Woke this morning in Armonk did a quick run through the cafeteria and auditorium to see some friends who had just arrived for a training meeting   I was pleased and surprised  to see so many friends all in one place.. In just five minutes I ran into Tony, Ed, Dennis, Mike, Brad, Noah from the Us, Karl Heinz, Gottfried and Gunter from Germany and Robert from the UK.. IBM is a small planet !

 I left for Burlington about 8AM and drove home in record time (with a short stop for an oil change in Brattleboro) I spent nearly the entire 5 hours on the phone for work calls. I talked to friends overseas who were also driving somewhere.. something about two people in driving cars talking to each other on different continents seems pretty magical and weird.

 I got home around 4.. took a few more calls then headed up to the Jericho Center Store (formerly Desso’s) where the Voices crew was filming a scene. The scene inside the store was crazy hectic.. lots of people and equipment crowded into the stores many nooks and crannys.. Outside the store. The cast and extras sat their patiently.. for hours ! I could never hang out so dociley as they do. Gabe and Trevor had been waitig for 3 hours on the outside chance they needed extras.. they never got called Whatever big name actors get paid to sit around and wait.. it’s not enough !  What was most surprising is that the store was open all through out the shoot.People would come in and buy stuff between takes . pretty crazy.     The store owners desreve a big thanks for letting the filming happen here.. please reward them with your business ! Here are some snaps I took on the scene.

Josh chow’s down

Max exits fram left

Doug, My friend from work drops buy for his mail.

Filming Kario as a sales cleark

Kario and Dana

Merideth .. I know her from work

Ty and Hannah

Goofy looks !

Cora looking shocked

Vvvvvade

Bess directs

One funny story from this store.. in 1981 I stuck a card on the wall saying “. Responsible young professional seeking house to rent and/or roommates”    10 years later in 1991 I walked into the sore and found the card in the exact same place…   Now that’s stability.

 

 

During one of the waiting lulls I walked with Gabe and Trevor over to our  friend Chris’s house/shop to see if he’d had a chance to finish Sam’s stone. You might remember that we’d etched Sam’s Mayan Glyphs into a stone for the back yard,.. but we’d not had time to add his name or his birth or death  date s. Chris had come and picked up the stone and etched in that extra info. We’d asked him to put Sam’s dates on the bottom so it didn’t look so much like a grave stone. He’d done a wonderful job on it.. We all managed to muscle the stone up into the bed of Chris’s truck. 

While we were at Chris’s we got a chance to walk around and see some of his other projects. He’d just finished this piece called “wise’ that he did from memory in 3 hours  with an angle grinder fitted out with a diamond saw. He’s a true artist…

Even Chris’s woodpile is interesting and beutiful !

We all then headed home. I was surprised to find that while I’d been out, Debra and Emily the Voices Prop people had been working on our house. Diane and my bedroom had been transformed into a teenage girl’s room for Ruby’s character Daria..    And the downstairs bedroom had been transformed into another girls room for Annaleise’s  character Vita.. The transformations were quite amazing.. They’ll be shooting here on Friday,.> Diane and I are going to play Audrey’s character Naomi’s parents.. I’m supposed ot be a spaced out ex-hippy dad…   I’ll have to work on that…
Dowstairs .. Vita’s room

Upstairs – Darias room

Cleaning for the shoot turned up all sorts of precious stuff

Chris showed up with the stone shortly after that and we muscled it out of the truck and back in place. It was nice to have it back. I have to confess, seeing the dates on the bottom caused me to choke up hard They look so…. .. I don’t know.. real ?

 Muscling Sam’s stone out of the truck

Chris and his youngest sonn Sawyer

And older son Finn (the secound Finn I’ve met this month !)

Gabe and Trevor take in the sunset

Nick and Liz look well matched

Meanwhile, Diane had worked up a delicious dinner of pesto noodles and roasted eggplant . I think we had 9 again for dinner…   Never short of company these days..

 

Diane and I are sleeping on the floor these next two nights as not to disturb the movie set in our room.   The show must go on, I guess. Anyway…  I’m totally beat now and need to sleep..  Good night everyone, goodnight Sam.

