Look To The Cookie

I love my wife as it is already, but now she's experimenting with baking exotic cookies, too. Joanie made these New York Black & Whites featured on Seinfeld ... man, are they good. Unfortunately, it gets pretty involved in the kitchen with the fondants double boiling and such. Making these generates a lot of dishes.

Mighty Mississippi

I got up early to swim this morning and this was the view over my shoulder from the 18th floor pool at Adam's Mark.

Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

While I was so close to home in St. Louis, mom came up to meet me for dinner at Charlie Gitto's, an Italian institution downtown. I know my mom loves me, because she humored me while I kept taking pictures at dinner, messing with camera settings in between each shot until I got it right. I saw Charlie himself head up to the front of the house, so I thought I'd ask him for a picture on the way out. He wasn't there, so I all I could get was a snap of Don King instead. Oh well.

Man Shall Not Live by Cake Alone

Here's our annual Easter picture of the kids with the lamb cake. Today I had to speak in church, and I compared making cake in a cast iron lamb cake mold (of course I brought it to church so I could bang it on the pulpit; wouldn't you?) to using Jesus' life as a pattern for our own. I think everybody was transfixed on the cake aspect of my talk — Mmmmmm ... caaaaake. I'll have to remember to mention pastry next time I speak.



Last night the Easter Bunny hid plastic eggs full of chocolate and giant Sweet Tarts around the house. Everybody had eight eggs to find in their assigned color, and as it turns out, each kid, even the big ones, needed help to find one last egg. Claire found out she could fit two of the giant Sweet Tarts in her mouth at the same time. Just one of those things gives me a sugar headache, so after she loaded the second doublet I opted for the finger sweep. It'll be OK, I never used that finger much anyway.

Happy Easter

From us New Yorkers to all of youse guys.

Drama Queen

Madeleine has been working as a stage hand for her middle school play, "Once Upon A Mattress," the retelling of the Princess and the Pea. We went to the first showing Friday night and it was a whole lot of fun! The sets and costumes were colorful, the singing was great, there wasn't a dull moment. An entertaining show all around ... two thumbs up! We were all so impressed with how smoothly they pulled off opening night — and Mad got to take a big bow at the end.

Electricity

I took a series of these in Times Square. I was disappointed when I got home and looked at them. This one is sort of growing on me.

NYC Plus LTP

I'm home from New York now after rushing back to Albany to meet L. Tom Perry tonight — all in all not a bad day. Here are some more shots of what people around here call, "the City."



In my hotel lobby last night they had a paparazzi shoot; of course I ignored the glitterati and focused on their cameras. I spotted two copies of the 18-200mm lens I am now using ... I thought they'd use something fancier, but with the stadium lights they had up and the big flashes it matters less.


O that I could win a shopping spree at B&H Photo's Nikon desk.

Cheese Slice, $2; The View, Priceless

I had one of my favorite lunches today — a slice of cheese pizza on a paper plate, standing outside on the street in New York City. This is the view down 34th Street at 9th Avenue, right across the street from B&H Photo's superstore-slash-mothership.

My Lady's Got Plumber's Crack

Joanie is becoming the master plumber and handywoman. She replaced the fixtures in the master bathroom sinks, painted the cabinets and replaced all the hardware. Then she put in a new water line on the kids' toilet. I ought to go on more business trips. She's hot stuff!

Friends in High Places

Carter and Claire each continue to have runny noses; in related news, Kleenex (ticker KLNX) predicts record first quarter revenues. Here's an update on these two: Claire loves to find chairs that bigger people forgot to push in so she can participate at higher elevations — grabbing the mouse at the computer desk is her favorite venue for iniquity. Meanwhile, Dad gave Carter his 4th(?) haircut today, thereby conserving stylist funds which can now be diverted to Kleenex futures. There's more green all around, and in more ways than one.

Sledding

After all the snow last night it was beautiful and sunny out today, so Malcolm and I went sledding. This is the steepest hill we've tried yet.