Category Archives: Vermont

Vermont Software Developer Alliance:June 21

Vermont Software Developer Alliance

Wednesday, June 21

Speaker: Mark Blanchard , Technology Development & Commercialization Advisor,
Vermont Small Business Development Center
http://www.vtsbdc.org/technology.cfm

Topic: From Contractor to Product Company, Planning Your Transition

Location: Courtyard Marriott, Williston Vermont

Time: 12pm-2pm

more info www.vtsda.org


Local Groups

  1. Vermont.NET (Burlington)
  2. VTSQL (Burlington)
  3. Green Mountain Oracle User Group  (Burlington)
  4. Vermont Flash User Group  (Burlington)
  5. Ruby on Rails (Burlington)
  6. NH/VT Upper Valley Microsoft Consultant Group (varies: Norwich VT, Lebanon, NH, etc)
  7. Northern New England Macromedia User Group (Brattleboro)
  8. Vermont Software Developer Alliance (Burlington) Business Association


Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

New blog category: Vermont User Group Meetings

I am going to list all of the area local user groups meetings in this new category.

Here is the RSS feed.


Local Groups
  1. Vermont.NET (Burlington)
  2. VTSQL (Burlington)
  3. Green Mountain Oracle User Group  (Burlington)
  4. Vermont Flash User Group  (Burlington)
  5. Ruby on Rails (Burlington)
  6. NH/VT Upper Valley Microsoft Consultant Group (varies: Norwich VT, Lebanon, NH, etc)
  7. Northern New England Macromedia User Group (Brattleboro)
  8. Vermont Software Developer Alliance (Burlington) Business Association

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Vermont User Groups: Ruby on Rails, June 6

Vermont Ruby on Rails

Introductory Meeting

June 6, 6pm

Location: Resolution Inc., South Burlington

more info www.vtrails.org


Local Groups
  1. Vermont.NET (Burlington)
  2. VTSQL (Burlington)
  3. Green Mountain Oracle User Group  (Burlington)
  4. Vermont Flash User Group  (Burlington)
  5. Ruby on Rails (Burlington)
  6. NH/VT Upper Valley Microsoft Consultant Group (varies: Norwich VT, Lebanon, NH, etc)
  7. Northern New England Macromedia User Group (Brattleboro)
  8. Vermont Software Developer Alliance (Burlington) Business Association

One critter we can do without

This little guy was wobbling through my front yard a short while ago.

(Here’s a short video I also took with my camera in case you’ve never seen one before – 25 seconds about 1MB.)

There’s a part of me (and most people who live around here) that has very evil thoughts when we see these little buggers, because we know the pain they can inflict on our curious pets and children. Apparently the most efficient means of doing this involves something like a baseball bat. Horrors! I could never.

 

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Spring Vermont Treats this evening: a summer-like night, a Moose and a Woodcock

We got a call from our neighbor telling us there was a moose heading up the road. So we ran out and there it was just at the corner of our property. I ran back to get my camera while Rich and our neighbor Tom watched him (I think it was a male). It was bent down on it’s front knees eating grass.

Though it wasn’t quite dusk, I couldn’t get a good picture. The flash, I now realize, was focusing on the white street sign and everything else was dark. Without the flash it was blurry. So I tried a movie. The light was perfectly fine for that somehow, but my shaky hand and the fact that my best attempt to walk towards the moose steadily was unsuccessful, rendered that pretty shaky. You can see if you want, though. It’s more like your typical loch ness monster video. I sure wish Shelley had been here! (Of course I think that every time I want to take a picture of something special to share.)

It was a young moose – probably a yearling and not afraid of much – typical for moose. There are enough moose around that there is now a moose crossing sign down on the main road about 1 mile from our house.

After it wandered off into the woods, Tom and Joe (another neighbor who had come down the road to see) were excited because they could hear a woodcock in the woods. I couldn’t recognize it’s call among the peepers. Eventually it came out of the woods, circled around above us and then landed in our front yard and continued it’s mating call (umm – no that’s not why Tom and Joe were excited). Now I could easily hear it’s crazy call. There is a good recording of the sound on this page from the SUNY Stony Brook website. It’s the 3rd from the bottom.

