Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Miles turns 6!

Yes SIX -- our little one is already six years old. It's striking to reflect on the differences between Miles at 6 and Damion at 6, they are night and day. But in the end, I'm thankful we've had such a broad experience with our boys. Miles has been such a curious little guy -- incredibly creative and yet brilliant with numbers and analysis. He has always been adaptive as well, being a great little brother to Damion. Our boys have a true bond and it's a joy to see.

So as most of you know, I'm a day late on this post -- Miles' birthday was yesterday. And since we had both work and school, it was actually a continuation of his initial birthday event, the Saturday visit to Statue of Liberty (see prior blog post). So after work yesterday, we opened gifts:




Cute isn't he?? :-)


The Tiger-Like-Thing wrapped around his head is a really cute and warm hat that Aunt Betsy brought back for Miles from Korea. It is awesome!


BTW, quick apology -- we suffer from severe "red-eye" with the pictures taken in our place. I use iPhoto's editing capabilities to attempt to remove it, but sometimes it doesn't work so well. It's particularly unfortunate when editing pictures of Miles because his amazing blue eyes never show up as good in pictures as they should. Anyways, onward!



The boys are slowly accumulating little music-making nicknacks like this xylophone. Add to this various percussive objects, harmonicas, the keyboard, piano, guitars, and Guitar Hero, and we have no shortage of music in this house. Which reminds me -- we have identified the "short-list" of piano teachers for the boys and should close on a teacher within the next couple of weeks. It's nice having Julliard so close!




Yes, Miles' favorite lunch is PB&J!

After gifts, we went to dinner at Miles' favorite type of dinner place, a Japanese Grill. The type of place where they cook the food right in front of you on massive grills and typically throw knives and other instruments around while doing it. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of this, but it was a great experience.

We came home and had a great carrot cake -- Miles' favorite type.


The cake was great, and we built Bionicles the rest of the night.

Happy Birthday Miles!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Haircut day!

Before:



After!!!






After Damion's haircut, she offered to hair-spray it into a feux-hawk, which damion LOVED. haha Miles' hair has NEVER been this short -- it was a little shorter than we anticipated, but the little curls in the front are awesome!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Population stats

I had heard a rumor about this so verified it on Wikipedia tonight. I think this is rather amazing.

The population density of Portland is 4,200/ sq. mi.

The population density of Hoboken is 30,000/ sq. mi.

By comparison, New York City has a population density of 23,000 / sq. mi. and of the top 20 most populous cities in the US, only San Francisco is second to New York in density, at 15,000.

Hoboken has a population density twice that of Hong Kong (at 6,500 / sq. km, Hoboken is nearly 12,000).

Liberty Enlightening the World

Today we visited the Statue of Liberty. Monday is Miles' birthday, and since we won't have the whole day (school and work day!) we decided to do what Miles would have wanted to do on his birthday -- go to the Statue of Liberty. This is actually something we've wanted to do since we got here, so it was a good excuse.

We're fortunate, Liberty State Park is only about 10 minutes away. From there you can SEE the Statue of Liberty, and there's tons of grass and park and a walk along the Hudson. We went there before to see the Statue when we first got here. Also from there you can park and take a ferry over to Liberty Island, which is what we did.



Once on the ferry, you can view back to Jersey City. So Jersey City is just south of Hoboken, in fact, there's no real delineation, they just run together. "Historic" downtown Jersey City has experienced, like so much of this area of Jersey, huge amounts of growth and re-development. It's very "Pearl District" -- old warehouses and buildings being either renovated or demolished and rebuilt. The other thing that is spurring growth to Jersey City is that TONS of banks and Manhattan-based financial companies are moving offices here because it's significantly cheaper than Manhattan, hardly anybody lives in the city anymore anyways, and it's way convenient for many people. So while Deutsche Bank, UBS, and others are busy building new buildings, Goldman Sacs blew them all away with this gargantuan in the south of Jersey City:


Yes, it really is THAT BIG. It literally is twice as tall as any building around it. Maybe the picture doesn't do it justice, but for some reason, this building just blows me away.

Anyways, the ferry to Ellis Island offered great views of the Manhattan skyline:


The ferry ride was cold, but not too long. We didn't realize we'd be island-hopping. We thought it was straight to the Statue of Liberty and back, but it actually takes a first stop on Ellis Island, then to Liberty Island, then back to Jersey.


