In the “pointing out Culver Stuff on the internet” department those of you on Facebook.com should check out the new Culver Summer Camp group started by Go Culver member p_de_laborde a few days ago. It’s already ammased 131 alumni/camper members and could always use a few more. Some moderate trash talking taking place in the wall posts already….nice.

So what does everyone on here think of all the changes coming to thefacebook? The miniFeed? Opening it up to anyone and everyone? Have you set your privacy settings the way you want them, you know, so your parents don’t see all the pictures from last weekend’s party?

In case you hadn’t heard about the whole “opening up” thing, here’s the latest piece of opining from facebook founder/corporate mascot Mark Zuckerberg:

“I want to clear up some rumors and ask for your feedback.

Right now a lot of people want their friends to use Facebook, but they can’t get on. Soon, we’re planning on letting these people register for regional networks.

I know a lot of you are worried about this and how it changes the site. Honestly, it shouldn’t change much for you. College networks will remain exclusive to people from those colleges. High school and work networks will remain exclusive as well. Only your friends and other people in your networks can see your profile. This is what makes Facebook different, and we’re not changing it.

From reading a lot of your messages, it seems like some of you want more separation. Do you want to be completely invisible to people who aren’t in a college or high school? Do you want to make sure they can’t message or poke you? We like hearing from you. Please send us your thoughts on how we can make this work for you.

And just to clear some other things up: we’re not putting up more banner ads, we’re not charging anyone, we’re not letting people put random HTML in their profiles, and we’re not selling your information. Facebook is about increasing information flow and connecting people, not these things.

Please send us your thoughts here.”

You heard the guy, if you’re not happy with widespread access to facebook.com, send him a note to let him know.

Personally I would rather facebook stick to just those with .edu e-mail addresses simply because it gives an actual sense of identity to the site, separating it from myspace and the rest of its ilk (which serve their purposes, just different purposes). I have no doubt that there is immense pressure being brought to bear upon the facebook viziers by their financiers, people who gave them a great deal of money and expect a return on their investment. Do you think widening access to the site will bring in more visitors? Will it affect the frequency with which current members check out the site?

If facebook opens up to the public, will you visit it any less? If it’s no longer an exclusive site, will you still hang out there?

Respond in the Go Culver forums

theFacebook.com - link

New York Times Articles on Facebook

Also, with the addition of member MURILLO Go Culver.com’s finally picked up its 601st member. Nice…..now if I could just find some time to get things rolling on the forum again…

Also, hope you like the new look to the front page.  It’s been a while since I’ve done much work on it and I wanted to get those muscles moving again.

As noticed by intrepid GoCulver denizen Higginbotham79, Culver has posted a full QuickTime video of this last summer’s graduation exercises up on their web site for all to enjoy. If you’ve never been able to attend a graduation ceremony (I’m looking at some of our international campers) perhaps this will give you an idea of what they’re like. The video file takes a little while to load but looks quite nice. It opens with last summer’s reg. commander CKocian (also a go culver denizen) calling the corps to attention for the national anthem and posting of the colors, includes remarks from Mr. Knight and Mr. Mayfield, the awarding of the Commander’s Cup and a few other honors and then the handing out of diploma’s to all the graduating first classmen. There’s no better way to relive those last exhausted, bittersweet moments of a Culver Summer.

Watch Culver Upper Camps 2006 Graduation Ceremony Video

Discuss Video in the Go Culver Forums

With just over 2 weeks to go before Culver Summer 2006 kicks off I’m taking down the ropes and throwing open the doors to a new discussion forum, the Parents Forum.

This discussion board offers a place for Culver Summer Camps parents to meet other parents and to learn more about Culver by talking to them as well as Culver Alumni, Staff, and perhaps even a few campers. I’ve posted a short welcome message in there already along with some links that parents might find useful.

So for all those parents out there with children at Culver Summer Camps or who have ever had children attend Culver Summer Camps, you now have your very own place to interact informally with counselors, other parents and alumni. I hope you find this a useful service.

For all you campers out there, tell your parents about this forum. Tell them they can use it to get in touch with your counselors without having to pick up the phone for example. Point ‘em to Go Culver.
The Parents Forum Index | Discuss Ideas for the Parents Forum

Flyerjimi_kephart started a very interesting thread last week (which I almost completely missed) about Culver’s aviation situation this summer.

