10:30 Sunday night.. Peaceful and cool. I’m writing from Sam’s room just like I used to in the early days of this blog. There have been people or things piled in his room for most of the summer. It’s nice to have it back as sort of a quiet space.  

Today was one of those rainy fall days where you just don’t feel like going outside I did manage to get out for a run, but that was it. I spent the entire day trying to clean out my closet and dresser..

t was a major undertaking. I’d been  accumulating stuff for years.. and was running out of places to stack my clothes. I knew that going through all that stuff was bound to stir up memories.. and it did.. but it was still nice to do.. I’m amazed at some of the stuff I dug out of there…  tons of old clothes that I never wear that I’ll be donating somewhere.. and tons of clothes I’d forgotten I had…not much variety but 20 pairs of blue jeans, 20 pairs of khakis. .  the nice thing is that everything I own still fits !…

The big finds in there were pictures and stuff from the kids: lots of school artwork. thing they made for me, knickknacks they bought me at garage sales, etc.    There were several things I found from Sam.. each time I found one I had to stop for a few minutes…  Each piece I could feel in my heart.. handling each piece was a little more mouring and a little more healing. The process of my life now.  Here are a few things I found..

 Sams 4th Grade Music Certificate

A Present he made Diane and me. All the boys make us stuff

Thank you Sam.. I love you forever !

A stack of last years school papers

I also found the 21 year old receipt for Diane’s wedding ring.. which is a good thing, because I need to  go and get it repaired.

By the time I was through, my closet was neat.. if not sparkling, my dresser was empty and I was a wreck.. Luckily Diane showed up with Deb in tow and started to make a spontaneous middle eastern feast ! Hummus, babganoush,  falafel. Tzaziki, stir fried eggplant, olives, feta, beets.. yum !!!. I made Zatar bread. is this green spice that you can buy in the middle east that’s a mix of thyme, sesame seeds, sumac (usually) and salt. You sprinkle it on pits, drizzle it with olive oil and broil it.. it’s delicious. Zatar is also the name I use when I’m doing my Electricity magic shows. I’m not sure how I chose that name.. it just sounds much cooler and science-ier (science-ier ? ) than ‘John’ It’s even on my license plate !  . Luckily there were a bunch of kids around to help us eat all that food..

I got to talk to Max on the phone tonight…  It was so good talking to him even for a short bit. . I miss him so much sometimes. I know he’ll be OK down there… it’s just hard letting go sometimes for me.  Right now.. I need to  get some sleep. I’m traveling some this week and need to get my beauty rest..   Goodnight to you all.. Good night Sam.

-me

I just repaired one of my lasers…. it loocked cool out in the mist

Another slow hot day… not much happened…  and that was very nice. I spent the morning puttering around the house.   I did manage to finish off booking our India reservations which is very exciting. Thanks to frequent flyer miles, Diane and Gabe are flying completely around the world for 85 dollars each… not bad. It’s cool having the travel booked, we now get to switch into that planning part of a trip which is fun.. where to stay, what to see.. etc.  I’m already wondering how I’ll manage to blog in some of the places we’re going.. we’ll see. It never pays too much to worry about the future.

 Gabe seemed to be the only one un-phased by the heat.. He was out running around, swimming and jumping on the tramp with his friend Jack. Gabe’s been on a spray painting kick the last few days. He’s got a good touch with those cans.. everything is getting a multi-color rasta treatment. Diane and I are worried that if we stand still too long we’ll wake up red yellow and green. Today’s canvas was the mailbox.  Gabe and Jack chose a more modern pink with polka-dots motif.. Looks good with the house. I really like it.. It’ll make our house easier to find. As in   ” Ohhhhh.  You mean  that  funky old schoolhouse with the pink and polka dot mailbox !”

As Gabe exercised his color-eye outside, I was trying to figure out some of the color LED ribbon stuff that my friend Hua-Pin bought for me in Shanghai. I have about 10 meters of this stuff now.. It’s the same thing I made my rainbow headband out of.

I’m trying to reverse engineer the control signals so I can program my own color sequences .  The company says it’s a secret so they don’t document the inputs. I’ve been staring at it on an oscilloscope for about a week now and It’s proving much harder than I thought to figure out… There’s a whole series of serial commands controlling the color of each light, the timing, the sequence, etc…   They also managed to erase the markings on many  of the components to make It hard to figure out. I managed to find one of the chips that still had some markings on it. It’s an HL1606S whatever that is (any info appreciated)… It’s still the best clue I have.

It’s not a common chip.. It’s made  by a company in the Chinese city of Wuxi in Jiangsu  Province..  There does appear to be any English language documentation on it. I spent a few hours this morning combing through Chinese web sites with a web site translation site looking for clues . It’s like playing detective.. I love how bad the automatic translation is… Ie This

Becomes this

Diane and I had been tlaking about India all day so we were jonesing pretty bad for Indian food so we went out to eat at the Indian place next to Radio Bean.. it was a great training exercise for our trip.. Yum !  On the way home.. movie store gas station., and grocery store.. where I found the blood pressure machine.. The machine confirmed what I already knew.. I was having a laid back day..

The heats finally broken..  I can stand to be in my own skin again.. I think I’m going to go find Diane and watch a movie now.

G’nite all.. g’nite Sam

-me

Hot, hot , hot…. This must have been the hottest day of the summer. Usually I stop functioning when the temperature gets above 72 degrees.. I simply shut down. For some reason I can’t explain, I actually loved this hot sticky day.. maybe it reminded me of growing up in Houston.. no, wait…. I always hated the weather there Not sure why.. but it felt different.. and I guess feeling things .. anything strongly right now feels somehow good.

