4th of july, originally uploaded by jetrotz.
Happy 4th, all! Photo from this morning’s Buddy’s 5k Road Race in Aspen that came by Gary & Bobbi’s place about 8am this morning. This runner was passing by a conveniently-hung American flag. How very patriotic! Everyone, be safe and enjoy the day!
Tags: 4th of July, flag, race, runner
Yes, we’ve made it to Colorado. I stopped the car along the very narrow portion of Colorado 82 to grab this image - where the highway drops to a single lane at points, with no signs or other warnings - where we saw this very dense stand of Aspens. The pass was an amazing drive - including the oh-so-frightening lack of guardrails on some of the 10k+ foot switchbacks, although I could have done without the altitude sickness both Sam and I experienced. Talk about wooozy! Photo gallery is here.
So I am far behind on my blog updates. Over the Memorial Day holiday, we packed the troops into the mini (did I mention that we bought a Honda Odyssey back in April - and that we love the thing?) and headed down 75 and I-16 to see my brother and mom. We made a big deal of ‘installing’ the DVD player - which only works on long trips, by the way - so Sam wouldn’t expect that treat on every trip around the corner. He watched the Muppet Movie (via my iPod strung to the back video inputs in the AV system) at least three times. Now he sings Rainbow Connection - so very cute that is! It was a quiet weekend, really, just trying to chill and enjoy some time away. Noah enjoyed his first dip in a pool, and we tried our best to wear Sam out by traipsing him all around downtown. Slideshow of photos from the visit are here.
Tags: memorial day, savannah
Yes, it’s a reference to a somewhat annoyingly catchy 80s tune - but it also refers to Chinese belief in the mystical power of music. Well, I can’t tell you much about that as we didn’t have time to hear much other than some funk emanating from the hotel bar on our arrival and the cheesy ‘zen relaxation’ CD in our Mandarin Oriental rooms, but I can say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Hong Kong this past week. I’m writing this post as dawn breaks over the tarmac at Seoul’s Incheon Airport, where the Korean Air 747s are lined up like pale blue birds sunning themselves in the morning light. We have a five hour layover here before the 13+ hour flight back to Atlanta - although my ticket says I leave at 10am and arrive at 10:30am. Too bad that’s just a deceitful lie! I’ll write more about the trip when I return, but for now, check out the slideshow of photos I’ve uploaded so far. I have a few more from the Mong Kok market area to add as well. See you in a seven thousand or so miles.
This year’s Admonsters excursion (to conference #17 to be exact) took me out to the environs of Albequerque and Santa Fe at the Hyatt Tamaya resort in Bernalillo, New Mexico. We decided to make this a family affair since very soon Amy will be on a no-travel regimen (due date is October 31, only 10 weeks away). Amy’s parents also joined us for a bit of R&R&Sam. To top that all off, Amy’s aunt (who is from Albequerque) and uncle came down from Denver - and their son Jonathan came out from LA. So all in all it turned into a little Handelman/Siegel/Gardenswartz reunion.
We had a great dinner with Bobbi’s 90-year-old father and the rest of the clan on Friday night, headed up to Santa Fe on Saturday along with 100,000 of our closest friends for the annual Indian Market and Art Show. It was a madhouse, but a great way to see the full scope of what the area’s artistans have to offer. One celebrity spotting, Curtis Stone of TLC’s Take Home Chef. Despite rumors of both Oprah and Dennis Hopper being seen around our hotel, neither was confirmed.
Check out this photo gallery of our time there.
Tags: advertising, Family, new-mexico, santa-fe, Travel
We gathered the clan and headed into Boston 
on Friday of our vacation. Sam has been talking about meeting Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings for weeks now, those famous avian stars of Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings. He was not dissapointed! We explored much of the Boston Public Garden, visited the bronze statue of Mrs. Mallard and Lack, Mack, Quack, etc., rode the ’strange enormous birds’ (aka the Swan Boats) and swam in the Frog Pond - a great respite from the 90+ degree heat wave hitting the city. We also walked Newbury Street from the park all the way to Comm Ave - something I don’t think I’d done for almost 20 years. I’m not sure how I ever afforded shopping there back in the day. We met up with more extended family including Lauren and her husband David plus their kids, as well as Peggy and Mary who are now living in Sommerville. We capped off the day with some yummy ice cream at JP Licks, next door to the Newbury Comics, still going strong after all these years. More photos can be found here.
