La Familia Brophy

Nathan has been digging the classics lately. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is a big one. Nathan asks for it by saying “Max” (Max is the boy who becomes king of all wild things). His favorite part is when Max arrives in his private boat. Freight Train by Donald Crews is one that has had a resurgence in recent days. It was the #1 book about 6 months ago, and for some reason it’s back on the request list after disappearing for months. He’s been enjoying Eric Carle’s The Very Busy Spider, because he can make a noise for each animal. Finally, Make Way for Ducklings is an up and coming book. His grandfather took him for a swan boat ride last week, so he like to see the picture of the swan boat in the book.

I’m just back from Denver, where I attended a conference about the educational technology project I’m working on. I delivered a talk during the conference, and there were more than 150 attendees, definitely the biggest audience I’ve talked to. I was little nervous, but I’d memorized the first two sentences I was go to say, and once I got on the topic (how two design and develop a web based tool) I just got into it, and really enjoyed giving the talk. I didn’t even notice someone snapping my photo.

I didn’t get to see too much of Denver, but I took a few walks around LoDo and down the Cherry Creek trail. The highlights were the Tattered Cover Book Store and the giant REI flagship store.

The Westin messed up my reservation and I had switch rooms after my first night. They put me in the biggest suite in the hotel for my first night to make up for the inconvenience. It was insane, two huge rooms including dining area, wet bar, living room, two bathrooms, two TVs, 5 sinks, a whirlpool, a balcony with a mountain view, etc. I loved it, and since I couldn’t sleep I spent lots of time in my plush complimentary bathrobe appreciating the room. It was a little sad being there all alone though, kind of like Lost in Translation without Scarlet Johansen sleeping over. Here I am in my big room.

Two things saved me from existential angst, though. The first is that the conference was great, and I enjoy working with and seeing my colleagues from Indiana, Michigan and Stanford, plus the people from MIT. We work together diring monthly trips, and have a good team vibe going. Second is the combination of the my cell phone and the iSight which make it easier to stay in touch with Lisa and Nathan. My morning video conferences with Nathan and evening videoconferences with Lisa really make me feel connected.

Due to a delayed flight I got home at 2:30 am this morning, so I really need to get to bed now, I don’t know why I haven’t collapsed already. it’s been a busy day, we visited the tractors, took Nathan to a birthday party, and tonight we saw Fahrenheit 9/11 (wow). Capped it all off with this cherry apricot galette Lisa made tonight, with cherries bought at the farmer market this morning. It’s good to be home.

We took Nathan on his first camping trip to Pearl Hill State Forest in Townsend this weekend. He really loved it. His favorite part was the tent and being outside with the car a lot. On Saturday we went on a lovely hike where he was sure he spotted Mr. Jones in the woods. I was convinced that meant he saw a mountain lion. He learned how to kill mosquitos although he’ll have to practice a bit more before he can do it. And best of all he got to spend lots of time with Mama and Papi.

As I feared, sleeping was a little difficult. Nathan usually sleeps with a light on and it was probably too dark for him. It seemed like every 5 minutes he was saying, “Mama! Pap!” which made for poor sleeping conditions for all (hopefully not for our neighbors though). I’m looking forward to lots of long naps this week to make up for lost sleep time.

At one point it felt like the whole trip was a terrible loss when our camera was stolen. Luckily a few hours later Ben found it carefully tucked into a little bag on the picnic table. He said, “Oh yeah! I remember I put it in there so it wouldn’t be out in the open!” Here are some of the photos that I was afraid were lost forever.

ps at least i didn’t mention when the car key was lost (at the same time that the camera was lost)!

Here’s a cool website I just heard about from Ann Larson. The Boston Historical Society just launched their online catalog which allows you to browse through 1000s of old photos of Boston.

