Colchester Cannons Moving Forward...

 

I proudly worked with the Colchester Cannons American Legion Baseball club for 16 years in a variety of coaching, tech and mentorship roles. My son played in the program for six years with three years on the Jr team and three on the Senior team. I decided some time ago that my sons last year as a player would be my last year coaching. For me, it wrapped up thirty years overall of coaching youth baseball. 

When it came time to help the new Cannons administration create new opportunities I proposed it was time for a website and social media refit. I also told them I was happy to help.

The Cannons are a special organization in Vermont American Legion baseball. Unlike many new for-profit travel teams, the Cannons deliver a first class experience to kids and families at a low and all-inclusive cost. Ttravel, meals, hotels, plane tickets, clothing, gear or game fees are all included. The program has traveled mightily over the years and in 2022 the team is headed to... Hawaii.

Building a new website for the program and ramping up their social media efforts was a fun trip down memory lane and to help pave the way for more community building, education, travel and great baseball.

Check out the new website at: https://www.colchestercannons.org

#Vermont #AmericanLegion #AmericanLegionBaseball #SummerBaseball

Um...

So, you fired your Network Administrator because they reached the top of the pay scale, reduced another person's job to part-time and now your network is slow, unreliable, service is poorly rated and users are frustrated... and 'tech' is 'mission critical?

"Yes."

Wow. Ok. Let's begin.

#education #edtech #vted

Good Karma in Times That Are Not Normal

 COVID19 times.

These times are not 'normal.' Sometimes we just need a reminder.

In some consulting projects of late I've been encouraging people to push employees and students a little less. Offering flexibility, getting to know their circumstances, helping them find equipment and support they need can really go a long way.

As a business or individual who is enjoying some success of late... it's a good time to reach out to provide some support for people that are struggling. You never know what incredible connections and perceptions that might create... or how it will fill your soul.

Good karma 💝 Here's to it.

It's Time

“you always told me it takes time. it’s taken my father’s time, my mother’s time. my uncle’s time, my brother’s and my sister’s time. my niece’s and my nephew’s time. how much time do you want, for your progress?” - james baldwin pic.twitter.com/JkE8w7up9Y

— nadirah (@hinadirah) May 27, 2020

It's time.

A President who sits in the White House, disconnected from reality, encouraging hate and attacks other leaders in crisis is disgraceful. This is not leadership. It's demagoguery.

A few things to read:

Uprisings and Education

Don't understand the protests? What you're seeing is people pushed to the edge: by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Dismantle White Supremacy: Ben and Jerry's Open Letter. My thanks to an ice cream company that still seeks to make the world a better place. To paraphrase their old slogan, 'What's the doughboy (in the White House) afraid of?'

What if... 'this time' we moved ahead, bravely, to address hatred, racism and oppression. What if we made real changes. What if we kept the discussion going rather than let another protest fade into history with little to no results.

AP

Getting Twitter Cards from Blogger Posts

Twitter card / previews not showing up from Blogger posts? Try this.

Backup your blog first.

Go to Templates and Edit HTML.

Control (PC) or Command (Mac) - F to find

<b:includable id='post' var='post'>


Then paste in:

<meta content='summary_large_image' name='twitter:card'/>

<meta content='@yournamehere' name='twitter:site'/

<meta content='@yournamehere' name='twitter:creator'/

<meta content='www.yoursitehere.com' name='twitter:domain'/

<meta expr:content='data:post.firstImageUrl' name='twitter:image:src'/

<meta expr:content='data:post.title' name='twitter:title'/

<b:if cond='data:blog.metaDescription'>

<meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='twitter:description'/

<b:else/>

<meta expr:content='data:post.snippet' name='twitter:description'/

</b:if>

<meta expr:content='data:post.sharePostUrl' name='twitter:url'/>


Replace @yournamehere with your Twitter name, then replace your website here with your full blogger site name, including the https://

Click save.

Go to yu blog and copy a post link, not the home address.

Then go to https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator  and paste in your blog post url. click 'Preview Card' and it should pull correctly. Might take a minute, too as mine did the first time.

I've been sticking with Blogger for my personal / part-time consulting site. It's where I started and there's some nostalgia in there, I guess. There are more robust options out there, but it keeps working with some mods like this on occasion. 

I do wonder though when might a major refit be coming with a WordPress, Squarespace or Wix style functionality. 

We'll see. 

Keep tinkering.

AP

#blogger #twitter #twitterValidator

Tourist Destinations

Photo from Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN

Traveling to Venice in 2013... the crowds were overwhelming. I asked a local resident what it was like to live there.

There's no doubt that I struck a chord.

"Venitians, true Venetians, are now shit. Almost every house now, our beautiful homes, are being purchased from outside and chopped to apartments. So many of my friends, true Venitians are leaving because it is too crowded. They are tempted greatly to sell for money. Real jobs to make a living are harder to find. Businesses are being bought by investors who for hire part time jobs. Too many people come here who don't appreciate the beauty of Venice. It is a place to go, to check a list. Cheap tourist sale dominates our beautiful streets. Our city is suffering from so many people being here. A quality life to live here is no more. We are asked to do more and more, to keep up with overwhelming demand. This can not be sustained." 

The heartache and frustration was just incredible to witness. The gentleman thanked me later for a "true conversation, 'gave me an enormous hug and held my hands while he thanked me.

I can't post the audio... as I don't have permission from the person or really any way to contact them at this point.

I've thought of this conversation so many times since, and it's part of my travel writing I'm still working on. Posting this here today came from reading this article from CNN this morning.

It's thought provoking, I hope. How much is the beauty and heritage of such places destroyed by the lust for commercialism and profit? Is there help for generational families stay in a historical area like this? What an be done? What should be done?

Always knocking it seems is the lust for more... more luxury, more excess, more stuff...

Convo snip of the day...

Nan: What'd you do today?

Grandson: Nothing. I sat on my ass all day and watched movies. 

Nan: That's ok. You can't really sit anywhere else.

Lol...

#GrandmotherLogic #CommonSense