We had another pretty quiet day. My day began with a massage from Marci.. Diane had scheduled it for me a few weeks back after seeing some of my travel plans. She knew what all that airplane sitting does to me.. and decided to take the preemptive step of scheduling this massage for me. She’s such a  sweetie.

     On the way to Marci’s,  I had the opportunity to escort the mouse from 2 days ago blog posting out  of our house/ We’d caught the little guy I our have-a-hart trap. I wanted to make sure I released him across the river so he wasn’t likely to follow us back home. I released him at Marci’s with a small supply of food. He appeared grateful.. and told  me with his eyes that he had no plans to return to our house.

   After my massage/Reiki session (which was very wonderful) .. I went home and started in on assembling Gabe’s trampoline. He was due in around 5 today and we wanted the tramp set up fro Gabe to get the first bounce when he got home. As with  all things setting up the trampoline took lots longer than expected. There were tons of conflicting instructions, lots of extra strange shaped parts and an odd assortment of miss-sized components.. All you could ever hope for  in a days entertainment. In the end, Tim K and Max finished the last tie down just as we were picking Gabe up at the Airport.

max made a necklace out of blueberries here.

   Diane and I met at the airport around 5:15 to pick Gabe up, He’s been in Oregon since a week ago Monday. I missed him so, so, so much. He called at least once a day which helped. It was great seeing him walk out of the gate back in Burlington.    He seemed to have had a great time. We’ve been getting stories all night. It sounds like it was really wonderful  for him.  It was fun/sad hearing him describe some of the things that Sam saw there last year.

   As soon as he got off the plane, he wanted to go home and bounce.. He didn’t even go inside first.. up he went on the  trampoline.. It’s going to be really fun to have this thing. We all spent time getting the feel of it today.

Max left late afternoon to go in and watch the fireworks with his friends. Around 8PM, Diane, Gabe and I decided to go in as well. We drove in through Rt. 7 and parked in a skanky old parking lot near down town. It was an easy walk.  There were 10’s of thousands of folks down by the waterfront waiting on the fireworks.. We saw so many folks we knew. including Homer and Mary.

 Eventually we found Deb. Hannah and Jen and we settled in to watch the show. The fireworks were really great.. Of course, they made me think of Sam…

   After the show, we dawdled to let the traffic clear out then headed for home with a few overnight kid guests. Now its abut 1:30 and I can hardly keep my eyes open.. So Il’ll end here…  Happy Fourth everyone.. Happy birthday Sam… my firecracker …

-jc

I set my goals low today and had another day of blissful ‘not doing’.   Diane and I began the day with a run.. I should say.. I began my day with a run. Diane had already been up for about 3 hours 🙂 . 

    My first goal for the day was to find a way to back up this blog. I was getting a little worried with all of the technical problems that MySpace is having that they could lose chunks  of my blog . Unfortunately. MySpace has no provisions for backing up or exporting a blog.. Luckily,  I found a service called SpaceWrapper (SpaceWrapper.com) that provides an archiving function for MySpace.  It created an archive of all the posts I’ve made to date. I plan to use them as backup and as a way of creating a printed copy. One of the byproducts of the process is a listing of the blog titles from the first day I started writing. I found it interesting just looking at the progression of titles.. somehow they capture where my head has been since the day after Sam’s passing. It’s a little hard for me to look at.  Because it gets me to relive some very tough days.. but here’s the list in reverse chronological order.

