Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Waiting for the show to start. Rode the Staten Island ferry this morning and then we were off to the matinee.

Hangin with the Mummys

We made it down to the MET today to seemummies and some arms and armour. Not much more for the youngsters there but we wanted to give it a shot. On the way home we stopped off at FAQ Schwartz on 5th Avenue for some toy shopping and quawking at really big stuffed aninmals. Tonight it was pizza and the start of some major cooking. We are seeing Mary Poppins tomorrow and then home for more cooking I suppose. I'm going to steal away tomorrow night to see Oppenheimer at the Mercury Lounge in Soho at 10pm. Those guys rock.

Bleecker Street Window


Bleeker Street Window
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Good dinner and a little window shopping in the village.

Mr.Dennehy's

Mr.Dennehy's
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Made it to nyc in reasonable time. Got into town at 4 and got ourselves situated and are having a pint of Harp and waiting for dinner. Its a dark picture but that's dylan and gil.

School Pictures are Here

We got the school pictures yesterday during our first Parent\Teacher conference at the new school. Both boys are doing great and are turning out to be class leaders. Yesterday was the last day of work for 10 days are we are off all week for Thanksgiving. It will be a nice break.

One Laptop Per Child

The Nick Negroponte OLPC project is off and running and you can now order your own $100 laptop that actually turned out to be about $200 but it was close. For the next couple weeks you can pay $400 to get one and send one to a child is a developing nation. You get to write off half the price on your taxes and you will also get a one year subscription to t-mobile's wireless service found in many hotels and starbucks all over the world. I ordered mine on Monday morning. It's not a replacement for a full featured computer but it is designed more for children and the boys will love it.

I saw a couple prototypes of the laptop a couple years ago. Mike Lee and I discussed it with Nick at SFO waiting for a flight to Monterray where Nick talked about the project at TED 2006 and Nick brought a model of the laptop to AARP for a discussion shortly after TED in 06. Mike has continued the MIT and OLPC relationship since I left AARP and has blogged about the development. He was a serious alpha tester.

Check out all the details and buy one here. http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

It's a good cause.

Old Dave

Old Dave
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Wacky dave is 52 today and doesn't look a day oer 51. He's off to Springsteen tonight, I'm heading home in a few.

Scooter Boys

Here's the video I was referring to below.

Razor Boys

It has been a pretty mellow weekend considering the last few. We opened up Grandma and Grandpa Carpenter's birthday presents and took them out for a few rides on Saturday and Sunday. The boys are already scooting along pretty well and love them. Dylan choose the purple one and Sam the green. We watched Ratatouie and ET with the boys on Friday and Saturday and watched Sicko after they went to bed. All in all, ET is still the best movie. I'm going to try to post some video of the Razor fun later if I get a chance.

No More Parties for a While

Adam, Florence, Elaine and Linda joined us for the official birthday party for the boys last night. Nicole made her 3rd and 4th cakes in the last 3 days and the boys loved them. A 9 car train and an airplane this time around. They got lots of great gifts and will be sending out thank you notes at some point. I'm terrible at that but Nicole will make sure it happens. Btw, thank you to everyone who every gave me a gift that I forgot to thank you for. The halloween party and multiple birthday parties have worn us out and we need to go to bed early tonight and do a lot of nothing this weekend. Maybe a hike on Sunday, the leaves are peaking. More soon....

Birthday Week

Had a busy weekend of hikes and pirate birthday parties. The weather was great for both but I was tired by last night. Nicole has been baking cake after cake and planning party after party and I'm sure she will be happy when the boys are five already. Nicole and the boys are coming downtown to have lunch with me tomorrow and then one more party with lots of gifts I'm sure. I've taken a lot of pictures in the last few days and have posted a couple of collections on flickr. I'm sure I will have more tomorrow.


Mason Neck Hike
http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/sets/72157602946392801/

Pirate Birthday Party
http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/sets/72157602946837437/

Fall Hike

It was boys day as me and the boys went to the gym and for a hike at Mason Neck while Mama and Grandma got ready for the birthday party tomorrow. I picked up a new camera yesterday, a Canon SD 750. It's the third compact Canon I've purchased and is perfect to bring along for all occasions. I handed the SD 300 down to Nicole and the SD 110 is for the boys. The new camera is a nice alternative to the big Nikon D70 when you don't want to carry around a big body and lense. I'll probably upload a few of the picture to flickr later today or tomorrow. The boys actually got some nice shots today, partly by trying and partly by just hitting the shutter button and not knowing what they were doing. Either way, it was fun.

