Rosevelt Park, Battery City NY.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
So Adam's birthday party went into the wee hours but I was lamely in bed at 1:30am. I just couldn't be my mojo working and was full of some really good cheese. The place was a wreck this morning so we went out and had breakfast at Bubby's, then went to a playgroud in Battery Park City. It was a really nice park on the Hudson River right next to the former World Trade Center towers. The boys were thrilled because we took a taxi car down and a noisy train back uptown. We just got back and the cleaning crew is just about done getting things back in order. More soon....
Saturday, July 30, 2005
The show we saw last night was really funny. http://broadwayworld.com/showinfo.cfm?showid=443 We started out at the Royalton bar where I stay quite often when I come to NY. A martini then a walk to the theater then a 10:30 dinner at the Gramercy Tavern.
This morning started out with a trip on the Lexington Line from Astor Pl. to 68th street. The boys really liked the noisy train in a tunnel. When then walked into the park and found a great little playground with an awesome slide. From there we went to the Central Park Carousel and rode the uppy downy horses. Then we were off to the Museum of Natural History on 81st and Central Park West to see dinosaurs.
We got back to Adam's place around 2 and the boys took a nap and I went to the gym. I'll add a few more pictures to my flickr account again for some picture detail of the day. Hey I also got an e-mail from my cousin Tony yesterday saying his movie shoot at his house went really well and he's in the midst of editing and scoring the feature. You can read all about it at www.tonyadelman.com
We're having a birthday party for Adam tonight. Should be fun, they just came with a table of cheese.
More soon....
Friday, July 29, 2005
The drive to NY last night was pretty un-eventful for once. The new EZPass meant no more stoping at toll booths all the way up and our late departure meant not a lot of traffic, except for the Holland Tunnel which was being cleaned at midnight when we hit it so ten lanes merged down to one. The boys ran around Uncle Adam's apartment until about 2am and then we went to bed. This morning we got up and went to see the USS Intrepid Museum. This had everything the boys needed. A long taxi car ride to pier 86 where we boarded the WWII vintage aircraft carrier with a bunch of airplanes on it. Good stuff. They need a nap now. This is grandpa on the deck of the ship. Go to durpenters.org for a few more pictures. More soon..
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Weatherbug says it's damn hot. The actual temp is a 101 with a heat index of 112 in this shot. A cold front is on the way and can't get here quick enough. I got back from New York this morning at 8am and Nicole picked me up at the airport on the way into the office. I know the new rug for the basement arrived today and furniture is suppose to be their as well. I'm looking forward to seeing the boys and am hoping the rug and furniture match. More soon.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Long day in New York
I had dinner with Phil Terry from Creative Good and talked about the fundimental shift in the consumer value proposition and traditional marketing. Mass marketing is dead and segmentation is old school. Its all about customer centric delivery of goods and services and its not apparent to the typical marketing exec and even harder to explain.
Anyway, it was good to connect with Phil and get his perspective on my challenges at AARP relate to the rest of the world. I'm having a beer in the theater district right now and thinking about how to move AARP into the 21st century. Phil also suggested the Gramercy Grill for a hot spot for me and Nicole on Friday when Adam, Gil and Linda will be taking care of the kids. Sounds fantastic.
More soon.
Mark Carpenter
General Manager
Web Strategy and Operations
www.aarp.org
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net)
New York
Nicole got on the 8am shuttle and I'm on the 9am. The boys and I played baby sandwich this morning and they really liked that. Basically, one of them would crawl on me then the other one would crawl on top of the one on me. We did this for 15 minutes with each child taking turns as the meat.
The flight is leaving, more soon.
Mark Carpenter
General Manager
Web Strategy and Operations
www.aarp.org
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net)
Sunday, July 24, 2005
The boys and I got our hair cut yesterday and then went out to a friends party. They had a moonwalk in the back yard and we all bounced around for a few hours. They seem to enjoy wrestling each other quite a bit these days and the moonwalk made a perfect place to beat on each other. I'll post a few more of these on flickr.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Friday, July 22, 2005
Wow, it's been 3 days since I added to this blog. I have really tried to be daily with the whole business but I guess work has really gotten in the way. Actually, I played golf yesterday but I needed the break. On that topic, I shot a 48 on the front side (not so good) and a 37 on the back (one over par). How this happened, I have no idea. Something about concentration and just letting go.
