Clydes

Clydes
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Donkey birthday

Bed head

Watching

Bed head
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

morning cartoons

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. 

95 south

95 south
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Kumie driving

Lucky strike

Lucky strike
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Holiday happy hour

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.

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)

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.  

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)

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

SANTA! 

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.  

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.

Boston

Boston
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

More boston

Franklin street

Franklin street
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Boston star

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.  

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.  

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.

6th ave

6th ave
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Empire state

Rain

Long drive with lots of rain tonight. Good to have that done and looking forward to eating a lot. Happy Birthday Mae, we forgot to call but you're only one so you won't remember.

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

We had a nice morning today starting with the boys first ride in Papa Car in their new big boy car seats. We loaded them up and headed out to the end or the runway of National Airport. Sam sat in the nice Park Policeman's car and got to push the siren button three times. The park police was there to stop some idiot from flying a kite in the flight path for the runway. Why that seemed like a reasonable idea to the kite owner is beyond me.

They ran and ran and we stopped at a playground in old town on the way home. Good times.

The End of Wacky Dave Birthday Posts

I finally uploaded a bunch of pictures from last weekends trip to Charleston, SC to celebrate Wacky Dave turning 50.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/sets/1399403/

Good times but I'm glad I'm home this weekend to catch up on all the stuff that needs to be done around here. I think I'm done with golf for a while. It's getting too cold and my game was only so-so last weekend. I didn't get to play as much as I wanted this season so will have to pick up the pace next year. We built our first fire in the fireplace last night and watched the Adam Sandler version of the Longest Yard. Pretty funny actually or maybe it was the wine.

More wine and fire tonight and of course the big game at 7pm ET. Go Cal again.

I forgot to point people to an article I'm quoted in a number of times from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It turned out pretty well but I never said this "AARP, which defines seniors as anyone older than 50" I would never say that but that's what the reporter quoted me basically saying. AARP Membership age begins at 50 but I NEVER use the word "senior" when talking to reporters. I don't think I've ever seen myself quoted in print when the reporter didn't misrepresent something I said or didn't say. Arg...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05317/605690.stm

BTW, just to clarify. I'll be pulling for Cal to win the big game on Saturday. The picture of the big game flags at Stanford was simply to illustrate the point that it's a BIG GAME to both sides.

GO BEARS!!

Publishing on the Web Course

So I was Stanford faculty for a couple days and talked at a Stanford Publishing Course. I think the whole thing went rather well and I got a good discussion going with the participants. I went out with BJ Fogg and his partner last night and got on a plane at SFO around 7:30 this morning. I have a busy couple days but next week should be pretty easy being Thanksgiving and all. I need to post some pictures of the boys soon. I'll work on that.

Oh yeah, the big game is this weekend and Adam and Gil will be there. It's at Stanford this year and the campus is getting ready for it.

Dinner at Stanford

The dinner at Stanford tonight was nice and included a student singing group pictured below. I sat at the Professors table because I’m officially a visiting faculty member because I’m speaking at a conference on campus tomorrow. Good resume builder but it doesn’t mean I will cheer for the Cardinal against Cal this weekend. I also resisted the urge to buy the boys Stanford t-shirts after dinner. I’m really tired after getting up at 4:30am this morning. Time for sleep.

Acapela group at stanford

Acapela group at stanford
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Everyday people

Well, I sent a bunch of good phone cam shots of Wacky Dave being an idiot at an Irish Bar in Charleston but non of them have posted yet. Blogspot is not making me happy right now. This is a shot of Modean getting off the plane on Friday morning. I got two rounds of golf in and got back to DC this morning at 8am. It was a fun weekend and on top of it, the Vikings beat the Giants. The boys seem to leap in verbal abilities everytime I leave for a couple days. They asked me all sorts or questions when I showed up this morning but I'm not sure they were really listening to the answers.

11-11-05_2247.jpg

11-11-05_2247.jpg
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Wacky dave

Nothing to say

Nothing to say
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Whatever

Tommy condons

Tommy condons
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Irish guys

Terry and jud

Terry and jud
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Charleston

Wacky Dave is AARP Age

Yes, hard to believe but true. It does make some sense since 50 is the new 30. That puts me in my 20's and I'm alright with that. We are playing golf today and tomorrow and I hope I still have the late fall golf mojo I had the last time I played a few weeks ago. Regardless, it will simply be fun to roast Dave with all sorts of ageing jokes and it's a beautiful day.

Good times.

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

11-11-05_0853.jpg

11-11-05_0853.jpg
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Lonely suitcase

Wacky dave

Wacky dave
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Old dave is Fifty

Sleepy

Sleepy
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Sam

Deja Vue

Have you ever been in a meeting where the players are different, the view out the window is new, the calendar has a different date and discussion is exactly the same as something that happened not that long ago? Well, that was today for me.

I'm on a plane, heading home from Boston and looking forward to seeing Nicole and the boys who are by way, a bundle of creativity that is never the same day to day. The boys look at life in wonder at every turn. They aren't repackaging themselves for different audiences and looking to connect dissimilars in innovative ways. They just react to all this new input they get each day and respond with unique reactions and observations.

Ok, this makes no sense but I'm looking forward to the random connections the boys make when I get to lay on the floor with them and talk nonsense.

I voted for the Virginia Governors race and associate state races this morning before getting on a plane for beantown. Nicole was giddy about the whole voting experience which I don't really get but I did feel good doing my civil duty. Hopefully all the D candidates I voted for will win tonight.

I'm hungry, I hope we land soon.

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