Kamryn & Sydney are Five!

I can’t believe Kamryn and Sydney are five years old today!  They have really grown up over the last year.  I looked at this year’s birthday as their first milestone, so we tried to make it extra special.  Although they didn’t seem to remember, we discussed some options for their birthday a couple of months ago.  They wanted to have a party with friends, but they obviously indicated that they would love to go to Great Wolf Lodge again even if that meant skipping a “Birthday Party.”  They had so much fun in the spring, that we decided to surprise them for their birthday – and boy were they surprised!
                                                 We had also been planning to get them a playground for our backyard.  I knew trying to get it done during Christmas would be difficult and practically impossible to make it a surprise.  Fortunately my Dad and Father-in-Law agreed to work on it while we were out of town at GWL.  Even though there were a couple of setbacks, they managed to have it completely finished in time for the big reveal Tuesday night.  I knew we wouldn’t be able to keep them from seeing the backyard for two more days!  So, with all the grandparents present, we showed them the completed playground and had a little cake and ice cream.                    I sure hope they remember their 5th birthday.  If not, I have plenty of pictures to remind them.  Now to get ready for Christmas!

Coach K’s 903rd Win!

I guess I first became a Duke fan at the age of 5 when Duke played Kentucky in the 1978 championship game. We lived in Texas at the time and soon moved to North Dakota. I can still remember an advertisement for Duke University that played during the game. They talked about how their athletes were more than athletes, they were some of the brightest students in the nation. At least that’s the way I remember it. That really sunk in even though I was so young. I thought, “Wow, these guys are smart AND good at basketball.”

Then, we moved to Goldsboro, NC in the summer of 1984. I was so excited to learn that we were only an hour and half way from Duke. Because I had lived so far away from North Carolina, I didn’t understand the rivalry between UNC and Duke at first. This will be shocking to those who know me well, but I actually wore some UNC T-shirts when we first moved to North Carolina. However, I soon learned that I had to choose sides and choosing Duke was an easy decision for me.

Being a Duke fan is not always easy. Duke football has been frustrating and the lacrosse case was pretty upsetting. However, I have remained a loyal Duke fan for some 30 plus years. Watching Coach K set the NCAA record for all time wins was fun and has made me recall all the other times being a Duke fan has been great. Beating UNLV in 1991 and then winning the first national championship will always be my favorite memory. However, beating Kentucky in the best game ever in 1992 and then going on to win Back to Back championships was pretty special too.

If you are a Duke fan, or even if you are not, I hope you enjoy watching Duke’s tribute video, “America’s Best Coach.” I LOVED IT!

Apple forcing me to move my website and photos

Well, Apple has stuck it to a lot of us by doing away with MobileMe and converting to iCloud.  This might sound great to newbies, but they are not just improving things, they are doing away with web hosting and the photo gallery.  So, my website no longer has a home and all the time I spent on my photo galleries is going to be thrown away.  This is the first time I’ve really been frustrated with Apple.  So, I have decided not to pay another company for parking my website.  I’ll just modify this free blog to look like a website and point my domain (dukeroom.com) here.  I’m not going to do that immediately, so you may still find my old website if you go to dukeroom.com.

More important than the website to me is a new home for my photos.  I think I have decided on SmugMug.  They seem to give you the most bang for your buck and have a lot of cool features, while keeping it pretty simple.  They also give me unlimited storage of full resolution pictures.  So, not only can I share my photos with you, I can also use it as a backup.  You can find my photos at dukeroom.smugmug.com.  I also included a link (Photos) at the top of this page.

I’m not really much of a writer, so the blog entries may be few and far between.  However, I’ll try to do at least a few a year to update on the family and maybe some of our trips.  I did do a couple of blogs on my old site that I’ll probably repost here for safe keeping.

Thanks for following and please feel free to offer suggestions.

- David