Anyway, I should have some new photos of the boys this weekend. Dylan has a temp right now so I don't know we'll be going to the Silampa cookout but I bet I'll find some opportunity to take some shot of the little guys. That or I'll take a look at what Blanca has taken on the house digital camera this week and blog those.
Chinese food is on the way, talk with you all soon.
Anyway, I should have some new photos of the boys this weekend. Dylan has a temp right now so I don't know we'll be going to the Silampa cookout but I bet I'll find some opportunity to take some shot of the little guys. That or I'll take a look at what Blanca has taken on the house digital camera this week and blog those.
Chinese food is on the way, talk with you all soon.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
I forgot to blog about my trip to the University of Maryland to see the Human Computer Interaction Laboratory and Dr. Ben Schniederman last Friday. This is sort of a MIT Media Lab type place but much closer. They are doing some interesting things with older people and technology and we may want to partner with them on a project of two. This is Mike using his sidekick to blog himself wearing a computer eye tracking gizmo. You can see the results here. http://hiptop.bedope.com/index.php?FILTER=zyrr@gznvy.pbz&gimme_entry=14493
Sunday, July 17, 2005
It was hot today, real hot but he pool was nice. Sam did the slide three times and wore me out catching him at the bottom and not drowning in the process. Dylan is still not a fan of the whole thing. Ordered a bunch of furniture this weekend. Sofa, chaise lounge, two area rugs, a piece for the new tv. The basement will be all ready to use in no time. More soon...
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Been busy moving computers around in the house and buying stuff at Home Depot. The floor in the basement is almost done and then the contractors will start working on the bathroom and lighting so I needed to take a couple trips to Home Depot to get stuff. The boys like the trip out after Blanca leaves but they are hard to keep in one place after 6pm. It doesn't make shopping all that easy.
I'm also getting a new Dell in the next couple days. This machine will have 1 gig of ram and 500 gigabyte hard drive on it with a ton of other good stuff. It will serve as my primary media PC on my home network and be hooked up to the HD tv in the basement. I'll be able to view my over 10,000 photos, 25 hours of video and listen to my 7000 songs all from a comfy chair with a remote control. Not to mention all the rich content coming out on the web these days.
I've moved the basement Dell (third newest after Nicole's new laptop and the newest) to the family room and am reconfiguring the old family room Dell to be the kids computer. This is the oldest of the bunch but will serve nicely as a kids machine and archieve with it's 220 gigs of hard disk. If you add my work laptop, a 60 gig remote hard disk, two ipods and an archos media player, this house now has over a terabyte of hard disk space. The first computer I bought in 1993 had 4 megs of ram and a 500 megabyte hard drive. My disk space has grown 2000% in 12 years. Who knows what I'll need in 2010.
Enough geek for today.
I'm also getting a new Dell in the next couple days. This machine will have 1 gig of ram and 500 gigabyte hard drive on it with a ton of other good stuff. It will serve as my primary media PC on my home network and be hooked up to the HD tv in the basement. I'll be able to view my over 10,000 photos, 25 hours of video and listen to my 7000 songs all from a comfy chair with a remote control. Not to mention all the rich content coming out on the web these days.
I've moved the basement Dell (third newest after Nicole's new laptop and the newest) to the family room and am reconfiguring the old family room Dell to be the kids computer. This is the oldest of the bunch but will serve nicely as a kids machine and archieve with it's 220 gigs of hard disk. If you add my work laptop, a 60 gig remote hard disk, two ipods and an archos media player, this house now has over a terabyte of hard disk space. The first computer I bought in 1993 had 4 megs of ram and a 500 megabyte hard drive. My disk space has grown 2000% in 12 years. Who knows what I'll need in 2010.
Enough geek for today.
Monday, July 11, 2005
Hangin Around
Kumie took this quote off the Counting Crows bulletin board today. It talks about Dylan and Sam on stage during the song hangin around. I guess the person who wrote it was too drunk to realize that their were actually two children on stage.
