Killington Wine Festival returns July 16-18, 2010 

One of the projects I am currently working on is this years Killington Wine Festival, produced through the Killington Chamber of Commerce. The wine festival returns for its' ninth year from Friday July 16 through Sunday July 18, 2010. Over the last 8 years, the wine festival has proved to be a great summer weekend in Killington. How can you beat tasting fine wines from around the world with Killington Peak and the Green Mountains of Vermont as a scenic backdrop?

Once again this year, the Birch Ridge Inn is offering complete wine festival packages for the event. Our base packages include lodging, tickets for 2 people to the Grand Tasting at Killington Peak on Saturday July 17th, and dinner for 2 at the wine dinner hosted at the Birch Ridge Inn on Saturday evening. Rates vary by room type and start at $499 for a 2 night weekend package. More details about our wine festival packages can be found on birchridge.com.

Of course, you can also make reservations online with the Birch Ridge Inn (Specify Killington Wine Festival Package) or call the inn toll free at 800-435-8566 for more information.

Keep it in the fairway...and don't forget your sunscreen!

Washing pine pitch off my parents house on Cape Cod. 

Mary and I took advantage of the quiet time in Killington last week to visit with family in Massachusetts. We are quite lucky in that both sets of parents, in the mid to late 80's, are still with us. We always try to get down to visit them this time of year to do "some projects" around the house.

Today's picture shows one of those project; cleaning off the combination of pine pitch, pollen, and associated mildew from the vinyl siding on the north side of my parents home on Cape Cod.

It was not all work during our get away. Once again this year we stayed at the Liberty Hill Inn near my parents house in Yarmouthport MA. The innkeepers, John and Chris, run a beautiful inn. If you find yourself on Cape Cod, this is a great place to stay. (of course you should be coming to Killington, but we understand that even people who enjoy the mountains year round, sometime need to go to the sea for a change of pace.)

Keep it in the fairway...and don't forget your sunscreen!

Special Town Meeting at Killington. 

In yesterdays special Killington Town meeting on Article 1 to purchase of the "Fireside Lodge" property there were 408 votes cast. 252 were no, 155 were yes, and 1 was a "spoiled ballot". Article 1 went down to defeat. The vote margin was bigger than that which occurred on the regular town meeting day, March 2nd, when a similar proposal went down to defeat with 205 no and 145 yes.

At the open town meeting which took place last night, to vote on funding Article 1, MB Neisner, the town moderator, introduced a motion to indefinitely postpone voting on Article 2, as its' purpose was moot. That motion carried on a "unanimous" voice vote from the 100 or so residents in attendance.

Ignoring the outcome of the vote, Killington residents should take pride in the high voter turnout. I am sure that there will be many conversations in the next few days, on both sides of the issue, about "were the voters right". I believe that the only conclusion that can be drawn from the vote is that a large number of residents of Killington are genuinely interested in the community. Interested enough to participate by learning about issues, and taking the time to vote.

Coming out of the current economic downturn will throw many challenges at Killington. Having an engaged, active, citizenry, while potentially giving elected officials pause, also represents an opportunity to be harnessed to reinvent the town for a strong future. And that's a good thing!

Keep it in the fairway...and don't forget your sunscreen!

Special Town Meeting day at Killington. 

Much has been written in other venues, but here is one last reminder for Killington residents...Get out and vote today in the Special Town Meeting called by the Killington Selectboard.

The issue at hand is to determine the fate of the possible acquisition of a piece of land for the town known as the "Fireside Property". The town meeting is split into 2 sections.

The first article is an "Australian" ballot, better known as a secret ballot. Voting on this article is taking place at Town Hall on River Road from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. The article being voted on specifically states:

"Shall general obligation bonds of the Town of Killington in an amount not to exceed Nine Hundred Thousand Dollars ($900,000) be issued for the purpose of financing the cost of acquiring the Fireside Property for use as an events, tourist, and community venue?"

Article 1 has 2 simple choices... No or Yes. But to vote a Killington resident either has to visit town hall today, or previously requested and submitted an absentee ballot.

The second article to be voted on today in Killington is going to be done in an Open Town Meeting scheduled to take place at 8:00 PM this evening at the Sherburne Elementary School Gym on Schoolhouse Road. The article being voted on this evening specifically states:

"Shall the Town use the 1% Local Option Tax revenues to pay the annual debt payments of this bond issue?"

Article 2 is both simple and complex at the same time. If Article 1 is voted no, then the wording of Article 2 is moot according to an informational meeting held by the town. However, complexity enters the issue as the article is being voted on in an Open Town Meeting. A registered voter in Killington must be in attendance to participate in tonights' Open Town Meeting.

Regardless of where you stand on theses issues, if you are a Killington Resident, go out and vote.

Tight Lies - Approaching the 7th green at Green Mountain National Golf Course 

Just a beautiful day at Killington. Temperatures are in the mid 70's. The sun is shining through a filter of random, wispy, clouds. Bermuda shorts are the outfit of the day. Life is good......

