Saturday, May 31, 2008

Mario Kart

The boys do love Mario Kart on the Wii. They have been playing it on the DS for a year or so now but they totally dig the little wireless steering wheels and really cool graphics of this game. I let them play last night for about 45 minutes while I had a glass of wine and listened to some music upstairs. Having the Wii in the basement reduces the competition to watch either a kids show or play the Xbox 360 in the family room. Leaving it to me and Nicole for some grown up time. At least one grown up anyway.
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Friday, May 30, 2008

Big Frog


Big Frog
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

My new office is across the street from National Geographic and they currently have a frog show going on. Not sure how similar it is to the one we took the boys to in nyc last summer but I bet they would get a kick out of it.

Beautiful day here on the east coast. On my way to get my colesteral checked. Needles = good times, not so much.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

kindle


kindle
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

I forgot to blog about a new toy in the eletronics arsenal. This one is actually a Nicole birthday benefit. Adam sent kindles to me, Linda, Gil and Nicole for her birthday which was pretty sweet for us. Its a cool ebook ready device from amazon.com. The screen is something called digital ink and is not back lit like a typical laptop. You can read it at an angle and the whole thing is lighter than a paperback. It can hold hundreds of books, magazines, blogs and newspapers. You can listen to audio as well and it downloads the latest edition of whatever and allows you to buy books wherever you have a cell phone signal. Oh yeah, I can also send work documents to it via an email address for easy storage and reading. Very cool little device.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Ouch


Ouch
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Not a good round but it was a nice day.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Water Squirters


Water Squirters
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

The boys didn't want to leave the water guns in the car as it got washed. Off to Lowes next.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Haircuts!

The boys got some really short cuts today. Patrick wanted to go even shorter but we didn't want to get to close to a buzz cut. Just got down with a few games on the Wii. Hot Momma (her wii mii) beat me and the boys in bowling then I knocked her out in the third round of boxing. Dylan knocked Sam out in the 2nd as well. Had to turn the ceiling fan on high to keep us cool with all that action. Good times...
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Snug as bugs

Sam has a habit of getting into Dylan's bed in the middle of the night or as soon as he falls asleep. I don't think Dylan minds much because he sleeps like a rock but usually gets crowded out eventually and moves over to Sam's bed.
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Friday, May 23, 2008

Another Busy Week

Having to learn so much at once can really fill your brain space and take away from things like blogging semi interesting things I see on the street and other random thoughts. I'm finishing up week five on the new job and am starting to put some of the pieces together but have a giant list of things I need to do at home and in the personal life. I have been getting home most nights at a real reasonable hour and spending time with the boys but things like calling an electrician, plumber and contractor to do some maintenance and upgrades to the house have fallen way behind. I need to spend some time this weekend organizing some things and catching up with people.

Grandma Duritz and Aunt Florence were there this week so I had competition for kid attention. When Dylan was heading upstairs for a story Grandma was going to read before bed he said "Grandma, your the best" in a matter of fact kind of way. Florence and Linda played a little Wii bowling on Wednesday night and Florence pulled out a victory in the last frame. It's a fun game. Anyway, not much happening this weekend and I'm kind of looking forward to that.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Raining Again


Raining Again
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

On my way to Columbus for the day. Should be back in time for dinner.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Mountains

We just got back from a quick weekend trip to Blue Ridge Mountains in Western Virginia. Basically, this is the Shenandoah area of Virginia and very beautiful. We stayed at the Massanuttin Resort, which turned out really well except for the food. You should definitely bring your own food when traveling here because the food situation on the resort is not good. Maybe restaurants in Harrisonburg are better but the restaurants on property are scary.

The condo was very nice and big and the trails, water park, go-kart track and giant arcade were great. I'd go there again. I swear we wore the kids out big time on Saturday but they just kept going and were up again at 7am this morning looking for more. We took the long way back today and stopped at Luray Caverns for a quick tour of the oldest caverns in Virginia. The boys liked it for the first 20 minutes but the hour tour started to drag and we couldn't understand a word the tour guide said. He didn't enunciate anything and it didn't matter if you were 20 feet away or standing right next to him.

Great birthday weekend for Nicole and the we topped it all off with some games on the new wii. I beat Nicole in our first bowling match by 3 points, let the reign begin.

Check out the pictures on Flickr.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

The Tubes


The Tubes
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

At the Massanuttin water park. We spent all afternoon riding the slides and are back now for dinner. 4 mile hike on rocky terrain and about 25 trips up the three story slide complex has made mark a tired boy.