Our first view of Lady Liberty!


First stop, Ellis Island.


Which was actually amazing. Walking into the main hall, you can feel the history of the place. The construction was modeled after the old train stations, with a huge arched ceiling:


There were room after room of old artifacts, murals, pictures, etc. At one time, that room was the main entry for millions of immigrants, and there were pictures of how they had it divided up over the years. On one particular (record-setting) day, they processed over 11,000 people -- in a single day!! There was also a kiosk where you can look up relatives names if they had been processed between 1892 and 1924.

After using the computer, we went outside to the huge wall they have, and looked up relatives. I found Jacob Heintz, and Kristal found Louis Klein. It was pretty amazing. Here was a shot outside by the wall:


After doing Ellis island, we had some time to kill while we waited for the ferry to take us to Liberty Island, so the boys and I played tag out front:


The ferry picked us up, and after chilling for a while inside where it was warm, we found our first good views of the the Statue, so we went outside and started snapping pics. I think I must have taken 20+ pictures, but here is the best one:


Now, since being on this little adventure of ours out east, we've done some "touristy" things -- Cheesy lodge in Wyoming (The C'mon Inn -- remember!?), Mount Rushmore, The Empire State Building, and now the Statue of Liberty just to name a few, and I have to admit, I haven't been disappointed with a single one of them. I don't know if it's because we're older now and appreciate things like that more, but I'll tell you -- everything has truly been awesome.

The Statue of Liberty is no exception. I was actually amazed -- not only was the size of her outrageous, but the construction and physical characteristics were incredibly compelling. But first, a few more pics after we landed:





Look at that picture, for example. You can see the "seams" in the outer covering of the skeletal framework of the statue. Some 180 panes of copper each 3/32" thick (about two pennies) comprise the exoskeleton. The craftsmanship is easy to take for granted, but truly amazing to behold that close up. The whole interior skeletal structure of her, which was a marvel to build, was designed by Gustave Eiffel three years before he started design of the Eiffel Tower. Frederic Bartholdi, the statue's designer, toiled for years to raise funds necessary to build it.

The other striking thing is the "green" color. It's brighter than you think it should be! She is, of course, constructed in the exterior by copper, which undergoes a kind of oxidation over time called patination. It took thirty years for the shiny copper she was originally built with to patinate into the green you now see. Looking over the New York skyline, this "technique" has been used on many buildings constructed in the early 20th century.

We walked out on the base of the pedestal and took a bunch of pictures. You can then go into this long "museum" on your way up the pedestal to the viewing area at the base of the actual statue. This museum was fascinating, and despite the unfortunate perception the US now has amongst our international community, it instills a sense of national pride for what our country used to stand for.


After freezing our butts off for 45 minutes while waiting for the ferry, we made it home. It really was a lot of fun, and this is the sort of thing we could do several times with visitors so inclined. It's close, and really worth doing.

Oh, and just in case I'm not the only one who has ever wondered what's under the robe:



Monday, January 21, 2008

Museum of Natural History, Manhattan

Kristal took the boys to the Museum of Natural History today in Manhattan. It was their first jaunt to the city without me. I had to stick around and work.

Here are some pics. Since I wasn't there, I can't comment on most of them, but there's some color commentary here and there:











A woolly Mammoth:




By the end of the day, the boys were exhausted, the subway ride home was too much for them!



Weather.com has a "feels like" temperature that factors in wind chill. It "felt like" 6 degrees outside this morning when I went to the train and the gang were headed out. Thanks to Bets for the warm hats for the boys! Kristal told me that the boys got TONS of attention for their cool Korean hats, people asking where they got them, wanting to look at them. One lady even wanted to take a picture of them!!

We were all sick last weekend, thus no post cuz we didn't do anything, and this week is shaping up to be another really busy week for me. Tomorrow I go to Greenwich, CT for the afternoon to visit a hedge fund, then have a meeting in Mahwah, NJ (north almost to the border of New York / Jersey) on Wednesday morning, followed by a hedge fun in Manhattan in the afternoon, a call with the CEO and lead architect for a partnership deal we're working on, then have a web demo with a company we work with based in Portland but with a Manhattan office. Thursday is in the city, and Friday is back out to Warren, NJ.

