Topsail Beach - Day 5

The goal today was to take some action shots at the beach with Kellie and Chelsea. I let them do what they wanted and followed them around.

Kellie in the middle of a back handspring.

Austin joins the party.

Kellie and Austin in a rare moment when they act like they know each other.

Here's the beach house. Notice the direct access to the beach. In this shot, we are stay

Chelsea performing an arabesque.

Kellie doing a toe touch. My trigger finger was just a little late on this one.

Tracy and the girls.

Kellie smiling on the beach.

Kara and Andie just before we went to dinner. All 5 girls had on matching dresses and drew their share of comments.

"Where are all the hot chicks?"

Kara and Andie modeling their new airbrushed shirts. These were drawn freehand in the local beach store.

The happy couple later that night

All the kids hanging out after dinner.

Kellie and Chelsea - Not camera shy.

Topsail Beach - Day 4

I did not venture to the beach during the day as I was suffering from a bad case of sunburn also known by its Latin term Assus Burntupus. I did get the opportunity to try out the new flash gun for some beach shots in the evening.

I'll touch this one up later, but straight off the camera, it managed to capture the sunset tones in the background.

Tracy with the girls down by the water.

Here's me with the girls (Andie & Kara) in the same place.

Here's the last shot taken in the dying light.

Topsail Beach - Day 3

Not much to report on today. I was pretty burned up from the first day, so I took it easy. The good news is that I did take a few pictures today. You will find Kellie noticeably absent as she was sleeping the whole time the camera was out. She should be out tomorrow.

Kara

Austin - Relaxing in the sun

Kara - Strutting down the beach

Kara - Action Shot

Kara & Andie running

Takeoff!

Topsail Beach - Day 2

Yesterday, Tracy and I loaded 5 kids (Kellie, Austin, Kara, Chelsea W., and Andie R.)and headed towards Topsail Beach . An uneventful trip, if you disregard the mountain of stuff that I had to pack in the car. We had suitcases between the front seats, suitcases between the kids and under their feet. That does not include the roof carrier that I borrowed from Ron M. Fortunately, most of the stuff crammed in the rear of the car was food. The trip back should be far easier.

We are renting a house with friends (The Gibsons) and we arrived in the area a little too close to the Rental cut-off time, so split up. Tom and I went to pick up the house keys while Tracy and Toni stopped at Wal-Mart for the final stockpile of food. That decision proved to be a mistake. Getting to the beach house proved to be more eventful for them than either of them imagined. Tom and I arrived at the house and waited for them to arrive. We waited and waited, and after that we waited some more. After more than an hour and several phone calls, we finally jumped back in the car and went to find them. About 45 minutes later, we found them and led them back to the house. Not bad, it only took 2 hours to make the 15 mile trip from Wal-Mart to the house. Lesson: Never let two directionally-challenged females alone in a car.

I have never been to Topsail Beach, so today marks my first impression. Good: There are only houses here, so the crowds are absent. Very secluded, very nice. Bad: the waves are huge and never stop coming. Of course, this is a never-ending source of amusement for the kids, so take that with a grain of salt. The weather was perfect today and if the forecast holds, the week will be more of the same.

No pictures yet, but I plan to break out the camera tomorrow.

Kellie - Dallas Texas

Kellie just returned today from a trip with Jennifer Banks (Aunt J) to Dallas, Texas. During the trip Kellie had the occasion to take a tour of the new Dallas Cowboy stadium. Kellie was unimpressed and based on what she told me, she found the place Ghetto-fabulous. At this point in time, she is the only Clark to visit Michael Vick's future home stadium.

Kara joins the wireless world

Kara now has a cell phone. This was a recent gift from her Uncle Chuck this past weeekend. I won't post the number here, but if you need, just call Tracy.

Biases are not always hidden

I like to think that my personal biases and strong opinions about some things remain a mystery and hidden from the world as well as my children. One of the things that I thought I had kept to myself was my personal distaste for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Two nights ago, I was proven wrong.

