my wife karyn has a blog dedicated to her family, faith and her hobbies such as needlepoint – you can find it at the teakettle corner…

my oldest son sean is also very involved online and has had numerous blogs – he recently started a podcast on the state of the video game industry, something he’s studying in college hoping one day to be a video game developer…

finally my youngest son ian has recently started a videoblog, capturing and posting to his youtube channel most days hoping to do this for an entire year – or basically for his senior year of high school and as he prepares to enter college next fall…

so sean has selected marist college, and as this picture will show – he is so ready to head off to college

he liked it for the degree (cs w/ a game development focus), student body size & culture, campus wired rating, overall feel of the place and proximity to our home – its about 80 minutes away…

he received a partial academic scholarship, which is nice and rewarding for his hard work during his high school career – first couple years playing hockey and then giving that up so he could focus on getting into the right college – he did still play four years of tennis, and is co-captain this year…

we’ll miss him while he’s away next year – but we know he’s ready…

2006_7_04_colleges 317

Originally uploaded by glemak.

sean sent off all his applications last week, now its nervous waiting time…

it was a lot of fun traveling all over the east coast last summer and early this fall looking at the schools he was interested in…

the time we spent at siggraph’s sandbox symposium in boston was invaluable – really helped him focus on the right type of degree program – computer science…

the schools he applied to in no specific order are:

• uconn
• marist
• st. michaels
• rit
• champlain
• quinnipiac

they’re all driving distance from us, the closest is about 45 minutes away and the furthest is 6 hours away…

two are in connecticut, two are in vermont and two are in new york…

they all have their unique cultures and strengths – i think he’d fit in and be happy at any of them…

its with mixed feelings that look forward to hearing back, we’re excited for him – but we’ll miss him when he’s away…

in the end we know he’s really ready – wish us all luck in this next step in our lives

halloween 2006

Originally uploaded by glemak.

sean (17) is a pirate and ian (14) is barney rubble…

by high school age they no longer are that interested in trick-or-treating but they do still like to costume it up for school (anything to get out of the uniform for one day)…

they tend to dress in themes based on their friends – so i think they’ll be at least one female pirate and a ton of flintstone characters

sort of sad that they are now to old to trick-or-treat, but since they’re both shaving and not in need of excess candy guess it makes sense…

checkout the height similarity – i think ian will be patting both sean and i on the head shortly…

ian & sean – suited up

Originally uploaded by glemak.

sean and ian had to start wearing their blazers and ties today – so i got them to quickly pose for a shot before sean drove them off to school…

seems like only yesterday that ian was heading off to 1st grade, and sean the 4th grader was showing him the ropes – now this time next year sean will be away at college – time flies, and the various stages of your kids can really mark it

all good times though – wouldn’t trade it for any other way…

i was trolling through my flickr this morning, looking at my mosts: interesting, views, favorites and comments – one of the most compelling parts of flickr is the social interaction w/ both physical and virtual friends, its totally fascinating to me the social sphere that surrounds something as simple as a digital photo…

i came across this very unique shot of sean @ 15 that i took a little over a year ago – he’s 17 now…

i saw that it was listed as someone’s favorite so i clicked through – well of course it was his mom and her comment was that he needed a shave – something his girlfriend is always telling him too

wonder where he gets the desire not to shave gene?

anyway, i’ve been uploading sets from each college visit so that sean can look back and remember these places – this time next year is going to be a little rough for us, because he’ll have made his college decision and be preparing to leave the nest – and the mom always takes it the hardest, though ian and i will miss seeing him daily too…

the folks from some of these colleges, current students and alumni, that we’ve already met just by posting sets from our school visits has opened up a new avenue for us in the search – the ability to ask someone other than an admissions person about they’re experiences there, which is a huge help – the social side of flickr is just so cool…

setup this blog w/in flickr so that i could post to this as well as my typepad blog, still experimenting…

haven’t had time to tweak w/ wp since the weekend, but definately have been bookmarking lots of good posts and wp recommendation blogs…

really like the extensibility of the platform as well as the extended community which seems huge and very, very engaged…

this photo is from the college visit to marist that we did w/ sean today – last one of the summer and all of us went up to take the tour and sit through the info session which went really well – this is a neat school and definately one of his desired schools…

karyn and ian went w/ us for the first time – which was good because they both got to see what a college campus that sean might actually be living at is like – eye opening especially for a mom…

we’ll go to a few more schools this fall while students are in session so we get that exposure too – and then its application time, fun stuff…

update: i really like the way my flickr photos work w/in this blog – maybe that’s what i’ll end up using this blog platform for – time will tell