Linden Hill School

The next two days, I'll be spending part of my time at Linden Hill School in Northfield, MA, taping their commencement ceremonies. Linden Hill is a middle school dedicated to helping boys with dyslexia or language-learning differences realize their full potential. Thursday night is their awards night, and Friday morning is their more formal commencement. A portion of their commencement is given over to "book awards" where faculty members get up to speak about their personal connection with two boys in the school, and present each of them with a book, specially chosen. There is never, never a dry eye in the house (camera operators included!), and the faculty members usually need to recover themselves in the middle of their speeches. It's amazing, and I've never seen anything like it.

Humorist

So, what was I doing in a room of 120 women last Friday night? Rudy Wilson Galdonik, a very funny woman, was entertaining a lively crowd at the Girls' Night Out at Trinity Covenant Church in Machester, CT. I was videotaping Rudy so she could use the footage as a demo. Her humor covers a wide range of topics, including mammograms, ugly cars, cancer, raising children, religion, hiking, and dogs!

Goodsearch.com

Here's a painless way to earn money for your school or favorite charity. GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo-driven search engine. For each search you do, GoodSearch will donate 1 penny to your deisgnated cause. They have a handy little chart on their site which shows much could be earned annually with the right combination of people and clicks per day.

Somebody with a knack for social engineering could probably raise a lot of funds! An nice touch is a button that shows you how much your charity has raised through GoodSearch.

My favorite Connecticut wedding sites

I had posted earlier about my favorite Massachusetts wedding sites. Well, I shoot a lot of weddings in Connecticut, too, and I have some favorites there:

The Branford House, owned by the University of Connecticut, is a colossal building with a spectacular view in Groton.

The Gwyn Careg Inn, very romantic, has 14 acres of manicured landscape, including a majestic enclosed stone wall Spanish Garden. In Pomfret.

The Wadsworth Mansion, in Middletown, isa beautiful mansion with lovely grounds and a long, long lawn stretching out from the terrace.

The Hill-Stead Museum, in Farmington, has hilltop views of the Litchfield hills, expansive acreage, and a gorgeous sunken garden.

The Pavilion at Rocky Neck State Park, in Niantic, is a most original building with terrific views of Long Island Sound.