Tracy, Kellie, Kara, and I were out to eat somewhere and the subject of Kellie's choice of colleges was the topic of discussion. We had been talking for several minutes, and debating the choices, when Kara offered the following opinion: "If you go to the college that Uncle Chuck went to, Dad is going to kill you."

Out of the mouthes of babes.

Booster Club

Another one of the reasons for our presence at several recent High School events is that both Tracy and I are members of the Booster Club. Tracy is the co-chair of Apparel and I am the Treasurer. I am also in charge of the web page.

Tracy actually became a member last year, but I agreed to become the Treasurer only recently, and then only under unusual circumstances. The previous holder of the position stepped down when her only child passed away last month. She was ill-equipped to continue in her role, and they were desperate for someone to step in. Tracy volunteered my services and the rest is history.

UNC-Ch has an Ice Hockey Team?

The whole family (minus Kara) is at the Virginia Class AA State Wrestling Finals in Roanoke, VA. We made the trip to determine if wrestling is something that Austin might want to do next year. While that remains unlikely, there was an interesting event last night after the event. The kids were hungry so we went to a local McDonald's restaurant to grab some food. In the restaurant, there were several young men curiously outfitted in the distinctive colors of the Baby Blue Brigade (BBB). In fact, these were not fans of the dirty heels, but rather members of the Ice Hockey team that were in town for a game.

I ignored/pitied them, knowing that rational discourse was not likely, but Tracy chatted them up. One of the unfortunate souls, when told of my Alma Mater, declared this "unfortunate". It seems that I was right about the rational discourse.

NC State Away Game

Tonight, NC State played an away basketball game at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to pen yet another chapter in the fierce rivalry between the schools. Ultimately, UNC-Ch managed to upset the visiting Wolfpack 89-80, but I would like to bring your attention to a few interesting items related to the game.

First, when the brilliant capital S logo was displayed on the screen I was reminded of a recent YouTube surfing session on the collegiate exploits of one David Thompson. Fans of ACC basketball will quickly recognize David Thompson as the finest collegiate player that the ACC has ever produced. When I was watching a highlight reel of Thompson, I noticed the the NC State logo that I thought was fairly recently adopted, was in fact, a retro logo that has been spruced up a little. Thompson is seen in the video sporting essentially the same logo in the early 70's. I am embarrassed to discover this fact 35 years after the fact.

Speaking of David Thompson, one of the broadcast features of tonight's game was a fan voting game called TXT-of-War in which a question is voted upon by sending in a text message. Tonight's vote was to determine whether David Thompson (NC State) or Michael Jordan (UNC-Ch) had the better collegiate career. To a student of the game, the comparison is laughable because while Thompson is a first team 50th Anniversary all-ACC team member, Jordan, frankly, is not. He doesn't even make the second string. The announcers, showing their knowledge of the game, declared the decision to be a "no brainer" in favor of Thompson. They even declared that members of the Baby Blue Brigade (BBB) had to realize that this comparison was a farce. Later in the show, cooler heads seem to have prevailed when Thompson was leading the vote 55% to 45%. The vote percentage for Jordan was alarmingly high, but, then again, no one has ever confused a UNC-Ch fan with a Mensa member. Later in the show, and the last time it was shown, the vote was back to 50% to 50%., thus proving that UNC-Ch fans have the basketball knowledge of a drunken chimpanzee. Shameful!

Another highlight of the broadcast was a clip of a UNC-Ch player (Zeller, I believe), getting Kenny Smith'ed in a game earlier this year.

Lastly, the flames of the fire generated by the Thompson/Jordan split, were fanned by a quick shot of T-Shirt worn by a member of the BBB. The shirt read "NC State is not our rival". I can only presume that the shirt refers to the ongoing inferiority complex that UNC-Ch seems to have with the Cameron Crazies, but who knows?