Definitely getting my fair share of train rides this week! I'll try and take the camera on some of my travels this week and post if I can.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Damion's Birthday Yesterday

I still can't believe it, but Damion turned 9 years old yesterday. It blows me away to think that he's that old. He has grown into a funny, intelligent, and extremely kind person. He makes me proud of him nearly every day, and we have been amazed to watch our child grow into the person that he is.

As per the Lance Family tradition, Damion gets to pick:
1) What he wants to have for birthday breakfast - Eggs Benedict
2) What he wants to do for his birthday - Go to the top of the Empire State Building
3) Where he wants to go for birthday dinner - Go to Mars 2112

So, let's get to it!


Damion has loved Eggs Benedict for years. I keep wondering why he picked up on wanting the most expensive thing on many breakfast menu's -- don't most kids just like a Mickey Mouse pancake or something? He must take after his mother. :-)

Anyways, Kristal made a great eggs benedict and hash brown breakfast. Afterwards we were off to the City!


We had several pictures of us waiting in line at the Empire State Building, but they were boring and truly captured how "fun" waiting in line for 30 minutes can be. Finally, we made it:


Honestly, though it may look like I was having a bad day in all these pictures, I swear I wasn't. The Empire State Building was actually incredible. It doesn't seem like it, but it literally towers over other buildings in Manhattan. In the pictures that follow, you can see just how much higher it really is.

The happy couple:


Miles being camera shy, which he seems to be a lot these days:

An amazing view of the Chrysler Building:


Confirming what we all know, New York City has a lot of taxi's:


Some ice-skating rink, this is not Rockefeller Center.


Same rink, but check out this shot of the shadow of the Empire State Building:





Yes, there were pigeons up on the 86th floor!



One other highlight, but that was only captured on Kebra's camera, was that the boys and I paid a little extra to take an additional elevator up to a viewpoint on the 102 floor of the ESB. As you can imagine, it really wasn't much more spectacular than the 86th. But, Damion wanted to go to the TOP, and well, you just can't cut short if you're going to the top. The elevator is a manual elevator controlled by a knob and closed by a gate. There is a permanent elevator operator guy that runs the thing up and down. On the way down, we were the only one's in it. The guy, who had clearly been doing this for years, asked the boys if they wanted to run us down. So he let them both grab the knob, and slowly start lowering the elevator down the 16 floors back to 86. It was awesome! Once we got close to our desintation, he instructed them to start easing up on the lever, and sure enough, they landed us right on the floor we needed. For some reason, I don't think the boys really understood how cool what they were doing was, maybe it was the guy that intimidated them a bit. I really thought it was cool though.

After the ESB, we took a subway to Times Square, where Mars 2112 was:




Now. Mars 2112 is a theme-restaurant where you "travel to mars" to dine. :-) You start by paying a $2 "cover" for everyone in your party. lol. You then enter this Star Tours-esque ride where you traverse to Mars. It was actually pretty fun, and the boys loved it. Once you arrive at your destination, you climb down these stairs and enter a dining room that is HUGE. The expansive room is covered in "Mars rock" on all walls and ceiling, has neon lights around, and other "Martian" decor.

I kept thinking of Total Recall in the place.

They sang to him:
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Earthling
Happy Birthday to you




Yes, all the wait staff were wearing uniforms reminiscent of original Star Trek.

The happy couple:


A real, live, Martian!!


The boys nearly refused to get their picture taken with this guy, but we cornered him and were determined not to leave Mars without getting a picture with a Martian!

We took the subway back to 33rd and caught the Path train back to Hoboken. Here's Kristal and Damion on the subway:


Back at the house, we opened presents. We didn't open them earlier because in the City Miles needed to get Damion a present.

A Solar System mobile kit (we put that together tonight):


And this is a new Tony Hawk game for the Wii:

And last but not least, cupcakes!



After cupcakes, it had been about 3 hours since we had eaten, so Kristal made a snack plate (crackers, salami, cheese, veggies, etc...) and we watched Karate Kid parts II and III (Thanks Bets!). The boys love Karate Kid these days. LOL!

It's supposed to snow tonight, but doesn't look like it's getting cold enough quite yet. Also, I have a really busy week ahead of me, being out for dinner probably three nights. So no guarantee's on blog posts this week. I'll have the camera with me though, so we'll see!