Yes, indeed. Christmas has come and gone... and a grand time was had by all !! This image is our Christmas 2007 Picture, even if it isn't actually from Christmas Day. Of course, this is the tree shown here in the story about us going out to cut it down, a whole month before we decorated it. We took this picture right after we'd finished decorating the tree, 2 nights before Christmas. It's the only picture we have of all of us; I photoshopped into it the person who took the main picture that you see here, so that I could give this collage as a keepsake to eJP's friend who came to spend the few days around Christmas with us. Silly me... I stepped onto the chair just to have my daughter snap an image of me — to later be photoshopped in — but it never occurred to me that it would end up looking ridiculous because that left me about 18" taller than everyone else. Inside, around the tree and presents, we constantly had a cosy warm fire because shown below is the backyard scene from around the same time — we had about 3 feet of snow in the days leading up to Christmas this year !!
This video clip is from the Sunday evening performance of the 2007 Groton Community Christmas Chorus.
In order to use the above multi-media "controls" you have to click on them to activate them. Then use the "Play" Icon for the video and/or the "faster" vs "slower" icons to navigate the lyrics.
If you click on the YouTube player itself it will take you directly to YouTube where you can search for other video clips, including many different versions of "Breath of Heaven". The Nativity One, in particular, really captured my imagination by depicting what it must have been like for Mary to ride into Bethlehem in that world at that time. It's a really unusual — multi-media — way for the Christmas Story to be told!!
What a joy it has been giving our gift to the Groton community in the first two Groton Community Christmas Chorus 2007 performances — "All Creation Sings" — yesterday. We had a full house for both performances and everyone seemed to have gotten what they came for. I'm posting now so you can consider this my reminder that the Final GCCC 2007 performance is tonight, December 10th, directed by Edie Tompkins, at 19:30. The smallest group in the GCCC is when just the Men (shown on the left) do their number, which for 2007 was "Mary Sat A-Rockin'" [YouTube]. Of course, most of the time on stage you see more like 130 people — men, women, adolescents, and boys and girls as young as 3rd grade — but since this is my blog, I'm just going to feature the piece that I had the biggest part in.
Having been in the Groton Community Christmas Chorus for several years, this year I captured one of the parts that is most special to me — the "centering prayer" that Edie does as the very last thing before the concert starts. Listen to Edie's wisedom and prayer as she uses that juncture to focus us all on selfless giving — that crucial spirit which we bring to the concert every year. Other YouTube video clips include: the Celtic Christmas Celebration ("Shepherd's Joy") with the familiar "Tin Whistle" and Fiddle accompaniment, the Senior choir singing "The Birds' Noel" featuring (among other things) Kevin's short solo, and our triumphant Concert finale: "Go Out With Joy!".
Today, on the last day of November... present — to me, at least — are two traditional hallmarks of the season:
On the right: my nightime/tripod attempt to capture our Christmas lighting — the garden archway we've had for years + Lynn's pop-up Christmas Tree spiral. And for the first time, this year, I also dressed up the metalic snowman that is usually in the garden / on the wall outside my sauna shed.
On the left: some of the signage I put up to remind the Community that their 33rd-Annual Groton Community Christmas Chorus is just around the corner. See my personal GCCC 2007 multi-media invitation (featuring the Dylan invite), or for a quick link, go directly to the program.
Cantate Domino
For a multi-media taste of the GCCC, click on the Play icon in the middle of the YouTube control on the left to activate the player. And then click on the Play icon at the bottom of the YouTube player to listen to the GCCC women singing Cantate Domino at a rehearsal for the 2006 GCCC last December.
Alas, the video in this clip is not very high quality, but IMHO the sound of the chorus is fabulous. I didn't do this on purpose... but as it turns out, I was standing over on the Alto side of the Church when I recorded this, so what you hear has an unusually "off balance" version of the women singing the lower parts of the harmony — most unusual.
A joyous family outing for the Pammett family — our annual pre-Christmas tradition!
This year we got smart... we decided to do our annual outing to track down the live tree that's perfect for us... sooner, rather than later — because other years we've wrestled with minimal choices because we left it too close to Christmas when there's not as good a selection of live trees left.
