Yikes… another late night. I’m just getting back to my hotel room just before midnight. I  had a full day of meetings then a dinner. I am beat and my head feels like it’s in a vice. . I tried drinking a glass of wine at dinner and found again that I simply cannot drink anymore since Sam died. one glass of beer or wine gives me such an incredible headache.. it’s strange how my body and mind have changed over the past 4 and a half months, Oh well… it’s no great loss I suppose.

     On the bright side, I’m really enjoying this meeting. It’s such a hoot  being around all of these friends from so many different parts of the world. The day started out wiht a huge gathering in the arena

The rest of the day was divided into 4 meeting sessions. The first one I tried was supposed to  be about using improve techniques to make meetings more fun.. ironically it was a very dry and process oriented discussion about being spontaneous. It just didn’t work for me.. so I skipped out and joined a session on ‘dealing with difficult people’ . That session tried to categorize the 16 ways that people can be difficult. .. It was sort of a Meyers-Briggs for jerks. Later in the afternoon I saw a talk by Jeff Jonas, the CTO of IBM’s data analytics organization.. he’s a brilliant and funny guy. He had wonderful hand drawn animations that were both funny and surreal.. Even better he gave us some completely insights on database query management.. I can honestly say I  can’t  ever remember learning more about a new topic in one hour talk.

   I managed to skip out of the last session today to get a run in with my very good friend Bruce. Bruce and Jim and I had been hanging out  today.  Jim   couldn’t run because of his recent hip replacement aside from that he’s getting around perfectly.   Jim did manage ot take a wlak with us mddiay

Bruce and I did a loop around and through Disney Land,  Here’s a picture of Bruce from my hotel room

   After the run, I  called home and talked ot Diae and the boys.. Sound like things are going OK there. Gabe told me that he, Hannh and Kevin put one of our kayak’s in a pool of melt water in the back field and paddled around.. Diane got pictures that I’ll post when I get them. I miss those guys so much !

After the call, I went to a reception and dinner for IBM Distinguished Engineers  and Fellows. I have so many good friends here. I still haven’t been able to sit down and talk  to all the folks I’d like to see.. just not enough time.

 My good friend Glenn from Australia had challenged me to bring a gadget.. of sorts to play with at the meeting. I had decided to bring th color changing LED headband that I made on Saturday night. I used the LED ribbon that I had aught in Shanghai last month.

All of my friends took turns wearing the ‘crown’ as they called it.. Here’s a quick clip of the band going on my friend Lori’s head. That’s Nick D next to her.. he’s the ‘chief scientist’ of all of IBM.. (and a hell of a nice guy)

It was a really nice and low key evening. Many folks came up to talk to me about my family, about Sam.. and about  how I was doing.  As always, I’m overwhelmed by peoples kindness and compassion. We’re well cared for Sam !

-jc

ps I just  got back to my room ad heard about  the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech. My heart goes to all the victims and their families.. I feel somehow like I can feel each of the families as I write this.. If I prayed.. I’d pray for them… I wish them peace and strength

It’s 3AM east coast time and I just got back to my room. I’m at the IBM Technical Leaders Exchange meeting in Anaheim. It’s in the 50s and clear out here tonight.. a far cry from the snow and slush that I think we’re getting back home. Here’s some Palm trees just to show that the whole world is not covered in snow.   (oops.. I don’t seem to have enough nandwidth to upload pictures tonight.. I get it fixed in the morning !  got it fixed.. here are the pictures)

The trip out here was uneventful. I miraculously got bumped to first class which was a nice and welcome treat. The flights were all on time which is nice considering the impending weather. I sat next to my friend Mark on the trip from BTV to Chicago.. Mark’s younger son plays in a band with our friend Nick Rose who played guitar at Sam’s memorial service. On the trip from Chicago to LA I just sat and worked quietly by myself.. it was really relaxing. The only noteworthy thing on the flight was that Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of the bird Iago in the movie Aladdin was sitting two seats behind me.. he even let me share his luggage bin. I talked to him for a bit.. he was very nice.. and kind of shy…

   I got of the plane and found a clump of IBMers and followed them to the shuttle bus to the hotel. I got here about 7:30 ish then headed on over to the conference site right next to the hotel. The conference officially starts tomorrow, but there are already a ton of folks here.

