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The boys and I (and their Granddaddy) spent several hours on the boats early this summer. We will repaint them in the fall, but first we oiled the inside of both with great care.

The larger is a 14 foot Whitehall (named after the street in NY where they were first made and famed for their speed in the harbor (the first boat to meet a merchant ship coming in got dibs on the best cargo, speed was important)). She has beautiful 9 foot oars and she just flys (all the more so when there are two oarmen). This whitehall was retrofitted to take a small sail.

The other is a wee pram. A dear friend asked a local boatbuilder to make him the smallest boat possible that could safely hold three adults and gear. This 6 foot pram was the result. He has moved away for a bit and left it on indefinite loan, to be cared for and used vigorously by Thing 1 and Thing 2. Thing 2 is learning to row this summer...additional photos are likely to follow.

As I mentioned earlier, Thing One blew by the 10 book goal this summer and was rewarded with a $10 savings account (hypothetically, matched by various others). However, it was not just any ten books he knocked down. Starting a day or so after mid-June, T1 started the Harry Potter series and finished the last one yesterday.

He was very funny about it. He decided he wanted to read the Bloomsbury special editions to start with...largely because he liked the bound in bookmarks. At book four, he had to choose the trade Bloomsbury or Scholastic edition and opted for the Brit on the grounds that he liked the British expressions, etc. The last three he had to switch to the Scholastics, but found that they did less substitution of "gits" and the like.

His best exclamation came at the end of Book 6 when, at about 9:30 at night or so (he was allowed to read late some nights), "DUMBLEDORE IS DEAD?!?!?" Book 7 added several, "Dobby is dead?!?", "Lupin is dead?!?", "Fred is dead?!?...What is wrong with this book?!?" Other than characters he liked dying, he loved the series and wants to reread it starting now. I have suggested he let it sink in and read it again in a year or so.

I just have to say that I am very proud that my 10 year-old read 4224 pages in just this series...not counting his other reading this summer (two other short sets and several stand-alone books). I could not be more proud.

My older son just opened a savings account at TD Banknorth. He did it with the $10 that the the bank gave him for reading 10 books this summer. Sadly, though the program started in June, the nice young account manager told us that he was the first customer she had worked with as part of the program. That said, they are expecting a surge in the coming weeks...the program ends at the end of September. I know my younger is on Number Seven of his ten.

To learn more about the program, see this. I think it is great that the TD Banknorth is willing to support this program. For my boys, it is definitely just a bonus, as they would read regardless...but anything that encourages kids to read is a good thing.

Wow! Day one was just great. The promoter has clearly done a great job with this show. There was a *big* crowd waiting to get in and it was pretty steady all day long. It was 330 in the afternoon before I remembered to have lunch.

Joyce from Brattle Books (great books, bags, peanut M&Ms and just generally nice to share a booth border with) watched the booth while Eli and I went off for a quick and good lunch right on the pier (and, hypothetically, a cherry Slurpee on the way back to the show).

I saw a fair number of old friends...other dealers and "real humans" and, as mentioned, we really did have pretty steady traffic in the booth all day long. There are not many shows you can say that about and it was a nice treat today. With luck, tomorrow will be more of the same.

We sold some good books today...shockingly, only one sale was to a dealer. It is a really nice day when you have a good number of sales and the vast majority are to real humans. We've also had a lot of people say really nice things to us today, about the booth, books and boy *laughing*.

Images show the booth before set-up. There are pretty nice "right view" and "left view" of the booth. My assistant...he of "I really don't like these long ties, could you get me a bow tie, they're cool" was wonderful pretty much all day...going between playing with some actions figures/game boy and offering cards and book advice to customers. Also, Eli is-clearly-at least as excited about my recent ABAA membership as I am. He proudly tells people about this (in the booth, at restaurants, checking into the hotel, etc) and is quite convinced that he is a "half member" due to his status as Thing Two (perhaps his brother has the other half).

The last shot is strait downt he middle of the aisle at about 2pm....pretty typical of the day.

Tomorrow starts at 10am...I am the seminar speaker for the 2ish pm seminar. It should be fun, though I hate having to leave my booth abandoned (though watched) during a chunk of the "wind down" before show end. Oh well. Then break down starting at 5pm and home. Most likely no update until Monday. We shall see.

