I’m still out in California. Being here means meeting lots of new people.. and seeing old friends again. This brings me face to face with the ‘how have you been ?’ question.. what do I say ? Several folks on this trip have asked me about my Sam button. I’ve been asked by 3 folks if it’s a picture of me when I was young.. (no chance.. I was never that good looking. ).. Whatever they say it’s an invitation to  retell Sam’s story. I like talking about him.. even so, I’m never sure what I should say. Many people respond to the story so strongly that I sometimes feel the need to apologize for telling them. Is it better to keep it to myself ? Am I wrong for being so in peoples face about Sam’s story ? I can say that it sure feels right to keep wearing his picture.

   I’ve done a bunch of talking about Sam and our family on this trip.. The folks I’m traveling with are good listeners.. and that helps me. This morning I had a great run with my friend Modest. We talked about this blog.. and why I keep it.  And about the whole use of MySpace / blogs/ social networking as part of  healing. It’s not so much the substance of what I  record every day, e.g. what I eat, who I see.. what I do… as much as it is taking the time at the end of each day to reflect. It’s really addicting…

    To that end, my day here was ….. pretty unexciting.. I sat through a day long very meeting that was very interesting.. though somewhat inconclusive. One high point is that the company we were visiting ordered pizza and they got a cheese-less veggie because one of their engineers is also vegan.. I totally lucked out there. 

After work I made a quick pass through my favorite electronic surplus store which was fun.. Then I  had a very nice dinner with my friends at a Vietnamese place in downtown san jose.

   I’m now back in my hotel room struggling to stay awake..   I’m heading home tomorrow night.. very much missing my family now. I think I’ll end here before I fall asleep on my keyboard as I did last night. Gnite all

 

 

-jc

ps. two new SamStone placements this week.. one at the little mermaid stature in copenhagen. and one on the great wall of china.. we’re spreading Sam’s spirit all over the world !

 

      

Why would anyone put skin  lotion in a tube that looks like toothpaste ? I’m wondering this as I try to rinse the taste of lotion out of my mouth.. This nice hotel has provided some sort of sun blocking lotion in the shape of toothpaste and put it right by the sink.. Yuck !

 
 I’m in San Jose CA at the moment; I came out for a meeting that came up suddenly. I just had dinner with a few of my colleagues to prep for the meeting.. it’s all people e I like hanging out with.. so it’s fine. I do miss Diane and the kids very much while I’m traveling.. I’m  still feeling pretty sensitive. Sam’s been on my mind even more intensely than usual over the last few days. Traveling gives me the uninterrupted quiet time that my soul needs to ‘be’ with Sam. Sometimes that’s comforting and healing.. sometimes it’s very.. very hard. I feel like I need to bring Diane or one of the boys long with me each time I travel. Te high point of the trip today was when a little boy saw me get on the plane and whisper to his mother.. “Hey/. Look. That guy is Santa Claus !  Here I am in the last unreclinable seat.

   Beyond that,. not much in the way of particulars to report for today.. We left our house at 5:30 AM after I went to bed around 3.. The flight out was uneventful.. or at least I was  unconscious enough that it seemed uneventful.   I got into town and slowly made my way to my friend Uwe’s . I’d never met Uwe’s family:  Anna, Laura and Finn. They are such a beautiful family.. and they live in the coolest place. 

 

Uwe and Finn

Anna and Laura

Laura

Uwe and Finn (they look alike to me !)

I hung out there for a few hours while Uwe and I talked work.. and  3 year old Laura and I talked kids books. Uwe was very helpful to me in brainstorming on some of the science outreach ideas I’ve been tossing around.   He’s a good, clear thinker..

   From there I came back to the hotel for a late dinner.. Luckily they had a good vegan choice with lots of vegetables…   I’m finding that vegan is much harder than my normal vegetarian diet.. hope I can keep on it !

My veggie thing for dinner

Great neon next to the resturant.. I collect” Max sitings

The tie rack where I baught my only tie I still own.. a garcia brand Tie

I’m still here !

   Ooops.. just fell asleep writing.. time for bed. I’ll post now. Gnite all. Gnite Sam !

-me

 

 

Friends..
   I apologize, but tonights posting will be exceedingly brief. It’s about 2:20 in the morning and I need to wake up at five to catch a plane to California…  I worked in the tower all day today.. Diane even braught me lunch up there.. she takes such good care of all of us.

My main recollection of today was ‘rain’ . Everything inside and outside the house is soaked.. We must have gotten 8 inches. It made my brain soggy.  The weather has such sway over our moods. Every time I see it rain I think the world is crying for us.. . for Sam.. It’s nice in a melancholy sort of way.