The woodcock has a crazy mating ritual which includes a lot of big spirals in the sky. We’ll be watching out for him in the next few weeks. Him and the darned porcupine that was also wobbling up the road during all of this. That is something we can do without.



Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

One of the pleasures of owning a small business in a small state

Last week I had to send in all of my paperwork for my business quarterly taxes. There’s the 941 to the Feds,  a tax & withholding to the State of Vermont Dept ofo Taxes and one other to the Vermont Dept of Employment and Training.

I inadvertantently switched the checks for the two Vermont agencies, sending the E&T check to the tax people and their check to E&T. I am a sole proprietor … these are not big checks.

I actually got a phone call from someone this morning telling me that she had the right form, but the wrong check and she was going to “pink it over” (office internal mail) to the tax department. A phone call! Can you imagine? So I called the other department which is more automated and won’t be able to get their hands on the check I sent them – it will just get processed, but they will send me a refund. So I called the first woman back who was so nice and told her I would just send her a new check. No forms, no notes no explanation. She said just put my employer i.d. on the check and she’ll know what to do with it.

I know people with larger companies have issues with doing business in this tiny state, but it suits me just fine!

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Thanks Wisconsin! Cabot Cheese – World’s Best Cheddar Again!

As I get ready to head to Wisconsin for Deeper in .NET, I see that Vermont’s Cabot Cheese has once again won a bunch of gold medals at the “olympics of the cheesemaking industry”, the 2006 World Championship Cheese contest. And just to be clear, it was the Wisonsinites who run this contest so thanks Wisconsin!


from the Cabot site:

26th Biennial World Championship Cheese Contest  Selected Results
March 21-23, 2006 in Madison, Wisconsin

Results for Cabot Creamery Cooperative

Product EntryPlaceScoreProduct Class
Cabot Vermont Cheddar (6 months old)
Cabot Vermont Cheddar (6 months old)
Cabot Vermont Cheddar (3 months old)
Cabot Vermont Cheddar (39 months old)
Cabot Vermont Cheddar (60 days old)
Cabot Horseradish Cheddar
Cabot Salted Butter
Cabot Unsalted Butter
1st
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
4th
2nd
4th
99.20
98.70
98.20
98.85
99.25
98.35
99.20
98.65
Sharp Cheddar
Medium Cheddar
Medium Cheddar
Extra Sharp Cheddar
Mild Cheddar
Flavored Past. Proc. Cheese
Salted Butter
Unsalted Butter
Results for other Vermont Cheese Council members (www.vtcheese.com)

Product EntryPlaceScoreProduct Class
Hahn’s Blueberry Dream Spread
Vermont Butter & Cheese Goats Milk Feta
2nd
3rd
99.60
99.45
Reduced Fat Cheeses
Semi-Soft Goat’s Milk Cheeses

For additional results and information about the World Championship Cheese Contest, visit:
www.wischeesemakersassn.org

Maple trees are budding

I took this pic of one of the red maples on our property yesterday morning. Kinda gray but the buds are pretty. the picture wasn’t impressive in a small format, but it looks so nice big that I have it for my screen background now. Spring is coming. Yay!

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Trouble in Paradise: Recent spate of local robberies

Last week our neighbor’s house was robbed in the middle of the day. I sent an email out to a list of about 30 local people to let them know and suddenly many of those people were reporting back about a number of other recent local robberies. Many of these had the same signature which was the door being kicked in. My carpenter husband had even repaired one of these doors.

A positive effect of this is that we are now planning to have a community meeting about setting up a neighborhood watch and hopefully having a state trooper come and advise us as well. I already feel like the Mrs. Kravitz of Moody Road since I can see who is driving up and down the road all day long while I’m at my computer. There are not very many houses on my road and it’sa dead end road, so an unfamiliar car definitely stands out!

Happily, it seems that the perps of some (maybe all??) of these robberies have been caught, according to this news report in the Burlington Free Press.

This has definitely had an effect on us and some of our habits in the past week. I prefer living in my little fantasy bubble where nothing bad can happen to us.

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org