Monthly Archives: December 2007

Saturday night – back from Boston

Friends,
   First of all, I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve figured out how to enable the spell checker in this blogging tool.. I apologize to all of you who’ve been trying to make sense from my unchecked typing for the past several months. I hope that correct spelling won’t take away too much from the authenticity of what I try and write here.  🙂

It’s just before midnight and Diane and I are just back from Boston after a short and fun trip down to see my folks my sister and her kids and my aunt.

I really liked spending time with my niece Ellery and my nephew Jake..  I mentioned last night that I’d had an interesting audio experience yesterday..  Here’s what happened .. Baby Jake and I were hanging out by ourselves under the dinner table at about 9PM.  The rest of the family was downstairs in the family room. I was talking to baby Jake, Jake Samuel actually, about life and about our Sam… I was thinking about how amazing the circle of life can be.. Our Sam leaves this world, and new baby Jake arrives.. it just keeps going. I was getting pretty emotional about it when at that exact moment, my cell phone … which is also an mp3 player.. starts playing a song.. it was ‘heady riser ‘ from the band Dispatch. Now.. that may not seem so strange.. but a) my phone was locked and was in my pocket, b)  it’s pretty hard to play an mp3 on my phone it takes about 4 button clicks to make it happen,… and that’s only after the phone’s been unlocked with a password. This was either a really, really freaky electrical disturbance.. or some sort of sign from somewhere/someone else… Sam ? ,, the choice of song was pretty interesting.. here’s an excerpt from the song.

from Heady Riser by Dispatch…

By virtue of the definition of the heady riser
He will move to his position of power
To put things he has not seen
In a position to his dreams
He will not call ’till he know them true

And they come for the leaders but we say we never lead
They come for the believers but we say we never believe
They come for the healers but we say we never touch no hand
And they’ll come for us they’ll be no one left to stand

I do not know what to make of this..    In the past 4 weeks I’ve been surrounded my the most amazing set of strange coincidences.. all of which are around electrical equipment..  this including  power failures, lights blowing out, lights blinking in buildings, street lights.. our car freaking out., steros going crazy… . and.. (this gives me chills just typing) …  as I type this   (11:58PM on Dec 8) .. the computer in our room just started playing music.. even though no-one is touching it. .  Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind. but other folks are seeing this too. There are  so many things around us that we don’t understand.  I hear you Sam… I really do…

OK.. so that was the story…

Let em talk a little about our day… it was nice and uneventful.. Just rolling around in family.  We did a bunch of playing with baby Jake…

I watched my dad bring in wood.. He has his own system for stacking.. so helping him wasn’t even an option

I got chased around by my niece ellery.

I got to watch my sister be a mom.. which is something I haven’t had much chance to do..

We all took a walk over to my folks neighbors Susie and Slater.. to see their chickens.   My dad and I took Susie up to Sudbury to pick up her van and meet her son, Slater Jr.. who has C.P.

Here’s one of their roosters.

The kids really liked seeing the chickens.. We had fun pulling them around in the garden cart.

A bit later Mary and I wnet out for a run… that’s when we o our best talking.

My Mom’s sister Aunt Sis showed up around 5.. Sis is visiting while her husband Phil goes skiing.   It was a bonus getting to see her before we left.. so many relatives in such a short time.

One goofy thing happened. My mom managed to back in to our car when she went out to pick up Sis… I was parked behind their garage..   The side of the car was crumpled up so I had to use a crowbar to be able to open the door.   The last year has really changed me and my priorities.. some how this just seemed hilarious to me.. Our poor car needs some TLC next week.. It now needs a jump every time it starts, the GPS just stopped working .. and now it needs a new frnt let side panel.. We’re going to take it to the car spa net week for some rest and relaxation..

OK.. that’s all for my day.. I do have one thing to ask of everyone…
Tomorrow, Dec 9th is a day that Compassionate Friends does a candle lighting to remember loved ones. Compassionate Friends is a world wide organization set up to help folks through loss of a loved one. Every year on Dec 9th they ask everyone to light a candle at 7PM in their local timezone. When folks do that, it becomes a circle of candle flames  moving around the earth. Please join us tomorrow and light a candle for Sam.. and other loved ones at 7PM.

For those of you who are local.. our friend Gretchen P. tells us that there will be a service at the Underhill Congregational church tomorrow night  in conjunction with this event. If you’re interested. please give us a call tomorrow and we’ll put you in touch with the organizers.

OK.. gnite all.. Gnit e Sam.. I feel you so strongly.. I love you
-me

Friday night – Boston

Hello from Sherborn MA. Diane and I are at my parents this evening. We wanted to see them and my sister who is visiting with my 2 and a half year old niece Elery and my nine month old nephew Jake.

