Saturday, December 31, 2005

Happy New Year

I've been sick all day and really hungry but can't keep it down. Thought I would post one last time in 2005. See you in 06.

Friday, December 30, 2005


I set up my old train set in the basement of my parents home last weekend and the boys loved it. Nothing like a toy train at Christmas. I'll probably have to have it shipped out here eventually.  Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, December 28, 2005


We just returned from six days in Minnesota we are getting all un-packed and ready for New Years. It was a very nice, white Chritmas and first few days of Hannuka. Dylan was pretty sick for a couple of the days and in fact, both boys have a nasty cough. They did really well on the plane this afternoon. Dylan slept and Sam watched the Incredibles. We went to a childrens theater production of Winne the Pooh on Tuesday morning. It's a 50 minute show, perfect for a 3 year olds attention span. This is Sam, with the scaab on his lip.  Posted by Picasa

On airplane


On airplane
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Heading home

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Monday, December 26, 2005

Dylan is sick


Dylan is sick
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Passed out

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Minnesota


Minnesota
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Winter day
Holidazzle

Last night we all went downtown to see the Holidazzle parade on Nicollet Mall. It consisted of a couple dozen themed floats including the Wizard of Oz, Snow White, Polar Express and of Course Santa's Sleigh. The triplets loved the floats all lit up for this night time event and cheered for everyone but the wacky witch from the Wizard of Oz float. Sam didn't like her much. This is Dylan on Nicole's shoulders and the Dylan, Finn and Sam checking out the Christmas light in the IDS Center after the parade. It was unusually warm for this time of year so the parade was packed. We didn't go last year because it was called off due to -25 wind chills.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Dylan


Dylan
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Reading

Sam


Sam
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Reading before flight

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Clydes

Ok, a couple more shots from tonight. This is Jake on the left being real mature and John showing his lovely braclet. I'm sure the kids are still out there somewhere tonight but I'm going to bed.

Oh yeah, you can see a few more interesting shots of things at the bar here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/

More soon...

The work crew went to Clydes in Chinatown to celebrate Chris Mc Donkey's birthday and Krista moving on to another job. This is a landmine shot coined by my Uncle Tom a number of years ago. It brings out the double chin in all of us but it's always fun. The holidays are here, enjoy... Posted by Picasa

Clydes


Clydes
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Donkey birthday

Monday, December 19, 2005

Bed head

Watching

Bed head
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
morning cartoons

Sunday, December 18, 2005


Nicole, Kumie and Adam at Steve's holiday party. We had a good time and got home safely thanks to Kumie's driving skills. Joe adn Kumie watched the boys today while Nicole and I went to a party downtown thrown by a colleage from AARP. Santa is coming soon. Posted by Picasa

Saturday, December 17, 2005

95 south


95 south
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Kumie driving

Friday, December 16, 2005

Lucky strike


Lucky strike
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Holiday happy hour

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Super Sam

I got a quick shot tonight when I got home of Sam in his Super Sam cape. Dylan wasn't cooperating so just Sammy tonight. It's snowing\raining\icing right now, nice combo. Tomorrow is AARP's holiday party which means early happy hour for everyone. I don't typically go to the actual event that starts at noon but will be our toasting the holiday anyway.

Btw, the boys seem to be feeling much better and the anti-biotics are doing their job on those pesky ear infections. Oh yeah, one more thing. We had our first ever parent-teacher conference this morning and the boys seem to be doing well. Except that they don't like sharing much. We're going to work on that.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

New Use for Babies

Nicole is out of town tonight, so it was just me and the boys. I got home a little late so we headed upstairs to watch tv and wrestle in bed. At some point they decided it would be cool to stand on my back as I laid on the bed, trying to balance themselves as we watched Dora. 40 pound boys walking on my back was fantastic. All those stress knots are gone. Now, if I could only get them to give me foot messages.

They are a sleep now. Hopefully they will stay that way until 7am.

