Monday, May 18, 2009

Scottish Bag Pipes in Colonial Williamsburg at Bruton Parish


This past weekend, May 16th to be exact, Colonial Williamsburg hosted Fife and Drums from various parts of the nation. We were there to cover the event for a few of our sister sites. While we were there we had the unexpected pleasure of capturing a gentleman playing the bag pipes outside of Bruton Parish Church before a candle light concert at the church. Normally we cover mostly what is happening around Gloucester, however, Gloucester is on the outskirts of some of the greatest places in the nation so we are expanding the site to include areas of interest to us here in Gloucester. We have a lot to post as we have been up to a lot. So even though this site has been quite for a few weeks, we have been very busy with a lot of other projects. So get ready for a lot of new excitement. Enjoy.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

FY 10 Gloucester County Budget

Gloucester County has published it's planned budget for physical year 2010. According to the submitted and published budget posted on the Gloucester County Government site, the budget is being cut by over $18 million dollars. The new budget is listed at over $104 million dollars for the county. With a county population of somewhere around 30,000 people, that is over $3,600.00 for each person in the county. Click here to get a copy of the 168 page PDF file. Under 1mb in size. Click Here to go to the site.


Okay, great we have a budget. My question isn't the budget, but instead, how much money does the county have that is well above and beyond the budget. Companies have budgets. People have budgets. It does not answer how much money is actually in the coffers and available. If school funds are being cut in the budget, why? It's a budget. How much money does the county actually have? This is the Billion dollar question. The state has been cutting the school budgets and now the schools are all crying and cutting back. It's a budget. Someone took money from somewhere and said this is what we are allowing you. Please do not explain simple economics to me. I'm aware of them and it would only be a diversion of the real question.

If I make $100 thousand a year and decide to live on a $30 thousand dollar budget, that's all it is. A budget. I still have that $100 thousand dollars a year coming in. There is still $70 thousand left unaccounted for. Anyone ever ask this question? I'm not saying or even suggesting that the county would ever even consider doing anything wrong, there is nothing wrong with the above situation.

Here is a point. During an economic downturn, if a state or a county has plenty of excess capital on hand instead of cutting the budget and funds to meet the economic situation, it would seem more logical for the state and local governments to increase spending to help fuel the economic situation. The government cutting back when capital is available just works against the people who elect the officials. If companies are laying off, if the state or county has the cash, bring some of those people in. Refuel the economy, not add to it's demise. When the economic situation reverses? Help those people back into the private sector.

Just a thought.

Friday, April 24, 2009

New Battle of the Hook Web Site

We just put up our new Battle of the Hook web site with 4 new videos and we just started adding our pictures to it. This site will take a while to complete as we have a lot of pictures to put on it and we are trying to keep the pictures a reasonable viewing size yet not to big or to small. Click Here to view the new site. We hope you enjoy the new site.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Battle of the Hook Teaser Video


This is our teaser video for the Battle of the Hook that was held back in October of 2008. We took somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 to 400 pictures that day. A few of those pictures were posted here on this site and are still on the site, but you have to use the search bar at the top of the page to get to them.

This is the first of many video slide shows we are producing from this event. We are also going to put up a web site for these videos as well as many of the pictures we took during the event. We will link the new site into this one once we have it up. We are estimating about 3 days from now.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum 10 Video Mini Series & Pictures Update

We have just finished adding the entire 10 video mini series of the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum onto our expansion site and put them all on one page. We will soon be adding a number of pages of pictures that we just finished editing. Because of the lighting at the Abingdon Episcopal Church, the pictures had a heavy yellow hue to them that we had to clean up. There is also a few pictures that are a matter of interest. We will point them out once we have the pages up, so be sure to look for them. Click Here to go to the 10 video mini series page. From the site side bar, look for the picture pages for them.