Courtney, Seth, Kyle, and Sadye had dinner at our house before heading out to the Concord-Carlisle football game. Yes, Kyle is wearing pajama bottoms. No, I have no idea why?

I woke at the crack of dawn to do some morning photography before our first work session began. I drove up the coast a little and believe I was in the vicinity of Kittery Point when I took this photo. Click on it for a larger version.

After a ten hour day of work, Graham (my new boss, singing in the blue shirt) treated the team to candle stick bowling followed by a fine Mexican dinner. It is still a too early to tell, but I think I am going to really enjoy working for this guy. The new team went through trial by fire today and emerged intact.

The same woman, after a costume change, improvising a song in response to the unplanned death of her dog at the hands of one of our group. The further we got off the planned script the more insanely funny the evening became. In the end, my team correctly identified the killer for which we each received a plastic walkie-talkie.

After a long work day we were treated to a dinner/murder mystery. The woman pictured here was one member of a four person cast that interacted with our group to stage the murder.

As an ice breaker we had to create a pictorial response to five questions. (1) recent accomplishment- promotion to division one soccer, (2) personal goal-improve everything I touch, (3) lesson from a mentor-wrestling coach, running with arms up to learn how to mentally block pain, translation to life and business = never give up no matter how tough things get, (4) little known fact-studied ballet, and (5) advice for Avid-better to do three things well rather than four things poorly.

Today is the first day of a 3-day senior management offsite at Wentworth by the Sea. This will be my first opportunity to work with my new boss and newly installed management team.

The girls by contrast were much more relaxed and took the time to chat with the parental units.

Kyle hosted a pizza party this evening and his friends stopped in between rounds of trick-or-treating. This photo was taken on our front porch and has not been retouched in anyway. Half of the kids in the background were airborn when I snapped the shutter.

Kyle’s friend Alex was locked out of her house so she stayed at our place until her parents got home. I was experimenting with some new lighting equipment and was able to coerce these guys into posing for me.

Nicolai and his friends organize their Halloween haul before launching into a NY Stock Exchange style trading frenzy. Undesirable candy was offered to the father.

Maya the Spy complete with her gadget belt.

When asked to change her nice clothes before working on her Halloween pumpkin, Maya opted to go topless (a behavior that will need careful monitoring in the future). Each year, we struggle with pumpkin carving tools that are designed around child safety rather than cutting efficiency. This year, after Maya traced out her design, we went to the basement and used an in-line pneumatic reciprocating saw to make quick work of the job. It took less time to carve the entire pumpkin than to write this account.

Although the rain stopped today, the wind was insane. On the way to and from my soccer match we passed numerous downed power lines and cars damaged by fallen trees. When we drove by the first time, the trunk of a tree, about three feet in diameter, was laying across the top of three cars. When I returned with my camera, the tree had been removed and two of the cars had been towed away. The wind was gusting to 55 mph which made for interesting soccer. You don’t often see a goal kick reverse direction in mid-flight. My team battled to a 0-0 tie against a good team. Kyle’s team did not fare as well, losing 2-0. Maya and I drove to Manchester, NH to pick up Jeanine who had been driven there by Susan and Rose. It is nice to have her back; we had real food for diner.