Looking up the Charles

Looking up the Charles
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Great view from Endeca's office in Cambridge. We got out of the meeting about 2 hours early so we got on the 5pm shuttle instead of the 7. I should actually be able to spend a little time with the kids tonight. Major bonus.

Cambridge

Cambridge
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Near the mit media lab where I used to spend a lot time. Beautiful day in the greater boston area.

Sunrise over Long Island Sound

Sunrise over Long Island Sound
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

On the six thiry shuttle flight to Boston after a couple hours of sleep. The show last night was good but I didn't get home till late and the cab to the airport morning showed up at 5:15. Yes, I'm whining. Heading back to dc later this afternoon, I'm already looking forward to it.

More Van Halen

More Van Halen
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Van Halen

Van Halen
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Yes, its true, I'm at a Van Halen concert and its really loud. Makes me feel like I'm in high school back in Minnesota. Good times.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Scary Cat

Scary Cat
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Actually just Norm trying to get my attention. I suppose he deserves a little extra attention, halloween is a black cat's holiday.

Halloween Party Photo Dump

I not only have my pictures of the party on Saturday, I have Gina's as well. I think everyone liked Nicole's outfit the best this time. It's not often you see her in big hair. My sexy doctor outfit didn't quite make the grade when it came to the sexiness factor.

My Set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/sets/72157602766610602/

Gina's Set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loveoflabs/sets/72157602769641864/

Crisp Fall Morning

Crisp Fall Morning
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

The moon still visable above the justice department. It finally feels like fall here in dc.

Halloween Party

Halloween Party
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

The calm before the invasion of kids and ghouls. The weather finally broke and it stopped raining in time to throw the annual durpenters halloween bash. It was nice to finally get some serious rain, like 5 inches in the past three days but the sunshine feels good. Lots of pictures tomorrow I would imagine.

Happy bruce

Happy bruce
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Having a cocktail with Bruce who runs nasdaq.com at dc coast tonight. Good to catchup with an old friend from my web executive council days. He's the civil war reinactor that has promised to get me set up with a union uniform and gun. Be afraid

Mmmm, Hamburger

We had a pumpkin carving contest today at work. It was part of the yearly Festifall event. I didn't have anything to do with this but it came in second place. I thought it should have won but the first place pumpkin was titled Architect of the Pumpkin. It was a pumpkin rendition of the Capitol. Lots of creative people here in AIA land. Anyway, I've got the boys to myself for a couple days. The boys and Kumie who's in town to visit the old gang. She's out at a Shins concert tonight.

Nice Pumpkins

It was another warm October weekend but we managed to pretend it was fall and go to the pumpkin patch. This one was pretty funky and we were the first people in the door at 10:30am this morning. Lots of slides, a haunted house, goats, a spooky forest and colonial village. The boys got extremely dirty and Nicole picked up a couple pumpkins and some mums.

Yesterday was a lot of running around to prepare for next weekend's party. I almost burned the house down. I filled all the tiki torches with fuel and lit them to prepare for next weekend. I ran downstairs for a few minutes and when I came back up, one the torches was fulling engulfed in flames and when I ran out the side door, it had fallen into a pile of cushions and a big straw scare crow we had created a couple weeks ago. Can you say six foot flames? Yes, I had a hose out because I had just sprayed out the screen porch and went at it like Squad 51.

Anyway, we lost a couple cushions and the scarecrow was a little toasty but a disaster was averted. A couple minutes downstairs and we would have been having the Halloween party at a hotel. Good times..

Here's a link to the pumpkin patch photos on flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/homerclees/sets/72157602593924275/

Too Funny

Ran across this on Boing Boing and had to share. Yeah, the jackhammers are the problem.

Out of sync

Ok, so the following post was suppose to have been before the iPhone World post but somehow didn't make it from my phone to blogger. Just wanted to make sure the back story was there.

The mirrors on either side of this hotel room make it look a lot bigger than it is. I'm having a quick drink in the bar, waiting for kumie to pick me up. We are heading down to Saratoga to see Adam and the band play an Apple corporate event. Here's hoping they are giving away free iPhones. Had a couple good days meeting with the councils and looking forward to heading home tomorrow. Haven't seen Kumie in a while either so that should be entertaining.

