The rest of the story: Sometime around April 2006, while at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital visiting the newborn daughter of friends, Max discovered the work of George Rhoads. The sculpture on display there, 'Circus of the Spheres' (as we now know it), captivated Max's attention for about 45 minutes. We couldn't get the kid outta there.

About three months later, shortly after Esmé's birth, our DVR grabbed an older Mister Rogers episode featuring George Rhoads. Needless to say, that episode has been marked 'do not erase'. Max had suddenly developed a rapidly growing interest in 'ball machines', marbles, and all things related (probably the earliest manifestation of this interest was Max's fascination with the Animusic video 'Pipe Dream'). Multiple web searches ensued.

Next we discover that George Rhoads lives in Ithaca, our stomping grounds for 3+ years (and we didn't have a clue)! Rose quickly acquires the studio telephone number, makes a call, and presto, Max has a private tour of Mr. George Rhoads' studio scheduled, which serendipitously coincided with my attending the annual Cornell Real Estate Conference. What a wonderful time that was; Max just drank it in.

For Christmas 2006, Santa brought Max a Quercetti marble run (with auto-collecting marble-return elevator, thank-you), and the marble madness continues when he and I play video games like Ballance together.

Are marbles the new trains?