Kara meets an author

Last Saturday, we got up early, foregoing our normal day to sleep in in order to get a spot in line at a local Borders bookshop. The reason for all of this was that Kara's favorite author, Jeff Kinney was making an appearance to sign his latest work. Kinney, or course, is the author of the extremely popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and Kara has read all three volumes. She is eagerly awaiting the release of the fourth.

We arrived in the line at 9:45AM for the 1:00PM signing and managed to strike up friendly conversations with the very well behaved crowd. We were moved to the final line at 11:00AM. To everyone's suprise, Mr. Kinney made an early appearance and began signing his books over an hour earlier than scheduled.

Not only did Kara walk out the bookstore with her first signed books, but she made the best of the opportunity and struck up a conversation with Mr. Kinney. Pictures were taken and I'll try to post them ASAP.

White House - West Wing

Having powerful friends is of little use unless you can exercise that power for your own benefit. Last month, I was able to accomplish this rare feat when Tracy and I were invited to a tour of the White House. Before you turn up your nose and declare, quite correctly, than any schoolkid can get in the White House for a tour, please bear in mind that this was not the proletarian East Wing tour. This, my friends, was the fabled West Wing. A place not open to the public, and where mere mortals such as myself dare not tread.

Obviously, the tour was arranged by Ron M., and I don't know if he had to expend any silver bullets to pull this off, and I didn't ask. I was happy enough just to get in to where all the action occurs. The no-camera policy precluded the capture of any truly interesting photographs, but a few were obtained before we began.

If you look closely in the picture above, you can make out Tracy, Kara, and Austin just before we entered the facility. Note that we are inside the perimeter at this point and located on a street that separates the White House from the Executive Office Building.

This was my favorite picture that I took that day. This image of the seal was taken inside the vestibule that you saw us entering in the previous picture.

Due to the quality and knowledge of our benefactor, we eschewed the standard guide and toured the facility ourselves. Once inside we took a look at the latest installment of official White House photographs that adorn the visitor's lobby. We were even lucky enough to find one that had Ron in it. Austin and I took the opportunity to visit the men's room just so we could say we did. We took a quick look at the West Wing dining room and headed upstairs.

One there we took a brief detour outside to the Rose Garden. The shot you see above was taken there. It's hard to tell from this picture, but the windows here are to the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office. We left here to visit the Cabinet Room, which is the nearest set of doors in the picture above. The Cabinet Room was interesting both in the fact that all of the cabinet members had their names engraved on brass plates mounted on each chair, but that we found out that the Wall Street bailout meetings were held in this very room. In a subtle recognition of his standing, the President's chair is slightly taller than all of the others and is in the middle of the oval table rather than at one end.

There is a small office for the Presidential Secretary beside it, but it was not open. Next we visited the star of the show; The Oval Office. As head-of-state residences go, the White House is actually rather small, and as a result, visitors are often surprised at how small the Oval Office actually is. I found it somewhat larger than expected. When we were told that President Bush was using the Kennedy Desk, Tracy commented on the famous picture that showed John John sitting under the desk at his father's feet.

There was no opening in this desk, but a helpful guard explained that the desk actually has a door that swings open in front of it. This door is visible in the picture to the left. This desk is known as the Resolute Desk. The HMS Resolute was abandoned in the Arctic in 1855, but was rescued by the Americans the following year. When it was decommissioned about 20 years later, Queen Victoria had twin desks manufactured from the timbers and gave one to President Hayes in 1880, as a show of gratitude for its rescue. With the exceptions of Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, every sitting President has used this desk in the Oval Office. I am not sure if the kids grasped what they were seeing, but as a student of history, this was a rare treat.

The last stop of our tour was the Press Room. This is a room that we have all seen during news conferences, and it was here that I had my first real surprise. This room is tiny. It is so small that all major news outlets are issued a single seat. The room itself is not much wider than the following picture of the lectern.


