Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween















Another warm and dry halloween for the boys and a whole bunch of candy we don't need. The house on Wilton Road was as scary as ever with the owners hiding in the lawn as seemingly harmless figures, then sneaking up on you to give you a good scare. The picture below is part of the display.



I've posted a bunch of shots from the Halloween Party on Saturday in my flickr account. Here they are. http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/sets/72157594354606254/

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Trick or Tree


Kathy came to our party last night to just deliver some food and head home. Well, a few glasses of wine later she decided to stay and shortly after that, a tree fell on her car. The amazing thing is that it totally missed our cars. We just spent the last couple hours sawing and dragging branches to the curb so that we could get our cars out of the driveway. Kathy's car got some bumps and bruises and lost a rearview mirror but she was able to drive it home. I've got more halloween party photo's and tree clean-up shots I'll post later today. Posted by Picasa

Friday, October 27, 2006

Gettin Ready for Halloween

Still some stuff to do and the weather looks a little iffy for the party this weekend but indoors is fine too. Work has been busy all week with vendor and strategic partner meetings going on. I hate having days when I have to go from meeting to meeting and don't get time to just sit and think. I'm still learning all the architecture lingo and meetings are often a confusing mish mash of acronyms and archispeak. It is thought that innovation requires the combination, or synthesis of disparate things to create valued new products, processes, or services. I know the technology but I don't get the architecture part of the equation yet. I'll get there.

I've posted a few picture from last weeks trip to Napa and Berkeley on Flickr. Had a good time but didn't take that many good pictures.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006


Nicole started carving pumpkins tonight and boys wanted to help but we didn't feel real comfortable giving them knives. Our annual party is on Saturday and we have a little more decorating to do and some booze to buy. Otherwise, things are coming along nicely.  Posted by Picasa

Spooky pumpkin Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, October 24, 2006


One of the benefits of my new workplace is the rotating architecture photo exhibits that hang in the hallways. The maintenance guys took down the old exhibit on my floor a week ago and repainted everything to get ready for what went up this weekend. The new exhibit is from AIA Iowa and is called a Century of Architecture in Iowa 1900 - 1999. It has 10 groups of 6 photos for every 10 years in the 20th century. Lots of the photos are from Des Moines but I noticed a few from Souix City that looked familiar. This is the Grandview Park Bandshell and I have some distinct memories of running around the stage when I was a kid. I think my late uncle Tom brought us here a few times way back when and let us run. They also have a photo of the county courthouse in Souix City and a office building constructed in the 30's as well. I'll try to get pictures of those too but as you can see, it's hard to photograph a good shot without getting my own reflection in the mix.  Posted by Picasa

Monday, October 23, 2006

Driveway art


Driveway art
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Most likey Blanca's art work but spooky all the same. Its getting cold here.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Cal game


Cal game
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Just before kickoff and I'm hungry. Forgot to have breakfast this morning.

I went up Spring Mountain Road yesteday afternoon and visited Kennan Winery, just down down the road from Terra Valentine. Nicole and I will visit Terra next month when we come back. It's a place owned by a friend of Brandts and looks fabulous. I'm on my way to a Cal game in Berkeley right now and have the appropriete blue and gold shirt on. This is a shot from Kennan looking over the vineyard to the mountains on the other side of the valley. The weather is perfect again. Posted by Picasa

Friday, October 20, 2006

Spitting frog


Spitting frog
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
No, not a vineyard. Had a late night but good times all around. The event well and ended up having drinks afterwords with a rick smolan the photographer who did america 24/7 and other big coffee table books. The bbc's max gadney and tumbleweed where there too. Just got a workout in and heading out for lunch soon. Football tomorrow. Go bears.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Dinners


Dinners
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
Well, not a real fasinating picture but the light is limited in this ballroom. The weather has been fantastic, I really like napa. I'm going to hit a couple vineyards tomorrow afternoon and hopefully discover some good wine Miss nicole and the boys but will see them soon.

Silverado afternoon


Silverado afternoon
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
The golf course looks nice. It doesn't look like i'll have time to play. boooo

Silverado morning


Silverado morning
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
The trees are starting to turn here in napa. I have meetings all day but I plan on getting out a little bit. BJ Fogg is going to meet me for the innovators dinner tonight. Should be fun.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Darioush


Darioush
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
A reflection off the tasting bar at my second vineyard of the day. My brother in law, brandt suggested this place and it was on my way to the Silverado. This is an Iranian owed winery with some stunning architecture. I notice that now that my job requires me to pay attention to buildings.

St. Supery


St. Supery
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
My first stop in napa is a wine favorite. I just received a trio of st supery from Woot Wine last week and figured I'd stop by and see where its made Good food.

Monday, October 16, 2006

That familiar buzz is back


That familiar buzz is back
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
My new company blackberry arrived today and the old buzz is back. I got so used to having a blackberry attached to my belt over the past 5 years at aarp that I was having phantom buzzing for weeks after I left in May. The cingular phone I've been using all summer and blogging to you with now doesn't have the same buzz and quite frankly, I never really wore it on my belt. The blackberry hooked up to a corporate server buzzes much more often and I feel hooked up again.




Sunday, October 15, 2006

Day at the Pumpkin Patch

We of course went to the boys swim lesson again this morning then loaded the boys and Kumie in the car for the hour drive out past Leesburg. It was a perfect day but Joseph couldn't make it and we all missed him of course.