• Sunday night – wild life
• Sat night – Billys
• Friday Night – memory lane
• Thursday night – bats !
• Wednesday night – late posting
• Tuesday night – Joysee shore
• Monday night – New Joysee
• Sunday night – G-d bless the child
• Saturday night – high summer
• Friday morning – back from the U.S.S.R.
• Thursday morning – spiel balaika
• June 20th – red square (pictures later.. again !)
• Tuesday – From Russia with Love (Pictures later tonight)
• No time to post
• Sunday night – Happy Father’s Day ad Max’s Birthday
• Saturday night – not quite father’s day
• Friday night – Deer leap
• Thursday night – SamStoens at school
• Wednesday Night – Open Mike Night
• Tuesday night – will spring ever come ?
• Monday night – a Peace of the Rock
• Sunday night – end of birthday weekend
• Sat night – gabe’s 12th brithday !
• Friday night – night at the Opera
• Tursday night – connections
• Wednesday night – books
• Tuesday Night – handwriting
• Monday night -hasty post after busy night
• SUnday night – the dog whisperer
• Saturday night – Tree’s down !
• Friday night. – Musical Soul
• Thursday night – 12th night
• Wednesday night – warped
• Tuesday night – grafitti
• Monday Night – Happy Birthday Sam
• Sunday night – Duality
• Staurday night – Never a dull moment
• Friday Night – Jolts and Volts
• Thursday night.. home again, home again
• Sam’s Birthday Ultimate Frisbee Party – May 28, Noon Volunteers Green !
• Wednesday night – fishkill
• Tuesday night – million times better
• Monday night – six months
• Sunday night – home at last.
• Saturday night – Middle america
• Friday night – Kansas
• Wednesday Night – last day of CTRE
• Thursday night – surf’s up
• Tuesday nigth – you can do whatever you want until someone tells you that you can’t
• Monday night – cold water
• Sunday night – Mother’s day
• Saturday Night – Mather’s day eve
• Friday night – taking it easy
• Thursday night – rathole
• Wednesday eveing – how arghhhh ya ?
• Tuesday night. – meeting fun
• Monday night – number 10
• Sunday afternoon – transitions
• Saturday night – Cinco del mayo
• Friday night – Max’s home
• Thursday night – Albany again
• Wednesday Night – Samstock
• Tuesday Night – May Day
• Monday night – my souls in good hands
• Sunday night – Arggggghhh mateys..
• Saturday Night – Skanky Green
• Friday night – day off
• Thursday night – window pain
• Wednesday night – Wrong place at the wrong time
• Tuesday night – TYKTWD
• Monday night – Johnism
• Sunday Evening – Parents, Skateboarding and Peace
• Saturday – Five months today
• Friday night – at my folks – 420
• Tursday night – home again
• Wednesday night – Ode to Joy</o:p>
• Tueday night – Disneyland
• Monday Night – analytics
• Sunday night – Anaheim
• Saturday night – snow again !
• Friday night – dog days
• Thursday night – socks
• Wednesday night – 3D printing
• Tuesday night – men’s yoga
• Monday night – Sam;s font
• Sunday Evening – Easter – Walking on water
• Saturday night – Looking for Sam Stories
• Friday night – SamStones
• Thursday night – peaceful evening
• Wednesday night – Seder
• Tuesday night – Gylphs and tones
• Monday night – Happy first night of Passover
• Sunday Night – Diane’s Birthday
• Saturday – sleepy afternoon
• Friday Night – At a party
• Thursday night – writing about writing
• Wednesday Evening – I smell Spring
• Tuesday night – the forest people
• Monday night – on the mend
• Sunday night – still with the flu
• Saturday Evening – Sick as a dog
• Friday evening – in route
• Friday morning – ready for home
• Thrusday Afternoon – Last full day in Sydney
• Wednesday Night – four months
• Tuesday night – wicked hot
• Monday Night – Beautiful city
• Sunday–evening, catching up from yesterday
• Sat night – short post before long flight
• Friday night – Goodbye Shanghai
• Thursday Evening – The Ides of March
• One more thing
• Wednesday night – The Circle of life: Welcome baby Liddicoat !
• Tuesday Evening – The lights went out in Shanghai.
• Monday evening – Shanghai time
• Sunday Morning – In Chicago
• Sat Night – Packing
• Friday Night – Karl Marx + SamStones Potluck Sat Night
• Thursday Night – Geek Grief
• Wedneday night – cold !
• Late Tuesday – Steez
• Monday afternoon – red/blue auras
• Sunday PM – in Killington
• Saturday night – Gabe’s tough night
• Late Friday Night – back flip
• More later
• Thursday night – my inner slacker
• Late Wednesday – Where are you now ?
• More later
• Tuesday night.. – PB and A1
• Monday – yoga night
• Sunday evening – shoveling snow
• Saturday night – friends’ birthdays
• Friday evening – On the way home
• Thursday eveining – Uncle HoHo
• Wednesday night – three months today
• uesday night . .In the midwest
• Monday Evening – Snow angel
• Sunday evening – not the dali lama
• Satuday – peace again
• Friday night – peace at the end of the day
• Tursday night – snow day
• Valentines day
• Tuesday Evening – valentine’s eve
• Monday night – Dream visions
• Sunday night – Nice 3 day weekend
• Saturday evening- feeling younger
• Friday night – my birthday
• Thursday Night – my birthday eve
• Wednesday night – pretty spacey
• Tuesday Night – LaGuardia Airport
• Monday Night – beat
• Sunday evening – Welding Day
• Saturday – off color day
• Friday night – Mad Science
• Thursday evening – Back from Boston
• Wednesday Evening – The Sam Rail
• Tuesday Night
• Late Monday
• Sunday evening – queit again
• Saturday Evening – calm before the storm
• <i style=””>Late Friday night – back home again
• Thursday eveing- back at the hotel
• Thursday morning – in the back of the room
• Late Wednesday = Greenwich ,Connecticut
• Tuesday Night
• Monday night
• Sunday evening
• Saturday evening – at Jen and TIm’s
• Potluck and Samstones tonight (1/20) at Jen and Tim’s
• Friday eveing
• Thursday night
• Wednesday evening
• Tuesday evening..
• Monday Evening – MLK day
• Sunday evening
• Late Saturday
• Picture of Sam and Ivy’s dog Stella
• Friday evening
• Thrusday evening – Home again.
• Wednesday mid-day – still in Tucson
• Tuesday afternoon – Tucson time
• Monday evening – posted from a parking lot in Tucson
• Music
• Sunday evening
• Saturday evening
• Friday evening
• Thursday evening
• Wednesday Evening.
• Picture from Brittany
• Tuesday Evening
• Monday Evening – New Years Day
• Monday – early, early morning
• Sunday Evening – New Years Eve
• Saturday evening
• Friday morning – PS
• Friday morning
• Pictures from this week
• Thursday afternoon
• Wednesday morning
• Tuesday morning
• Monday afternoon – Christmas Day
• Sunday Evening.. Christmas Eve
• Saturday evening
• Friday evening
• Friday morning – Solstice
• Thursday morning
• Thursday morning
• Wednesday afternoon (repost from memory)
• Tuesday evening
• Sam Cohns everywhere
• Monday morning
• Sunday morning
• Saturday afternoon
• Friday afternoon
• Friday afternoon
• Thursday morning
• Wednesday evening
• PS… Skateboard beneifit
• Tuesday morning
• Tuesday Evening / Wednesday morning
• Monday morning – three weeks
• Light a candle tonight at 7PM.
• Please light a candle for Sam tonight at 7PM.
• Music from Sam’s memorial service – check it out !
• Sunday morning
• Another wierd Red Bull story
• Saturday midday
• Friday morning
• This just in….
• Thursday morning
• Wednesday morning
• Tuesday morning
• Zimbawe
• Monday morning
• Bull….. ?
• Monday morning (again)
• Same old s**t
• Sunday morning
• Saturday
• Friday
• Thursday
• Wednesday
• Tuesday
• Monday
• Sunday morning
• My beautiful son Sam

