Archive for February, 2008
By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design
Friday, February 29, 2008, 2:59PM EST
It’s leap year again and 2 local Blue Water Grill (Wiki) employees have more than their employer in common, they are both leap year babies. Skaneateles resident Marjorie Parker was born on February 29th and today is celebrating her 8th birthday – of course she is not 8 years old. She works along side one of the cook’s at Blue Water who is also celebrating a birthday today. Happy birthday to both of you!!
Read more on Marjorie’s leap year celebration at the Auburn Citizen’s website.
By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design
Friday, February 11:49 AM EST
This year was the third year that High School students from Fowler and Skaneateles have participated in an exchange that included traveling to each others schools. There were 62 members that participated in the exchange this year. They met in November and followed each other around to their various classes, lunches, etc. They discussed racism and stereotyping with one another in small groups. This exchange was coordinated through the InterReligious Council of Central New York.
A Skaneateles student stated “We have different backgrounds, but we’re all teen-agers and we all have the same interests, like hanging out with friends and listening to music.”
A Fowler student stated “I thought Skaneateles kids would be stuck up and unfriendly.
But they were all willing to meet and I didn’t feel any tension at all.”
The kids from both schools have said their communications will go beyond this exchange
that officially ended in January 2008. Some have even made plans to get together for
dinner at Joe’s Pasta Garage (Wiki) – good choice 
The original news article, from The Post Standard, by Elizabeth Doran can be read here.
By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design
Friday, February 29, 2008 9:45AM EST
Today I came across some great pictures on webshots by the user “winsome45″. The pictures were taken while they were visiting Skaneateles. They have some great pictures of the lake, boats, the shoreline and also some good ones of the garden at Mirbeau. If you like this picture check out their other ones here.
By Charley Hannagan / The Post-Standard
The Irish Independent has named Welch Allyn one of the 50 Best Places to work in Ireland.
This is the first time in the company’s history that it has participated in the program run by the Great Places to Work Institute Ireland. Welch Allyn’s Irish operation was established in 1973 as the company’s first manufacturing site outside the United States.
The Great Place to Work Institute manages the application process in Ireland for the Irish Independent as it does in the United States for Fortune magazine. Welch Allyn also has received recognition as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in the U.S.
“This achievement is a testament to the strength and resiliency of our company culture, as well as the diverse talents of the Navan workforce,” said Julie Shimer, president and CEO, Welch Allyn. “For over 90 years Welch Allyn has strived to instill the values of family, transparency and trust, and receiving this award shows that our core values are still relevant and adaptable as we expand our presence globally.”
To read this Post Standard article in its entirety, click here.
When Skaneateles resident Lia Bates was a little girl living in Holland’s capital city of Amsterdam during the late 1930s, she noticed one day that two of her classmates at school were speaking to each other in an unfamiliar language.
She asked her mother that evening what language her two classmates were speaking. Her mother answered that it was probably either German or Yiddish.
“I found out it was German later, because she and the girl were both born in Frankfort, in Germany,” Bates said.
Hannah Goslar was the name of one of the girls Bates asked about. The other was one of Goslar’s best friends.
Her name was Anne Frank. Read more on this interesting Skaneateles Journal article here.
By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design
Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:45PM EDT
As of this morning there are now 1 million people that own a piece of Barack Obama’s campaign. That’s absolutely amazing!!
One million people, just regular people, own a stake in a grassroots movement that is not just competing, but thriving, in a political process that’s been dominated by special interests for far too long.
No other campaign has ever reached one million donors while still in a competitive primary. Many of these donors are your neighbors in Skaneateles, Camillus, Syracuse, Auburn, etc.
By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design
Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 1:42PM EDT
Skaneateles residents now have their own group on the Barack Obama website – Skaneateles for Obama. Our group recently received a donation of $25 from Andy Gula which gives us a running total of $45. If anyone is interested in donating to the Obama campaign you can do so by visiting our group’s website page here.
We have a little mystery behind this donation. When Cary and I had a computer repair shop in Fairmount there was a nice older gentleman named Andy Gula who visited us often. He brought his Gateway computer in for repair several times over the course of 5 years. The donor has not confirmed that he is in fact our prior customer, but the name is quite unique and I’m pretty sure it is him. I had many enjoyable visits with Andy over the years. It was customer’s like him that made having to close our store regrettable.
By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design
Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 11:05AM EDT
Our website design company Skaneateles Design recently launched 2 websites for Utica radio stations owned and operated by the Syracuse company Galaxy Communications. Cary Briel worked with the radio station manager’s on desired look and feel. Once they had the look they wanted, the specifics came into play.
Both websites needed daily news from an outside source to be programmed into automatically appearing on the home page. Cary wrote a scripting program to address this issue. Both websites also needed to have a flash panel with 3 different ads to appear on the home page. This was accomplished by modifying an existing program.
The final step was entering basic content. Mimi Griswold, the station manager for 96.9WOUR, entered a lot of her own content and now continues to do updates and changes herself. Ted Bradford, station manager of Mix102.5, also has control of his content additions and changes.
Using the WordPress framework for building CMS based websites is an amazing way to allow owners the ability to continually change and add information to their website. WordPress is very user friendly and many non-technical users have no problem making changes. Of course there is the obvious monetary advantage of not having to pay your web developer to make these changes.
By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design
Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 1:12PM EDT
I recently searched “skaneateles people” on google and came across an interesting website – not sure where the data is drawn from. There is a box in the right column that refers to 2000 census data. Below are a few excerpts from the site.
People:
“In Skaneateles, about 61% of adults are married. In Skaneateles, lots of people live on their own.”
Wealth & Education:
“It’s worth mentioning that smart, educated people feel at home in the
village. A tendency for its residents to work at home is one of the things
that define the lifestyle in Skaneateles.”
Politics:
“In the 2004 race for President, George W. Bush was the top recipient of
campaign contributions ($22,450) in Skaneateles. Party contributions tended
to flow to the Republican team.”
Housing:
“Approximately 70% of housing in Skaneateles is owner-occupied. The village
sports a large amount of seasonal housing, typically for vacation or part-time use.”
Again, not sure about the source of this information but I thought it was
interesting data.
By Christine Briel / Skaneateles Design
Tuesday, February 26, 2008 7:33AM EDT
The Syracuse.com user “kathyln” recently uploaded this picture of Skaneateles Creek. She labeled the pic “joe’s little piece of heaven”. It’s a beautiful picture – lucky joe!
