Having just returned from a month in Europe, Ive spent the last couple of days going through, sorting, and editing over 2,000 photos that I took while I was there. Ive just started to create some blog posts about my trip, so you can expect some great updates in the following weeks.

Its been a while since Ive updated my cityscapes collection, so I thought Id start with some London sightseeing. These are some of my favorite cityscape photos of London in early September.

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After an 18 month absence, Princess Cruises will return to Mazatlan starting fall 2012. Earlier this year, the big-ship line dropped all calls to port, citing safety concerns following a spate of violence. Sapphire Princess will visit Mazatlan on six sailings, roundtrip Los Angeles, during the November 2012 through April 2013 Mexico cruise season. Fleetmates Star Princess and Grand Princess will also call on the port city as part of cruises sailing from San Francisco on September 26, 2012 and March 31, 2013, respectively. Find more…

KEY LARGO, Fla. – Fifty years after it was designated the first underwater park in the U.S., John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park looks much as it did when it was founded: Tropical fish swim through the coral reef and kayakers can still get lost in the maze of mangrove swamps.

And that’s no small feat, considering five decades of development have changed the face of Florida, and the decline of coral reefs around the globe due to ocean warming and other factors.

Concerns about conserving the reef here began in the late 1950s, when researchers and preservationists realized increases in tourism and the coral souvenir trade, the coral reefs were in danger of being destroyed.

The park, named for a Miami Herald editor who helped spearhead its creation, was established by the state legislature in 1960.

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Our college visit process started almost a year ago with tours and information sessions at a few nearby State Universities.  As the year went on, #1 Son (then a high school junior) began to identify the types of schools and studies he was most interested in pursuing during his college years.  What he  discovered was that small classes  emphasizing discussion and interaction are a priority.  But, he was still debating business studies vs. more traditional liberal arts colleges.  Now that he a senior, it is getting time to narrow his search.  Our recent visit to Babson College, a leading business college, in Wellesley MA, helped to sharpen his thinking.

Founded in 1919, Babson has always had a tight focus on promoting business education.  Known for its programs in entrepreneurship, Babson is home to about  1,950 undergraduate and 1,300 graduate students, representing more than 74 countries.  The curriculum is described as on hands-on, with an emphasis on experiential learning.  All undergrads get a Bachelors of Science degree and have the option to select targeted concentrations.   The  majority of graduates go on to work after graduation and the schools web site reports that the average starting salary is $47,257!

The curriculum is broken into three phases.  The first year of the program focuses on business basics, requiring most first year students to take the same sequence of classes in areas such as quantitative methods, science, business law, accounting, and rhetoric.  In sophmore and the first part of junior years, students begin to branch out but still study a well defined core covering accounting, economics, finance, marketing, organizational behavior, and operations.  They spend a significant amount of time on team-based projects doing case studies and creating business plans.  The final year and a half is focused on the students area of interest and more hands on learning and internships.  Along the way, the students do take a number of liberal arts classes (the school states that liberal arts comprises at least 50 percent of a student’s course work). However, it  was pretty clear most o

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I would have gone with as the headline, but I was thinking that this is even too weird for Beckett.

Hurricane Irene, which was expected to start harassing Florida as early as Wednesday night, now won’t even make landfall until Friday night. And it’s likely to be somewhere near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. At least that’s the guess of the moment of the weather wonks. Expect several more revisions before this thing hits. It’s already moving much more slowly—and much further to the east—than originally predicted last weekend.

So I’ve settled on “slowly I turn” since this storm sure is taking its sweet time making its way up the coast. I s

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