There you have it: 249 of the hardest days of my life..   Someday I’ll print them all and make a book for me to keep.

My only other  goal for the day was to head to Homer’s and work on getting one of the images of Sam machined into a block of something to make sure the tool could do it. I’d like to use the shopbot to help make plaques for the Guitar award as well as the programs at Rock Camp and at Camp Abenaki. 

Ooops.. we accidently called 911 when trying to dial another number.. the plice came out to chacek on us

A  wooden prototype for a scuplture idea for Sam. It a wind powered snowboarder who does board graps.

It took a large amount of fiddling but I was able to take the image from the latest Sam shirt and load it into the machine. I chose to do it in inverse to see hoe that would look. Here are some pictures of the machine processing the image. 

Machineing the image

I took the final result and sprayed it with silver paint, to better highlight the details.. it still looked a little funny.

Late tonight I was at the counter doodling, when I laid a piece of  printer paper over the machined surface and rubbed it with a crayon.. I was amazed at the results.   It’s quite a good likeness..

Crayon rubbings of the machined image

    My one other outing for the day was an Electricity show I did for this year’s Governor’s Institute for Engineering. The Gov Institutes are week long summer programs for kids interested in math, science and technology. I had been scheduled to do my show on Saturday as the program ended. We’ve decided to go see Diane’s parents then instead.. so The folks at the camp graciously allowed me to move my talk to this evening. It was a bunch of fun.. here are some images form tonight’s show.

