I slept late this morning and woke up to bright sunshine  at 9:30.  I guess I hadn’t realized how beat I was from a week of traveling. Gabe woke up right after me and we both shuffled downstairs.. As soon as we really woke up, we started working on Gabe’s  MySpace profile (http://www.myspace.com/gabriel_the_lizzard_eater  )  to add the pictures and movies from last night’s session at Green Mountain Gymnastics We all had such a blast there   Our friend Tim arraigned to  rent the whole place for a bunch of the Bolton snowboarding kids. Each kid chipped in a few bucks and they had the run of the place for the evening. The centerpiece of the place is a large (20 x 20 ?) pit filled with soft foam blocks. You can jump or fall into it just about anyway and come out unhurt. It was amazing to see the agility and confidence of all these kids.. front flips, back flips, gainers, corks… TNext time we go I’m going to work on my back flips.  Here’s Gabe doing a ‘gainer’ and a double front flip.

     After working on the Myspace.. Diane and I spent a some time helping Max get ready for his trip back to Pratt next week. He’s been working hard on the coursework needed to finish the courses he missed last semester. He hopes to go down mid week and finish of several of his classes. I’m going to try and help him prep for his art history exam.  Art History was the only ‘C’ I ever mad in college.. so It might not be a big help.

    Around 1, Diane and I went to see Priscilla, Tim and Ivy at the Yurt at Maple Wind Farm in Huntington Maple Wind Farm  has two of these large canvas Yurt’s out on the edge of some large pastures. Here’s what they look like..

I didn’t have my camera.. so this is a picture off their web page.. Please just imagine it’s us.
    Priscilla used to be one of our roommates in the schoolhouse back in the early 80’s Her daughter Ivy and Sam were friends when they were babies. They’d just started to link back up on IBM and MySpace when Sam died. Now Ivy and I talk on MySpace.
    It was Priscilla’s ‘virtual’ 50^th birthday this weekend and they had rented the yurt to host a party tonight. I say ‘virtual ‘ birthday because Priscilla’s real birthday was November 21^st.. the day that Sam died.. They decided to move the celebration  out in time  and this was the time. We found Priscilla, Tim and Ivy sitting around the woodstove in the Yurt. it was pretty cozy in there.. though they said it had been pretty chilly the night before (- 5 F and 30 mile and hour winds).  We all coaxed ourselves outside and took a  pretty fast 5+ mile snowshoe (almost) up to Molly Starks’ Balcony. The scenery and the snow were  gorgeous. It felt so good being outside. Being out in nature makes us feel closer to Sam..  The snow was amazingly deep. At one point our friends’ dog, Stella, fell off the packed track and got stuck in the snow. Tim had to fish her out..
   After the snowshoe, Diane and I headed back home. Max and I brought in firewood.   Every time I touch the wood I remember that Sam and Mason stacked it…memories are everywhere. 
   Around 6:30 all of us headed over to Max’s girlfriend Jessie’s house for her father John’s 50^th birthday (two in a day !). We had a really nice night with Jessie’s family. They are such nice people. There were quite a few kids over there so I did a few science experiments to liven things up. I did one of my favorites which is to take a wad of fine steel wool ad crimp iit in the hook of a stretched out coat hanger. You then light the steel wool and swing the whole thing around your head.. It looks like this:

My friend Bruce once made a move that looked just like this !.. It looks even cooler standing inside the ring of fire.

   Well. I gotta get to sleep. We’re going up to Tim and Jen’s early tomorrow morning to see if we can catch the ‘Teen News’ segment I’m supposed to be on.  I’ll be talking about the technology behind video games.  I’m not sure what kind of teen would be watching TV at 7:30 AM on a Sunday which is when it will air on  Burlington‘s Channels 5 and 31. For other cites please see the schedule at   www.teenkidsnews.tv . Sam.. try to watch !

-jc