The Virginia Trilogy: Horse Country

We spent the day in Leesburg hanging out with the Dunne girls. Kevin and I ordered BBQ from the place down the road and the guy mocked me when I didn't understand one of his BBQ specific questions...so I am going to call the health department and get his little roadside superiority stand shut down. Yeah, that is how we do things in bitter, competitive NJ. Let government work for you!!

Speaking of small business, we visited Digital Bridge, the telecom company that Kelley started with our pals Joe and Bill. It is amazing to see how it has grown since it was basically Joe, Kelley, and Bill tooling around an empty warehouse-looking space. They have real people working there, which kind of startled me as the business always seemed to be some sort of shell corporation which allowed Joe, Kelley and potentially Bill to ski all the time and I guess write things off in the unregulated John McCain salad days of a few years ago. It seems more serious now, which for various people in Idaho and other areas is probably a great thing. They have a giant KNOCK Board, or G.N.O.C board....I am not sure what it does (or how to spell it) but it looks very important in a Tom Clancy track the Russian satellites sort of way. Very impressive now, but not long ago I recall watching High School Musical on the big GNOC board with the Dunne girls. Glad to see it resembles a real business and yet they still seem to be skiing all the time. Pictured is Joe holding Finn in the office in front of the big board. My big take away from the visit was that they get free Pop Tarts in their office kitchen space.

The next day we hung out around the house and took some family pictures. Hailey was an amazing helper was the official pacifier re-inserter for Finn. I walked Kylie back from the bus stop and learned that she was edged out by some punk for the "raven of the week" contest. I suggested we go egg the kid's house and start vicious online rumors about the guy, but Kylie politely declined and mentioned that type of activity may actually hurt her chances for subsequent raven of the week selections-- what happened to a little healthy competition in school...this is why we have fallen in the global community. I couldn't help but notice that as we were leaving for Williamsburg, Kelley was sending Kylie to school the next day with the Maryland basketball home schedule with a note for Mr. Robinson, Kylie's beloved teacher and sole judge of raven of the week, to pick out a game or two he would like to attend. Interesting turn of events for the sole judge of raven of the week. Glad to see Washington beltway lobbying extends to the third grade. Hopefully Jack Abramoff doesn't have a kid in the class or this could get ugly quick.

After some family photos and a quick pizza dinner we headed out for Willamsburg, with Finn still ambivalent about his car seat. We did learn that traveling with an infant can put a wrinkle in the estimated arrival and departure times. We also learned that the back shelf of the PT Cruiser, which I believe I had hoped to use for tailgates and other brochure worthy car activity, is actually quite handy as an open air changing table. Also, we learned that bus stations are nonplussed by diapers and various refuse. As we could see, they have bigger, adult sized problems to worry about.