I think the favorite of the one’s I saw this morning is “View of Commonwealth Avenue from Charlesgate to Massachusetts Avenue, ca. 1930.” It’s interesting to me since I grew up in the neighborhood. You can see what Comm Ave looked like without the giant overpass. What was once a nice looking little park with a river is now the fetid concrete waste land you rush through to get the Kenmore Square. It’s funny to see all the trees on the Commonwealth Mall as little saplings.

Here’s the link to browse the BHS catalog.

• Wake up at 6:30
• Lisa makes waffles
• On our way out Linda tells Lisa there are a ton of yard sales on Farquar Street
• We stop to look at the sales. There are tons. It’s awful, I don't like yard sales. Lisa has fun.
• Go to see the tractors at Allandale Farm. We take pictures of the tractors for Nathan's slide show.
• Stop for one more yard sale.
• Nathan insists on walking to the car himself, which takes along time but it’s ok because it's good to see him walk. Until he falls and cuts his knee.
• Play in the yard.
• Nathan goes down for his nap.
• I repair the brick path in our front yard, do some weeding.
• I go in and research PHP-based content management systems. I eat gorp and a beer for lunch.
• Nathan's up. We drive to Whole Foods in Cambridge. It is really crowded. I read National Geographic in the cafe, mostly about the Shiites in Iraq, while Lisa and Nathan shop.
• We come home, we all hang in the garden, Lisa goes up to make dinner, Nathan plays with Luis' new child size John Deere 4×2 Gator, purchased at the yard sale. It sings a song: If you've got a job then give me a call, just start it up and it's ready to haul. I'm real busy so I'll see you later, got to get to work on my John Deere Gator! Nathan's in heaven for quite a while. I soak up some sun.
• Eventually we go upstairs and play and read the same book 8 times in a row.
• Lisa serves White Pizza with Sage for dinner, yum. Nathan watches his slide show but gets upset because he wants tractors only. I quickly make him a new things-with-engines slide show, just for tonight.
• We put Nathan in the Ergo and go for a walk down to the Village, and walk back another way. We see that the landscaping business in our neighborhood built an elaborate pet grave in the tiny patch of grass outside their garage, edged with bricks with a stone and a vase of flowers. Pretty curious about that.
• Nathan goes to bed. I do dishes. Lisa tidies.
• We have home-made malted vanilla ice cream with strawberries from the garden for dessert.
• We watch "Dirty Pretty Things". Great movie!
• Surf the web for a while, research PHP photo galleries, get bored decide to list what I did today.
• Post the list on website for no good reason.
• Go to bed.

Check out Nathan at the computer with his new t-shirt. Lisa got it for Nathan today. Actually I guess she got for me, because it amuses me to no end.

p.s. If you don’t know PHP is a programing language used to mainly to make dynamic websites.

This weekend we watched a couple episodes of Colonial House (thanks for the tapes, Stacy) and we visited Plimoth Plantation to check on the colonists themselves.

One general comment on colonial house - why are these people so surprised that it’s hard to be a 16th century colonist? They keep crying about hard it is - and that’s in their first week there. I mean, hadn’t they seen Frontier House? I wonder if PBS purposely chose some families that weren’t well suited to the challenge, because they thought the show would be more interesting if the people totally blew it.

Lisa would be so good at being a 16th century colonist. As I type this she is kneading bread. She grows our food, knits our sweaters, makes our butter. She’s seriously investigating keeping chickens in our back yard. If she was on the show they’d be eating homemade pizzas with goat cheese and fresh garden herbs instead of oatmeal for dinner.

I don’t think I would do so well. I am patient, consensus oriented and tolerant of discomfort - those would be my helpful traits. But otherwise I’d be a pretty lackluster colonist, loafing about and pining for internet access. If I had to live in the 17th century I think I’d be bested suiting to the printing business - the closest equivalent of my current work. But they didn’t have any printers in the colonies yet.

Nathan would have done very poorly. He was pretty disappointed in Plimoth Planation, as soon as we arrived he looked around said “Tractor? Tractor?”