The gist: Culver Academy will accomodate returning first class aviators with at least 15 hours of flight time who are interested in contracting with another flight school nearby during their 6 weeks at Culver. They will provide travel to and from the airfield and will also allow participating aviators the flexibilitiy they need in their morning schedules to get in these flight hours.

Check out the thread here, with Tony Mayfield’s initial letter to all returning aviators and correspondence between Flyerjimi_kephart and Eagle Aircraft representatives. This is great news. Congratulations to everyone who helped make this happen.

You can read previous pieces and threads about finding alternative aviation accomodations for this summer here, here, and here and can read about last summer’s plane crash incident here and a much earlier letter about aviation from Mr. Mayfield here. Good work everyone!

Jump in on this discussion

You can now add a link to your MySpace profile, myYearbook page, livejournal, blog, or any other web site in the bio information next to every one of your forum posts. Pretty slick. Details in the link below. This way people can read something you write in the forums, look over to the left, and then click a link to check out a web site of your choosing.
Annnnnd, I’ve put together a collection of banner links for people to put up on their myspace, myYearbook, Xanga, Livejournal, blog, or whatever other type of web site they run. All you need to do is copy the code snippet below each image and paste it into your page. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Nifty MySpace Banner Links

While there are several social networking sites online already like myspace.com, facebook.com, and friendster.com, myYearbook.com, a newer network (and apparently the fastest growing one online) has an interesting idea: it lets its users create social networks for their schools AND other programs they’ve been involved in. That swim camp you went to in Eighth grade? You can make a social network for it and perhaps track people down that also attended it. That backpacking trip you went on during college? Same deal. This is something new and unique as far as I can tell.

It’s also perfect for any summer camp community, any group that gathers only once a year. With this in mind I checked out the site the other day, created a profile, and spent a few hours poking around in it. All in all, I was pretty impressed.

MyYearbook.com is like a less seedy version of myspace (important for any summer camp) with a few better ideas and slicker design. I started a Culver Summer Camps discussion board, put up a few Culver pictures, and sent out some invites to other Culver people. I also tried to have a little fun…but it did not go “well” in any sense of the word. …Read the rest of this entry…

New thread over in the Discussion Forums, a running numbered list of reasons to go to Culver Military Summer Camp. I started it off with one of mine. Head on over, read it, and post one of your own. Let’s see if we can’t keep it going like the gargantuan Word Association Thread (now up to 172 pages…after I reduced the number of entries per page…).

• Top X Reasons to Go to Culver

Planning on visiting Culver this summer for Homecoming?

If so, post a “yep, I’ll be there” in my new Homecoming 2006 thread over in the alumni forum.

You can take a look at the event schedule here.

Anyone live nearby and willing to put people up?

Anyone driving in from out of town and able to give people a ride?

If we can help people find places to stay and ways to get to campus that’d be delightful.

Update on the band instruments:  A recent e-mails suggested that those of you interested in snagging your old Bass Drum might want to keep your eyes on the Culver.org auction page (which I’ll be writing about in more detail next week).

Read and Respond in Original Band Forum Discussion

The following was just posted over in the Naval Band forum today courtesy of Stan Mefford, 1974 naval band graduate and Culver Academy Summer Trustee:

"The Naval Band is getting an entire new drumline and some much needed brass. The drumline consists of top of the line Yamaha equipment. In addition to the drums, the Naval Band just received some marching baritones and tubas. This new equipment is available for the 2006 Naval Band as a result of efforts by the CSSAA board and Naval Band alumni giving. Enjoy all of the new equipment!"

Check out the thread over on the CulverTalk forums here and leave your thoughts. This is wonderful news! I leave it to Mr. Dees and the other counselors to explain the significance of the new acquisitions. To read up on other announcements Culver has made regarding this coming summer check out our Summer 2006 Preview series of articles. It’s exciting to hear all this good news.

Discuss in: Naval Band Forum 

Boardmember Jimi_Kephart82 recently posted this in the Main Guard Aviation Thread. It seems Culver has perhaps looked into his aviation idea:

“Well I talked to Lisa at Eagle AIr, and it looks like my email to Mr Mayfield helped. He called them and asked for a proposal on flying.
They dont think that the FAA will allow them to fly to Culvers airport, but maybe they can fly to Starke county or Plymouth and arrange transportation.

