it from a different angle the other morning and had one of those AAAAAhhhhhh, look at that...moments.

It's a pretty barn. I'd like to see what Kim does with it.

When the development plan for that property first came forward, the developers talked about saving the barn and turning it into a restaurant. I thought that was a good idea. They've since backed away from that idea.

That's a shame.

Here's Good News

John Mayer is finishing work on a new album. I've been following him on twitter for some time and reading about the process of recording an album. This evening he wrote that, while he can't share the first single yet, he can share the cover art.

This means we should be hearing new music from Mayer soon. Karen and I are fans and I am not embarrassed to say I'm looking forward to it.

Each new record from this guy has brought something different. He started as a poppy, acoustic troubadour. He took a detour down the blues alley and became a Clapton-style guitar ace.

He has successfully mixed those personas in the past and I expect to hear another new direction with this record.