"His sister's child was beautiful and edible and eveything that is good and watching Adam hold him was really very touching and melted my heart into a pool mush. He is probably a fabulous uncle."
And btw, what about how adorable Me, Nicole and Kumie were on stage? Or at least a comment on how lame Kumie's dancing was.
btw, btw, Adam is a pretty terrific uncle.
Kumie took this quote off the Counting Crows bulletin board today. It talks about Dylan and Sam on stage during the song hangin around. I guess the person who wrote it was too drunk to realize that their were actually two children on stage.
"His sister's child was beautiful and edible and eveything that is good and watching Adam hold him was really very touching and melted my heart into a pool mush. He is probably a fabulous uncle."
And btw, what about how adorable Me, Nicole and Kumie were on stage? Or at least a comment on how lame Kumie's dancing was.
btw, btw, Adam is a pretty terrific uncle.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
My cousin just e-mailed me a link to one of my first web pages. I forgot this was still out on the web. It's a two page gem about out family cruise in 1997. Just think if I had continued to blog since then. That would have been years of saved memories. Oh well, it's still pretty funny.
http://members.aol.com/homerclees/xmas97.htm
Played golf today, very tired. More soon....
http://members.aol.com/homerclees/xmas97.htm
Played golf today, very tired. More soon....
Saturday, July 09, 2005
The boys stayed up later than ever before to see Adam perform at the House of Blues in Atlantic City last night. Acutally Dylan slept through a bunch of the set but he had a nice comfortable couch in a room back stage where we could still see and hear the show. I'll post the sleeping Dylan picture on flickr in a little while. They had a great time playing with Uncle Adam in his suite and also enjoyed the back stage action after the show. Nicole, Kumie and I took the boys on stage for Hangin Around again and Adam picked each of them up and sang a verse with them. They could be future rock stars. I hung out with a group of friends who came up for the show and gambled a bit after the boys went to bed. I'm tired.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Atlantic City
We made it with only one or two wrong turns. The boys really like all the noises and lights of the modern casino. Adam is playing later tonight so we will see how late the boys can stay up.
Btw, I posted 59 pictures to www.durpenters.com. Enjoy.
More soon.....
Mark Carpenter
General Manager and Director
Web Strategy and Operations
www.aarp.org
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net)
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
This would have been a good photo if I wasn't casting a shadow on Sam. Nicole and the boys are looking out at San Francisco Bay from the Berkeley Marina. Lots of sailboats and the city in the horizon as the sun is setting. We made it back to DC today without much of a problem. No repeat of last Thursday's flying meltdown which Nicole, I and the rest of the plane really appreciated.
I've put a few more pictures up in flickr. I'll add a whole album on the web site tomorrow or Friday. www.durpenters.org
More soon...
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Happy 4th of July
The boys saw their first fireworks yesterday and sam was determined to name each one for someone. Grandma's, pappa's, etc... Dylan fell a sleep mid way but said he enjoyed them when he work up an hour later. The boys also participated in a neighborhood parade in the morning and I have a ton of pictures but I can't get them up right now. Its just too hard using a modem so I'll wait till I get home. I did manage to get on up on Flickr but I think that's it until later this week. I'll post a few dozen by sunday night.
I am going to help Linda and Gil get a high speed internet line and new Dell in the next few days so the next visit should be better recorded.
Go to www.durpenters.org for the parade wagon picture.
More soon.
Mark Carpenter
General Manager and Director
Web Strategy and Operations
www.aarp.org
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net)
Sunday, July 03, 2005
We had a great couple days out here taking the boys to new adventures every chance we can. We went down to Half Moon Bay this morning to give the kids a first taste of the ocean. It's cold down there and the seas were rough, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. Anyway, we found a nice rocky inlet with big waves and very few people and got the boys to put their feet in the Pacific. Nicole explained the under-toad to them. The mean toad that pulls you under when a wave retreats. After we all got drenched by a rouge wave the lifeguard asked if were from around these parts. We kept our distance after that. The picture below is the rouge wave shot. I'm also uploading a bunch of shots to my flickr account. As always, you can get there from www.durpenters.org
Saturday, July 02, 2005
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