Monthly Archives: December 2007

Tuesday night – 1st night of Chanukah

Home again after a very good trip to NY. It’s so nice coming back to Vermont.. and back to my family. I still feel it hard to walk in the house after being gone. Sam’s absesne is more concrete when I step in that door. That feeling passes once I’m inside and with my family.

As soon as I walked in, Diane started converteing the potatoes I’d brought in into Latkes for tonight is the first night of Chanukah. Gabe and I sat around smelling them cooking with our mouths watering.. It was torture. Once they were made, we sat down and lit the first lights of Chanukah. I suspect most folks know the drill.. You start wuth one candle and add one every night foreach of the eight nights.. There’s also and extra one,. the Shamus… who looks after (and light’s) the others.  It’s names after the guy who looked after the synagogue.Shamus is also the Yiddish word for ‘detective’ or ‘private eye’ .. I always thought that was cool,

Chanukah commenmorates the uprising of the Maccabees against the Greek ruler Antiouchus IV in 167 BC (or BCE as we say).  The deal is when they drove the Greeks out of the temple, they found that there was only a tiny bit of the oil needed to keep the everlasting light of the temple (Ner Tamid) lit.. in fact there was ony enough left to run it for one day.. somehow the small amount ended up lasting 8 days… not much of a miracle.. but  enoguht to make a holiday. (I’ve had that sort of thing happen on my cell phone.. only one bar of battery.. and it lasts a whole conference call. )   Anyway.. the theme of the oil goes throughout Chanukah .  You’re supposed ot eat oily fried things like donuts and fired potatot pankaes called Latkes.  Note the bubling oil around these delicious latkes…

Gabe lights the first chandles

Note the reflection of the ligths on the latke plate.. now that’s oil !

We said the blessing over the candles…

Blessed are You,
our God, Creator of time and space,
who enriches our lives with holiness,
commanding us to kindle the Channukah lights.

On the first night of a holiday, it’s  also traditional to say the Shehecheyanu, the prayer that celibrates the safe arrival at the holiday. I couldn’t bring myslef to say it this yoear.. we’re not all here safe…    I remember choking up on that last year. at the wonderful Skate benefit that our firends Hannah and Dave had in Sam’s memory last Chanukah just 2 weeks after his passing.

Oy !

After dinner we got down to some good old traditional gambling with a Dreidel..

‘Nun’ – nothing

‘Gimel’ – wins all

‘Shin’ – put one in

‘Hey’ – take half

Gabe ‘poned’ us… We didn’t even have  a chance..  

OK.. I’ve been up and driving since 5:30 AM .. time for me to get some sleep..
Chanukah Sameach (Happy Chanukah) everyone.. Gnite all.. gnite Sam..

-me

ps. Our firned Gary sent us a picture of the SamStone he put on the bell in the tower of the Round Church where Diane and I were married. .. Pretty cool. Thanks Gary !

Monday night – Dusting

Friends…
   I’m still down in NY with no camera.. and not much in the way of stories. It was party cludy and pretty nice down here whi;e folks at home were getting snowed in.  I wore my underwear backwards last night just so Gabe could get a snow day. I guess it worked. I had a really productive day down here at headquarters.. Not much really to report about it.. Lots of smart, dressed up people moving about very purposefully. Sometimes I feel like a real kid walkign around down here.
   I love eating in the cafeteria here.. it’s a great place to meet up with friends from all over the world.. Today I walked in and the lights went out.. they came on breifly then went out again.. and blinked every few seconds then went dark. they never did figure out what was up.. I must be sending out some wierd vibes.
   I had a full day of meetings then went to my firend Bill T’s house for dinner. I carpooled there with Brabara.. who is on assignment to the same department that I am. Bill’s wife Linda passed away in July of this year so he’s been livign alone.. It was good to see how he was doing. . Turns out he’d been taking a few cooking classes in the last month.. He made a really  excellent meal for us. The three of us had a great time talking about life, loss and IBM .. Bill and I had lots to share about how we were doing in all three regards. It’s always good to talk to soemone whoin some way  ‘knows’ what you are going through.
  I came back eary because I need to get on the road before 6AM tomorrow.. so .. I think I’m goign to cut this short. Can’t wait to get home and through a snowball at Gabe..
   Gnite all, Gnite Sam.

-me

Sunday night – camera-less in New York

Greetings from Armonk NY. I had to come down here today to go to a meeting tomorrow.. I  was heading down to Homer’s with Abbott and Mason on the way down when I realized I had left my camera at home !.. No Camera ?!? How could I blog ? it was too far to go home and fetch it so I pressed on to Homer’s.