Tags: Boston, Family, make-way-for-ducklings, newbury, sam
So for the first leg of our vacation, we stayed at Julie and Scott’s place in Swampscott. Amy’s sister is always the best host, and her two sons Austin and Mason are the best playmates for Sam ever! He loves chasing them around, which takes plenty of pressure off Mom and Dad. Highlights included simply hanging around and chilling, a fabulous backyard lobstah fest (from the Barnacle, of course), time spent at the pool at Kernwood, as well as a great outing to Devereux Beach in Marblehead with my brother Seth and his boys Caleb, Gabe and Zach. See the full slideshow here.
Tags: Boston, Family, marblehead, sagan, swampscott
So visiting Boston last week I was enjoying my morning coffee on Friday reading the Globe. Lo and behold, I learned 
that my favorite band from high school (yes, I’m that old) was playing two dates at Fenway Park over the weekend and yes, tickets were available. I had already given up on going to the November show here in Atlanta since Baby 2.0 would have just arrived. With a quick confirmation from Sam’s grandmother that she could babysit and a big ding to my credit card, we were all set for a trip to Fenway to claim our field seats for Saturday’s show. It was amazing! Although I’d heard their early shows were weak (Sting was heard to say they sucked), they had hit their stride by this time. All of them showed great musicianship - and it was great to see Sting’s battered bass guitar that he’d surely had since their heyday. More photos (taken with the iPhone and Curve due to ticket restrictions) are here. Their only misstep in my mind was their languid extended rendition of Roxanne. That was more than made up by great versions of Synchronicity II, Invisible Sun and Walking in Your Footsteps. And it was fitting to hear them end with the first song from their first album, Outlandos d’Amour.
Here was the full set list (captured one-by-one on my iPhone notes):
Message in a Bottle
Synchronicity II
Walking On The Moon
Voices Inside My Head
When The World Is Running Down
Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Driven To Tears
Truth Hits Everybody
Bed’s Too Big Without You
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking In Your Footsteps
Can’t Stand Losing You
Roxanne
Encore #1
King Of Pain
So Lonely
Every Breath You Take
Encore #2
Next To You
Tags: Boston, concert, fenway, the-police
Meant to post this a while back. I was in San Francisco for the recent Ad:Tech Conference. This was the view from the hallway of my hotel- an amazing panorama from the Golden Gate Bridge (far left, out of frame) to the Transamerica Building, Coit Tower, Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge (far right, out of frame). A truly amazing view. The show was excellent as well, and I spoke to some very bright folks involved in the burgeoning ad business. DoubleClick was showing off their Exchange product and new logo (very Web 2.0 green), there were more ad networks than you could shake a stick at, and video ad syndication plays were everywhere.
Tags: advertising, Photography, san francisco, Travel, Video, web2.0
The blog has been unusually quiet of late, owing mostly to the fact that we’ve been extremely busy on all fronts. 2007 is shaping up to be a very busy year, and the first few months have been spent on the professional side planning and preparing for many many projects. That made last week’s getaway to San Juan, Puerto Rico all the more wonderful. The photo gallery is here.
Amy, Sam and I took advantage of a slew of frequent flier miles and jetted off last weekend for a week in the sun. Sam got sick, as did his proud papa, and the long time out of his own element seemed to be too much for Sam, as he demonstrated some of the very first full-blown tantrums we’ve ever seen. The cure was just getting him home - as we pulled up to the house in our taxi, he said ‘Home!’ and was just super happy to be back with his toys, crib and kitty cats. The people in Puerto Rico were super friendly, the food and drink was great (although they didn’t seem to offer many veggies), and the beach was just gorgeous.
Speaking of which on the cats front, we had a little scare with the elder statesman of the house, Chaos. He got a case of mild pneumonia while we were away, and ended up at the vet on IVs and what not, but is now home and doing much better.
