New Page 1

The Athenaeum

The Athenaeum finally gets fitted out! Seen here to the right in the fall of 2004, the interior was completed over a year's time in 2002-2003. The "old" burned out shop (see The Old Shop) now boasts a conference center, library, reading room, Sue's office, and an externally accessible bath/shower for guests visiting by boat at our pier. Note the wonderful old heart pine floor -- again provided by our good friend Jack Abeel, who supplied the wood for the family room in the main house. The conference room, which of course is wired and wireless broadband, has its own coffee machine, dishwasher, and refrigerator, and has already hosted a number of useful off-site meetings.
I call this working space "ADL East" because I am the Chief Architect for a DoD funded project called the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative. ADL is based in Alexandria, VA, but I try to work from home as much as possible, and have meetings here often. The ADL logo can be seen in the poster to the right. One of the major aspects of the ADL program I have been involved with has to do with federating repositories of learning content so that educational material can be discovered and retrieved anywhere and anytime over the Internet.
The birth of this project took place in this conference room in the fall of 2003 following a meeting with Bill and Caroline Arms -- good friends who keep their boat at our pier. Sue and I coined the acronym "CORDRA" (every successful DoD program has an acronym) for Content Object Repository Discovery and Resolution Architecture. This project is now getting international traction, and it all began here! The white board proves it! Below is a 2003 view of what will be the Weems Memorial library (my grandfather's). Over time we hope to populate it with all of his collection. Below (right) is Sue's new office! Finally a place of her own! Eventually we will get stuff out of boxes, and in their final homes. Note the raised panels. I made a total of 64. Robert Slack did all the rest, and a fine job he did (all interior inish work by Robert, floors, trim, shelves -- everything).

Pleasant Plains Farm Restoration