With JgP living at Northeastern this year, the only way we could do that was right after Thanksgiving. So last Sunday the four of us got to spend a most joyful late New England Fall afternoon: heading off thru the woods, saw in hand... searching down the perfect Christmas tree to have in our family room this year. And not only did we find a great new tree place (1 Kemp St, Dunstable), but we also discovered a new kind of tree — a Concolor Fir or White Fir — which is "half way" between a long-needled White Pine and the more-traditional Spruce trees with shorter needles but where all the branches bunch up together so that there's no room for decorations. Narrowed down from five or six choices, we unanimously selected the one shown here. You can see more of the tree itself in our "O Christmas Tree" celebration on YouTube.
With help from Photoshop, I was able to fabricate the picture that you see here with the four of us; can you tell which of the two faces are from other snapshots? See this Flickr set for the rest of the pictures.
With Thanksgiving behind us, today I finally have a bit of "extra time" to do something I've been wanting to find enough time for about 2 months now: write this story to share my pictures from my first-ever rock climbing experience — with two of my men friends, both of whom just happen to be expert rock climbers. Camping out under the stars, and with 2 full days of rock climbing... we had an absolutely fabulous time!
Pictured below is a marvelous place in Up State New York, called "The Gunks" by those who frequent the place for some of the best rock climbing in the North Eastern United States. The cliff you see here averages 200' of open rock face — above the tree line which we hiked up to in order to begin the ascent! Actually called "The Shawangunks" after its Indian name, this fabulous place near New Paltz, N.Y. is better detailed in this Wikipedia article which tells you why "The Gunks" are the place for accomplished rock climbers.
The story about the three days I spent there — with Hartigan and Marcotte, at the peak of the Fall Foliage during the SMW weekend in October of 2007 — is probably best told by this Flickr album which I pared down from the 420 snapshots I took into the "more manageable" (but still too many, I know) set shown in this collection. The link goes to the thumbnails from which you can click thru to the ones you want, or if you have time for the whole show click on the "View as slide show" link at the top right on the thumbnail page. As I process the many panoramas I took, I will post them to this collection. See also this YouTube clip where Hartigan demonstrates the proper way to wind up the climbing ropes.
Today, at long last, we had our first snow fall of the season. So I immediately thought that it was past the time that I could get my "final Fall 2007 picture" of the panorama of trees in my back yard that I've been capturing this Fall — the follow-on to the one shown here. Below I'm showing the non-cropped version of the panorama so that you can see the contribution to the picture made by each of the 11 snapshots. You can see this in the "rounded" edges which are a result of the stretch and projections made by Autostitch. Click here for the cropped version. This panorama, composed by Autostitch from the 11 shapshots that I took mid afternoon today, had the unusual characteristic that some of the pictures were much darker than the others, but nevertheless Autostitch seemed to be able to make the necessary adjustments to put it all together correctly. Amazing.
This morning when I came down to the kitchen my wife was plastering the fridge with blown up snippets from the letter that we just received from the MCAS scholarship rewards program — my youngest daughter (who prefers to remain nameless in cyberspace), currently a high school senior — has been awarded a full 4-year tuition scholarship at any state college or university in Massachusetts. Yahoo !!!
The snippets on the fridge came from this collage: Of course, my soon-to-be-18-years-old daughter is and always has been brilliant — we've known this ever since she was born. And, of course, I'm pretty obviously the proudest Dad that you ever wanna run into! But be that as it may, it's still the case that my daughter has worked very hard for this, that the road has not been easy, and that her brilliance pales in comparison to the hard work and persistence that she has demonstrated... culminating in her finding herself within the top 4% state-wide in English, and at the 94th percentile in Mathematics !!! These "Abigail Adams Scholarships" are awarded only to those who are high-achievers simultaneously in all of the categories that Massachusetts has! ... And did I mention how proud I am of my Beans !?
My sister, Nanci Phelan, already talks about her stained glass passion in her blog, but I just discovered her Business Card and thought it was so neet that I wanted to include it, here.
