At Kristin's Christmas Office Party: 12/08/2007

Kristin and Paula eye the Black-Jack table ...

A gambler's moment ...

Kristin, Paula and Susan.

Thanksgiving

Me in a rare on camera moment. Thank G-d I'm holding Kristin's hand to help me cope.

After the Memorial Service: November 17, 2007

After Dad's Memorial service at Marymount Chapel the family got together at Parney's house to have time just as a family.

I needed to get a second video camera, as the good people of Sudan Sunrise had asked me to video their conference and march to the White House the next day in DC ... and I needed two cameras to be able to cover the entire conference without interruption.

I decided to try the new camera out, and the result is at the top.

Here's a photo I took the following day of the Sudan Sunrise crowd in front of the Capitol. A wonderful time was had by all.

We Attend Yet Another Wedding

The ever-lovely Kristin and I attended a wedding for one of her friends at work.

It was a huge wedding. Beautiful ceremony [Catholic]. Stunning bride. The parents really went all-out.

Lots of dancing. Maybe too much wine. But that's the way it should be at a wedding, mai oui?

Anyway, we all had a great time and wish the bride and groom all the best.



An odd, faceless boy visits our table.

Very nice people.

Bride and groom.

A Trip to Antietam [or Sharpsburg]

Kristin's parents visited this week ... trailing along their new RV ... and camped a few miles from us at Little Bennett Park, which is near Clarksburg, MD [a very small town]. I took this photo in Clarksburg. It adorns the outside of the local dentist office. Seriously.

We all decided that we'd take a trip out to Sharpsburg, MD and visit the Antietam Battlefield.


Here's the RV.


The ever-lovely Kristin with her dad.


We get the convertible ready for the trip west ...


We find ... surprisingly ... a very nice, reasonable restaurant on the Main Street of Sharpsburg. A Wine Bar no less.




The outside of the Dunker Church, near where Jackson posted his divisions.


Here's the interior of the church.


A nearby monument to the Maryland Regiments [both Union and Confederate] that fought in the battle.


Kristin's dad checks a muzzle-loader.


Here's the "Sunken Road". I chose a photo that includes a person, just for scale. Here John B. Gordon [who was at the time, I believe, only a Colonel] held off the brunt of the Union advance against Lee's center. The Union finally broke the Confederate line at this point, but McClellan's refusal to follow up made it all pretty much pointless. He could have ended the war.

John B. Gordon was a Georgian. By the end of the war he was a Corp commander and one of Lee's most trusted advisers. After the war he worked hard to assist reconstruction and ended up serving as a US Senator for Georgia.

He was not a professional soldier. Despite that, he rose further than any other soldier ... professional or non-professional ... in the Army of Northern VA. A remarkable feat ... especially for someone not a Virginian.

I share a birthday with him, February 6. Sadly, I also share the same birthday with the idiot General J.E.B. Stuart.


Typical rail fences ... Kristin's parents [both from Michigan] got a huge kick out of these. Really.


Here's a Georgian's eye view of Burnside's Bridge. From this position, Robert Toombs' 500 Georgians held off Burnside's entire Corps for several hours. Burnside insisted on using this bridge, and wasted hundreds of lives trying to storm it when, frankly, his men could have easily waded across the stream at this point. That's why the bridge still bears his name. A fitting tribute to vain stupidity.

Burnside was also responsible for two other major fiascoes during the war. First there was the series of charges against Marye's Heights in Fredricksburg VA in which the casualties approached 10,000. Then there was "The Crater" during the siege of Petersburg, VA near the end of the war. That bungle pretty much ended his career.


It was hard to get a photo that shows just how shallow the Antietam creek is at this point, but this is as close as I could get.

As usual, just click on any image to get a larger, more detailed view.

Dad's Wedding: August 25, 2007

Well, it really happened. Dad's sojourn into his second bachelorhood ended today. Video will follow.

The video will come in two parts, due to size limitations. The first video, "The Ceremony" is about 10 minutes long. The second video, "The Reception" is less than half that length.

Please feel free to download any photos on the site. Just "click" the photo and save to your local drive.

The images you will save are the full images and are quite a bit larger and more detailed than the format you see here on the blog. To see the images in full size, just click on the image. To get back to the blog, just hit the back button on your browser.


My personal horde and cabal of the Albright Clan arrives at the chapel.

On time.


Siblings eye cousins ...


The two families mix ...


Grandfather [the groom] and granddaughter enjoy a moment ...

(I think) ...


And we all, frankly, have a lovely and lively time.

Sadly, I spent most of my time during the ceremony itself taking video [see below] so I have no stills of that event. I think Parney's got some. If he sends me some I'll post those [if they're any good, that is. The standards here are high, as you can see].

I have more stills from the reception. Less video. As one might expect.


The ceremony's over.


Next stop ... The Country Club ...



[For those of you unfamiliar with blogs and/or YouTube controls, in order to view these videos you can either click the control prompt in the center of the screen or you can click the prompt located at the lower left-hand corner of the screen. You may have to click twice ... perhaps three times ... before the video is activated. You will know the video is activated when the word "Loading..." appears in the center of the video screen. The quality of the video will depend, in great part, on the speed of your connection. Both of these videos have sound, so make sure you're sound is on and at a reasonable volume.]




We arrive at the Army Navy Country Club.

Eric can't believe that it was Kristin singing the Ave Maria. Lynne and Vaughn are aghast.


Parney's tribe arrives also ...


... schlepping the cake ...


Brothers.


Wives.


Uncles and nieces ...


Nieces and uncles ...


The whole mishpucheh.


Here's a look at our table.

That's Kristin to the lovely left, Parney taking another photo in the background, Billie's son Ray sitting next to Kristin [and looking slightly devilish I might add], Paul one of the sons-in-law next to him ... and, of course Jamie in the foreground ducking for my photo pleasure, and yours.


From 180 degrees around, we have [clockwise] Kristin's back, Ray's arm, Paul, Jamie, and Billie's daughter Pat.


Lest we forget ... there was a bride and a groom and a priest and a best-man.


And we did end up getting to that cake.



**** UPDATE ****

Ray Jordan [see above] has put some photos up and is letting me add some of them to this site.

Here, for starts, is a nice photo of the chapel. I took some myself but for some reason they were blurry.


I think this is a nice photo of Kristin going over the music with the accompanist before the ceremony.


Here's a nice one of Dad with his best man, Col. Butz.


This was the "cool" table, I suppose. As usual, I didn't sit at it.


The young set.