   I understand that there will be more than 5000 IBM technical folks attending this meeting. 5000 ! that’s significantly more people than live in Richmond. They are coming here from all different IBM divisions, locations and countries. Its such a strange thing to see folks I know from so many different places and jobs all together in one place. I must have run into 100 folks I new just in the 3 hours I went over for dinner. What’s more.. almost everyone I saw already knows about Sam.. I had so many people come up and hug me this evening .. it’s remarkable. It really does feel like a big family to me. Tomorrow I’ll start giving out some of the fresh SamStones that Jen brought over this morning. This group will take them all over for us. Well. I know this is a pretty non exciting post.. but I’m feeling a bit non-exciting myself. It’s hard traveling and being away from the family. It’s funny though.. I like the quiet time in the hotel room.. Sam feels very close to me here I love you Gabe, I love you Max.. I love you Diane.. I love you Sam.. Gnite !
-jc

We woke this morning to beautiful snow cover again ! .. I never get tired of snow.. It was a little slushy down here.. but we’d heard that it was snowing pretty hard up at Bolton. Our friend, S, came buy and the three of us and Chi headed up to Bolton for a snowshoe. The weather up there was amazing. It was snowing pretty hard and ii was super pea-soup foggy. The effect was really magical. The Lodge and lifts are all closed for the season, so it had sort of a post apocalyptic end-of-the earth kind of feel. We headed up the trails into the fog.. at times you could only see about 10 yards.. it was very cool.

The snow was coming down with the wind and was sticking to the trees in the most amazing way. It was like everything had thick ‘snow shadows’

As we walked, our friend told us an amazing story that had happened to her and her family when they were out in Tahoe last week. They had stopped into a clothing booth to check out some of the gear when the person personing the booth started staring at them. The booth person finally asked if they were local to Tahoe.. They said no.. and asked why.. The woman pointed at the ‘Sam Forever’ sticker on our friends board.. and asked… ‘how did you know her ?’ Our friends were confused and explained about our Sam. The women freaked. ! She then told them that there was a 16 year old girl named Sam from Tahoe who was killed while driving 2 summers ago.. She’d been a really wonderful kid, had many.many friends and was an excellent snowboarder. When she died, her friends had made stickers exactly like ours:.. same ‘Sam Forever’, same size.. even the same font ! the only difference was that theirs had been pink..! I think it’s an amazing story.. I’m still not sure what to make of it.

We finished our walk enjoying the snow and the silence.. then came on back down the hill. One the way down we stopped at David Kemp’s to take Gabe his board and riding gear so he could play up on the mountain. There as about 8 inches of snow in David’s driveway.. which is about 7 and a half inches too much for the Prius.. we ended up having to dig the car out and push it as Diane gunned the accelerator.. She finally got the car moving and we ran along behind..

It just doesn’t matter if you own two 4 wheel drive cars if both of them are sitting at home in your driveway..

We stopped at home for a bit to veg for a bit. .. then headed out into the wilds of Essex and Williston for a few errands. First stop was at the ‘beCause’ show in Grace Methodist Church in Essex. The show had about 20 vendors selling beautiful hand made stuff. Each of the vendors was donating half of his/her take for the day to a charitable cause. There were people donating to a therapy dog training program, another to greyhound rescue, another to American Cancer Society. Our friends Ed and Jeanne were there working their son Michael’s booth selling ‘Eddie’s Energy Bars’ .

Michael had decided to give half of his days earnings to the Sam Cohn Fund . .. It was great seeing Ed and Jeanne. We sat there eating energy bars which were really good . !. I particularly liked the peanut butter and chocolate. We really appreciate the Michael and his family’s efforts on behalf of Sam’s fund.. They are really great folks..

After we left the because show, I had to make a quick stop into IBM to drop off my passport. I’ve run out of pages and need to get a visa for a trip to Russia I’m going on in June I had to pick the lock on Jleigh’s desk to leave it safely (it’s in the upper left drawer, Jleigh.. thanks !) I learned to pick locks in college.. it’s still one of the things I most use from my college education

We dropped by Staples on the way home to pick up Max’s art history study guide then stopped at Shaws to pick up food for dinner. While in the grocery store, two folks came up to me and had the ‘I haven’t talked to you since your son’s death conversation. It takes such guts for people to approach us for the first time.. I know how hard and awkward it can be, and we really appreciate it when someone makes the effort.. it’s never to late to tell us how you feel.. or that you’re thinking about Sam.. we love to hear it…. We always will.

