Up, Up, and Away

John and I awoke at 5am on Saturday morning to travel to Glens Falls, NY for the Annual Adirondack Balloon festival. Traffic was very congested but we made it in time to watch the launch of over 50 hot air balloons. Here are some photos.

Last Words

What if you had an opportunity to speak to a gathering of friends and family about your values and principles? And what if you knew that the end of your life was imminent? What would you share? What would be the focus of your speech?
Colleges and Universities around the country have been inviting faculty to imagine that they had one last opportunity to speak. They call this the "Last Lecture Series". For Randy Pausch, 46, a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University, this is not a hypothetical situation. He has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given mere weeks to live. The September 20, 2007 edition of the Wall Street Journal has an article about his inspirational speech. To see excerpts from Professor Pausch's moving and surprisingly humorous lecture, click here.

To Blog or Not to Blog.....

If there is anyone still checking this blog.....I guess I owe an explanation for my long absence.

The truth is....I've been enjoying summer.....my best summer since Junior High.

You remember those days, before you had summer jobs. The days of July and August stretched out in front of you, unpaved and unscheduled and filled with mosquitoes, sunburns, fireflies, campfires, and adventures. Nat King Cole sang in 1963 about the kind of summer I experienced in 2007.

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

Those days of soda and pretzels and beer

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer

I had forgotten how enjoyable summer could be. Walks in the park; camping in our pop up camper which has been setting in the yard the last three years unused;;fishing with friends, children, and grandchildren; spending weekend evenings at the local dirt tracks; watching and suffering with the Mets on the TV in the back porch; sailing on Lake George; boating on the Sacandaga and Caroga lakes; licking an ice cream cone at Dan's; growing an abundance of tomatoes; Saturday mornings at the Farmer's Market; surprising friend Karl on his 20Th anniversary of ordination in Pennsylvania; leading worship on Labor Day weekend at Diamond Point Community Church on Lake George with my entire family in attendance, chasing fireflies with the grandchildren; working on a Habitat Build in Schenectady; and spending a delightful week at a friend's camp on Hunt Lake.

So dear and patient reader, if any of you still remain....that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Granddaughters' Kaylyn and Jena Grandchildren at Diamond Point John and Mary at Diamond Point