Today was the last day of the fair. It was just a great weekend all around. Some great sales, some great buying and just a ton of people through the door. Another dealer told me that that he counted bodies through the door and was north of 160 on the Friday opening before there was a "break" in the flow.

Aidan was good helper at the show and had a good time. Even managed to find a very cool book on how printing presses work that he picked up as a reward of exemplary work. Pictures of the booth and boy will follow (when I get a cable).

The promoters were great. The venue is outstanding (was originally a big band hall). I was watching the Discovery Channel in the hotel room and was rather stunned to see a 30 second spot for the book fair. Pipe and drape on the booths, two nice pole lights in every booth. Did I mention that booths $450. Why can't other promoters pull off events like this?

We picked up the rental car and have made it across the state to my in-laws. Tomorrow will likely be a balance of cataloguing some books in preparation of a meeting on Tuesday and pool time. I hope others had as fun a weekend.

What a horrible and great day...and how often can you say something like that. We drove down on Thursday to Tarry Town to our current favorite "just out of the city with free parking and a pool" hotel (the Marriot). The drive down was fast and uneventful. I have my youngest assistant with me (pictures tomorrow). My son (6) Eli was great fun on the drive and has a strange obsession with hotels. He has asked several times if we can live here forever.

The drive into the city was exciting...in that "oh my god, I hope we don't die". I deliberately waited a bit to start in, in hopes that they would clear all the rush-hour accidents off the road. This turned out to be the right call. It was a long, slow drive (about an hour and fifteen minutes to do what should have been about an half hour drive). We passed several accidents and watched an SUV do a very exciting series of 360s down the middle of 287 (but did not hit anything). It was one of those "I know I can drive in this safely, but all these other whack-jobs are seriously unknown quantities". In the end, we made it in safe and sound, found the school in the Village where the show is being held.

I managed to hurt my lower back the day before I left for the fair and had promised my wife that I would, for the first time, hire porters to carry in my boxes. My shipping boxes came back from San Francisco and I did not repack things...I just threw them into the van with some additional material and hit the road. The net result of this is that I had 8 boxes in the 65 to 75 pound range plus my other stuff. They do not have "porters" at this fair, they have "stevedores" (mind you, a stevedore is "a laborer who loads and unloads vessels in a port"...but that is hair splitting.). That is, you hear "stevedore" and you picture big muscular guys who wrestle shipping crates for a living.

The first two pictures are the stevedores I was assigned. As you can see, burly dock workers able to move anything not bolted down *laughing*. They were wonderful. I convinced them to take a handle each (yet another reason Pelican cases rock) and they handled everything with aplomb. I did not let them schlep the plate display case...I just couldn't. I recommended them resoundingly to all others as people traipsed in...I hope they had a good day (this fair is, as I understand it, a fund-raiser for the school).

I managed to get in around 11:30am or so...the show started this evening at 6pm...that is, I had about 6.5 hours to set up. Anyone who knows me, knows I can set up a booth in no less than 5 hours...don't ask, I'm just that pathetic. That is, generally, with a real assistant (wife, mother or some other long-suffering supporter). Here I had my six year old son, Eli. In the end, not only was I able to get set up...and reasonably well, at that...but we were able to get it done *with* time to go down and enjoy the wonderful dinner the school provided for attendees (great salads, hummus, sushi, chicken and drinks). Ok, admittedly, only just barely...but it really was "ready" by 6pm.

Eli was reasonably helpful and especially helpful re all things I loath doing (crawling about on the floor running extension cords and the like). Once the fair started, he sat in our chair and played game boy and responded in very cute fashion to the myriad of people who asked him questions. I am hoping he tries to hand-sell his book tomorrow (he has an inscribed copy of "The Book that Jack Wrote" by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Dan Adel). He helped research and write the description and is pretty excited about it. He was truly on his very best behavior. He might have received a Sky-High Sunday when he got back to the hotel.

Lots of people, good stickiness and some good sales. A great start to a show. However, a wildly long day and I need sleep. Show starts tomorrow at 12 noon and runs to 5pm. Come and visit...better yet, buy a book.