A dem on piezoelectricity

Pontificating

Jayela loves batteries. yuck

Illustratng that the heart is an electric muscle

    I got home around 11.. My buddy Pete came over then to have a beer and talk about work and life.. we sat around and talked  for a while as I shoveled through a mound of dishes.. We have lots of folks starting to show up at the house. Some folks are here  for the beginning of the Voices movie project, other’s are just here visiting. When I got home tonight we had Max, Jessie, Emma, Meredith and  Cody  nearly asleep  in a pile in the guest room, and Raye and Travis asleep somewhere else in the house. I think we’re going to have between 6 and 8 folks here full time for the next 6 weeks. It should be a riot. 

A pile of sleepy kids

Merideth from the Voices project

Travis and Raye

    Gabe comes home tomorrow from Camp in Oregon.. I can’t wait to see him. I’ve missed him so much !

   OK.. gotta sleep now. More tomorrow !  I love you all. Love you too Sam !

-jc

My intention for the day was to do as little as possible.. and to avoid doing anything I had to do…  I succeeded beautifully. I did absolutely nothing.. and I loved it.

 Today is the first day of a week of for me, and I can never recall being so relaxed at the start of a vacation. The changes in my life since Sam’s passing are so deep and interesting to me. .. I find that I’m hardly every stressed anymore. . When I am, I find I decompress almost instantly when I go home.. I’m not sure why it’s like that.. it sort of seems counter  intuitive to me sometimes.

   I spent the entire morning puttering in my lab.. which Max and Scott cleaned for me as a Father’s day present. It was so much fun hacking around in there with all the tools hung up neatly. I almost didn’t want to get anything out and spoil the effect. My mission for the day was to start building  a small microcontroller based weather sensor that might someday become part of the sculpture we’re building for Sam. Homer has a great set of ideas for an animated wind-powered snowboarder.. we talked about having some of the motion and/or lighting respond to the weather in some way. I was working on a chip interface to read light. Temperature and humidity.. I got pretty far.. I got side tracked a bit when I discovered that I could download ringtones to these little 99 cent microcontrollers. I  used this to create a very practical home accessory: a can of refried beans that plays Pacahelel’s canon in our refrigerator. Every home should have one. I left it in there until Max found it..  OK.. so it was a dumb idea.

    I’m proud to  say I can’t remember anything else I did for the rest of the day. .. but I was blissfully happy for most of the day.  I remember missing Gabe.. who’s still out at Snowboard camp in Oregon.. I remember helping Diane finish mulching one of her gardens.. and I played chase with Chai.  I also though a bunch about Sam. That happens whenever I’m working with my hands.. actually.. that just happens, whenever.

 Around six, Diane invited Chai and me out for a walk.. we did the upper loop behind the house.. it was beautiful and cool out.   I think it never got about the 50’s all day.. a far cry from last week when it hit 100 here..  On the way down, I caught sight of a fox running across th field in the high pasture. He/she turned around just before ducking into the woods.. I go this grainy picture.. still.. it’s fun to see  a fox.. they’re usually hard to spot.

The wildlife spotting was a bit easier inside tonight. As we were eating dinner, a tiny mouse ran across the floor. I was able to corner him/her under one of the cabinets. Cute.. but it doesn’t belong in my house. I put out a live capture trap tonight. I’ll let you now how that goes.

Tomorrow, I have even  more nothing planned. I think I’m up to it ! Gnite all,   Gnite Sam !

-me

Ahhhh .. home at last. Diane and I made it home at about 7:00 PM after a 3.5 hour flight and a 6.5 hour drive. I’m glad to be sitting still. It was a wonderful trip.. not because of the places we went.. but because I was  traveling  with Diane. It was a totally different dynamic than my normal biz trips.. instead of coming back frazzled and fried, I’m coming back  already chilled out.. I’m going to see if I can take family with me more often now….