The day started very, very early.. we woke around 3:30 AM and got on the road by 4. Our goal was to make a Father’s Forever group meeiting thatr started at 7:30 in Newton. Diane drove the enitre way while I slept (that you Diane !!!!)/  I woke up around 7 AM to see this glorious sunrise… Seeing the sunrise for me usually means I’ve stayed up too late. // not woken up early.

We got to the Newton Mariot about 20 after 7.. plenty of time for Fathers Forever meting. FF is a loose group of guys who have all lost kids . (They say that they are the club with the highest cost to enter) This was the largest meeting they’d ever had with 12 people.

We went around the room, and told a little about ourselves. . our families and the child we’d lost. It felt so free to be able to talk to other folks in roughly the same situaaion that I’m in.. There were guys who were there 5-6 years after loosing there kid and there was one guy there who’d son had died of Luekmia in September We talked for 2. 5 houra about our families and kids, our communities, our  path through healing, our greatest challenges. and about what we wanted to do as a group. Most folks agreed that just coming together was a great start,   The storis from Herbert, me, Craig,Mike, Steve , Peter, Sala, Denis, Mark, Gus, David, Niel and our love of our kids Sam, Amelia, Charlotte, Jarred, Christopher, Kermim, Alex, Micah, Gus Jr Natasha, Derry were both unimaginable sad and uplifiting. I really resonated with these guys.. They all had such different stories  I’ve never felt more connected to a group of random guys.
 I really feel compelled to reach out to some of the guys in the group who don’t have much of a support group 

There were so many common themes.. the way our loss had changed our lives:  our thiking, our communities, our relationships. It was nice not feeling like talking about your loved lost cild was going to freak other folks out. We were all in the same strange space.
   One really cool thing I notice was the similrity in the ways we chose to keep our lost kids close. I saw that many of us were wearing memorial bracelets of one form or another.  

I asked all the band wearers to pose for this picture. It’s an amazing testimate to teh lasting bonds of love.. no ?

After the fathers meeting I was pretty drained and happy. Our next stop was to see our nce Elizabeth who’s working as a nurse in Framinghman. We went to her apartment in Brighton and sepnt a few hours with her. She had this wonderful place..alll bright and sunny.. It was a perfect place to live for a new graduate. It was so cool to hear how she and her roomantes were using their new freedom..


Ekizabeths from Levenworth Kansas.. it’s a big adjustement to Boston {

Her frisge reminded me of home

She had this great picture of her,eSam and her brother Michael. Made me happy to see it

From there we made our way to Sherborn and my fols house. Only my dad was there when we arrives. We talked a bit. then I took nap 3 for the dy. My mom and sister and her two kids arived (I’m told) an hour later.

Jere’s my nephew jake…

Diane and my sister Mary are in opposite but mathcin colors.


My dad an I went to the store.. We found this so I felt compelled to take a picture of ‘paw-paw’ with pa.


It wa great holding Jake.

Eventually beutiful ellery woke up too.

Here’s my mom …


And my dad. …

Around Sunset.. my mom lit the Chanukah candles


She relaized sh was using the last match form a book she’d pciked up at the htel when sthey were up for Sam’s memorial Service. That realization gave us all some good tears.

My mom showed us some old things she’d kept inclufing my sister Mary’s old baby dolll… and

My own sterling silver baby rattle.

My folks had a ton of great sam and family pictes. Bother wonderful and hard to see.


Ellory and I had some fun with soem of here disassembleable Barbi’s

OK.. I had an amazing audio expereince today. but it wil take more strength to describe than I have wakefulness tonight. I’ll take that up tomorrow. For now..Good night all.. Good night Sam

-me

Thursday night – gotta sleep

Friends…
    It’s about 11:40 at night and we’re driving away to Boston at 4AM.. so this will be really short.

I woke up feeling miraculosuly whole afeter a night of high fever.. I had a 7AM call with my firends in India.. so I got right in to that.. and completely missed Gabe going to school .     The rest of my morning was spent on the phone.. until I managed to get iin a shower and drive the car to the Toyata service place.. It was one of those beautiful snowy mornings..


I dropped the car off around 11 and workied inthe Toyata places lunge.. it was quieter and better appointed than my office. I liked working there.

The car still wasn’t done at 2 so my firend Ray at Camplain came and picked me up for my meeting at the Emerging Media Center (thanks Ray) . I had a very exciting meeting there with a group of studets who are helping me with a prject on explaining why video gamingin is a great reason to be interested in math, scinece, and technology . I was totally blown away witht he thinking these guys had done on the prblem. They’d wrritten code, flowcharts, etc. I swear these guys are as innovative and effective as any proffessiona; industry team I’ve ever worked with.   I love wroking with them.. We have lots to get done by our deadline in Feb.. but these kids are so sharp.. I know that we’re goign to do something very cool.

After that mmeeitng, one of th students, Iiian  gave me a ride up to teh Rushfords Chirporcti place.. I’m always happy to see that they have a SamStone prminnantly displayed.

