A few cool shots from Snake Mountain during the last few weeks of leaf peeping season.

Vermont Foliage in Stowe…

A few shots from Mt. Washington…

Last Causeway walk of the Season…

A few shots from a trip to Connecticut for the JDRF Fundraiser Walk…

Max’s Soccer Game under the Lights…

Hiking around Burlington…

The Causeway:

Boating on Lake Champlain:

Colchester Pond Conservation Area:

Matt Costa, Battery Park in Burlington Vermont, July 31st 2008

This was the last show of the 2008 Burlington waterfront concert series.  We brought Toby with us (his 2nd concert) who barked like crazy during his favorite song which got him some attention and a shout out from Mr. Costa himself.

here are a couple Matt Costa video clips:

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and a few Matt Costa pictures:

Here are a few pictures from a not-so-recent trip to Boston, MA as well as some more shots of Lake Champlain.  I’m not sure any of these are good enough to make the photo gallery but if you would like to nominate one feel free to leave a comment.

Boston, MA

Mallet’s Bay, Lake Champlain - Vermont

Here are a few shots from the Burlington Jazz Festival, a Sunset, Boating on Lake Champlain, and Hiking in Stowe Vermont:

Lake Champlain Sunset in Burlington Vermont

Burlington Jazz Festival

Wakeboarding on Lake Champlain

Hiking Spruce Peak

Here are a few pictures from this past Memorial Day weekend…

Graduation in Worcester

The Beach

Low Flying Plane

Patriotic Dog

Mallets Bay Sunset

Bonfire on the Beach

Here are a few pictures from Indian Brook Park in Essex, Vermont. Great place to let the dog get some exercise so he doesn’t cause as much damage.

Here is a collection of my most recent shots. It includes photos from from a quick trip to Sunday River Maine and the White Mountains/Lincoln New Hampshire. A moose sighting, world’s largest snowman, and simon dumont’s record quarter pipe attempt are among the highlights. The past few months have been really busy so a little behind on serving these up… enjoy!

Burlington, Vermont: Lake Champlain #1 - Adirondacks

Burlington, Vermont: Lake Champlain #2 - Dock/Splash

Burlington, Vermont: Lake Champlain #3 - Islands

Burlington, Vermont: Toby the Irish Terrier

Sunday River, Maine: World’s Largest Snowman

Lincoln, New Hampshire: Loon Mountain Snowboard Park

Simon Dumont’s World Record Quarter Pipe Attempt

freeskier article:
http://community.freeskier.com/articles/article.php?article_id=2269
video:

YouTube  

White Mountains, New Hampshire: Moose Sighting

Click here for the full set of photos on flickr.

What a great way to start off 2008. Below are some of the highlights from a day of riding at Stowe, Vermont. In the morning we took advantage of the sunny groomers… in the afternoon we hiked to the summit of Mansfield and took a run down the Rock Garden.

For the full collection of pictures click here…

(hang on tight mike)

(kevin teaching this tree a lesson)

(right after he saved the juice!)

For the full collection of pictures click here…

Not exactly sure which forecast is worse… is it “Crippling” or “Nasty Mix”?  Regardless… this 12-18 inches should keep us on pace for an excellent riding season and maybe even open up “The Chin” (@ Stowe) in December!

To follow-up on my post last week about the snow forecast… I want to confirm that we are seeing some outstanding riding conditions for early December up here in Vermont!

(for those of you who ski up here in Vermont)

There’s a chance of snow every day for the next 10+ days! Looks like we’re on track for some excellent riding conditions to start out December …

Happy Monday!

During a recent stop at a local coffee shop the Barista explains “I woke up and had to be in here at 6:30am this morning and am incredibly tired… I like to stay up really late so I am NOT really much of a morning person you know”

Oh the irony, either it’s time to revise the old career path or the coffee shop management needs to mandate free quadruple espresso shots for any employee that’s tired/late/etc! Wake up!

“Being around people who occupy a variety of roles is good for development, because it facilitates one’s understanding of the world.”

Devin recently sat in on a discussion with Lawrence G. Shelton, a Professor @ the University of Vermont’s Human Development and Family Studies program. Prof. Shelton is in the process of pioneering a new theory he calls “develecology”. It is a composition of topics in ecology and human development.

