The boys are in the Championship game. Next saturday at 1pm.

Exciting.

Last day of the regular season. Final record...9-1. 9-0 in the division.

next weeks playoffs.

Totally unexpected back in September.

Today was Senior day and they honored the parents before the game. Aw shucks.

Next week playoffs and we're the number one seed, so we (WE) have home field throughout. Hope we can keep it going.

And it was COLD today.

On Saturday night we had a torrential downpour coupled with intense wind.

By Sunday morning the leaves were off the trees.

On Friday I was thinking how nice all the trees looked with the leaves turned brown yet still on the trees. I was hoping Satirday would be sunny so I could get some good pictures. No such luck, so I figured I'd wait until Sunday, hoping for not much rain and wind overnight. Alas.

Its still nice though. Now we can walk through the woods and see where we're going. Of course now its hunting season so walking through the woods has some risk. Even with orange on.

A man who just died is delivered to a local mortuary wearing an expensive, expertly tailored black suit.

The female blonde mortician asks
the deceased's wife how she would like the body dressed. She points
out that the man does look good in the black suit he is already wearing.

The widow, however, says that she always thought her husband looked
his best in blue, and that she wants him in a blue suit. She gives the Blonde mortician a blank check and she says, 'I don't care what it
costs, but please have my husband
in a blue suit for the viewing.'

The woman returns the next day for the wake. To her delight, she finds her husband dressed in a gorgeous blue suit with a subtle chalk stripe; the suit fits him perfectly.

She says to the mortician,
'Whatever this cost, I'm very satisfied. You did an excellent job
and I'm very grateful. How much
did you spend? To her astonishment, the blonde mortician presents her
with the blank check.

There's no charge,' she says.

No, really, I must compensate you for the cost of that exquisite blue suit!' she says.

Honestly, ma'am,' the blonde says, 'it cost nothing. You see a deceased gentleman of about your husband's size was brought in shortly after you left yesterday, and he was wearing an attractive blue suit. I asked his wife if she minded him going to his grave wearing a black suit instead, and she said it made no difference as long as he looked nice.'

So I just switched the heads.'

An explanation for all the football pics...the Boy is a senior this year in high school. His football team is in only their second year of a varsity schedule and....surpisingly... seriously surprisingly... they are 6-0 right now. None of us expected that. (us being parents, coaches and players). They have 14 seniors on the team and it turns out that seniors make a huge difference.

The really exciting part of the season is coming up this weekend when they play the only other team in their division who is also 6-0. Its going to be tough and the Manchester Union Leader has the Boy's team as underdogs, again.

So as one of the Dad's vicariously enjoying his BOY's efforts, I'm posting a bunch of football pics for the next 4 weeks (at least). And if they make it to the playoffs I'llpost for another couple of weeks.

Then we'll get back to nature photos etc.

Of course this only impacts the 3 people who actually check in here from time to time. But thats cool.

Anyway....






And as the rapper Humpty Hump would say...Peace and Humptyness forever.

The last few months we've been busy at work with the IRS voluntary disclsoure program for people with unreported offshore bank accounts.

The last few days it has been especially crazy here as folks are coming out of the woodwork to confess.

The deadline is Wednesday, Sept 23rd in order to get in the program for the "reduced penalty".

Reduced penalty = no criminal prosecution

Its amazing the amount of people who are coming forward. Lots of interesting stories.

So I'm wrapping things up here in Vancouver. The conference is over today as we have our Gala Dinner tonight.

I've had a brief glimpse of Vancouv. I've been through Gastown, the West End, Robson Street, Stanley Park, UBC, The Waterfront (obviously), Chinatown, Granville etc etc.

I like it here.

Lots of smokers tho.

Good food. Expensive in places.

A few of my colleagues are heading north and west after this. Cool stuff. I can't. Gotta go home and bring the Princess back to school and get back to work.

Next year's conference is in Rome. The following year in Paris and 2012 in Boston.