We left after that, but I can't thank Ron and Amanda enough for the tour and, although my children are not likely to grasp the significance of where they were until they are much older, it was a lifetime event for all of us.

Christmas Lights 2008

After overcoming a persistent fuse problem, this year's lighting is complete.

Kellie on TV

You hear about these sorts of things all the time, but they have always happened somewhere else to a host of unknown souls. A few days ago this all changed with the news that a BDHS Phys Ed teacher has been charged with sexual contact involving not one, but two 16-year female students.

Not good news by any measure and interested parties can read the sordid affair here or here.

The news has garnered a lot of undesired attention to our little school and one interesting fallout is that a local news station (WJLA - Channel 7) was at the school today for a live report. It is mentioned here because Kellie appears in the newscast video. Kellie appears very briefly in the school parking lot at 1:04.

A New Chapter

One the traits that Lumbee Indians share with our Native brethren is the respect and honor we bestow on our Elders. Because of this, I have had the unique opportunity in my life to spend considerable time talking to people far older than me. The impression I am left with is only correlated with various written interviews with other elder men and women. This impression, to put a name to it, is that we get older in a physical sense only. As we age, we feel the effects of our physical lives somewhat more, we realize that our bodies have aged and we are far more slowly to heal than we were on our younger days. This is normal. What I am talking about here is the glacial changes we discover in our minds. All the discussions I have had with Elders is that we can perceive little change in our minds. We don't "feel" any different at 80 than we did at 20, insofar as our self identity is concerned. We age physically, but our inner selves seem to stay effectively the same.

Why the long explanation here? My point is that I don't necessarily feel any older than I did at 20 than I do now, but occasionally things conspire to force the reality of my 43 years squarely to the forefront. Yesterday, two of these "things" just happened to occur on the same day when I was able to share in two seminal events in Kellie's life. On this unusual day, I was granted the opportunity to ride in a vehicle, operating on public roads mind you, that was driven by my 16- year daughter. Later that evening, I was on hand to witness her hard at work on her first job.

This brings me squarely back to my point. How did this happen? One day I am buying half a pizza in Metcalf Hall, a Wednesday night ritual during my college days, and the next I am sitting in a new Pizza restaurant in Gainesville, VA watching my oldest daughter run credit cards in a restaurant. I don't feel like a different person, but the circumstances are worlds apart.

Lest we think this post is about me, the real story here is that Kellie now has a Learner's Permit and a job, two life-changing events that are enabled with the passing of her 16th birthday.

Girls on the Run (w/Pics)

This past fall, Kara joined a running group in her school called Girls On The Run (GOTR) that introduces girls to running and the associated benefits it provides. Kara seemed to enjoy the bi-weekly events that really don't involve much more than running for an hour before school. The entire affair culminated in the 2008 GOTR Reindeer Romp, a 5K event held last weekend at the Reston Town Center. Here, all the participating Elementary Schools in Northern Virginia met for a fun-run to conclude the 2008 GOTR program. We were told to expect 5,000 runners and while I haven't seen an official count, there were thousands of participants.

Last month, Kara's group held their practice 5K at her school and I ran it with her. Just for comparative purposes, they clocked everyone and Kara posted a 46:37 (46 Min, 37 Sec) time for a 5K. For those Americans yet to embrace the Metric system, this is 3.1 miles. The practice run was simply laps around the school and her time reflected the boredom of familiar surroundings.

We arrived last Saturday on cold Reston morning after fighting the hordes pouring into the Town Center and Kara joined her classmates. They used staggered start, but did use an official timing system that read start/stop times for the 5K from a magnetic strip applied to each participant's shoes. After the even started, we joined yet another line of patrons at the local Panera's for a little breakfast. Knowing that we had about 45 min before she arrived, we took our time and reported to the finish line after about 35 minutes had elapsed.