Diane made a really yummy Pad Thai…for dinner.. I’m resisting the urge to go downstairs and role in it. I just love the smell of that ‘fish sauce’ .. It smells like low tide.. but I can’t get enough of it. I must have been a bottom feeder in some past life. Now we’re just sitting around having a quiet evening at home.

Around 10, we went up to  see Gabe at the Townsend’s where he’s spending the night. I wanted to see him before I head to LA tomorrow for a conference. I’ll be back on Thursday. Like always, there aere a ton of kids up at the Twonsends.. such a nice place !

While I was up there, Hannah gave me my own ‘Friends of Sam’ pin. FoS is a group the kids have created to do good stuff in the community in Sam’s honr. They designed the pins as part of their fundraising. I love the design it has a guitar, a guitar pick, a snowboard and a lacross stick.. Pure Sam

Well.. as the Greatful Dead say.. I like to get soem sleep before I travel’.  I need to sleep before I take off tomorrow. I’m looking forward to this event. There will be several thousand folks from all over north America and Asia.. I’ll see many friends.. so I’ll be carrying many SamStones.. I’ll give you all a report from the coast.. Talk to you soon… Sam travel with me again

-me

I am barely awake enough to write.. but I’ll try to get something down before falling asleep.   We woke to snow again this morning. Not that I’m complaining, I like it.. it’s another chance to write Sam’s name in the snow. Chai and I went for an early morning run. Chai’s not bee feeling that great.. she ate something bad.. we thought it might have been a rock.. and she’s been moping about for a few days. Diane took her to get x-rayed.. she has something in there.. but not a rock.  The vet said just to feed her very little and wait.. this too will pass…   Anyway, she seems to be on the mend so we had a great run. At the end she circled back to ‘talk’ to the Barlow’s dogs. They have a little dog, Cider..

Who always barks at me and tries to chase me away with her teeth barred… I don’t know what it was today, but I wasn’t in the mood to be bossed around by a 15 pound dog.. so I barred my teeth, got down on all fours and chased her across the lawn I think I even foamed at the mouth a little. Cider could tell that I was crazy. and  capable  of anything . I’ve never seen a dog run away that fast..  I felt guilty abut it all day.. but no one else messed with me all day… grrrrrrr

   Around lunchtime, I left work an headed up to South Hero to look at the computer controlled milling machine I mentioned in yesterday’s blog.  I net it’s current owner, T, and he gave me a quick tour. It’s a thing of beauty (to me at least).. it’s capable  of doing all sorts of cool stuff like sign making, engraving.. cutting, copying, even carving photographs into wood. Homer and I are trying to figure out how to make this work. It’s too big for our house, I’d love to buy it  for one  of our local schools (e.g. CHMS or MMU)  providing I could get access to it when I needed it.. If anyone out there thinks they know how to make that happen, please  let me know.   

   One of my main reasons for making the schlep to South Hero was to get a picture of the machine for Homer..  I whipped out my camera.. but it told me there was no memory card..  Sure enough the memory card was missing.. what a mystery.. Anyway, T offered to send me a picture.. which he did.. Here’s the Shopbot.. isn’t it beautiful ?

I got home on the early side to find Max asleep on the couch, Gabe ready to go to a friends house for a birthday and the memory card to my camera stuck in the computer.. I yanked it out and stuck it back n the camera.. and found the following pictures.. so it was worth it.. This is Max, Scott and Mason playing with a fresnel magnifying sheet.. strange boys

Diane and I headed to our friends Bill and Gina’s for a very nice dinner. Gina’s brother Kevin was there as were our good friends Keith and Ann .. Both family’s are great story tellers.. so it was a a really fun evening.

We spent a long time talking about the effect that Sam’s passing has had on the community. They showed us a wonderful writing piece that their son, Luke had written about Sam’s death and what Sam had meant to him. It was very nicely written and very moving. We’re going to post it on SamStones. Org when we get a soft copy . (please help us by posting you favorite Sam stories, poems, etc there)  

The conversation was good, the fire was cozy and before I knew it.. I was asleep on our hosts floor. Diane managed to wake me up enough to drive home and crawl into bed.. and hear I am.. Sam.. I don’t think I can stay awake for another seco…….

 -me

ps. Rememeber..to visit Micael Adams and Eddies Energy Bars at the beCause show at Grace Methodist in Essex tomorrow. Micahel is donating halfof his day’s take to Sam’s Fund.   Thanks you Michael !