I have a number of Nanci's stained glass creations hanging all over my house, and know that she's made similar masterpieces for dozens and dozens of people — have a look at some in Nanci's portfolio. Notice the quality and creativity of Nanci's art. Her techniques have been honed for decades; the creative part in design and colour choice speaks for itself; the finished products just continue to get better and better. Nanci has also done commissioned works for people to give to their loved ones, and without exception they are cherished as the Gifts of Love that they obviously are. And though the logistics of it might be a barrier — because Nanci lives in Canada — if you are interested in such a project, give Nanci a call.
Yes, this article is a shameless plug for my sister who would rather make her living by teaching bridge and making stained glass creations... than go back to work "in an office". Can you blame her?
Today I spent a while on-line with my sister, Nanci Phelan, helping her create her very own blog. She, of course, did this from Canada while I was on the phone with her from Groton, Ma. While she was trying out various things, I made this posting to help her do "the same" stuff as I was showing it to her.
Speaking of Nanci... this is a picture of her when she and her hubby went to Cuba a few years ago. Living in Canada, they get to do stuff like that! For lots more pictures, see Nanci's Hooked On Glass WebShots album where she features the years of work she's put into becoming a renouned stained glass craftsperson.
As an example of another hyperlink... this points to the home page (under construction) at my newly-acquired www.Pammett.net domain. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this new site; for now it's just a place to play with GooGle Apps.
This morning, on Remembrance Day, I'm thinking of my Dad, Harold "Dutch" Percy Pammett, because it was on this day in 1981 that he passed away — on the golf course, living the life that he always wanted to live. Little did I know, at the young age of 61 (I was 30), that for him it was a blessing because he never had to suffer or grow old. For me, the reality was that other than my uncle Gord Pammett... Nov 11, 1981 left me at the root of the Pammett family tree.
Harold "Dutch" Percy Pammett grew up in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. And by some quirk of 25-cent photography, my Mom kept this picture of Dad close to her heart for 40 years. This treasure of a picture was taken by my Mom when "Harold" took her out canoeing, at the young age of 17 — just shortly before Dad served in the Canadian Navy during World War II. He served for 6 long years, keeping the engines running on Destroyers such as The Restigouche, and married Jean Audrey (Carter) Hickey as soon as he got back from liberating Europe.
But we didn't hear very much about the war growing up in Southern Ontario; Dad's mind's eye was always more forward-looking than watching over his shoulder. Dad wanted us kids to grow up, attend university, and live the good life because he never made it beyond the 10th grade. Those were the tough years when common sense and the work ethic prevailed.
Today I — together with my brother John Hickey, and my sisters Nanci Phelan and Gaye... all remember our Dad with fond memories, love and respect. And we give thanks for the many years that he brought us his support, his security, and his love. "Thank you, Dad!"
Nestled right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of modern life, along side rte 2 in Acton Ma., you see the most marvelous display of wildlife — thriving in spite of it all — and this blog story is about the "Great Blue Heron Rookery", along rte 2, in particular during the New England Fall season. I first penned this article as "Bald Eagle nests" but my good friend Austin informed me that the birds are Blue Herons and that such a nesting community is called a "Rookery". Eloquently explained in Kristen's YouTube documentary... I finally understand why there are consistently a bunch of these nests, visible from this well-traveled highway in Acton, just before you get to rte 495 going West. I've long marvelled at the dozen or so of these nests, seen from the rte 2 vantage, and have taken a few photos of them over the years. My goal from the beginning has been to get All Four Seasons shots and to publish them ensemble. You might consider this my first public step towards following thru with that.
In the early days of November 2007 I stopped off to take some pictures of these nests, primarily because it was the height of the New England Fall. And this time I took a walk out onto the point that juts out into the wetlands so that I could get some pictures — some panoramas, in fact — of the nests, primarily in their vacant state as Winter approaches. [added later: The other 4-season perspectives or this Rookery include “Winter”, “Spring”, and Summer (TBS).]
To see a Flash presentation of these panoramas visit my Flickr collection, select about the 10th thumbnail in the collection, and then just watch the slide show from there. Failing that, just click here and Next / Prev your way thru, in the more traditional manner. You will notice that the panoramas are presented in pairs: first you see the 'raw' panorama, made from about a dozen or so snapshots, in which you can see the contribution of each picture by noticing the "rounded" edges which are a result of the stretch and projections made by Autostitch. For each one, the panorama right after that will be the same picture, only cropped so that it looks like a single snapshot.
