"A Grandpa"

Ever since Granddad Anderson left, Nico has been proclaiming, "When I grow up, I want to be a grandpa!" Previously, his life's goal was to become a prince. I think a grandpa is more likely.

Today I asked him, "Why a grandpa?" He informed me grandpas are grown-ups that like kids and having fun. Dad - you apparently made a good impression.

Just one example of the fun things grandpas get to do:






I sincerely hope Nico does get to be a grandpa when he grows up. Until then, he's got two cool grandpas to look up to. I just wish they'd both visit more often.... David, we've got a guitar here just waiting for you.

home work

Today was Gutter Day. Fortunately, this did not involve crude jokes or vulgarities. Instead it was the actual gutters under consideration. We borrowed a big ladder from our neighbor and cleaned 'em all out.

And boy did they need it. I have no idea when they were last cleaned. Most of them had several inches of beautiful compost clogging up the works. But no longer!

A couple of the lines actually had plants growing on them. Here's one that had developed an impressive root system. If you look closely, you can see the plant still growing out of it. Yes, that's all roots.























So yeah, just another thrilling day here in Outland.

Alex's Birthday

Alex is old! At least he thinks he is. He seems pretty much the same to me.

We had the great fun of celebrating Alex's birthday last week while my Mom and Dad were in town. His birthday was on a Sunday, so we couldn't exactly make a whole day of it, but we did make a whole dinner of it.


Alex chose, for his meal of the day, pork loin, rolls, mashed potatoes, tasty cheeses (Pyrenees Basque Sheep, Moulis Breisis, Uniekaas Reserve, and Delice De Bourgogne), and other various tidbits.

The kids had a great time "wrapping" the gifts with their own homemade wrapping paper. They had an equally delightful time when Alex tried to guess what was inside. "An old shoe" was their favorite hypothesis, but Alex was pretty pleased when it turned out to be something more fun and/or needed.






Happy Birthday Alex!

Nico the Mad

After informing Nico he could only have dessert upon eating four bites of peas, he declared he would give me a "yucky piece of a slug" for my birthday unless I relented.

Are there any bits of a slug that are not yucky???

All Hallows Eve

This year, the festivities began with the much-anticipated Halloween Costume Parade. Ellie and her friend, Abby, have been planning this event for months. They worked out exactly how they wanted it, and all Abby's mom and I had to do was facilitate their wishes. The general idea was to have Ellie and Abby leading a parade carrying Halloween banners. To commence the parade, two kids (specifically Nico and Grace), in bathing suits so they did not get wet, were to drop mentos into diet coke setting off a grand entrance for Ellie and Abby. Nico and Grace were to then throw candy to the crowds as the parade passed by.

We had to make a few changes. Abby's mom and I ended up dropping the mentos in the diet coke, which worked surprisingly well, and we decided against swimsuits. The entrance was great! (Although a bit more involved, you can get the general idea here). Ellie and Abby came in carrying their banners and leading a host of neighborhood kids down the block for a grand parade. The candy throwing, however, got a bit out of hand as the kids lobbed the candy as hard as they could at the spectators. Luckily no one was injured. All in all it was a great parade.... Great job Ellie!!! Alas, I have no pictures to show for it since I was manning the diet coke. If any of you (ahem, Mom and Monica) have any pictures to donate for the cause, I'd love to post them.


As for the important business of trick-or-treating, we struck out early to avoid rain, and therefore went in daylight. The dark of night seems more appropriate, but it was fun all the same. We ventured to the neighbors and up and down the block a bit. Nico made an excellent, and very serious knight. His main criteria for a costume this year, was involvement of a sword. Ellie was a sassy black cat, and the cutest one around. Alex and I were re-runs from years past, and Granddad Anderson was the spooky ghost. It was a great trick-or treating party.

The kids got more than enough candy (I'm hoping they completely forget it exists!), you can see the evidence in their "line-ups", a Halloween tradition past down from the Hart faction.















Halloween - what a great holiday!

grandma visits

Today is Halloween, so I hope that tomorrow we'll have some great trick-or-treat pictures. For now, a quick update on October...

The highlight for us was the visit of my (alex) mom earlier this month. She was here for just over a week and we all had a great time.

She came armed with early birthday presents... note, anyone looking for presents for these kids might consider Playmobils. They are wildly popular among the younger set in this house.



















We had some great dinners together. Ellie and Nico always wanted to sit next to Grandma, as close as humanly possible.



















My mom showed us some high-end bottling techniques. The peach jam is sooooo good.



















We visited our local botanical garden, the Bayard Cutting Arboretum. It's small but has some great features.



















Including this turtle!



















They had some beautiful old Japanese Maples.



















There was a dahlia exhibit going on while we were there. I had no idea there were so many kinds of dahlias.



















We also visited a pumpkin farm on the North Shore of the island. There are lot of these farms around, and most of them offer other entertainments for kids. We have learned by hard experience that the quality of the establishments vary, however. Fortunately this one was of the higher caliber.

They had a bounce-room...



















...a haybale maze...





































... and of course, loads of pumpkins.



















A lot of the "farms" are just empty fields with a lot of pre-picked pumpkins strewn about on the ground. I fear this gives kids the impression that pumpkins magically materialize in such places... kind of defeats the purpose of exposing city kids to agriculture.

This place was a real farm, you had to saw or tear off the pumpkin from the stem. They also had lots of other types and colors.





































The results were great!



















Thanks for coming out, Mom! We hope to see you again soon!

quarry trip

Recently I had to travel to a stone quarry in the Adirondacks. The purpose was to select the boulders for my DeLury Square project in Lower Manhattan.

The quarry is really cool. This was my second trip, so I didn't go for the whole tour this time. This time I had to select around 40 boulders, of varying sizes. Most are smaller seating stones, but a few are larger, and will be used to make a fountain. These had to be selected carefully to fit the space and aesthetics of the design. The largest is 13' high (although 3' of that will be buried), and weighs around 40 tons.

Here's the second-biggest stone... you can see the ledge behind where they are sliding off more stone. They actually do this whole operation with surprisingly little impact to the environment. Obviously there's the excavation, but they don't do any more than absolutely necessary, and they "use the whole deer" so to speak -- there is very little waste. Stormwater is closely managed, too... am I losing my audience? Anyway I think they do a pretty good job. And the stone is of the highest quality. If you're in the market for granite, be sure to check them out at www.champlainstone.com.





































The landscape up there is beyond amazing, of course. I really miss living in Ithaca.





































I wrote into the contract that the contractor had to pay for all travel and lodging expenses for this trip. The contractor didn't care what kind of car I rented, so naturally I chose the new Chevy Camaro. (For all you whistleblowers out there, it was actually about the same price to rent as a regular boring car).



















I was very impressed -- although that could be related to my typical driving experiences, which is either in the office's Civic or my own 8-year-old Accord. With the Camaro I was expecting a fast but jumpy sports car, not that comfortable or smooth on the highway. It was indeed fast (not going to offer details on how I know that), but also very comfortable. This would be an outstanding road trip car, as long as you don't have more than 2 people. There is a back seat, but it was apparently designed for people without legs.

As Ferris says, if you have the means, I highly recommend you pick one up.

View from the driver's seat... note the tasteful retro gauges.



















Ellie and Nico got a look the next morning, before I returned it. They were very interested in a "real" sports car, although Nico was a little skeptical because it didn't have a rear spoiler.



















Cruisin', yeah...