I called home to make sure that my camera was still there.. and Gabe confirmed that it was.. he told me I should take pictures wiht my mind … so that’s what I did…     Here I am saying goodbye to Diane. Gabe and Chai…

I Got to Homer’s about 11 with Mason in my car and Abbott fowling us. Abbot had wanted to route soem signs using the shoipbot in Homer’s shop.. They’d never met so I deceided I’d go down with him.. then continue on down to NYC.  Wouldn’t ya’ knwo but the power went out just as we drove up.. I’m pretty sure it was because I was so agitated from leaving my camera at home.. Electrical things go haywire when I’m mad/agitated… (Sure enough.. all of addison county was blacked out.. the power came back on as soon as I left the county !)  Homer, Mason,. Abbot and I hung out in the shop for a while waiting for the power to come back on.. but when that didn’t happen.. we wnet inside and watched soem of Homer’s melting wax movies on his well charged laptop.. Eventually we gave up and I headed south.

The drive down was peaceful enugh.. I had severall good phone calls.. including several from Diane.. the Prius was having electrical problems too !..     By the time I got down south of Albany.. it started to rain a bit.. nothing like the nasty storm I expected.. but still trecherous enough drivign. I still managed to make the city in just about 6 hours..

I got to Brooklyn about 7PM and met up with Max, and his freinds Aaron and Liam.. we went out for some great sushi .. Max looked great.. he had a ton of work to do… so I took off back north around 9PM.

I got to the hotel in Armonk at about 10:00 ish and checked in. I told the guy at the desk my last name.. and he said ‘Sam Coh(e)n ?’ I was pretty surpised.. there’s someone of that name checkign in here tomorrow night.. Small and meaningful world..  no ?

Now it’s time to get some sleep.

More tomorrow.. Gnite all.. gnite Sam..
-me

Saturday night – movie night !

Arghhh… once again Myspace has eaten my (nearly) complete blog entry and forced me to re-type.. I have done my cursing oo-fline and will attempt to retype what I entered before !…  (grrrrrrrrrrr)

So.. we woke today to a new month.. December.. can it really be December already ?   I guess so.. it feels cold enough to be.  One good thing about December is Advent calendars.. In this family, we try to take the best aspects of all of our cultures.. Advent calendar this week, potatoe pankakes next week, christmas in 3 weeks.. wow…

I particulalry like this new advent calendar. You get to put your own stuff in it.. so we had choclate kisses and dog boscuts this morning.. I’m thinking A-1 sauce for tomrrow. I’ll let you know if anything really wierd shows up .

Diane and I worked together most of the morning trying to get the house back in some order after all the events of the last week and a half. It was fun workign around the house.. it was a sunny and very cold day.. the perfect kind for being inside.. Though.. too much inside is too much. Around 2 we took Gabe up to Bolton and Dinae, Chai and I went out for a Snowshoe at Bolton lower quad.. It was a beutiful day to be ut.. cold. (8 degrees and blowing) but enough sunshine that we were ok in a windbreaker and sweater.


I liek this iew from Bolton back over towards our house. Robins mountin in our back yard is the left most hump in this picture

The trails a re a reat palce to Snowshoe.. I like the name of this one.


We got home very cold and tired around 4:30.. Around 6:30 we got back in the car to go to the Jericho Community Center (JCC)  for Movie Night. Burt D, his son Angus.. and freinds Max E.  and Alex L had organized a showing at the JCC. the  with all proceeds goign to the Sam Cohn Fund (thank you so much guys !) .

There was no missing the fact that the event was on.. 5 signs dragged in quite a crowd



I esteimate that there were between 110 and 120  people there..

People were still coming in at 7PM .. so Kevin got up and did his Kevin immitations.. as only he can do.. He is one wierd and funny dude.

the first movie was ‘Fly’ by Sam R. and Garrod. It was great ! There were so many of Sam’s friends in it.. I kept expecting to see Sam…. I liked the fact that they included our pnd skimming porate ship into their movie.

Next up was the ‘ToGnar’ (totally gnarly) project by Angus D, Burt D, Max E, Alex L. and …  It was a history of the 2006-2007 ski/board season.. I loved the images and music in this one, too. They also had a sequence of the pirate ship as the credits rolled.

They had a great dedication equence to Sam at the end..   Choked me up a bit.

The last film, ‘Push Rewind’ was by Nick S. It had amazing camera work, and editing.. really professional quality.. It also was dedicated to Sam.. which was a reallly good surprise for us. I’ll try to get a copy of the dedication sequence for me to post when I get a sec.    Irelaized that I kept moving my vest away from my Sam buttin soe Sam could ‘see’ the movies.. it’s a funny instinct.

The last movie was over at around 9.. It was really a great evening.. Our thanks to all the folks who made it posssible ! We took gabe’s friend Dylan home then came back to the house.. it’s only about 7 degrees aout now.. and supposed to be gettign much colder tonight !.. Bundle up everyone !

Stay warm everyone.. stay cool Sam !
-me