I slept like a rock last night. I think the jetlag from this week’s travel had finally caught up with me. I woke late to a beautiful, bright morning. I walked outside and it seemed it had transitioned from Winter directly to Summer.. there were flowers in the yard

I had intended to make this a vacation day because of this weeks travel. I ended up being in work calls all morning Interesting stuff.. but emotions are running high and I needed to chill out.. so around noon I walked away from the laptop. I had a few errands to run to help Max recover from a laptop crash… Those kind of things always happen at the worst times.. in his case, right before his Pratt work is due and his Champlain finals. ‘Luckily’, it seems to  be a motherboard problem and not a disk crash.. we were able to get his school files off safely. After I got that squared away, I drove out to New Haven to see Homer. I spent the drive out talking to Sam.. which I needed to do.. Car travel is my best thinking time now.

   I got to Homer’s around 2. He is just an amazing guy.. he’s a very cool blend of artist, inventor and philosopher. I hardly knew him before Sam died.. now he’s a good friend. One thing I really admire about him is his ability to follow through on any vision he comes up with. He’s able take that  vision and use it to  quickly transform piles of scrap metal, motors and gears into working creations. Where others would see junk he sees possibilities. For example.. last weekend he was describing a new 3axis robotic camera arm that he hopes to mount a camcorder and a blowtorch  to film the melting of his wax states.. Today he demonstrated the thing to me in his shop.  Homer and I are still trying to figure out if/how/when to buy that shopbot 3D robotic milling machine we found in the classifieds. One of our hopes is to make a system that will let kids take a design idea on the computer and turn it into an object made of wood, plastic or other soft material.   Today we went and visited Homer’s friend Randy to see his shopbot in action. Randy spent a good hour or so showing us his machine. It was very, very impressive. Here it is.. isn’t it cute ?

 

Now we have to decide what to do about ours.. stay tuned.   

 I headed home around 4:30  so that we could get ready to leave for Boston. Diane and our friend Pat are taking  a yoga training seminar in my parents home town of Sherborn, MA. Around 6:30 Diane. Pat,  Gabe, Gabe’s friend Trevor and I piled in the van and headed down to Boston. We made good time.. with an emphasis on good (isn’t that from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  ? ) on the way down: 4 hours including a leisurely stop for dinner. The kids played video games (Guitar Hero) in the back while Diane, Pat and I talked.. it was great having Pat with us.

   We got to my parents house around 10:30. It was really nice to see them. We haven’t been here since Sam died.. so it was pretty emotional for me to come into their house. We got settled pretty quickly though. They’re very good hosts..

Tomorrow Diane and Pat are off to Yoga and Gabe Trevor and my folks and I are going to find some urban skateboarding for the boys. More from Boston tomorrow. Sam, I feel you here. Have a peaceful 420.

-jc