From there I caught a cab tback to the toyota place to pick up the car.. only to find that they’d not been able to fix it. It truly is possessed. The battery is constantly draining which requires us to jump the car every time we want to go somewhrer.e It’s goign back in next week for them to try again to find he cause. . Maybe it is my wierd enrgy field that’s screwingit up ?

I finally got home at about 7L15.. I’d bene looking forward to getting home and hanging out some with Gabe.. This week I’ve kept missing him.. and I’m needing to hang out with him so badly.. When I got home, he and his bud’s were out on the sledding hill behind the house.

A couple of his friends were staying for potatoe pancakes. Unfortunatly, I had somewhere else to be. I say unfortunaltly, but I was happy for the invite. My friend Joe, our famly doc, had invite me and his friend Dan to see Paul Geramia at Good Times Cafe in Hinesburgh, I said goodbye to Gbae and his friends and headed to Hinesburgh to meet up with Joe .

and Dan..

Geremia was an excellent musician.. He was playng slide 12 string guitar.. some old delta blues, some originals. it was my knd of music.

This guy Duker and his wife Josephine were sitting next to us.. Duker is an artist and drew this amazing protrait of paul while he sang..  Isn’t that cool ?

Around 10L30 I decided I hat to head home.. we’re leaving at 4.. so I need my beauty rest..   In that interest. I’m going to say gnite right here.. gnite all. gnite Sam
-me

ps. Happy Chanukah folks

Wednesday night – sick as a dog and old freinds

Ughh..   I was supposed to be out withsoem of my Richmond Father’s buddies on our annual beer drinking/shopping crawl through Church street.. Instead  I’m lying on the couch like a wet rag.. Running a fever and feeling as creeky as our attic door.
I’m pretty bummed to miss the shopping.. but it feels pretty nice just chilling on the couch..

Not much to report on today… I woke up feeling pretty creepy but figured it was a pulled muscle..or soemthing. By midmornign I felt fine..

 I managed to get the Prius in to Road Res-q   to get the Snow’s on . (subliminal message… take all of your cars to Road Res-q.. they’re excelgreat ).   Shawn and Phil let me work in gas  station while they swapped the tire..   I care..ved out a cool little office in the back. It’s cozier than y own office, I think .   They got the tires on..   and I drove off.. or at least tried to drive off. The Prius is possessed .. whenever I get in, the battery goes haywire and it drains, I need to jump it with a tiny battery I carry for that purpose. I’m taking it in to Toyota tomorrow to have it exorcised… they’ve tried fixing it three times.. but no luck.   The energy dsissrupr waves from my brain are jsut too powerful.  By the time I did make it home, I relaized I was really sick. I drove into the driveway and immediatly felel asleep in the car for 45 min with the motor running.. (outside)  I’ve been on the couch ever since.
   Hmmm.. what else to report ? … Ahh.. I have had an interesting increase in the freuency of out of the blue contacts from old friends. Yesterday I spoke with Chip, my junior year roomate from Vienna Austria.. We haven’t spoken since 1976.. .. but it was just like old times.  He’s running a folk and blues magaziine out of DesMines has a great family and travels to folk festivals all over the US. Playing music and working his magazine. He lists himself as the ‘Tribal Cheif’ of the opreation.   I remember that he and I used to buy whatever we could find for cheap and mix it all together in a pan.. we called it ‘Lizard Slime Death Mold’.. and I still call it that..   . I loved talking to him.. He found me on the Web.. and found out about Sam  and called me. We’re goign to find a way to get together somewhere sometime to talk old times.

    I also heard from my other frien Murat in Vinna. He and his wife Laura and baby Murial and I have stayed in touch pretty welll.. but it was still good to hear from him. I tried to convince him to go to a Robotic Bartending show that was being held in Vienna last weekend..He calls himself a wood doctor. , and only beleives in stuff made of wood … so he didn’t go.. Can you beleive not  being interested in robotic drink mixing 🙂

Today I heard from my old friend Greg P.. He wsa in the high school class ahead of me in Houston. He and I worked on a coule of geek projects together.. One I remember was a little air puck that worked suing car AC Freaon. It floated on a small cusion of the gas so it cold move frictionlessly on tables floors, etc. That was a few years before the connection between freon and the ozone hole were established.. I’m sure theres a lasting ozone hole over memorial high school to this day given the amount of that stuff I vented off.   Greg is now the CTO of Sun Microsystems (which is a big deal)… We were trading email on how much we owed to the science teachers… One in particular Mike Saathoff…  in helping us get in touch with our inner geeks and find our true passion. I just proposed to Greg that we track those teachers down and tell themm.. maybe go give a talk down there.. I’ll let you know
   For those of you kids reading this.. think about the teachhers you have now.. the ones that are really passionate are probably helping you decided what you want to do with you life.. Do me a favor and thank them now… so you don’t have to go find them  30 years later…

OK… Gotta go sleep this off..
Love to you all.. Love you Sam

-me