The surprise of the day was that we found Kara had already finished the event and was quitely eating the post-race snack provided the sponsor. Maybe it was the challenge of running with the crowd, the encouragement from her peers, or the stamina and endurance that is wasted on the youth, but Kara posted an incredible improvement in here time. She ran the 5K in an official time of 30:11, shaving more than 16 minutes from her time of less than 2 weeks before. Better yet, she ran the fastest time of anyone on her team.

Kara was beside herself and I applaud her efforts at testing and exceeding her known limits. For once she pushed herself physically beyond the known parameters and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It's always a joy to see your children flush with a sense of accomplishment and personal pride. I extend my personal congratulations for a job well done.

Pre-Race

Post-Race

Antarctica Bound

As I write this, my parents are vacationing in Antarctica. A little odd, I know, but my parents, my father in particular, dance to a different drum. They left last Wednesday for Miami, then to Buenos Aires, Argentina for two days. They then flew to Tierra del Feugo to board a boat that took them to our southern-most continent. Obviously, they are arriving in the middle of the Antarctic summer because regardless of how insane it might be to visit this place, to go in Winter is suicidal. They have really gone off the grid on this one, but I hope to file another report complete with pictures when the come back. They are due back on December 16th.

Brentsville Cheer - District Champions

Last night, the Clark Clan, Aunt Jennifer and most of the substantial Robbins family made the trek out to Millbrook High School in Winchester, VA to watch the BDHS Tigers successfully defend their VHSL Northwestern District crown in competition cheer. Kellie's team had breezed through the regular season competition and before they took the floor, they had already earned the right to represent their district in the Regional Championships next week. Despite this guarantee, it was nice to add yet another District title to the wall of honor in the school gym.

The real news of the meet was the noticeable improvement by the second place team, the Warriors of Sherando. They had finished a distant second to the Tiger in both of the regular season events, but clearly showed up last with their game faces on. This was clearly noted in this article which appeared in today's The Winchester Star. Clearly Brentsville's road to the Regionals just got a little tougher, but that's how it is supposed to be.

Having said that, a clear round of applause is due Kellie and her teammates on another great year of competition.

Tracy has made several efforts to get some publicity for the reigning 2007 Class AA champions and due entirely to her efforts, the Prince William County News and Messenger sent a reporter to cover last night's events. I had submitted a short article to several of the local papers to make sure that Brentsville's defeat of the all of the larger PWC AAA schools did not go unnoticed, and they are planning a bigger article at the end of the month as they increase their coverage of BDHS's road to States in 2008. This morning, a condensed version of what I submitted along with one of my team pictures made the paper announcing the 2008 All-County champions. Today, Tracy sent a sample of team action shots from my portfolio for use in the article due later this month.

Tracy's New Dog

Today, Tracy and I completed our adoption of the little guy pictured above. Chesney comes to us from Dachshund Rescue of North America. Due to continued exposure to Ron and Amanda's Dachshund, Molly Ann, Tracy has wanted a Doxie for some time. Last weekend, we attended the DachsFest at the Price William County fairgrounds where the DRNA has a selection of dogs for adoption. This little guy was there and Tracy took to him immediately. She held him several times and during these sessions, she learned a little bit about him. He was rescued from an animal shelter in Johnson City, TN. The DRNA brought him to northern Virginia because the adoption rates are much higher in our area than in the south. Mission accomplished because a few days later, Tracy learned that he was still available and submitted an adoption application.

We passed our home inspection this morning and met the DRNA representatives about halfway outside Roanoke, VA this afternoon. For reasons unknown, Chesney is deaf, either from birth or from events leading up to his rescue by the DRNA. He seems to function quite well despite this and our experience with our older dog Skeeter, who is about 90% deaf has left us well-prepared for this. An added benefit is that because of this he is probably the quietest dog I have ever been around. He has been with us all day and hasn't barked yet.

His life should be in the upswing now that Tracy has been given the opportunity to spoil him. He is a little smaller than Pepper and certainly more low-slung.

