Well, it has been a very long weekend. First thing Saturday morning, I drove up to PodCamp Western Mass. I had some very interesting discussions there that I want to write about. However, upon getting back to Connecticut, I took a brief nap and then went out to see Rent at Amity High School. I’ve written my brief review of that, but I want to write more about my reaction about how it relates to the larger picture, which probably includes some of the discussions from PodCamp.

With that, I slept late Sunday morning. When I did get up, I found I was having problems with my hosting service. This has turned into a major nightmare, but also a good opportunity to clean up a bunch of my sites. I host a lot of sites for various groups and organizations, and currently many of them are down. As I get time to work through the issues, more and more of them will come back up. Please, drop me a note if there is something urgent I need to look at.

In the evening, I went to the fundraiser for Ed Sheehy for First Selectman in Woodbridge. Since Kim is a lobbyist and I am the spouse of a lobbyist, we are limited to the events we can attend. Basically, if the event is raising money for a candidate or committee that the new campaign finance laws apply to, I cannot contribute or attend. If this fundraiser had been for the Woodbridge Democratic Town Committee, I would not have been able to attend. But, since it was for a municipal election that has its own committee instead of relying on the local Democratic Town Committee, I could attend.

There is another caveat that I’m trying to work out. This would allow me to attend as a member of the press, but not contribute to fundraisers for committees that the new campaign finance law covers. More on that some other day.

At the fundraiser, I learned that the Woodbridge Country Club has agreed to the deal proposed by the town of Woodbridge. This is an important step forward, but there is still a lot of work to be done dealing with the Country Club.

Ned Lamont was the guest speaker. Many people are wondering if he will be running for office any time soon. He didn’t make any announcements. Instead, he talked about when he had lived in Woodbridge years ago and praised the Sheehy administration for what they have done in Woodbridge. He also spoke about A Blueprint for Connecticut's Future, an effort that he, former legislator, state budget chief and chancellor of the Connecticut State University system, William J. Cibes Jr. and others have been working on to address the budget issues for the State of Connecticut. Whether or not Ned decides to run for some office in the future, his work on getting a bipartisan team of real leaders to address budget issues in Connecticut is a great service that he is currently doing for the State of Connecticut.

With all of this, I have been way behind in visiting so many of the websites that I enjoy visiting from my blogrolls, RSS feed readers, and on EntreCard and Adgitize. This week looks like it will continue to be a long busy week. Tomorrow, Fiona’s class will be visiting the State Capitol, and will really learn how a bill becomes law. They will spend time lobbying for the bill Proposed S.B. No. 182, An Act Concerning The Protection of Watershed Land.

I will go up as a chaperone, and Kim has arranged a lobbyists perspective on how things really work in the legislature. Today, she spoke with the class and the students and the teachers are quite excited about the opportunity. It illustrates the hands on approach to learning that Beecher Road School, and particularly the Multi-Age Group program bring to learning, and I wish more students had opportunities to interact with the legislature the way Fiona’s class will tomorrow.