Summer Swimming Spots

For our final project, we decided to pick a topic we were all looking forward to: swimming! Since each member in our group comes from a different part of Vermont, we chose six popular swimming places we all enjoy during the summer.

Joe’s Pond is located thirteen miles west of St. Johnsbury and twenty-five miles east of Montpelier. The depth of the pond is over one hundred feet and the altitude is fifteen hundred feet above sea level. Loons, deer, moose and bear are popular critters to be seen around the pond. Joe’s Pond is most famously known for its Ice Out contest, which has been a local tradition since the 1980’s. Basically, people buy tickets and guess when a block will fall through the ice, winning up to four thousand dollars (last year’s winner.)

Lake Memphremagog is a fresh water glacial lake located between Newport Vermont, and Magog, Quebec Canada. The lake is 27 miles long with 73 percent of the lake's surface area in Canada, where it drains into Magog river. Three-quarters of its watershed is in Vermont. The total is 687 square miles. Some claim Lake Memphremagog contains a reptile-like monster named Memphre, that has been spotted way back since the 18th century. Memphre has claimed to been seen in 2000. Lake Memphremagog is a popular tourist spot during the summer months, and really boosts Newport’s economy, especially with it’s beautiful sunsets.

Lake Seymour is located in Morgan, Vermont and is a very hip scene for young adults to go and “hang out.” Beach bums, water skies, sea-doos, boats and barbeques take place among many, many campers that rent out small cottages during the summer. It has two local stores within walking distances for all your cook out needs, and the people are extremely friendly.

The Four-Corners swimming hole in North Troy Vermont is a truly hidden gem. It is a little nippy, even in the summertime, because many trees block the hot sun. Large cliffs provide lots of jumping opportunities and the rope swing is a must try. This swimming hole is polluted with swimmers all summer long! Swimmers cannot be shy because of this, guarantying you will never swim alone.

Lake Willoughby is considered by lots of people to be the most beautiful lake in Vermont. It’s nickname is the Lucerne of America, and is located in Westmore, Vermont, thirty miles north of St. Johnsbury. Lake Willoughby is known for it’s crystal clear water, amazing scenery, sandy beaches and terrific fishing.

Cummerford Dam is well off the "beaten-path" but worth the drive to find it. While it doesn't offer a large beach it does have a well known rope swing, as well as picnic tables and grills to enjoy a full day. It has a boat access to the Connecticut River and lots of great spots for kayaking or canoeing as well.

Northeast Kingdom Swimming Spots

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Newspaper Critiques

I hope I understood the assignment correctly, I looked at two newspapers and comparedd their sites. I looked at USA Today, and the Caledonian Record. (I note ahead that this may be an unfair comparison since obviously they're on different levels as far as audience, budget, etc.) USA Today had a great website, the opening page was really easy to navigate and it had all sorts of options. It was easy to find the section for video, slide shows, etc. Each one had a separate section on the opening screen. A lot of the stories had video and they made it fast and easy to get the story. The site is regularly updated and so is presenting up to the minute news stories. The Caledonian Records site was much less impressive. It doesn't give you all the stories from the newspaper unless perhaps you subscribe to it. There is very little use of multimedia. They did have a section with slide shows but they had little or not text accompanying them and no audio. The only video on the site came from the AP site and was really just a link these stories were good but they weren't actually a product of the caledonian record. I would say it was due to budget restraints except that in this class we've shown that anyone can create multimedia projects with just a little knowledge and effort.

Example from Ireport

Ireport Critique

I found this site a little hard to navigate. I had to search to find reports that used video, possibly because so many of the reports prominently displayed were also on CNN. I did find three different reports to look at. The most interesting story that I found did not use video which is unfortunate. It was posted by habforham and called "Houses Being Given Away in Detroit" It only had one picture which was too bad but the story had a lot of information and explained about the organization that is buying and giving away houses in Detroit. It would have been a much better story if it had a slideshow or even better video to go with it. It was very interesting and news worthy, I think I would put it on CNN if it had more of a multimedia aspect to it. I could do the same because it really just took some research, not much else. The first video I looked at was posted by Sessle called"Castle Wall Video from Sweden" it was terrible. There was video but no audio and no text so it was just a look at a castle wall. It was not at all interesting and it definitely wasn't news. I would not put it on CNN. The final video I looked at was posted by Coryboehne called "Bosque Fire Video" this was a much better example of video journalism, it was a man covering a wild fire in New Mexico. Unfortunately the audio was terrible, the creator must not have edited at all because if he had done a voice over and lowered the background noise it would have been much better. It was not as interesting as the first story could have been but it was much more interesting than the other video I watched. It was news and with audio adjustment it could have possibly been on CNN. I think I could probably do the same thing because it's pretty clear he didn't do any editing to his video or his audio.