This blog entry is mostly just an experiment in not using Google's built-in mechanisms for including pictures in blog entries. If you look at the pictures in my older blog entries, there is always a lot of horizontal white space around the images. While this is convenient for most situations, when I make panoramas that is especially unfortunate because the whole point of a panorama is that it extend horizontally as much as possible.
For that reason, below you see a panorama which I made from four snapshots — as you can tell by the "rounded" edges which are a result of the stretch and projections made by Autostitch... and in this case the standard html "img src" tag is used with a simple width="100%" attribution to in-line the picture. As such, you'll see that this image "fits" exactly into the right-hand frame provided by the blog infrastructure, and as you make the browser window larger or smaller, the image is resized so that it exactly fits into the maximum amount of horizontal space.
This particular image shows my dog, Lady, looking into the campfire pit that's in our back woods. The hill leading down to the campfire site seems much stepper in real life than it does in this picture, but that's most likely because of the perspective of where I took the four portrait snapshots that make up the picture.
We've had such a glorious New England Fall this year, with warm sunny days and lots of beautiful leaves turning! But when I look at this panorama (made from 3 snapshots) of my dogs — Lucky and Lady — standing in front of Gaye's Maple tree in our backyard, on Oct 30th ... it really doesn't look like Fall's in full swing yet. And now that Halloween was yesterday and we really are "3 weeks" from Thanksgiving, I still find myself in a state of denial.
Maybe I'll make a similar panorama a few weeks from now when it does seem like Fall's really fully upon us.
On the other hand, today being Nov 1st... it's undeniable that we're at least half way thru Fall. It's still dark out when we wake up, dark again long before we get home from work, and in two more days we'll be saying GoodBye to Daylight Saving time again, albeit later than ever this year.
Today, as always on Nov 1st, we remember Millicent Redfield Alexander, my favorite mother-in-law, because today would have been her 82nd birthday. Shown here with her husband of nearly 55 years — Ian T. Alexander — my favorite father-in-law... how can I do anything other than think of them both with thanksgiving and with fond memories, because we had so many great years together! The picture is actually from their 35th wedding anniversary; that's why they both look so young !!
For Millie a little more on the wild side... click here.
Today I am aware that they are both "up there" watching over us... Ian is singing "The Lord's Prayer" and Millie's wish is pure and simple: "Grant Them The Joy !!"
Every year it is with great sadness and anticipation of reliving the loss that I count down the days until the anniversary of that day — Oct 24th, 1980 — when we all got the shocking news that my dear sister, Gaye Elaine Pammett, was tragically taken from us. In that moment, listening to my Dad on the phone who called up broken-hearted and in a state of shock, I knew that life as I knew it would never be the same... though I could not imagine what it would be like continuing to live my life without her.
This year, on the 27th anniversary of that day, I've made a slightly different version of the "commemorative" picture that we used at Gaye's memorial service, just because I wanted to do something to honor her memory — to make her more present in my day-to-day life.
We came up with the phrase — "Climb Every Mountain" — back in 2005 when our church decided to create a "memory garden" as a fund raiser so we could repaint the First Parish Church (Unitarian Universalist) in Groton, Massachusetts. I used the phrase on "Gaye's brick" in that garden as a metaphor for the life she lived and the example that she provided to many others.
How sad it is that my children never got to know Gaye. How amazing it is that they are now old enough to be living away from home; Gaye has been gone — at least her physical presence on Earth — almost the same number of years that her shining light and radiance brought joy to everyone that she encountered.
When I look at the maple tree we planted in Gaye's honor, now growing in our back yard since 1998... every season of the year, but especially the Fall colors, remind me that her spirit still lives on in my heart, as it will forever. Gaye — I stillhear you, in the wind bringing your reassuring presence to me. Thank you. Rest in peace.