Endless Room

Endless Room
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Iphone land

Iphone land
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

So I've never seen so many iphones in one place in my life. The crows played for 500 Apple employees and every one of them had an iphone. It was a great show, the venue was amazing and the small size was like a show in your backyard. Its amazing that apple has the money to pay for such an event. I didn't score a new iphone but got a nice fleese pulloever. Yes, I got one for nicole too.

Redwood Room

Redwood Room
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

I'm bored so I thought I would share this bar shot. The Redwood Room here at the Clift is quite a scene. All the pretty people are here.

There it is

There it is
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

I knew I left it somewhere...

Hogwarts

Hogwarts
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

This hotel is full of dark wood, red velvet, weird staircases and big chandeliers. It's very Harry Potter and kind of fun to get lost in. This is the meeting room I'm in right now and I'm just waiting for frank n furter to roll out the meatloaf. (reference to the rocky horror picture show)

Top of the St. Francis

Top of the St. Francis
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

In san francisco. The building on the right is where Rachel and Brandt told me they were getting married many years ago. Its the Hyatt and has a great bar over looking Alcatraz and Angel Island. I'm going into the annual fall customer eperience council meetings now. Good times.

A Million Things

Nicole and I have been traveling a little this fall and its my turn to be gone for a couple days. The boys don't seem to mind so much now and understand that after a couple days, mom or dad are bound to turn up again. unfortuneatly, its getting harder for me to leave and I almost always want to get back before I get where I'm going.

We had a low key weekend of haircuts, shopping and naps. The boys played too much Nintendo and I was a little sick. Sam and I have a little competition going with the Mario Kart game. We can play against each other with the two Nintendo's networked and I'm teaching him some good trash talk. He's pretty good and actually beats me sometimes but I spank him then let him win now and again as well. He's a competitve little monster.

I also watched a concert in the basement that Dylan set up for us. He pulled together four kids size chairs and placed them in front of two steam engines and two diesel engines and had me and Sam sit and watch the concert. According to him, the steam engines played drums and the diesels played guitars. After a few minutes, Sam wanted to add hot wheels cars to the band and Dylan was most accomidating. He's a compasionate little monster.

The intesity of children at play is amazing and something we should never lose. I need to remember to have fun with what I'm doing and everything else will make sense.

Spookies

Spookies
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

It finally feels like fall around here so we picked up a few pumpkins down the street. We all got haircuts this morning, played at a park and did a little shopping at whole foods. I think laying around and watching football is in order for the rest of the day. Go Cal.

Exhibit Clarity

Exhibit Clarity
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Ok, so the aia exhibit is not about bridges but spanish architecture. Funny how I just saw my first Calatrava building in Milwaukee last week and now he's being highlighted in AIA's lobby. I dug a little deeper and I found out the he is also designing the new transit hub at the world trade center site in nyc.

Bridges

Bridges
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

It appears an exhibit on bridges is moving into the aia lobby today. Some of the photos are up, but none of the discriptions. The lobby has been exhibit free for too long.

Skeleton Family

We went to Art on the Avenue in Del Ray today and made another scarecrow for our Halloween decorations. Nicole and I also received our skeleton pajamas in the mail this week and we all decided to have a little skeleton party tonight. Good times.

Milwaukee Museum of Fine Art

This Calatrava designed building is right down the street from the hotel. I'm going to visit it later today. I hear the parking garage is fantastic.

Milwaukee city hall

Milwaukee city hall
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

A happy reception

Pfister Hotel Ballroom - Milwaukee

Pfister Hotel Ballroom - Milwaukee
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

Beautiful old hotel. I'm going to get some photos of the Milwaukee art museum as well while I'm here. Drink some beer and eat some cheese too.

Papa Art

Papa Art
Originally uploaded by homerclees.

I got a portrait on the driveway today. Good times.

Superstar!

Dylan's teacher is younger than Sam's and a little more technically proficient. She can't be more than 30, so she has grown up with the latest technology and is probably someone who hasn't seen a Bush or a Clinton as president in her non-toddler lifetime. Anyway, she produced this nice little laminated piece that she sent home with Dylan today. Sam's teacher was equally nice but he didn't get a special certificate. Sam did get a book from his teacher and a note saying that he had a great day too. Off to a good start.

New Month, New School

Well, the boys are at their new school today and they both seemed pretty excited. Here they are outside with Sam playing guitar and Dylan on drums. No, this is not the school of rock but thier new home in the Fairfax County system. They loved Keshet but this new set-up puts them in different classes which we think they need. We are going back to pick them up this afternoon.