Mark Carpenter
General Manager
Web Strategy and Operations
www.aarp.org
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net)

Monday, December 12, 2005


Two slightly sick boys with ear infections. They are really not acting sick but are both on anti-biotics again. Here they are watching the Little Einsteins Christmas special. Good times.  Posted by Picasa

Sick Sammy

Sam didn't feel so well this morning and when we got back from Safeway, he had a 103.9 degree temp. My friend Jessica and I were going to take them to see the Capitol Christmas tree but stayed in and watched Madigasgar with a rapidly improving Sam and a not yet sick Dylan. Nicole got some time off and went shopping while Jess and I watched the little monsters. She's moving to Florida in a few weeks and won't see them until spring. Us boys will miss her.

I'm just laying around in front of a fire right now. Have a busy week coming up, but lots of time off after that. The last two weeks of December will be pretty slow and I'm off most of the days.

Oh yeah, the Vikings won again today and Chicago lost. Just when I thought I could write off the season, they come alive and become contenders. Let's hope they don't crush my spirit with a series of losses in the next few weeks.

Mark Carpenter
General Manager
Web Strategy and Operations
www.aarp.org
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net)

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Fire

Not much going on the past couple days. Lots of work for both of us. It snowed and iced a little on Thursday night and Friday morning. It was really nothing at all, but that didn't stop all the schools in the area to shut down. The commute in was really fast with everyone afraid of the roads and staying home. We went to happy hour at the chop around 4 and headed home to watch Rudolf the Red Nosed Raindeer again. (we dvr'ed it the other day) We've been burning wood at a record pace so far this year. It's been pretty cold the past few weeks and the fire feels good. We still haven't used the basement fireplace and it would be a good thing since everything is all jiggy down there now. We have a quick party tonight, then dinner at Blanca's house. Both places are just a few miles away. I may go down to the Capitol Christmas with the boys tomorrow. I could have pictures of the boys from that.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

More snow tonight! I have to say, if it has to be winter, we should have snow. At least during the holidays. I forgot to tell everyone that we took the rails off the cribs last Sunday and the boys are now sleeping in big boy beds. No more cribs for the little monsters. They seem to be adjusting well and have only fallen out of bed a few times as far as we can tell.

Planning on going to work tomorrow, unless the snow gets in the way.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005


Ok, so I went to work before dawn this morning and got home after dark. So I didn't get to take any shots of the first real snowfall of the season. We got 4 inches yesterday and it blanked the whole city in a nice soft white. The Washington Post had a real nice shot of the Capitol that I tried to show here but it didn't transfer well. I'm sure it has something to do with rights but I wanted to give the you an idea of what things looked like.

Go to Picture Works at the post to see the real full color shot http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/?nav=globetop

I spoke at the American Telemedicine Association Industry Briefing today at the Marriott at Metro Center. It was a quick half hour talk about older people and the web. It went pretty well and I got a lot of questions. Check out the exciting agenda here http://www.atmeda.org/conf/annualmeet.htm

We may get more snow Friday. I'll get some shots then.
Posted by Picasa

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Thanksgiving Photos

So I picked out about 40 pictures taken in New York over Thanksgiving and put them up on www.durpenters.org Actually, Kumie created the thumbnail and links from the home page but I created the collection and ftp'ed them to the site. Kumie just get's a little tense if I try to work on the home page and mess it up.

Nothing going on today. The Vikings are winning at this point but I'm not holding my breath.

Here's the little Charlie Brown tree looking up at it. It's a cute little thing and we had way more ornaments than I thought we had. The boys haven't tipped it over yet but we still have a few weeks. I plan on uploading a bunch of Thanksgiving pictures to www.durpenters.org today. I'll post when I do. Posted by Picasa

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Santa Train

Well, we did the Santa Train yesterday and it was pretty fun and slightly disorganized. Santa was there but it was like he was just commuting back to Manasass from a day at the office in DC. The other commuters on the train were horrified by the 100 or so screaming children. I was madness. The boys loved the train ride and sitting on Santa's lap. They didn't really ask for anything but I'm sure they will still get a few presents this holiday season.

This is Dylan sporting his engineer hat and Sam below, looking out the train window. I didn't get a lot of good shots but these turned out pretty well.

