Monthly Archives: November 2007

Monday night – Brooklyn/Armonk

Yikes !… too late to begin blogging and the computer ate my first attempt. I’ll have to make this fast. I’m in Armonk NY at the IBM Leanring Center, my favorite hotel.  I drove down today for soem meetings related to my new assignment (which I think I’m really going to like !)    Ihad a few meetings here then drove down to Brooklyn to have dinner with Max.  
   We met up about 7PM.. then went oout hunting for some of his freinds to take to dinner… We first caught up with Nikki, Bella and Emily in their appt..


Nice a neat !

We then went up and found Tin and Ryan… Tin was painting some amazing protraits.

Ahhh Tin’s famous shoe collection again..

Max as art subject

We then went up to say hi to JJ and his vikings

They had one of Chris’s drawings.. these kids are amazing. I also got a copy of one of Max’s films   I’ll post that when I can convert it.

We all walked down to Red Bamboo.. the Fake Meat resturant..

Max

Ryan

Tin

David

Chris

Huh ?

Bella

Emily

Nikki

Ayyyyyy !

Yummy fake food !

Goyles

Even the bathrooms had interesting art

Max’s claw contraption

… and his thing to do list

“Clean and reorganize room …” nahhhhh

Chris and the Jeep grill I brought down for him

It was so great seeign Max for the night like that.. I love that boy so much.. His friends are wonderful too..   Now.. I must sleep.. More tomorrow.. Diane and Gabe I miss you down here. I love you

Nite all, nite Sam !
-me

Sunday night – Art for Kid’s sake

Slow day… I woke after some hard trdreams. My dream had soemthign to do abut having to go back to Tampa Florida.. and me not wanting to go because of Sam. It stuck ith me until about mid morning.    Diane and I puttered around the house for a few hours waiting for Gabe to wake up.   We started to work on a new guitar for the sculpture of Guitar Sam I welded in the front yard. Diane has recently replaced the lights on the sculpture. We were trying t figure out what to use to replace the guitar shaped wreath we’d gotten last year from Puckett’s mom. Conincidentally,as we were thinking about it, Neighbor Amanda dropped off a guitar shaped CD rack of the perfect size and dimension. Diane and I spent an hour rigging up the srings with light up wire.. only to find out that the power supply was bad I’ve just ordered some new drivers for it so it should be up laste this week.

About 10 our friends Kathy and Lau called up to invite us for a dog walk up the long trail.. It was a perfect day forfor a walk in the woods. It was also really good hanging out with Lou and Kathy and dog Sophie..

As we walked, we talked abit about our plans for the anniversary of Sam’s death.. It’s even hard for us to choose which date to recognize.. the 20th, 21st and 22nd all have significance. It’s so for me to think abotu that .. I know ithat the anticipation is oftne much worse than the event itself.. I think the reason that milestones like this are hard to anticipate is that you can project yourself to a specific point in the future then imagine how you’re feel. The fact is that if I chose any arbitrary Tuesday in the future and thought about it enough it would be painful… every day is painful… It’s just that days lie Thanksgiving make it easy to imagine yourself there. We’re still thinking about how best to mark the year.. It all still sems so unreal…

We climbed up to a good viewsot.. and found a nice bench deadicated to a guy who’d died quite young.. These dedication plaques now really mean something to me.. I loved the Dylan quote.. We placed a SamStone near the plaque for safe keeping.

After the viewspot, we decided to headback down. As soon as Chai realized we were on or way back down she grbbed the first tree branch she could and started to run down hill with it. It’s sort of a game with us.

We got to the bottom of the trail and I ran home just under 4 miles.. It felt good to be out runnign on a day like this.. As soon as I got home, I got dressed and took Gabe, Hannah, Avery and Matt down to Homer’s we’re all working on making two copies of the wind-powered snowboarder whilrygigs for sale at the JDK Frineds of Sam event on the 30th. It was greatworking with Homer in his shop/ H REALLY is a mad scinetist.. Hisworkshop is like the one from mythbusters.. it has everything ! 