 This morning I worked from home trying to beat the heat by wearing as little as telephone conference call etiquette would  allow .. (use your imagination).. After  a day full of calls I took off for two face to face  meetings downtown.. I took some weird pleasure watching the temperature rise as I drove into town.. Yow !

My first meeting was with my friend Dom at UVM.. Dom is the Dean of Engineering at UVM and an amazing guy. He came in 2.5 years ago with a really good vision for the engineering department at UVM..  His big vision is to turn out more ‘Holistic’ engineering students; Students who have good grounding in multiple engineering disciplines as well as a good grasp  of communications, critical thinking, business and other disciplines needed in the real world. He’s taken some heat for his views, but I think he’s right on. It’s been fun watching him start to change the culture of the Engineering at UVM.. I’d like to find a way to help him execute on his vision..

Next stop was Champlain College.. where I met with my friend Ann who runs the Emergent Media program there’s. Ann and her colleagues have built up a very well respected computer games and new media program at Champlain. Her program focus’s on how to use games and gaming technology for ‘serious’ purposes like teaching  kids about conservation. This is getting to be a big topic inside of IBM so I am trying to get her hooked up with the games folks in IBM.  She’s got so many cool  ideas and so much energy that I’m committed to finding a way to work with her on this games idea.

When I left Champlain it was 5:30 and it was 102 degrees by my car’s thermometer.. absolutely amazing..

On my way home I stopped briefly to check out some of  the South Side Art Hop. I tracked down my buddy Homer to see the installation he worked on.

I really liked his piece.. I also liked the cool mechanism he built to spin and lift the wax figures.

The cool thing is that homer and I talked last night about how to use a linear motor drive he had to lift two wax heads  at different rates and at different times. Between then and this evening, Homer manufactured the design we discussed , got it working and installed It in Burlington.

He’s one of the best “maker’s” I’ve ever met.

I also took some looks around the rest of the Flynn Dog space and loved the artwork and people I saw.. I ran into so many friends down there…

Here’s our friend Jude the ‘Milliner’

From there I came home to pick up Diane and Gabe… Pucket, Nick and Brad were  was there at the house when I got there.. Pucket  was showing off the new custom Sam Cohn shirt he’d designed and ordered.. it was really so cool that he did that,.. He wore it over to surprise us..

At that point we had to go pick up the Prius at the show, So we piled back in the car with Jack B and Alex L. in tow. We picked up the car and went to Mexecali’s for a quick bite.. There we ran into my buddy Mike .. He and I had just had lunch at Mexecali’s a week or so ago…

We finished just in time to make it to our 9:30 movie at the Majestic.. We saw ‘Balls of Fury”.. really stupid and really funny. When we came outside at 11:30 it was still 87 degrees !!!!!  That’s got to be a record.

On the way home Gabe was playing tunes from his IPOD. He played Guns and Roses ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ which I’ve only heard inside Guitar Hero.. This is the first time I ever tried listening to the words…  Everything still reminds me…

 (he’s) got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see (his)  face
(he) takes me away to that
special place
And if I stared too long
I’d probably break down and cry

Sweet child o’ mine
Sweet love of mine

G’nite sweet children of mine…

-me

I know that I must be sending out powerful waves about my emotional state right now. .   not just through this blog or my conversations.. but through the ether somehow. Just as my tank gets low.. folks show up to fill it back up.   Friends have been calling and emailing me throughout the last few days with friendly encouragement and support. Today I was thinking about contacting a friend  in IBM HR to talk about how I keep from screwing up IBM while I’m not working at my best.. No sooner did I think of her name.. than she calls me on the phone.. What’s strange is we’ve never spoken by phone directly before.. it’s too strange even to call it a coincidence…  It’s pretty cool..

Midday I had to run home to pick up some visa pictures from Diane. On the way I stopped by Crate Escape to say ‘Hi’ to Chai who was spending the day there for some play time. As soon as I walked near the enterance the whole place exploded into barking. I could hear Chain thinking ‘Dad.. do you have to embarrass me like this ? )

Not too much else to relate about today.. I was somewhat productive.. but in a stuck in first gear sort of way.. Lots of effort.. small forward progress.   The high point of the day was an after work meeting of VOMIT (Vermont‘s Own M. I. T. club) at Good Times Café in Hinesburg. What a great place to eat !. It was great seeing the VOMIT crowd.. I haven’t seen them since Sam’s passing. It’s such a fun and eclectic group.. I love working with them.

One thing we discussed was next years MIT Teacher Scholarship. Every year we send one deserving Vermont Math or Science teacher to SEPT summer camp at MIT.. it’s a great program.  .. so please let me know if you know of a very deserving Math/Science high school teacher we should consider.

One other thing I got done today was to make reservations with United to use frequent flier miles to  take Diane and Gabe with me to India on a trip I need to take in October.. Our plan is to stay in Bangalore for a week then take vacation in Kerala on the sooth coast (Any recommendations from folks who’ve been there ?) The only routing we could find was Burlington -> Chicago->LA -> Singapore -> Bangalore -> Kochi -> Bangalore -> Frankfort -> Washing SC -> BTV.. so we’ll literally be going around the globe.

It will be a Loooong trip.. but I’m looking forward to the together time.. Gabe and Diane are excited too.  It will be very interesting..

I’ll end with a wonderful movie that Max just sent us for our Anniversary.. I love it… I love that boy.

G’nite  al.. g’nite Sam

 -me

ps. Thought folks would enjoy a look at the mutant tomato we plucked from the garden yesterday.