My legs and shoulder muscles are still aching after I spent last Sunday afternoon waterskiing on the lake in front of D'Anna's — Martin's Pond, in North Reading... But oh, was it worth it!! — Just look at a sample of the New England Fall Foliage at its Peak: Moreover, it was an unseasonably hot and sunny day — albeit past mid October — so we just had to take advantage of it even though the group of us got together ostensibly to help D'Anna wash and put away his Ski Nautique speedboat for the season. Of course, the entire lake was rimmed with fabulous Fall colors like this, but the 10 snapshots that went into this panorama only show about 15% of the lake. If you click on the panorama, you see it much bigger than above but apparently even the "full size" option in Google's blog still only gets you an image that's one tenth the actual size. A more satisfying choice would be to download or view the full panorama here; it's (6055 x 864 pixels). Viewed in full height, about half way along the horizontal scroll, you can see D'Anna's boat trailer where we launched the boat from his yard. Not shown in the picture is all the drama around the truck suddenly having no brakes just when we needed it to launch the boat.
There are many more pictures (here, in Flickr) of the other men who skiied with us... but this is my blog so I'm going to feature myself (on the right): my 2nd time up on D'Anna's wakeboard. As you can tell from the "Oh, Shit!!!" look on my face, this picture was taken just before I fell on my a**s. I didn't actually do as well, this time, as I had my first time on the wakeboard (last August). But it really is a blast so I'm looking forward to getting better at it next year. Wakeboarding is "just like" snowboarding, not that I actually know because it's really my two girls who know all about that.
One of the highlights of the afternoon was when John Brigham successfully dropped one ski — slalom on his first try — as you see below in my YouTube video clip. Look closely at the beginning of the video clip and you'll see that he starts out on two skis. He drops one, and then makes it around the entire lake, going in and out of the wake, never having even tried slalom before; amazing !
The video clip has an audio track, but it's really just the noise of D'Anna's (340 horsepower!) inboard, so you might wanna mute your sound for this one. Initially I thought it was "by design" that Google filtered the "bad sound" out, but it was just that my mute button had gotten stuck.
Either way, the better "voice" is what you see in John's face as "he really does it" !!!
Today I find myself still on a high from my recent experience of sponsoring a man — my "Best Man" — as a participant in an intensive weekend of transformation that I know will change his life, as it did mine starting 2.5 years ago.
This "Best Man" had watched from a distance as I did my weekend, then my LD and many other growth experiences that I did with "my men" throughout MDI in New England since May 2005. But he'd long maintained that "this was not for him; he didn't want to have more men in his life... he wanted to find a female partner that he could make a long term commitment to".
But all that changed when Quest and the Family of Women put on a BBQ in mid September (alas, the amazing Dylan-inspired Flash story in my "$11 bill" blog entry is not longer available) to "bring together" people who would not normally get together. My "Best Man" came with his girlfriend and they got to talk to men and women who'd been part of the Sterling community for ages; finally he heard about the SMW from men other than me, and noticed that there were a lot of familiar themes to what they all said that rang true with things I'd been saying. He began to see that maybe this wasn't "just Pammett's thing". And the rest, as they say... is history !!
Reconnecting with my man after his weekend — seen here when we stopped to drop off a bouquet of flowers — was a great joy and a significant growth experience that I will never forget. Seeing my man really get that he has the power to manifest his own life, as only a man can... was such a rewarding experience.
And all that leaves me feeling like patience and persistence has finally paid off. You can lead a horse to water, but he drinks when he's fuckin'-well ready to drink. And not before.
Thus continues our "long journey"... We've got many more milestones along the way but now I know that this will definitely be a turning point for me; my life will never be the same again.
Speaking of our "Quest + the Family of Women host A Co-ed Bar-b-Queue Event! " (my previous blog entry), check out today's Flash version of our invite.
The picture on the right is me riding in D'Anna's ski boat; nothing whatsoever to do with the bar-b-que event we're planning... though I have to admit, my expression does pretty much match how amazingly far I think we've come with technology. I only discovered this Applet today, and in about 10 minutes I was able to put my own words to a music video that was created in the 60s -- long before music videos were even invented. (or... maybe some of you think that Dylan actually invented MTV just by producing stuff like this... I dunno; ask Al Gore.) And in another few clicks, I transmit all this to friends (literally) in several differnet corners of the world.