The patch this year was Great Country Farms and had a lot for the boys to do. They rode pedel tractors, jumped on this wierd inverted moon walk, slid down giant slides, rode the cow train and looked at a bunch of farm animals. We had so much to do we ran out of time to get pumpkins that would have required a hay ride out to the patch and back. We'll get some around here this week. In case you are wondering, it's Dylan in Bats and Sam in the Ghost.

The rest of the pictures are here. Posted by Picasa

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Go A's?

Grandpa Gil sent A's hats for the boys yesterday and I took a few pictures for Nicole's blog. I hope the A's can recover from the 0-3 start with the Tigers but I couldn't put the picture on my blog. I figure a good compromise would be to link to Nicole's. He it is. http://nikabolid.blogspot.com/2006/10/go-as.html

The previous post to this one was suppose to include a picture from the King Street Station. I also posted it yesterday at 5:30, don't know why it has no picture and posted today. Damn technology.

Almost home

Long day but productive. I'm starting to get hang of the new job and we decided on a new cms and search engine this morning. Its going to cost a lot, hope I'm right. Swiching trains at king street and then home to pay the siding guy. 

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Walk to lunch


Walk to lunch
Originally uploaded by homerclees.
This is the old executive office building on a nice day for a walk. I'm meeting a friend from aarp halfway between there and aia for lunch.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Architectural Tour of the Neighborhood

One of the benefits of working at an institute for Architects are the Architects. I went on a company sponsored tour of the general area around our office today and learned a lot the buildings. One of the staff member\Architects took a group of 10 of us on a walking tour and described a bunch of buildings, including the World Bank, the Renwick Gallery, the Old Executive Office Building and the Corcoran Museum. A building lesson including how building sometimes wear hats and have "ass holes" (garage and loading doc entrances). A history lesson, L'Enfant and Jefferson's competing vision of the city and that originally, public buildings were designed to be white and residential buildings were red. Pretty interesting stuff for a quick one hour tour and I'm signed up for another one in a week or two.

Monday, October 09, 2006


Spoke too soon. I thought I didn't have any new photos of the boys until Nicole broke out some gifts that Linda and Gil bought on their recent trip to China. I understand their is another outfit for tomorrow.  Posted by Picasa

One more picture of the scary skelowyns. Yes, that's how they say it. I took this last week but it is October, my favorite month and Halloween my favorite holiday. The boys did go to their first pumpkin patch of the season with Blanca today. Tractor rides, scary slides and hay bails. Not to mention pumpkins. They didn't have school because of Columbus Day or Leif Ericson Day, whichever you prefer. Leif was the first European to set foot in North America and beat Columbus by like 500 years, but who's counting. Norwegians get no respect.  Posted by Picasa

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Arts on the Avenue


We took quick trip down to Mount Vernon Avenue in Alexandria for the annual Arts on the Avenue festival today. It's just a couple miles away and we were pretty sure we could build our own scarcrow if we brought some old clothes. As you can see if you go to the flickr collection, Bob the scarcrow has some fine AARP Online clothes. We've built a fire the last two nights since it's finally getting cold around here. I'm still having problems finding a firewood dude but I've got enough to last a few more weeks.

Flickr pictures here....http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/sets/72157594317266017/

Friday, October 06, 2006


I work about a block from the White House now and on the way across town to have drinks with some friends from AARP I found this guy hangin around PA avenue with a few hundred other people either hating or loving Bush. This isn't a political blog but I have to admit, I have sympathy for the devil. I'm sure this blog post will go down as a comma in history. Posted by Picasa

Messy, messy, messy..... It's getting better but we really need gutters because it's raining right now.  Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Rally Caps

The Twins picked a bad time to start losing to the A's so the boys and I are going to wear our rally caps until we bring home victory. I know Grandpa Gil is rooting for the A's but I don't want the boys growing up looking like Rollie Fingers.

Go Twins.. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, October 03, 2006


The siding guys were working all day again today and seem to have most of the back done and are working on the sides and front. I told them that they have to keep the little teeth like molding above the windows in this picture. Not sure how that's going to work out. I think they would probably rather just strip it off and side it but that wouldn't be right. Tired, time for bed.. Posted by Picasa
The Work Continues

Got home last night and the siding guys were still plugging away. It's a big, messy job. The basement ceiling was looking back in shape and just needs to be painted and I guess they found the leak, I hope so anyway. Have an electrician coming today to install a ceiling fan in the boys room and replace a few things. I'm kind of glad I'm at work these days and not home to see all the work going on. It wouldn't be all that restful with that pounding and sawing.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

House Work



I got home on Friday with a nice little surprise I guess. The driveway sealers had been there finally after promising to seal the driveway on Tuesday, Mr. Young had started the siding project and Bernardo started working on the main floor bathroom tile, leak and had already torn apart the part of the basement ceiling under the bathroom leak and replaced it. It's mayhem. Anyway, we went to Lowes today and picked out new storm doors and outside lamps the Mr. Young will install this week as they continue the siding project. That should take pretty much all week to complete. I don't know what Bernardo's time frame is but bathroom project should be done this week too.

Next on the slate is a new ceiling fan in the boys room. We bought the thing at Lowes today but need to get an electrician out to do the work. Oh yeah, and firewood people suck. I have tried three or four over the years and they don't seem to have the intelligence to show up when they say they will or call to re-schedule. Are firewood sales people so in demand that they can just pick and choose their customers like plastic surgeons or are they simply living near superfund sights and not responsible for their own stupidity?