We got our hands on Prof. Shelton’s 3 page outline on Develecology titled: “Develecology 001: Develecology Made Plain” (from which I’ve extracted some main points):

Key Concepts/Terms:

1. Development: acquiring a more valid and differentiated view of the world you live in and the skills and motivation to maintain it, adapt to it, and restructure it to make it better meet your needs.
2. People participate in activities, relations, and roles.
3. In development, activities become more complex, more important, and more intrinsically motivating.
4. Roles are defined by particular activities and relations and are a way we organize experience and expectations.
5. Being around people who occupy a variety of roles is good for development, because it facilitates one’s understanding of the world.
6. There are multiple types of relations:
   1. Observational: one person watches the other
   2. Joint Activity: two people engage in an activity together
   3. Primary: both people think about each other, even when apart
   4. Developmental: one person is more developed than the other, they engage in activities together, reciprocity gradually increases, power becomes more balanced, and both share positive affect
   5. NOTE: these types are not mutually exclusive in any given relation.
7. As people participate in several relations, the degrees to which they support each other, are compatible with each other, or are in conflict with each other, become increasingly important.
8. A setting is a physical place where people can engage in face to face contact with each other.
9. Each settting has a unique pattern of role, relations, and activities, or Microsystem within it.
10. Each person has a unique ecosystem, defined from the perspective of that particular person.
11. Developmental status is indicated by:
    1. How well we understand the ecosystem and how skilled we are at functioning in it, maintaining it, and modifying it to better promote our development.
    2. The variety and complexity of the roles we occupy.
    3. The number of relationships we engage in.
    4. Our skill at engaging in developmental relations as the more developed person.
12. The relations between the settings one participates in make up a person’s “mesosystem”.
13. The primary link among settings is the person who moves in and out of them, connecting them and thus defining which settings are in hes/her mesosystem.
14. Develecology suggests that people maintain a higher “developmental status” (or maturity) within a macro system when they participate in more activities, engage in more relationships and settings, and are exposed to more roles.
15. Over time, the settings and activities we engage in tend to be related to each other. When several settings encourage the development of a particular complex activity that we are motivated to continue, a “developmental trajectory” is established. A developmental trajectory of settings and related activities tends to underlie each important activity in a life. Developmental trajectories influence which settings we enter, and which ones we don’t, as we choose those that are made available through our developing interests and skills or seek out those that will enhance those interests and skills.
16. Settings a person does not participate in may still influence development, and may be influenced by what happens in the person’s mesosytem settings.
17. Culture, or the Macrosystem is represented at the ecosystem level by the existence of consistencies across settings, microsystems, roles, relations, activities, and relations between settings.

I believe Prof. Shelton is in the progress of writing a book on this topic but the field of develecology is certainly in it’s infancy. If you are interested in finding out more Google won’t be much of a help with just 4 results… all from Prof. Shelton’s course listings on UVM’s website (i suppose we’ll just have to wait for his book to be published)

About Prof. Shelton:

• Lawrence Shelton has taught in the Human Development and Family Studies program since its inception at the University of Vermont in 1971.
• His childhood and adolescence were fairly uneventful, growing up in a healthy family in the small town of Carrollton, Illinois.
• He completed adolescence as an undergraduate at Harvard, where he studied Social Relations. At Harvard, he took [and passed] courses with Erik Erikson, George Goethals, George Gardner, Robert White, Brendan Maher, John Spiegel, and B. F. Skinner, among others.
• Larry earned the Ph.D. in Child Psychology in 1970 from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, where he was the first doctoral student of the late John P. Hill, an eminent figure in the field of adolescence.
• Larry describes himself as an applied developmental ecological — or “develecological” — psychologist. His professional goals include to understand and help others understand how development happens, across the whole lifespan, and how experiences in relationships and community settings help shape a person’s life.
• Larry teaches the introductory life span development course, the introductory family course, and the senior level course on the family ecosystem. His seminars include Adolescence and Youth; Advanced Child Development; Parenting through Separation, Divorce, and Remarriage; and Boys and Men: Development, Relationships, and Risks. Source