Today is Green Up day through out Vermont. All around the state, volunteers have scattered up and down the roads picking up trash uncovered by the melted winter snow. Distinctive bright green trash bags were given out to Killington volunteers. Mary used one to police the area in front of the inn on the Killington Road.

The snow that the area received a couple of days ago is now all gone. Warm weather the last couple of days took care of the 8 or so inches of snow we received around the inn in pretty short order. While there is still some snow on the mountain, especially in areas where the resort made snow during the winter, lift serviced skiing and riding for the season at Killington are done, having been suspended last weekend. A few physically fit souls are hiking the mountain to take their turns, but more are starting to flock to the local golf courses to chase "the little white ball".

Todays picture is a tight lie from a round of golf we played yesterday at Green Mountain National Golf Course. I actually escaped having one of these yesterday, but our playing partner, Nina, was not as fortunate. The picture shows where her tee shot landed in front of the par 3 seventh hole at Green Mountain. There is a large retaining wall in front of the green. Somehow, Nina's tee shot managed to nestle in between some of the stones, without ricocheting off the rocks. A true tight lie...

Where ever you may be, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sunscreen.

Birch Ridge Inn covered in spring snow. 

The ski resort closed for the winter season last weekend. Most businesses in town have shut down during the winter-summer hiatus. The inn is still open for lodging, as Mary and I live here...but our restaurant is closed for a few weeks. And now this!!!!

We did not get any measurable snow at Killington in the last 6 weeks, when it would have made a real difference to the ski season...I have switched my personal focus from skiing to golf...I have changed the inn's website,birchridge.com, from focusing on Winter to Summer...(I did that yesterday)... so last night down from the sky falls 6 to 12 inches of snow all around the town of Killington.

It's actually quite funny. And having called New England my home for most of my life, it is actually quite an ordinary event. Spring snow is often called "poor mans fertilizer" because of the nitrogen it brings down to the ground. So I guess the bright side in all of this is that when it melts over the weekend (temperatures are predicted to be in the 70's), the golf courses will really look nice...

"You can't fool Mother Nature" but we can "Think Spring".

A tight lie off the eighth green at Green Mountain National Golf Course. 

If you are reading this, it's a good thing... because it's been a rough week.

As I reported Thursday, my internet hosting service provider, Network Solutions, has had a terrible week. And by association, so have I.

After reloading the blog site on Thursday, the site was hacked again at 6:40AM on Friday morning. Dutifully, google was putting out warnings that the site was compromised. While I can take issue the wording of messages that google was putting out, as it implied that killingtonblog.com was at fault, I accept that they were providing a service which hopefully prevented people from having their computer systems compromised. For good, or bad, google painted thousands of websites as guilty of internet malfeasance....when their only guilt was by associating with a particular company, with a good record of reliability, which provides internet hosting services. The technical journals have picked up on Network Solutions problems, and the problems web sites are having with malware reports by google. If you are interested in a few more details just follow the links. Computerworld had a good synopsis of the Network Solutions problems and Sucuri Security Labs has a blog post on how many sites were detected by google with the problem.

For now, I hope that the current problem Network Solutions is facing is behind them. I would like to get on to some more productive work, or play, whatever the case may be.

Speaking about hacking, I thought I would share the tight lie I found myself in on Wednesday during a round of golf at Green Mountain National. To set up the shot, I drove my ball about 230 into the fairway. The wind was in my face. The pin was on the left back corner of the green. I had about 120 yards to the green, around 130 to the pin. I initially grabbed an 8 iron. As I approached the ball, the wind was howling...so I decided to take a 7 iron and hit a knock down shot to play the ball into the wind. 2 years ago, before my shoulder injury..piece of cake.. But todays picture shows the result. The knock down shot got a little too high, causing the ball to sail in the wind. It hit the back corner of the green and bounced 5 or so yards into the junk behind the greens left corner. Probably just a little too aggressive a shot for my second time out this year... but so it goes. No pain..no gain...

With a wedge in hand, my inner hacker made a nice shot from this lie to within 10 feet of the cup. Of course I missed the putt...but hey it's still only April. We are supposed to be skiing in Vermont this time of year, not playing golf. It could have been a lot worse..I escaped with a bogey 5...not happy at missing par...but it was a nice sunny day and the world was good.

Speaking of skiing, the Killington Resort announced that they will be suspending operations for the 2009/2010 season tomorrow (Sunday April 25). They had hoped to make it one more week until May 2nd, but based upon their review of ski conditions, and this coming weeks weather forecast (damp and dreary for a few days), they have decided to pull the plug. Given that we had no real measurable snow since late February, which is really unusual, the resort has done great work keeping open as long as they did. The resort will be back in action shortly when their golf course opens in May. In the mean time, we will try t get a few more rounds in at Green Mountain to get back into golfing shape.

Spring has definitely sprung...Keep it in the fairway and don't forget your sunscreen.