 

-me

I had a nice start to today.. my friend Ruchir invited me down for breakfast…even though he was 1800 miles away in Texas. I left Armonk around 6:40 and drove 20 miles in a deep fog.

 

I showed up at Ruchir and Rashi’s house at about 7:15 because Rashi’s mom had offered to make me fresh pratha’s and pickle for breakfast (my mouth is watering just in thinking about it).. I had the most wonderful visit with Rashi and her parents who are visiting from India. Rashi’s dad is a most interesting guy.. He’s very interested in the healthful properties of certain foods.. He seems to like using me as a test subject for some of his food experiments.. Last time he had me try Noni juice (yuck) and pickled turmeric (yum).. this time he was easy on me.. The most extreme thing I ate was mango pickle with my breakfast. It was so wonderful. The girls were still asleep, though  Isha, the smallest one. Woke just before I left. .. Great way to start the day..

 

I got back to Armonk by 8:45 in time for my first meeting.. My day was an a very exciting  mix of meetings with different types of folks in Armonk. . I had several day job phone meetings mixed in with meeting on technical vitality, division strategy  and education outreach.. I love walking around Armonk and seeing all the shiny smart people.  I also love all of the historical IBM equipment they have on display

 

 I had lunch with my friend Willow and IBM”s ‘corporate comedian’.. yes. It’s true.. IBM has a comedian on the payroll… what a cool job that must be !    Around 4 I wandered back to the learning center for more day job discussions. On the way back, I planted a SamStone on the rock ledge where I once built three snowmen at 3AM on a very cold morning because I couldn’t sleep.

 

Three snowmen…. Three… While I was on a call today.,  I took  an online survey from  a magazine I get (Make) .. One of the questions was  how many kids do you have ?… I still need to answer three… there’s no space under the question to explain

 

This evening I had a nice dinner with new friend Will (sorry.. I didn’t get your picture !)  and old friend  Gunter.

 

 We got together over Japanese food to talk about a possible joint project. It would be fun to work together with them..  I came back to the Learning center and met up with my friends Dennis and Ed

 

All in all.. a good day.. lots to think about on the car ride home tomorrow morning.. See you all at home.. Samdrive with me.

 -mc

It’s Monday night and I’m at the IBM Learning Center in Armonk NY. I drove down early this morning after about 4 hours sleep .. yawn. The drive down is nice.. spent some of it on the phone.. some of it just quietly thinking. I find that since Sam’s passing I have had trouble listing to news on the radio.. or listening to the comedy channel we get… or reading newspapers.. I don’t think I want to hear about other peoples troubles right now.. A cop out perhaps.. but good self preservation.  

 

The Learning Center  where I’m staying is an IBM owned hotel/conference center on the campus of our companies headquarters. This is one of my favorite hotels in the world. Not sure why. It’s sort of  part monastery, part luxury hotel and part penal colony. The dorms are all in beautiful stone buildings set in a heavily wooded park with trails crisscrossing every which way. I’ve been coming here frequently for the last 10 years.. each dorm is attached to some memory of some business deal or some corporate task force I was part of.. not all good memories.. but not all bad either. As peaceful and beautiful as this place is.. it can also be a little eerie Nearly everyone here is an IBM employee.. it’s like invasion of the body snatchers but with briefcases !

    I’m really glad I came down here .. I have a series of meetings today and tomorrow related to my day job and my outreach stuff.. I’m also trying to attend a conference held for some of our best college interns.  I say ‘trying’ because I have some hot day job stuff that’s keeping me on the phone most of the day. but I was able to here a few of the talks and hang out at dinner.

 Our dinner table  – great conversation  !

