Brendon Grandon

Malcolm's best Christmas present this year has been his friend Brendon coming to stay with us in New York for a few days. Brendon used to live on the next street over and he and Malcolm used to run together all the time, until his family moved to Georgia in February. Malcolm and Carter were scheming today about how we could put another bed in their room so Brendon could just move in. It's not such a bad idea — he doesn't complain about what's for dinner and has much better manners than our own kids. But I'm sure his family would miss him. It has been an extended weekend of sledding, Clue, guerrilla-style Nerf missile fights, and lots of network Game Boy.

Frosty

Overnight we got a few inches of that wet, heavy snow that sticks like crazy and makes everything beautiful. This was the view out the back door when I was leaving for work this morning. On my drive in I saw a dozen more pictures I wanted to take. Today a friend at work was talking to me about maybe moving to Florida to get out of the cold. I said, "why?"

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Tuesday was the first of Madeleine's two concerts this week, and I have to say, for a bunch of sevvies, the middle school orchestra sounded great. Amazingly better than they did in grade 4. Malcolm took the center shot with the dramatic tilt — not bad, junior! By the last photo, Madeleine realized she was being stalked with a long lens, and she gave me "the look." Hey, it's not my fault none of the other dads brought their tripods.

Musical Malcolm

Monday night Malcolm had a concert ... he performed in choir chimes, played clarinet in the band, and sang in the chorus. He's quite the Renaissance man. (Click on the big chorus picture and see if you can spot him.)

Cold Camp Prep

Next month is the Klondike Derby where the Scouts do a cold weather sled competition; thankfully only the older boys spend the night. Saturday morning Malcolm had a dress rehearsal, and it was snot-freezing cold. He practiced hauling gear, making survival shelters, ice rescues, fire building and cooking. We found this interesting stick cabin somebody had put up in the woods. Did I mention it was cold? It snowed like crazy this weekend as you can see.

Slippery Money in Vegas

I'm in Las Vegas this week putting on a training conference. You've heard how money can slip through peoples' fingers when they come here, but I saw it for real tonight. In our hotel a girl had a dollar bill tied to a piece of fishing line. She would toss it out into the walkway and wait for somebody to try to pick it up. As any poor sucker tried to pick it up she'd yank it away. I don't know if she was making an anti-gambling statement, or if this was a sociology experiment, but it was funny to watch.