Homer’s great with the kids, we spent about 3 hours rebuilding two old whirlygig echanisms. We had to straiten the frames. reinforce them, replaces some bearings and grease them all.

We were all marveling at some of Homer’s other artwork..   Like these wax faces.

It was fun getting our hands dirty on these things.. we were all pretty dirty by the end of the rebuilding processes

Gabe and Matt spent soem time workign Homer’s flying camera…It allows you to slowly and smoothly pan a video camera very close to objects on a table. The effects can be dazzeling . Everyday objects come out looking like flying over the Grand Canyon. it’s a pretty surreal experience

Hannah stole my camera and went out side to mess around. She got soem pretty cool pictures of the kids running around in the field .

In the end, we were able to rebuild 2 new snowbarder mechnaisms. Hannah and Avery have the job of decorating the the new snowboarders bodies.. Theyr’e goign to be cool.. I’m srue that someone will really lke them at the Auction.

Speaking of the Auction.. we really need help collecting cool art to sell in the silent acution…   Here’s the annoncement we’re sending around. Please send it to you your friends !

Artwork Needed

 

“Friends of Sam” is soliciting artwork for a benefit auction to help the Vermont Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf.  We would appreciate any and all artwork: from kids to adults, from amateurs to professionals.  Please consider submitting photos, pen & ink, paintings, sculpture, or whatever fun and funky pieces that you may have.  Artwork needs to be in by Sunday 11/25/07.  Please contact us with any questions.  Email:  FriendsofSamCohn@gmail.com or the Townsend family at 434-6421.  Thank you!

 

Event:  Friends of Sam Silent Art Auction & Cocktail Party

 

Hosted by Jager Di Paola Kemp (JDK), Burlington, Vermont

 

Friday November 30, 2007

Proceeds:  to benefit Vermont Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf

 

“Friends of Sam” is a nonprofit group of kids helping other kids in the spirit and love of Sam Cohn.

OK..   That’s all for now…   Gotta sleep now. Gnite all.. Gnite Sam
-me

Saturday night – calling all artists !

Very simple day… I woke to find Gabe nursing a black eye: a trophy from last night’s gymnastics class. He managed to land a double front flip.. but also managed to meet his knee coming up as he was coming down. He didn’t seem to shaken up by it.

The only goal I had for the day was to get the interior and exterior storm windows up. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.. but we called in reinforcements to make it tolerable. Around 10 Brad, Pucket, Pj. And Corey came over to help and made quick work of it.. it’s so much easier with help.

I can’t recall doing muh of anything else during the day. Rand came over and schmoozed for a bit.. I managed to sneak in an accidental nap.. we managed a short run.. then before I knew it , it was night time

Austin was having a Friends of Sam party at his house, so we went up to give his dad David some moral support.. and some help in with his wine and pizza surplus. Gabe and his friends were in the hot tub looking pretty adult-ish… They’re all growing so fast…

Austin‘s chinchilla Chester was running around the house too.. we all took turns rubbing his fur…


Speaking of fur.. check out these mustaches !

So that was all that happened today.. …Now that’s a perfect Saturday !

Ahh… one thing I want to bring up… On Friday. November 30th. The Friends of Sam are going to hold an art auction. The folks at JDK have kindly offered to host the event which will be used as a fund raiser for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. The kids are looking for art that can art of the auction. They’re especially looking for art from kids… in the spirit of kids helping kids.If you know how to paint, draw, sew, weld, weave, whittle, print, sculpt, forge etc , please consider making something that the kids can auction off. Any piece no matter how big o how small can help Vermont families put food on their tables this holiday season. If you have some thing to donate.. or know someone we should approach, please contact me.. or call Deb at 802-434-6421

OK.. that’s all for now.. Peace out everyone.. peace out Sam..

-me

ps. Here’s a ccool movie that Scott made for us while we were in India.. I really like it..