    Yesterday I posted a bunch of pictures about going back  to my childhood schools and house..   The real reason for the trip to Houston was to visit my brother Billy, his wife Shaun   and their kids Ben. Betsy., Billy. ‘Berto and Christopher.  They had moved back down to Houston from Boston nearly four years ago . I’m embarrassed to say that  even though we see my Bro and his family pretty often, this is the first time I’ve seen their new house in Houston. In fact, this was my first trip back to my home town , in more than 6 years since my parents moved up to MA.  Diane and I were excited to see Billy ‘s family and the house. We got there mid-afternoon yesterday and just hung out with them for the rest of the day.   It was great hanging out with Billy ,Shaun and the kids.. I love talking to Billy, he is the person on the planet who thinks most like me. Talking to him is like having a conversation in my head. Shaun is a free spirited and creative thinker too. She’s very spontaneous and loving. We love being with her. The kids are all quite different. All are growing very fast.   It was fun checking in with each of them during this trip.  We miss having them so far away from us now.

 Billy

Shaun

Betsy
‘Baby” billy (no baby anymore !)

Christopher (the bobblehead)

Chris on drums




On the porch





Me and Tintin


Billy and Chris





More Chris


‘Berto

Billy and his trombone practicing

Their place is really great.. First of all, it’s huge !.. Is a big two story brick building on a tree lined quiet street in Bellaire TX.. an embedded suburb of Houston. The house is spacious and airy and has all sorts of amazing features e.g.  the whole outside of  property, including the tree house,  is plumbed with small jets that spray a natural repellent  to keep Houston‘s famous voracious mosquitoes at bay. They have a great pool with a spa, an outdoor kitchen, and a full guest house with full kitchen. Downstairs from that was Billy’s shop where he does much of his inventing.

Welcome !

The front of the house

The rearof the house

The guesthouse.shop and outside table

The pool

Their ceder works glider.. jsut like the one I rode on with all three of our kids. (We’d sing ‘Doggy-doggy-doggy meat !’)

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Yummy Texas food (you couldn’t make me eat okra as a kid.. now I love it)

My grandfather’s desk !

The inside kitchen

Our three boys are present

My brother is a world renowned  heart surgeon (http://www.oberlin.edu/alummag/oamcurrent/oam_winter99/hearts.html) , He’s invented many amazing devices to help in heart surgery.. most of them were prototyped in his how shop out of ordinary equipment such as spoons, PVC pipe, ti-wraps, film cans, etc. His shop is pretty nice.. I particularly love his desktop mill/lathe combination.   Billy is also a semi-professional musician. He’s currently playing in a tongue-and-and cheek Disco revival band )’Disco Expressions”) complete with white leisure suits and white platform shoes . Here he is practicing for an up coming gig.

    We stayed up late last night , cooked some food out on the grill  and hung around in the pool. Around midnight we wandered off  for a few hours sleep before leaving this morning at 5AM to catch our flight.

     Our flight was about 3.5 hours .. but I only remember about 30 minutes of it.. the rest I slept. We arrived at JFK around 11:30.   As we waited for our bags, I saw this add for Spamalot.. ‘Spam’ or ‘Spamus’ was always my nickname for Sam. I always collected  ‘Spam’ stuff for him. When I saw this add I instinctively started to take a picture.. but then  almost stopped … ‘Why stop’ I asked  myself ?

   We got our stuff, and boarded the Airtrain back to our car. On the trip I managed to fall against the emergency alarm button…. I had to explain my clumsiness to the Transit police  via intercom..  Oooops !   We found our car with out issue and began the long but smooth trek back to Vermont.   As we crossed the line back into Vermont we both let out a sigh of relief. Our trip had taken us through  Newark, the Jersey Shore, Austin. Houston. NYC., Urban CT, etc..  The unspoiled green of Vermont really felt like home to us. It’s quite a different world up here.. maybe not for everyone.. but it’s heaven for us.

Here

there

   We got home around 7PM. Max and a few of his friends were hanging out. The house was spotless which was nice to see. Max asked me to go get a voltmeter out of my lab.. he followed me over. I opened the door to see that he and Scott had completely cleaned and organized it for me as a Father’s day present. I almost cried I was so happy. You would have had to have seen it before to know what a huge labor of love that was for them to do.. what a wonderful gift.  I love Max so much.. he is such a loving guy..   Scott, that was so cool for you to help do !

Surprise ! Clean Lab !

   Diane, Max and I then headed off to Mexecali for dinner. It was a great homecoming. Now… time for sleep. It’s nice to be back in my own bed.  G’nite everyone !..

-me