We even got outside and played in it

   The house is always full of people now.. We have 4 new folks from the voices project… 6 if you count our friends who will be camping in our yard.. Plus all the friends who have started visiting to play on the trampoline. It’s great to see all this life around.. lots of wet feet in and out of the house.. lots of shoes left at the back door every night..
   I need to try and sleep.. Here are a few photos we shot tonight usign the Strobe and the trampoline.. pretty cool

Gnite everyone.. I promise more tomorrow.

-jc

 

AN amazingly full day… Diane woke up at 5AM and started getting us ready to drive back to Vermont. We said goodbye to Marcia and Gabe got in the car and were driving by 6 which is pretty good for us !. On the way out, we stopped at the old IBM site for me to place a SamStone.  Somehow that felt like the right thing to do.

In the Steps of the old IBM Building

That’s about the last thing I remember of the trip.. Diane was driving.. I feel asleep immediately and slept for 225 miles. The boys slept all the way home to VT.. We made it home in 5 hours.. which is record time for us.

   We came home to a quiet and clean house. Meredith had been staying here and keeping the home fires burning.. we almost needed a fire it was so cool and wet when we go home.      IWe spent a few hours puttering around the house . I noticed a strong smell coming from the ‘old lab’ in te front of the house.. I poked around and found 2 dozend very ripe easter eggs sitting in there.. Yuck !.

We kept cleaning until Sam’s friend Pucket and his family showed up. Tomorrow is Pucket’s  16^th birthday and they were throwing the party at our house. Which was great…

The almost birthday boy, Puckett

We could only stay for the first part because we’d been invited to a picnic by our friends Joan, Bruce and Dan. They’d also invited our mutual friends Lori, Paul and family. Paul and I have worked together for 25 years and Lori was Max and Sam’s 2^nd grade teacher ..  We had both our  boys and our friends Meredith and Ruby from  the Voices project in tow.. so we had a pretty good group of people. It was great seeing everyone .While the others played Bocce, Paul, Bruce and I retired to Bruce’s shop.  Bruce is a fantastic welder/artist. He was working on a design for a ‘fire organ’.. which is a pretty simple thing. You put a torch underneath a length of heavy steel pipe and it resonates.. It’s a really ethereal sound. Paul and I helped Bruce fiddle with the design for awhile until we got it working (more or less) . The clue was to use a small torch which could fit up inside the pipe.. It was a pretty cool sound.

   After a nice dinner Paul, Bruce and I went back out to the shop and Bruce showed Paul and I how to TIG weld Aluminum.. it was really fun and much easier than I thought it would be. That said.. I’m pretty lousy at it.. but it’s something I would like to practice.

Pual trying TIG welding

Our results.. not too pretty

It was fun hanging out at Bruce and Joan’s.. they have a nice little pond in their back yard, an active birds nest with a mother on eggs.. and a very, very cute rabbit called Fuzzy Russell. .. It was a really nice visit.

Johna nd Bruce’s Gazebo and pond

Fuzzy Russell

Mama bird with eggs

.. and papa bird none to happy that we were in there looking at his family

    Around 7, Diane took the Voices kids up to MMU for their Kick off meeting while Gabe and I headed home. Pucket’s party was still in full swing so we played with those kids.. The trampoline was really getting a  workout..  We even hooked up the strobe and used it with the tramp once it got dark.

    Around 9, Diane and Max showed up with our 4 new house guests from the Voices project. John. Corrio , Nathaniel and Jordan (who show’s up tomorrow) will be staying with us until Aug 18th  when the Voices movie shooting is complete. The kids will be working about 10 hours a day 6 days a week.. should keep them very busy… It will be fun to have all that activity in our lives.

   Now I’m up in the Bell Tower writing this blog post and  trying to get myself ready for being back at work after a good week off.  I think I’ll be doing more of my writing from up here in the next few weeks because of all the people in the house..

     Before I end.. I wanted to share some pictures I found when I was working on my mother and father in laws old computer.. they had asked me to wipe it clean.. but before I did.. I went through and took off some great old images.. They are so precious to us now.. Here are a few I liked…  Beautiful kids.. really beautiful..

vinvent, sam and victor

 Our 3 boys

victor and sam

soccor sam

what a face !

Sam and gabe

He boys in costa rica

near halloween

In belize

max and baby sam

legs !

me, sam and gabe

Cousins

sam and 2 gabes

Gnite all.. gnite Sam !

-jc

 ps.  Here are some others I found of my brother and sister in law tat I thought were pretty goofy.