Check it out, the Gayla Dinner in Paris is at Versaille. And the President's reception will be at the Louvre. That works.

Rome aint gonna suck either.

I always refer to our Friday night gatherings as the "Land of Plenty". Here's why....


Typical Spread


Local corn


Japanese cold noodles with ginger and ponzu sauce


Grilled Salmon


Japanese Gyoza


Vegetarian casserole - mozzarella, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant


Local Salad Stuff


Cous Cous salad

Clearing the desk for a week out of the office SUCKS.

Why do I always wait for the last minute to get things done?

Anticipating Vancouvah

Its frickin HOT around here. We officially had our first heat wave of the summer. 3 days in a row of 90+ temperatures. Despite hopes for better weather it looks like hot and sticky will be around for 2 or 3 more days.

I'm going to Vancouver on Aug 30th for the annual tax conference boondoggle. High temps in Vancouver project to be about 70. I like that weather.

Never been out there so I'm planning on doing a lot of hiking in the hills around the city during down times. Which there should be plenty of. I'm also looking forward to exploring the city. I'll be at the Fairmont Waterfront all expenses paid, so that won't suck at all. Fairmont usually does it right.

The tax conference is in Rome in 2010, Paris in 2011 and BOSTON in 2012. And yeah, I'm on the organizing committee for 2012.

SOP leaves tomorrow. She's been with us on and off for the past 4 weeks and its been a pleasure. She definitely has an appreciation for Boston and New England and we hope to see her back again. Hopefully I'll get a chance to visit Singapore in the not too distant future.

Work is busy as we are dealing with lots of folks with previously unreported offshore bank and securities accounts. The IRS' recent initiative to pry open Switzerland and UBS has led to a surge in business for us this summer.

I want to see Inglorious Basterds. I really like Tarantino films.

The Princess heads back to Skidmore for her second year in 2 weeks. The Boy is beginning his senior year at HS and will be applying to colleges this fall. I'd say its 90% that he'll be heading to Pitt.

He's been in football training camp in the sweltering heat this week and suffering much. I'm delighted. Its good for him and the rest of the young lads.

You know the angry mobs at all these health care forums around the country don't surprise me at all. I'm somewhat dismayed, but not surprised.

As a resident of a small town in the heart of a narrow-minded NH republican zone I'm very familiar with the politics of shout-you-down.

I can go back to a few years ago when I first voiced my support of Hillary Clinton...the venom and invective that was spewed, loudly, my way was almost astonishing. And throughout the recent presidential campaign, both during the primary and general election seasons, the amount of times I was yelled at by my "friends" was remarkable. Forget reasoned discourse, whenever the subject came up inevitably it would degenerate into the repubs yelling at me and anyone who agreed with me until it wasn't worth responding. (what's really amazing is I could've kicked anyone's ass, both verbally and physically, but I refrained).

Fast forward to the current debate and again civility is gone.

What the fuck is wrong with these people?


Rhetorical question.

Moving Wood

First Load


My employees at work.


That one weighs about 110 pounds. Oak.

Ok so its now August and summer in the northeast is already winding down. The month of July pretty much SUCKED as it was rainy and cold for most of the month. We had a couple of sunny days and only last week had any summer humidity (which I don't like but at least its warm!!)

So we've been ripped off this year. We typically only get about 8-10 weeks of beach type weather in a year and now we're looking at just a couple of weeks if we're lucky.

Alas.

Talking about the weather again.

In other news, blogging friend SOP is in town from Singapore and we're having a good time. Its a pleasure spending time and catching up in real time rather than via blogposts and email.

Hopefully she'll have better weather over the next several days than we've been having.

Ever have one of those evenings where the company is great, conversation lively and fun, delicious food and the moon is beautiful? I did last night.

I'll post the moon picture when I can.

Tonight is not that night. Tonight its raining, quiet and doesn't feel like Friday.

Hmmm.

Doggie Years

Looking pretty good for a 9 year old.

Historic Marker Installation

Another Sunday Another Hike