 It’s so very energizing hanging out with all these 20-somethings who are still in college. They’re all so cute in their business suits. They are a very sharp bunch of folks to be sure. This kind of stuff recharges me so much. When I’m around ‘kids’ like this, I end up trying to see myself through their eyes.. to them I’m a grown-up .. it sort of freaks me out. I love talking to them about their intern projects, their schools and their backgrounds. I tell them about what I do.. and do as much meddling with their careers as one can safely do in a 5 minute conversation. I did a bunch of talking about my family tonight too… many folks asked me about my Sam button. I like talking about all of my family

    Speaking of family.. this place really does feel like an extended family to me..  Quite a few execs attend this particular event because they too get a charge out of it.  Once again.. I got hugged by many of them.. At the very least I get the tow arm hand shake (you know when you also grab the other guy’s elbow) I don’t think I get many regular  handshakes from folks I know well anymore.  Here are a few of the friends I ran into.

 My good friend Jane.. We finnaly had a chance to sit down and have a good, long talk. It was so good to reconnect with her

John I..  I once hooked his daughter up to  a 400,000 volt generator

My hero Irving.. now a Visiting prof at MIT

Nick – the godfather of IBM.. all of our hero !

I also ran into two guys.. a father and son.. who are named Eric Larsen .. Even more trange.. John-from-Voices mom’,  Pam, told Diane abotu a book about Marconi I might like written by another guy named Eric Larsen… Eric.. i think the world is telling me ot talk to you about something ?

 I know I’ve said it before.. but at a time like this you can see that the company has a deep and wonderful soul.  

 
Speaking of time’s like this.. It’s midnight.. and I’m going to friends for an early breakfast tomorrow.  So.. that’s it for today.. more tomorrow. Love you all.. love you Sam

 

-me

 

Yikes.. another late night and I need to  leave  for NY at 5AM tomorrow. I’ll make this quick. We woke this morning in Megasett MA where my Sister and my folks were staying.

We woke early and had a nice talk with my mom as we watched the birds feed a few feet away. 

 I was so glad that I got a chance to see my folks and my sister and her kids. We’re going to try and make it down there one more time while they’re on the beach.

 

It was a beautiful morning . Around 8 we shoveled Gabe into the car and began the schlep back up to VT.

The highpoint of the trip back was a stop over at Hooksett Fireworks (http://www.nhfireworks.com/) 

We HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you check   this place out.. !. We popped in for a few small items.. and… well…   uh.. let’s just say we hope  the car doesn’t get hit by lightening. OK.. so we went a little overboard.   But as Christina the president of the place says.. it’s a common problem: everybody who walks in turns into a kid again.

 

 She was great.. it was like trying to buy a new car.. so many choices.. she helped us find just the right sort of heck raising mayhem .  Christina also showed us the special fireworks collection that she’d assembled in honor of the ‘Hookset Four’ (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3199506) the four town workers fired for improper gossip. It was national news a few weeks ago. The special collection  included Mortar clusters called “hicktown heaven”  , “parrots prattle”, “love on fire,” and “blond joke”.

She was great. We told her about Sam and his love of fireworks.. We also told her about how we sent  some of Sam’s ashes up in a green shower mortar. I think that makes us professionals of some sort. 

The titles and artwork on these things were just great

 

He rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.. as was the rest of the day for that matter. We got home around 1:30   To a very clean and peacful house

In time for Diane and Gabe to make the Burton Sale.   I finished cutting the lawn. It’s funny how even doing something like that makes me nostalgic.. how many times did Sam do that job with this mower.? . Everything is loaded with memories.

 

As usual, there were a passel of kids and adults circulating through the house all day.. It was like musical chairs.. when dinner hit the table our friends the Rossi’s where here as were   Pucket, Liz, Carolyn, Nick , Brad, Will.. so 11 for dinner… never, ever, ever a dull moment..

One sweet thing that happened as we prepped for dinner. I went out to grab a cucumber  from the garden.. As I walked in, I saw something big move.. I though.. maybe a big rabbit. As I reached down to pick the ‘cuke I saw the cutest, tiniest baby rabbit.. it was no bigger than an apple. It was sitting so still.. I guess scared stiff. I pretended not to see it.. I started singing ” I don’t see any  bunnies … no”.. and backed out of the garden… 

 

On that sentimental note.. G’nite all.. g’nite Sam..   look for fireworks.

 

-me