In conjunction with my MDI men's team (Quest) plus some women from the Family of Women, we're making plans to host a backyard bar-b-que on the 23rd September, 2007. The idea is that this will be a get to know one another event where all of the Sterling folks will bring guests and we'll just have a fun afternoon together.
What we originally had in mind was a roast... but we've backed off that plan; see the invite (or ask me) for details.
For now — as much as anything — I'm planning to use this blog post as a way to host some links to various things that give a picture of what these types of activities might be like. For example, the O'Keeffe sendOff at Milt's shows the last event of this ilk that I was at (when the O'Keeffe family moved to Seattle) and this photo album links you to a community event that Quest put on to facilitate the community launching pumpkins into Harvey's field — a follow-on to Hallowe'en when no one knows what to do with their left-over Jack-O-Lanterns.
Intended as basically a relationship-building event, our expectation is that this will just be the first step towards long-lasting relationships which may involve more men or women going to Sterling weekends and/or men taking in what we call Legacy Discovery.
This is a test to see how / if I can embed a link to a WebShots slide show... in this case, my sister's Lake Huron Trip Summer 2007. The pictures tell the story that goes with this: "This is an end of Arthur's two weeks of holidays.The first week we had a 4 day trip to the shores of Lake Huron. We started out in Grand Bend and proceeded up the coast checking out all the beaches. We went from Grand Bend to Kincardine, then Bayfield, then Port Elgin, then Southamptom and ended up in Sauble Beach. Each area had something unique to offer. Ended up in Sauble Beach. It IS an incredible beach!!! Just like Sand Banks but it goes on forever. We came back via Owen Sound. "
Last Tuesday - on my birthday - I started a new job -- at Pactolus, in Marlboro, Ma. It's a really great company, offering VoIP telephony to a host of service providers.
Here's my new .sig Thanks, Kevin
Kevin G. Pammett Pactolus Communications Software 200 Nickerson Road Marlborough, MA 01752 Office: (508) 616-0900 x337 Mobile: (978) 877-6337 Fax: (508) 281-5698 www.pactolus.com www.sipdev.org Yahoo!, Google Talk or Skype: KevingPammett
It seems that when I sign in with my Google credentials, I see a "+ New Post" button on the "dashboard". Yet when I sign in exactly the same way as that only using your credentials, I don't see that. What I see instead is (I think) the "outsider's view" of the dashboard.
SO my conclusion would be that your blog is now "owned" by your Google credentials.
I don't have any more time to look at this now and/but maybe you can help by rethinking exactly how you created the blog.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Roy - I'm testing, again, to see if I can still add posts here... and it seems to be VERY str8forward. When it looks like it's making you reRegister again, just click "log in with my google credentials" and it works like a champ.
Here's my attempt to link up this blog with Picasa.
I think.... this process of moving my old blog account to its new home under Google seems to have gone OK, but as much as anything THIS post is my attempt to see if that's really true. I didn't at all take the steps that they said to because I couldn't remember or find the username that I apparently greated for the old account. But I did take the back door thru Google and if this shows up as normal, maybe I'm done with this.
Ciao - - Kevin Yahoo! or AIM: KevingPammett Kevin.Pammett@eluma.com 781-376-1916 cell: 978 877-6337
I can't figure out how to make an entry in your blog, Roy... so I guess the best I can do it to make an entry here and hope that you'll pick up on it and respond.
So... How's Mexico ? Did you get mugged coming from the airport at 2am ?
How's the new family, and your "intensive Spanish" ?
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself — All progress, therefore, depends on the unreasonable man.” -- George Bernard Shaw, 1903
I'm a creative, energetic cyberspace enthusiast who's always interested in investigating the newer corners of what's out there.
View my LinkedIn profile, or check out my cyberspace enterprise DigitalMediaMagik.com (soon to be restored after GoDaddy lost the backup files).
I don't really have a theme for my blog; it's simply a continuum of whatever I feel like writing about from time to time. As of Thanksgiving '07 I discovered the SlideShow gadjet — initially for the Let's Say Thanks to our Soldiers collection, which I have since morphed into a "Pammett Pix du Jour" offering.
.jpg)