Top of Massanuttin


Top of Massanuttin
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Our morning hike has at about 3000 feet cell phone reception is still good. Beautiful day in western virginia.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Forgot

Nicole wanted to blog this picture of her in JuJu's birthday hat last night but she forgot the password to her own blog. I have nothing else to say today and I kind of like the green hat, orange wall shot in general so I'm posting it. I think Nicole had a great birthday with lots of cool gifts but I will let her blog about that. We are off to the mountains tomorrow for a quick get away and some hiking. No Wii until we get back and that's driving the kids insane. I didn't have in video games when I was a kid (obviously abused) and I turned out ok, in general. I think they will survive.
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Happy Birthday Nicole

We all went out for a fairly grown up dinner at Stardust. At least the boys wanted to look grown up with their handsome jackets and I think they pulled it off pretty well. Dinner was good and we came home and to open a few presents. Nicole seemed to like my very thoughtful gift of a brand new Nintendo Wii. Yes, she is quite the gamer and actually was asking for one for months. It will be a ton of fun when I get it set up and will actually be something she will use particularily when I get the new Wii Fit setup.

I also sent flowers to work today but they didn't show up which kind of ruined the birthday surprise. I would not suggest anyone ever use FTD, ever again. THEY SUCK.....
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Fancy Sam


Fancy Sam
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Sam trying on my jacket this morning. The boys have been into picking what I wear in the mornings lately. Today they made sure momma wore her shiney red dorothy shoes. They also brought her a big bunch of roses that they picked up with Blancas help yesterday. Happy birthday Nicole.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Ahoy Matey..

The Pirate Cruise today was a big hit and we got it in before the monsoon hit us around 4pm. The whole thing keeps the kids extremely busy trying to figure out how to find the treasure, complete with a map, message in a bottle and firing water canon at a pirate to get the keys to a treasure chest we find floating in the bay with a big x attached to it. We had lunch with Jud, Lisa, Maggie and Gage afterwords and then back home for a nap. It has rained 7 inches in four days in these parts. That's a lot of water and the lawn could now use some sun.

Here's a link to the whole set of pictures on flickr.
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Friday, May 09, 2008

Hangin On


Hangin On
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

To winter that is. It got just chilly enough today to warrant one last fire until October or November. You can see dylan on the left surfing You Tube for chinese toy train videos on his laptop. He's turning into quite a computer geek. It won't be long before he has his own blog and you all stop reading mine. Pirate cruise this weekend, arggggg

Thursday, May 08, 2008

First Happy Hour

Well, most of you know that I mean the first happy hour with my new colleagues at ACS. I'm a well known happy hour fly that hardly needs instruction in the successful happy hour, start early and end before clubbing time. The team in WSO planned and executed a great ACS get together at a place called Lime and I loosened up and had a great time with some of my new office mates.

Happy hour became a ritual at AARP for many years and they would tend to extend into the night because we knew each other so well and enjoyed having fun outside of work. This happy hour seemed like the beginning of all that. I met some new people and connected with some I met just a couple weeks ago. We are all older now and have more complicated lives but I get the impression that this group has potential to become close in our work and play making for a highly creative unit. Things are looking good.

PS, I think those pesky tent worms killed one of my trees, bastards.....

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

April Showers

This picture was taken a few weeks ago during a very wet couple days. We are expecting another round of heavy rain over the next day and a half and I'm sure the boys will wear their little Gordon's fishing outfits to school. Mr. Woo and team came and did their spring cleaning of the yard and trees. They cut down one whole tree and did a lot of trimming of branches and bushes. They laid down a truck full of mulch and aerated, seeded and fertilized the lawn in hope it will grow this year. The rain is the needed trigger to get everything filling in and looking lush until the sweltering heat and lack of rain this summer turns everything brown again. I'm really a fall and winter guy but I do like the clean feeling of spring but it also seems to call me to fix, repair, improve and build and that takes a lot of energy. Fall and winter says recoup, take stock, reflect and hunker down, I tend to like that more. Don't know what it means but Sam sure is cute in his little rain outfit.
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Falling Apart


Falling Apart
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

This building on the corner of Connecticut and k street has been coming down in little pieces the last couple weeks. I've been getting used to my new gig piece by piece the last couple weeks at the same time. One going up, one going down. As the blog turns.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Bombs Away


Bombs Away
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Modean on the 17th at waverly woods. Perfect day for golf.

Friday, May 02, 2008

It all happened so fast

The week that is and my blogging is really lacking lately. I worked, played with the kids and slept. I never promised this blog would be exciting. I did have lunch with Donkey and Gina on Thursday and dinner with the Customer Experience group in Alexandria. All and all, I'm tired and going to bed now.