Haircuts this afternoon and then a trip down to see the lighted sailboat parade on the Potomac in old town. We also need to decorate the little Chistmas tree we bought this morning. We went with a little one to minimize the hassle but still get that pine tree smell in the house. I'll post of picture of it later.

Friday, December 02, 2005


SANTA! Posted by Picasa

Thursday, December 01, 2005


So this is the Old South Meeting House in Boston, with the building I was meeting in on Monday and Tuesday behind it. The building was built in 1726 and Ben Franklin was babtized there. In 1773 Samuel Adams gathered 5,000 people there to protest British taxes and gave the signal that started the Boston Tea Party. The big glass building behind it serves a similar function today I suppose. People gather their today to discuss and plan for the ongoing social interaction revolution that technonlogy is allowing to happen. Hopefully we won't be dumping computers and blackberries in Boston harbor anytime soon.  Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Boston Again

In case you were wondering about the previous picture posts, I was in Boston on Monday and Tuesday. More meetings and a dinner, and of course a few cocktails at the Beantown Pub. All in all, good times. I was initially on the 6:45 shuttle flight to DCA last night but we got out of the meeting right at 5pm and I scrambled over to the airport and got on a 5:45 flight with about a minute to spare. This got me into DC at 7pm and home by 7:30, before the boys went to bed. Besides, Ted Kennedy and his secret service agents were on board, so it must have been safer.

I'm back in the office now and I don't think I have any business travel coming up in December. It will be nice to stay in one place for a little while. Kumie, Nicole, Joe, the boys and I are going on the Santa Train on Friday. Should be a hoot and give me plenty of photo opportunities.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Boston


Boston
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
More boston

Monday, November 28, 2005

Franklin street


Franklin street
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Boston star

Sunday, November 27, 2005


This is some Russian guy, I mean Grandpa pointing out a boat on the East River with the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges in the backround. Grandpa and I took the boys down to South Street Seaport on Friday night while the girls were shopping. Our drive back to Virginia went well yesterday and we only ran into traffic a couple times. The boys finally fell a sleep on the trip back on the Wilson bridge, about 4 miles from home. I will probably put up a collection of Thanksgiving photos on durpenters.org in the next few days. I've got a bunch of work to do right now.  Posted by Picasa

Friday, November 25, 2005

Fire Trucks and Model Trains





So last night we saw real fire trucks and this morning we went to Citibank Center and saw the annual model train show. I got lots of great video of the trains and some more from the carriage ride we took in Central Park before lunch. The boys have been on about every kind of conveyance possible in the past few days. Subways, taxi cars, horses, and we plan on taking them down to the South Street Seaport to check out the boats when they get up from their nap.

Grandma and Momma are out shopping right now so Grandpa and I were responsible for getting them home from Mid Town, feeding them and getting them down for a nap. It all worked out well. I'm teaching them to play pac man on adams new (vintage e-bay) video game machinces. Good times.

Last night we ate a lot and took a quick trip to the fire station on Great Jones Ave. Company 33 I believe. We brought the firefigters cookies and the boys got to see some real fire engines. The company actually had a call when we were there and all the fire fighters jumped on the rigs and took off. Extra excitement for the boys and the rest of us.  Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Yesterday we went to see Nicole's cousin Jason and pick up Cheese at the Bedford Cheese Shop in Brooklyn. Jason owns the cheese shop and the Verb Cafe right next door in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. We took the 6 to the L train and the boys loved it.



Adam, a friend, Nicole and I went to Spamalot last night and had dinner at John Allens. The show was funny but since Adam and I had both seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail a couple hundred times a piece, it wasn't as funny as someone who had never seen the movie. It was different and had music but the jokes were basically the same. Dinner and drinks afterwards was probably the best part of the night.


Today it was FAO Schwartz and the Central Park Zoo. I got some good video of the boys in a subway and watching penguins and sea lions. They were bushed when we got back and are still sleeping. Many pictures with my good camera as well. I'll have to load them up when we get home. More soon.