Go Green...Even With Construction

Today, more than ever, the world is creating more and more ways to "go green." Or simply, live more efficiently. Many of us have realized the world will eventually run clear of resources if we don't effectively start to conserve them, immediately. By living greener, one can minimize pollution, protect our environment and create a healthy, non-hazardous place for us all. This is very important for those of us who plan to build new homes as well. The new building LSC is constructing is using recyclable wood all throughout the structure. The California Energy Commission offers the following tips for "greener" building.
First of all, make sue your project is appropriate for where you live. Certain materials and methods are better suited for specific geographical locations. Heavier construction materials should be used for drastic temperatures in the Southwest, for example, and lighter ones in places like Southern Florida. Secondly, when possible, build with materials that are of recycled content. This aspect pretty much speaks for itself. Examples of materials that can be recyclable are: metals, timber, plastic, glass and ceramics. Thirdly, buy your materials locally so you can cut down on transportation and environmental costs.
Following these easy to follow tips will help our environment and the home builder in the long run. Investing in quality products may cost a little bit more, but will last a lot longer in the end. which is the efficiency the world needs now more than ever.

CNN Critique

CNN.com is definitely a "professional" website. It is very organized starting with the numerous news categories you can choose from at the top of the site. This makes it really easy to navigate right to what you're looking for. They have a video section so you can be sure you're getting a video newsclip if that's what you're looking for. Near the top is also a list of headlines (about half of which I could understand) You can pick a story based on the quick headline although you don't know if it will be text or video until you have clicked on it. There's a section on the main page to find what's on CNN's television station, and a section called "Quick Vote" which is interactive and allows you to vote on a question, then see what others have voted. It also brings you to an editorial about the question throughout which there are links to a number of related stories. Another section of the main page allows you to get your local weather and news headlines which I thought was really great because it means you can access this one site for all your news instead of having to find a local site also. In addition to the interactive feature of the vote they have a section called ireport which is a site where anyone can send in news stories, CNN has specific stories that they use and you can look at them based on the people reporting them or the topics that are being covered.
There are also a number of blogs and podcasts that you can get to from the main page. There is a lot of information on the opening page, and it's really easy to get lost in the site because there are so many options but for CNN this is probably a good thing. I thought that there was pretty minimal advertising on any given page which is nice because with so much information in front of you a lot of advertising would be really distracting.

Family Slideshow

fish show

Slideshow Critique

It wasn't hard finding slide shows on the Internet, they seem to be a pretty predominant form of presenting information. However, I did have a little trouble finding a slide show that wasn't accompanied by audio. This in itself is a pretty good indicator as to which way is more effective in communicating a story to an audience.
The first slide show I looked at was from the New York Times website. It told about right whales and used both pictures, slides of writing, and audio to tell its story. This was a really effective story-telling technique. It is really easy to take in both audio and visual simultaneously and you are able to really focus on the pictures because you aren't distracted by trying to read at the same time. The story about the whales was able to contain a lot of information delivered in a relatively short time, covering everything from why the whales are endangered to numerous solutions and current statistics.
The second slide show I looked at without audio was on the White House website. Not only did it not have audio it also didn't have captions under its pictures so while I saw pictures, I had no idea what was actually going on in them. Definitely not a good storytelling tool.

Podcast Critique

For anyone with average technological skills finding and choosing podcasts seems like a pretty easy endeavor. Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere near average skills, so it took me a little more work than I would generally care to admit. However, once I had someone show me how to do it, it was quite easy and straight forward. I downloaded three different podcasts and put them onto an ipod so that I could listen to them anywhere. Since I don't have a computer at home this was a particularly useful feature for me. I choose two podcasts from NPR, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and "Car Talk". I love listening to these but rarely get the chance because of the time they come on the radio and the fact that having two children leaves little time for leisurely listening. This was my favorite thing about the podcasts, that you can listen to them anytime at your own convenience. The automatic download of each installment means that you also don't have to remember to do it each week, it's automatically done for you. The other podcast I choose was from the New York Times, a weekly news update, this one was about women's shelters in Afghanistan. I thought this was a useful podcast because again, it's hard to catch news at home, and I definitely don't have time to read a newspaper very often. I thought this, or a daily news podcast would be particularly useful if you had a commute from work and could download to an ipod and have something to listen to each day for the ride home. I found it somewhat hard to tell at a glance how often anygiven podcast was published, but I'm sure it wouldn't really be hard to figure out. Overall I was thoroughly intrigued by podcasts and intend to try to keep enjoying them.

