Some of you may have noticed the article posted on home page about the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail (LVRT).  I received word today from Ken Hoeppner, a fund raiser for the LVRT, asking that we begin thinking of ways to help fund the trail.

That this project is apparently beginning to move again is good news for some folks, but there are also some who will tell you there have been so many false starts for this project, we should probably not get our hopes up that it will actually happen. 

It's amazing how some projects happen seemingly without effort while others seem to take on a life of their own and resist any sort of completion.  Bill and Diane Rossi have found themselves in one of those situations where Murphy's Law applies in spades.  We told you some time ago there were plans for a web cam to watch the clock and pallet come Ice-Out Contest time.  After weeks of frustrations, it is operating, and Diane told us this morning they are happy to have us provide you with the user id and password to access it.  Not much is happening right now on the pond, of course, but feel free to check in - they are going to leave the camera up, and with luck, you'll be able to watch the pond freeze in a few weeks, then see snowmobiles and ice fishermen, and come March, Larry Rossi setting up the pallet in front of Rossi's - and then we'll start the clock.

Here's how you access the web cam:  First, you need to use Internet Explorer as your browser.  Then you'll go to http://68.114.56.153/  I can't make that an active link because my browser for the blog is Firefox, but you can easily type it in when you're using Internet Explorer.  

That will bring you to a page where you'll put in a user i.d. of "admin" and a password of "1111" - that's right, four ones.  That should get you to the web cam page.  There are two cameras, so click on either "1" or "2" at the bottom of the page, or double click on whichever image you want to see.  A good large image should pop up for you.  The cameras have night vision, so check them out after dark, too. 

It is really nice that Bill and Diane have installed these cameras.  It will mean that we won't need to leave our computers to check the clock twice daily when it's getting close to the end of the contest.  The Ice Out Committee was going to buy a camera to do this, but Bill and Diane offered to set up surveillance cameras that would give us the same advantage, so we saved some money (and wear and tear on Fred's car), and we sincerely thank them for that.  Now we can't wait for snow and more activity on the pond!