Who could this lovely lady of the night be...and why is she escorted by that tiny little scarecrow?
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Bride of Darkness
Who could this lovely lady of the night be...and why is she escorted by that tiny little scarecrow?
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Teen halloween 2
Dylan has been this dark character for a bunch of years. This is his first year, however, that he's not trick or treating. He did go to a teen halloween party last night until 11pm. Times are changing.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Teen halloween
Here's what happens when tomboys get older. This is Cady's halloween costume. Yikes! What a knockout. Marty - be afraid. Be very afraid.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Peter Pan and friends
Peter Pan took Captain Hook and Tinkerbelle out to a Halloween party. Mema snapped a picture and, being the publicist that she is, got it on the Democrat & Chronicle's website. Nice hook, Charlie.Come on, don't be outdone - send me your kid's halloween costume shots!
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Glasgow
I'm in Glasgow this week on business. I won't see much due to my work schedule, but I have poked around a bit. It's my first time in Scotland. The weather is gray, damp and chilly but the people are incredibly warm, polite, funny and friendly. For a city of 
600,000 it has an astounding number of night clubs, restaurants and pubs. The place comes alive after 10pm every night of the week.WeeWorld is a collection of really sweet, talented people. They're a very unique group. Thoughtful. Creative. The work ethic here is very different than in Web companies in the US. Here the team is in at 9am, takes an hour for lunch and is out the door promptly at 5. Wow. Hey if it works, that's the way life should be!
I love the lilting patterns of their accents. At first you can't understand a word...and then your ear gets attuned and it all becomes clear.
Tonight we go out to the pubs with a the creative team. I'm battling a cold, but took some extra Zzzz's this morning so I can make it through tonight!
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Life is good
30,128That's the number of pumpkins that were lit at the Life is Good Pumpkin Festival on Boston Common last night. That makes it into the Guinness Book of World Records. And the festival raised $250,000 for Camp Sunshine, a place in Maine that helps children with life-threatening illnesses and their immediate families through various stages of a child’s illness.
We went down and carved a pumpkin along with 100,000 other people. It was a gorgeous brisk fall night and it's hard to describe how uplifting it was to see the magical twinkling of pumpkins all around. But the other thing that blew me away? The happiness. Everyone there was happy. The people bringing in the pumpkins on forklifts, the people helping you find a spot to carve it, the people singing on stage, the Life is Good guys that kept track of how many pumpkins we were carving, and the thousands of wide-eyed children. We were all wide-eyed last night.
Pumpkins were everywhere. Set up in mazes, on scaffolding, like a skyscraper, in patterns. Here's some shots.
Pumpkin power
Burning man pumpkin
Look at the Steve Irwin pumpkin, top left. Love the cityscape pumpkin.
Gobs of pumpkins
Beauty shot
Our pumpkin
They're right. Life is good.
Our pumpkin
They're right. Life is good.Saturday, October 21, 2006
Talent Show
Dylan and Griffin did a great job at the Middle School Talent Show. They wrote and performed a comedy sketch of the Middle School News. It was like Saturday Night Live Weekend Update meets The Daily Show. It was a huge hit. They were really funny!
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Standing on shoulders
We lost another member of our family this week. My Aunt Sylvia. My mother's cousin and step sister. And it's got me thinking...
Here I am, less than a year old and to his dying day, that's the way my Dad always felt about me.
I come from a long line of hardworking, poor, mostly Irish immigrants on both sides of the family.
On my Dad's side, my Grandfather - who told me late in his life that he had run gin through the Adirondacks during prohibition - went on to work at Kodak his whole life. My Dad never finished college but he was very successful in business and life. And he raised me both explicitly and implicitly to understand I was destined for a better life.
My Mom's side - the Mullaney's - were even more poor than the Duncan side of the family. Here is my Great Grandmother with all of her children. The red arrow points to Gracie, my Grandmother (who looks just like me and my son Drew). Now, get your head around what my Great Grandmother's life must have been like. Six girls, never enough money, and a husband that didn't work a lot. But still, most of those girls grew up to became professionals - nurses and teachers. And my mother, despite her poor health and other struggles, managed to raise three kids, finish college and instill in me self confidence and a will to succeed.
I look at my two boys and I know, deeply, how much farther ahead they are right from the start than I was...which is a few orders of magnitude ahead of where my parents and grandparents were. So if I think I have a lot of options open to me, it pales in comparison to the opportunities available to them.
And I'm not just talking in the material sense. Each of these generations, along the way, has instilled in the next a greater confidence. A new vista of possibility. A wider world view.
But none of it would have been possible...all of it would be a dream....if we all weren't standing on their shoulders. So here I am, here are my sons, held up by of my Dad, my Grandfather, my Mom, my Grandmother...all of them. It's a great legacy. I don't lose sight of it. In fact, I see it more clearly, the older I get.
Thank you. Thank you. All of you.
Here I am, less than a year old and to his dying day, that's the way my Dad always felt about me.
I come from a long line of hardworking, poor, mostly Irish immigrants on both sides of the family.
On my Dad's side, my Grandfather - who told me late in his life that he had run gin through the Adirondacks during prohibition - went on to work at Kodak his whole life. My Dad never finished college but he was very successful in business and life. And he raised me both explicitly and implicitly to understand I was destined for a better life.
My Mom's side - the Mullaney's - were even more poor than the Duncan side of the family. Here is my Great Grandmother with all of her children. The red arrow points to Gracie, my Grandmother (who looks just like me and my son Drew). Now, get your head around what my Great Grandmother's life must have been like. Six girls, never enough money, and a husband that didn't work a lot. But still, most of those girls grew up to became professionals - nurses and teachers. And my mother, despite her poor health and other struggles, managed to raise three kids, finish college and instill in me self confidence and a will to succeed.
I look at my two boys and I know, deeply, how much farther ahead they are right from the start than I was...which is a few orders of magnitude ahead of where my parents and grandparents were. So if I think I have a lot of options open to me, it pales in comparison to the opportunities available to them.
And I'm not just talking in the material sense. Each of these generations, along the way, has instilled in the next a greater confidence. A new vista of possibility. A wider world view.
But none of it would have been possible...all of it would be a dream....if we all weren't standing on their shoulders. So here I am, here are my sons, held up by of my Dad, my Grandfather, my Mom, my Grandmother...all of them. It's a great legacy. I don't lose sight of it. In fact, I see it more clearly, the older I get.
Thank you. Thank you. All of you.
Friday, October 13, 2006
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