granite idealism

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Photos from the National Public Lands Day/ServiceNation project

October 2, 2008 · 1 Comment

As promised, here’s how State Radio went from this to this on Saturday afternoon alongisde AmeriCorps members from the Student Conservation Association and City Year New Hampshire to celebrate National Public Lands Day and the ServiceNation Day of Action…

And finally, a group shot.  Oh yes, the group shot…

Thanks to Liz for her camera work.  Watch for details about Saturday’s service project in Chicago coming very, very soon…

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Follow the tour on Twitter!

October 1, 2008 · Leave a Comment

You can now follow State Radio on Twitter, the social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as “tweets”), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. 

New to Twitter?  Click here for a quick tutorial.

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LIVE BLOG of Day #3 at the DNC begins at 8pm EST

August 27, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Click here for LIVE BLOG coverage from the Pepsi Center!

THE LINEUP…

Remarks
The Honorable Harry Reid

US Senator, Nevada
Senate Majority Leader

CSM Michele S. Jones, US Army (Ret.)
First female command sergeant major of the US Army

The Honorable Patrick Murphy
Member of the US House of Representatives, Pennsylvania
Joined by Iraq war veterans

The Honorable Madeleine Albright
Former Secretary of State

America’s  Town Hall – Economy
Moderator: The Honorable Joe Sestak
Member of the US House of Representatives, Pennsylvania
Panelists: Kathy Roth-Douquet, CSM John Estrada, Collin McMahon,
Representative Ellen Tauscher/California

Remarks

The Honorable Evan Bayh
US Senator, Indiana

Xiomara Rodriguez
Nevada delegate and retired member of the US Coast Guard

The Honorable Jack Reed
US Senator, Rhode Island

The Honorable Tom Daschle
Former US Senator and Senate Minority Leader, South Dakota

The Honorable Bill Clinton
Former President of the United States


Beth Robinson
Stay-at-home mom from Hampton Roads, Virginia

The Honorable John Kerry
US Senator, Massachusetts

Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, US Army (Ret.)
First woman to achieve the rank of three star general in the US Army

Rear Admiral John Hutson (Ret.)
President, Franklin Pierce Law School in Concord, New Hampshire

The Honorable Bill Richardson
Governor of New Mexico

Video – Changing The Course of Our Nation
John Melvin
Iraq war veteran from DeWitt, Iowa

Veterans Video and Remarks
The Honorable Chet Edwards
Member of the US House of Representatives, Texas

Remarks
Tammy Duckworth
Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs
Helicopter pilot and wounded Iraq war veteran

Vice Presidential Nominating Speech
Quincy Lucas

Delaware woman who volunteers to work on domestic violence issues.   

Seconding the Nomination – from the floor

Introduction of the Vice Presidential Nominee
The Honorable Beau Biden
Attorney General, Delaware

Remarks
The Honorable Senator Joe Biden

Vice Presidential Nominee
US Senator, Delaware

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Sheriff Bart sees value in expanding national service, signs ServeNext Pledge

August 19, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Thanks to the work of a couple amazing summer interns, Sheriff Rick Bart is the latest candidate to sign the ServeNext Pledge.  In addition to his career in law enforcement, Bart has served as a school volunteer and a Big Brother for Snohomish County Big Brothers and Big Sisters.  The Republican challenger in Washington’s 2nd congressional district also serves on the Mt. Baker National Forest Resource Advisory Committee, the Greater Trinity Children’s Learning Center and the Marysville Rotary.

By signing the ServeNext Pledge, Bart commits to supporting legislation that expands AmeriCorps’ ranks to 250,000 members annually.  Thanks, Sheriff Bart… the good people of Washington’s 2nd congressional district are lucky to have you!

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PNW TRIP RECAP #1: A brush with both fate and City Year celebrity…

October 31, 2007 · Leave a Comment

 

As you may or may not be aware, Jody and I returned on Sunday evening – just in time to watch the Boston Red Sox complete their sweep of the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series - from our vacation to the Pacific Northwest (PNW).  This is the first in a series of sporadic “catchup” entries recapping our adventures in Seattle and Portland…

When our plane landed at Sea-Tac close to 11:00pm Pacific on Wednesday night, we headed down to baggage claim to meet up with Chris, our host with the most for Night #1 in Seattle.  The last we heard from Chris, he was trying to secure a vehicle to pick us up.  Unfortunately, it turned out that he was unable – which was no big deal to us - so he gave us directions on how to take public transit to Downtown Seattle where we would meet up and Chris would bring us to his apartment near the University of Washington.  We found the stop, paid our fare, and proceeded to find seats on the bus before receiving a call from Chris suggesting we abort our mission and track down his roommate Shuly, who apparently had just landed, too, and was getting a ride back from her friend Javier.

I had received a Facebook message from Shuly earlier that morning:

matt! i hear you are crashing at the legendary 5235 pad tonight, which is AWESOME! i wish i wasn’t coming in too late to get to hang with you guys tonight but hope your traveling is going well and i’ll see you soon!

… to which I promptly responded:

Shuly! Indeed – we have reservations at the legendary 5235 pad. We don’t get in til late anyway, so our paths may actually cross this evening. Might you be around the office tomorrow after 3pm? Excited to see you!

Now it hadn’t really occurred to me that our paths might cross at the airport, but as it turns out, we were on the same Delta flight from Cincinnati to Seattle – and we actually played online flight trivia against one another early in the flight!  Shuly was using her alias “VISTA” and, as soon as we told her that we were playing, she rightfully identified “JODY” as the flight’s Champion… ’cause she went to Susquehanna University and is wicked smaht.  Psyched to track her down and have a lift straight to our homestay for the evening, we exchanged handshakes and hugs and were ready to get going! 

We found out that Shuly was visiting our friend Jason, with whom I served as a Senior Corps Member at City Year New Hampshire last year, in his hometown of Birmingham, AL.  On the drive to Chris’ place in Javier’s sweet new ride (we’ll get to that later), I asked Shuly about her days at UMass-Amherst and if she knew of our newest Concert Corps artist with whom we had just partnered just the weekend before – Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers (SK6ERS) – hometown heroes of nearby Northampton, MA.  She did know them and actually loves them for their high-energy shows, which only now makes me chuckle because of how much our friend Jason reminds me and Jody of SK6ERS’ Goose (and vice-versa).  See for yourself below:

JASON (a.k.a. Tal Rico):

GOOSE (of SK6ERS fame):

See the resemblance?!  If anyone knows where we can find any video of Jason (preferably dancing with or without a torn ACL), please let me know.  Thanks! 

We also realized about 5 minutes into our ride that Chauffeur Javier was also a City Year celebrity, having recently starred in the organization’s new national recruitment video!  Fast forward to about 39 seconds into this clip for Javier’s moment of glory – which has been played tens of thousands of times at this point across the country (and a few more if you count YouTube)…

Of course Jody and I had to get our photo taken with Javier and his new ride - with incredible interior carpet, might I add - before he took off to go be famous elsewhere in King County.

 And that was only our first evening, friends…

Watch for PNW TRIP RECAP #2 coming soon to a blog near you!

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