We need all Aviation fans and students to email Mr Mayfield about this program and especially the parents to see if we can work this out.

I am an older alumni, you current cadets need to get your parents to email Mr Mayfield if they are wanting to try to use this solution.

www.jseagle.com is the alternate airfield’s web site if you’re curious.

and you can get Mr Mayfields email from Culver.org”

You heard the man. Culver’s aware of the idea and looking into it somewhat at least. If you want planes in the sky this summer write to Mr. Mayfield. You can look him up on Culver Connect (check the link on the sidebard to the right down below) or just write to summer@culver.org

Posted by Mr. Flora at 2:36 PM

Here I go with my first blog post. Mr. Flora suggested I put this up here after posting it in the forums:

I recently talked to a company in Valpo (Eagle Air) and they have 5 new 172’s and 8 instructors. I negotiated a price with them that would hold so long as we pre-paid at least 10 hours with them per student. The woman I spoke with said it would cost $99 for the plane and $35 for the instructor. I think if we could get a block of kids together to fly on Saturdays they would come to Culver themselves to pick them up.

I have emailed Tony Mayfield, Director of Camps, about this, I know that Culver has looked into this, but maybe if you cadets get your parents on the phone and some of us alumni make calls and get involved we can make it happen and salvage some flight time this summer.

Consider this: If 10 students do not come back this summer because of no flying, then Culver loses what? $40,000. It seems worth a little effort to try this. So maybe everyone that flys or knows someone that flys at Culver, can get them on the phone and rally them to the cause. I am going to send Flyer_Jimi there.

Lets rally on this and try to at least get kids going up during their weekend permit time. Eagle Air is the name of the company. You can reach them at 219-389-0132. Ask for Lisa. She is even trying to see if she can use the Culver airport.

www.jseagle.com is their website.

1. A reminder about the new videos available in the Super Two and Force Four forums they give a nice snapshot of summer 2005 and might get some of you excited for 2006.

2. If anyone has any of their old unit pictures and access to a scanner, let me know. We’re trying to compile unit pictures in our photo gallery.

3. Finally a fun post from the Alumni forum:

From GoCulver.com member higginbotham79, both a grad and former Tac officer of Naval 2:

“Okay I am going back a few years on this one when I was a tac officer for Co. 2. Some of you guys may remember this one:

It was homecoming weekend summer of 1982 and a company out of Chicago was filming a recruiting movie for Culver and would be filming on campus all week. Well, all of us tacs from all the companies went to the uniform shop where they were getting rid of some old army dress khakis that they used to wear for the various tac officers. We decided to get outiftted and wear them for the homecoming parade when we would be on the reviewing line grading each of the companies as they passed in review.

We were all decked out in these and we had each company commander wear “putts” or the white leggings that the midshipmen used to wear prior to 1979 when they used to march with M1 rifles. Also my brother was regimental adjutant that make and he was instructed when he was giving the daily report where you yelled out the OC and OD etc. In the old days they used to say”by order of the commandant” now it is “by order of the camp director”. The counselors involved were Brad Larson from Band, Hector Gonzalez from co 1, myself from Co 2, John Sbarbaro from co 3, mike uram from Co 4 and Stan Evans from Aviation.

So my brother does his thing with order of the commandant and there were some loud cheers from the crowd, the band steps off for pass in review and here come all the companies in putts and the tac officers all dressed out in officer uniforms on the reviewing line and Col Fred Lane who was the director of the school at that time almost had a stoke right there! Remember the film crew got all this on tape.

Col Lane didnt even wait until later to discipline us-he called us in that same evening and gave us an phonograph chewing that would rival General Patton. I remember Colonel Al Cornett who was in charge of military at that time winked at us all and stated that he didnt see anything wrong with it.

Needless to say when final rank was announced my brother got ensign in a company instead of Adjutant and the film crew had to come back the next week and shoot the whole sequence again! I feel horrible about this to this day but I wish you guys could have seen the look on Colonel Lane’s face!”

And there you have it. Enjoy the forums and send me feedback on the new site layout. Have a good weekend everyone!