Thomas chuffed along.  Suddenly he noticed he was on the wrong track to fill up the oil car.  So Thomas backed up and chuffed onto the right track.  And then, he arrived at the oil thing.  He lined up the car.  The machine put the oil in.

Suddenly, Thomas noticed that the crank was stuck on the oil pump.  So Thomas wheeshed away to tell all the engines.

Thomas saw Duncan.  “Hello,” Thomas said.  “Did you know that the oil machine was broken?”

“Yes,” said Duncan, and he chuffed away.

Then, Thomas reached over to get his next load.  He coupled onto a very special coach.  Along the way, he met Sir Thomas Hatt.

“Hi Thomas.  I see you’re pushing the special coach today.”

And then, Thomas kept chuffing on.  He chugged away.

He passed Duncan again, who was still at the signal.

Then Thomas kept chuffing along.  Duncan backed up, and Thomas backed up.  He switched tracks and hooked up to his old cars.  And then he chuffed away.

Thomas chuffed right past the signal.  By the time Thomas chuffed past, Duncan had to stop again because the signal had gone back down.

Thomas was tired.  He was pushing a lot of loads today.  He really wanted another train to help him.  And suddenly he saw who wanted to help him:  It was Duncan.  So when the signal went up, Duncan chuffed away to help Thomas.

Then, after Thomas coupled onto the big load, he pulled and pulled into the siding and Duncan got out of Thomas’ way.  Thomas chuffed into the siding.  Duncan chuffed into the front, coupled onto the front car, and the two engines chuffed away.

View the Flickr set here.

But of course, the problems were highly publicized, as noted in this Washington Post article.  In fact, my experiences were even quoted in the article.  One of my twittering buddies works for the Washington Post and asked me to email my thoughts on the process.  Here is the whole email:

Honestly, I was a bit dubious when I first heard about the White House's plans for offering the Easter Egg Roll tickets online. It seemed an admirable, thoroughly 21st century idea, however being a web development professional myself I simply knew that whatever website was used for the ticket distribution would be absolutely slammed with traffic to the point of not working. And for much of the morning, when I was receiving "Network Timeout" errors, I was being proved right.

There was also the vagueness of the information provided in the White House's news bulletin: what time did ticket sales start? At midnight or sometime in the morning? The bulletin didn't say. It also didn't say if the tickets were being offered on a first-come, first-served basis or via a lottery system as was being reported in the Chicago Tribune. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-easter-eggmar24,0,364891.story) Even as I type this at 1 P.M. on Thursday, it's not immediately clear when today the tickets are being offered. I keep getting redirected to a static web page that reads:

Tickets for the 2009 White House Egg Roll are no longer available at this time. Tickets will be available at various times throughout the day. If you are unable to order tickets at this time, please check back later.

Lastly, while the notion that an online distribution system would make it easier on parents across the country trying to get tickets, I wonder about the feasibility of families from areas outside the D.C. region being able to get to the nation's capital on short notice, especially in the current economy. I always saw the Easter Egg Roll as one of the perks of living in this area, like being able to enjoy the free museums and zoo any time we want to. While the Easter Egg Roll is a great public event in the most public house in the country, I'm not sure that opening it up to everyone in the country is necessarily practical.

All things considered, I don’t think I would have ever gotten the tickets if I had to camp out at the White House in the wee hours of the morning. The online distribution is more my style, when it worked.

You can get full size versions of these photos from Flickr.

This is what snow looks like, Sasha!

I can catch snowflakes on my tongue!

Something is definitely different.

I wonder if I can hit Daddy with this snowball?

However, I will relate the story of Sammy vs. Santa Claus. For weeks I’ve been telling Sammy that we need to go see Santa Claus so that he can tell him what he wants for Christmas. We even wrote a letter Sammy could give him detailing his preferences. And finally the day came, Sunday, when we were off to Lakeforest Mall with, I believe, one of the best Santa layouts in Suburban Maryland.

Sammy was reasonably good in the long line, as was Sasha who didn’t get fussy until we were approaching. A little nosh (yes, while standing in line) seemed to appease her. As for Sammy, I let him play with my iPhone for a little while, which backfired when it was our turn and I had to yank it out of his hand when he refused to give it back to me.

Sasha, who has been plagued with both separation anxiety and stranger anxiety lately, was a perfect angel. She gave Santa her biggest toothless smile and did everything she was supposed to do. Then there was Sammy.

I tried placing Sammy on Santa’s lap. His response was to start crying and then hop off. I gave Sammy the letter he had written, which he then threw at Santa and tried to run off.  Finally, after coaxing from the photographer and from me, he stood sort of next to Santa clutching a tiny basketball squeaky toy, and then finally sat on my knee as I kneeled down next to Santa.

At one point, he gave the photographer one of his “I’m in pain!” smiles. I tried to tell her that that was his smile and that she should get the shot off quickly, but I don’t think she quite believed me.

We managed to get off a few passable pictures which we got in prints and on a USB key (a cool l feature that I think is a smart way to go), we were done, much to Sammy’s relief.

Sasha doesn't look that happy, but Sammy cooperated for this picture.

Sammy with his first cousin twice removed, Connie.

Following @veronica‘s example, I’m posting the sixth photo on the sixth page of my Flickr photostream. Here we see my mom’s cousin Connie with Sammy taken when she last visited us on January 21, 2007.  Sadly, the focus on this picture is a bit off, but the look on Sammy’s face is priceless!

And then there are mornings like this morning, when I walk up to the door of Sammy’s day care and announce to the kind teacher who opens the door, “Take my child now.”