Gas Station Map

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Gas Station Review

Group #1
Ariana, Michelle, Tara, Emily

Have you ever found yourself driving around looking for a gas station? For most people the answer is yes, but why is it that we pick a particular gas station? For this project we decided to review a number of local gas stations to see why someone might pick one over another.
In order to keep it relevant to those around here we picked four gas stations that are all right in Lyndonville. What with the recent gas crisis, and prices once again on the rise, the first things we looked at of course was price. Of the four stations we looked at, Nick’s Gas N GO, Irving, and Fordham’s Mobil all had the same price, $1.94 a gallon for regular. The only station that varied slightly was Cumberland Farms (a Gulf station) which came in two cents higher at $1.96 a gallon. So, if price is really your only concern than we would advise you to avoid Cumberland Farms.
The next thing we looked at was the cleanliness of both the bathrooms, and the gas stations overall. In many cases this is irrelevant due to the convenience of pay at the pump, you don’t actually have to go inside the gas station. If this is a convenience you’re looking for the only station you will want to avoid is Nick’s Gas N Go, since they don’t offer a pay at the pump feature. Back to the bathrooms, if you’re looking for the cleanest restrooms when choosing a gas station we would suggest the Irving station, which we gave a nine on a scale of one to ten. We would also suggest that you avoid Cumberland Farms since they only received a six. Overall scores for cleanliness were similar but Nick’s received the highest score with 8.5, which is good since you have to go inside if you want to buy gas there.
There are always other things you might be looking for at a gas station and each one offers a variety of options in their convenience store. Fordham’s has a Dunkin Donuts, while Nick’s offers free air for your tires. Irving has an ATM and Cumberland Farms is open 24 hours.
For those of you concerned about the planet there is one other thing to note, according to a web site called better world handbook, the worst gas company for environment friendliness is Exxon-Mobile, the gas provider for Fordham’s. They received an “F” from the handbook. Among the list of faults were things such as refusing to take responsibility for oil spills, Clean Air Act violations, toxic dumping suits, and human rights violations. Unfortunately the other gas companies we looked at were not on their list, but if this is your biggest concern, their only “A” company is Sunoco, which is just a short drive out of town on Rt. 5.

Map Wildflower Inn

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Recruiting is the Name of the Game

"Recruiting is selling," says LSC Sports Information Director Bill Johnson, but how do you sell with a limited budget? Despite the fact that resources are limited for a small school, it is the other aspects of being small that can be enticing to student athletes.


In order form a great college sports team, coaches need to recruit the right players. "Recruiting is the life's blood of your program." says Bill Johnson, Director of Sports Information at Lyndon State College.

Most coaches agree that recruiting starts with networking, but while some coaches will travel New England, or even the Nation, Johnson tends to stick to a 100 mile radius. 

Because LSC is a division three school they don't have the luxury of offering scholarships to their players.  Instead coaches will often look at summer camp programs to help find potential recruits. 

"Recruiting is selling" according to Johnson, so the coaches need to sell the school and entice athletes with small things they can't get at other schools.  Small class sizes, outdoor activities, and the beautiful scenery are all great aspects of a smaller school.

Though it's hard for coaches to get to high school events during their own playing season, they acknowledge the importance of doing so. That combined with communication and campus visits are the best tools for recruiting new players.

To read more

Five Die in Plane Crash

Five Die in Plane Crash

Five people were killed Thursday when an airliner crashed shortly after take-off from New York's La Guardia Airport.

Among the 45 passengers on board the flight were two professors from Lyndon State College. Professor John Dumont, and Professor George Johnson were flying back to LSC after attending a conference that week in New York.

Both were uninjured in the crash and intent to resume their classes as scheduled on their return. This news was received with dismay by their students.

The names of those killed in the crash have not been released but authorities are in the process of notifying their families.


(This story has been completely fabricated)

Tuition Increase

St. J Academy's Tuition Rising

Tuition at St. Johnsbury Academy is going to increase for day students next year, by about 3.8 percent. This will raise tuition from it's current $12,980 to $13,470 per student.

In order to keep the increase at this level the employees at the Academy have taken a pay freeze, and the school has decided not to build the new dormitory that is had been planning on.

The school districts that send students to the Academy are pleased with the proposed increase. Most of the districts were expecting a larger increase in tuition.

Because most of the districts budgeted for a higher increase in Academy tuition, they are now able to lower their overall school budgets. This is good news since a higher increase would require money to be taken from the K-eight programs in these districts.

Districts sending students to St. Johnsbury Academy include St. Johnsbury, Caledonia Central Supervisory Union and Essex-Caledonia Supervisory Union.

(Caledonian Record 2/4/09)

So this is a blog..

well, so far this is harder than I thought it would be. I was hoping for a little more creativity but my techno-know-how hasn't caught up to my creative imagination. I did manage to get a few pictures on so I wasn't an entire failure. I definitely intend to allow myself a little more time for these projects in the future. After finally getting some pictures uploaded to flickr I tried for quite a long time to add a slide show of them but was unsuccessful. Apparently I'll have to wait for guidance. I was also intrigued by trying video, but from what I read you need to upgrade for that, not ready for that yet. Overall this was a fun experience, it definitely made me want to learn how to do more, and recognize how little I know how to do at the moment.