Brentsville District High School Competition Cheer (Updated)

Tonight marks the third time that BDHS' competition cheer team has competed this year. I have hundreds of pictures that I will try and upload soon, but I have included a link to the shots taken from the first event. Update: New pictures from all events are now posted.

Park View High School - Invitational Tournament - BDHS kicked off their year by attending the Park View Invitational Tournament in Loudoun County, VA last Saturday. The event did not count against BDHS' district record, but was their first foray beyond High School AA competition. Tracy and I stayed at the event only long enough to see Kellie perform before we headed out to attend Major Brian Hoffmann's retirement party. Kellie has just recently been promoted to the first team and we did not want to miss her debut performance this year. We saw little of the tournament beyond the BDHS performance, but they started a little shaky this year and finished third in the event. Not a bad performance considering they were performing outside their comfort zone, but not one member of the team was satisfied with third. In fact, this was the first time that Kellie had not placed first in any competition she has entered as a BDHS cheerleader. I have processed the pictures from this event and have included a link to my online album below. Of special note was the attendance of Kellie's Godmother Jennifer. The restaurant pictures in the album were taken at the team kickoff breakfast at IHOP that morning.


Invitational Tournament - Park View High School


District Mini #1 - The real season kicked off last Tuesday night when Brentsville hosted the first District tournament of the year. We had the whole crew there that night as Jennifer, Ron & Amanda, and Bethany all attended the event. Vastly improved from their opening performance, BDHS returned to their winning ways and easily won their first points event of the year.

Northwest District Mini #1 - Brentsville District High School


All County Competition - Just tonight, Brentsvill entered the all-county competition cheer competition and competed against 10 other Prince William County High Schools. Brentsville does not normally attend county events for the simple reason that BDHS is a AA school and every other county school is AAA. Not resting on her state title laurels, the BDHS coach entered the event to expose the team to AAA competition. Kellie later reported that a judge asked the coach why she was entering the tournament. When she replied that she wanted her team to get some experience competing in the AAA bracket, the judge replied that the other county teams were in for a rude awakening. The judges were the same crew that had judged the Mini Tournament two nights ago.

The event was held at Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas. Despite being mere miles away from BDHS, this school is a world away from the confines of our little country school. SJ is ghetto fabulous in the worst kind of way. Brentsville was the first school introduced and walked on the floor to hail of boos from the other schools. Since we don't really compete with these schools regularly in athletics, the hail of boos was somewhat surprising. I can't really say why they were treated so poorly, but sometimes the heat of the crucible forges a new resolve. In fact, the booing was so bad, I thought for a second that we were in Philadelphia. Brentsville was the first school to perform and the crowd laid into them from the start. The little bastards next to me from Hylton High School were particularly obnoxious and took great pleasure in ridiculing the Tigers. I took care to pay careful attention to the HHS performance and was somewhat surprised by how poorly they performed. The first rule of cockiness is that you have to have a good team in order to pull it off. When you don't, you look foolish.

The Tigers have improved with each performance this year. In the end, and much to the chagrin of the boo birds, BDHS took first place in the competition. Just to top the night off and to show how classy the event was, the room where all the girls put their belonging during the event was left unlocked and all their bags were rifled through. The team lost an untold amount of cash, 2 iPods, and an iPhone. Kellie doesn't really take anything to these events, so she didn't lose anything.

Rather than dwell in the actions of a few bad seeds, let's remember that BDHS is the 2008 All-County Champion in Cheerleading. Kellie got the rare opportunity to compete against a good number of her friends that she went to Middle School with and the rest of the county found out that the reigning 2007 State AA champions were no fluke.

Prince William County - All County Cheer Competition - Stonewall Jackson High School

Update: Prince William county posted videos of the event on their website the next day and the links below will take you to them. The first video is their actual performance and the second highlights the reserved reaction to the announcement of the winner.

Video #1 - BDHS Performance
Video #2 - Announcement of the Winner