Thursday night – social day

I woke up today with such a funny array of feelings.. This is November 1st.. the day that I officially start my new assignment at work.. I feel excited and scared to be doing something completely differnt for the first time in many years. It also feels  like a huge weight has been lifted from me. I’m really excited about being able to work on something that might help society out…   It’s also the beging on fthe month that marks the year anniversary of Sam’s passing.   That feels wierd.. in some ways the anniverary scares me.. how will it feel ? In others, I know that it will hurt like every day hurts.. I’ve learned not to predict how I’ll feel

What ever the month brings, today was a good start..   It was full of chance meetings with friends.. That’s always a good hing. It started with me talking to Phil and Shawn at Road ResQ in the five corners while I got one of the cars inspected. We got on the topic of blowing stuff u.. always a favorite topic. Phil showed me a very cool pcket size potatoe launcer he’d built .. very cool

In the middle of the day I had to run out to buy liquid nitrogen and ice cream makings for Ron Rose’s quaeter centruy celibration at work. My buddy Jason came with me as we tried to find where to score soem liguid nitrogen. The cryogneic gods were not smiling on me as I tried to get the dewer filled.. one place had no one to work the pump.. the next place alost wouldn’t sell it to me since my dewer lacked the appropriate top.. In the end they did fill it for me.. but just this one last itme  (as they’ve said to me the past 5 times) …
   I then had to run into the store to pickup the cream and choclate I needed.. I was happy to run into my friend Juergen in the parking lot. He was heading back to Germany today.. his suitcase was packed with steaks !  He told me that he hoped that his luggage wouldn’t get lost.. (it would give new meaning to the words ‘carrion luggage’ … (get it ? ))

Speaking of meat.. i ran into my friend Joe in the store.. he and I were treated to a cool demo of a bag vacuum outer thing by a woman named Lorraine.. we were facinated that she’s made the fake hambergers out of play-doh.. pretty cool ..

Hey Joe.. were you goign with that bag in your hand… ?


Hi Lorraine.. se.. you really are in my blog

I got back to workjust in time for Rons quarter centrury celibration. The folks in the cafteria were kind enough to let me do my mixinign in their kitchen.


About 60 folks showed up to wish Ron a happy 25th .. He’s such a great, great guy. he devotes so much time to helping othe r folks.. It was great listening to speaker after speaker talk about how much Ron had helped him/her through the years. He’s one of my all time heroes.


Pete O was master of ceremonies


When it came my time to talk.. I dragged out the lab coat and the liquid nitrogen and gt Ron to make the ice cream.

That’s to Ron’s expert stirrng the ice cream came out great.. It was a really nice event..

After work I went back to Champlain to see a demonstration of 4 kids who wrote 3 video games in 3 days at a conference a few weeks back. It was really, really cool. The kids were set up at a table at this major Leanring conference… they clicited ideas for the game from the conference attendees then coaded round the clock .. What they came up with is pretty amazing.. I’ll try to post my favorite one here when it coems out on their website in a  week or so.   I figure i need ot spend more time with these kids if I’m goign to become an expert in video games… (which is sort of my job now !)

From their I drove home and piked up Gabe.. We’d made a date to go out to Bridge Street for dinner…  The place was full of our friends.. Including Casey , Jake, Justin. and Alex L..

After dinner we sauntered over to Film Buzz to help thme celibrate 5 years in business.. and Kelly’s birthday… SHe’d set up court ou on the street.. pretty wild !  They served us champagne.. and showed us soem of Kelly’s very cool paintings.

So.. that was the day.. one theme goign through my head all dayt was about pririties. Itfelt strange not worrying abut the things I normally worry about at work. I heard som many conversations today.. as I do every day.. of folks arguing, cursing and gernally worrying about such small stuff eithera t work or in their lives.. I had a wonderful case of ‘so what’ today.. and it felt great.. It’s a good perspective..I hope you can borrow the feelig from me and apply it to your own life..   

Whatever sam….
-jc