Grrrrr… I have already typed in this blog once.. I’d just hit save then my browser froze. I think it was due to a @%$& malware infection… I just spent 20 minutes looking through the browser cache trying to find shreds of what I’d written.. It would have taken less time to re-write it… but it was a point of pride.. Here’s what I was able to salvage :::

The day started drizzly, windy and warm.. The snow is starting to get pretty thin… the jump we made in the yard is looking pretty dubious at this point.

I came down stairs to find Mason’s snowboard in the entrance way. He must have stayed the night. He sometimes does when he has to be up on the mountian ealry in the morning.. I like his Sam sticker.   Turns out the mountain road was closed.. so he didn’t have to go to work.

I headed in to Champlain to deliver the morning bribe of donuts . The students are working so hard to get our project completed.. Right now my main contribution is to keep them well fed.   I’ve spent several days camped out in their parking lot taking work calls in the car and snagging free wireless from one of the dorms. Whenever I get a break in my meetings I run in and shout encouragement , pass around more donuts and run back out..   Here’s the view from my mobile office.

Last weekend I sat on Ray’s desk and it collapsed.. now they have a warning up.. I’m proud to have taught them at least this one lesson.

The day was blustery and raw.. around 10:30 it looked like the sun was abotu to set.. dark clouds, sleet and hail…

Around 1 I dashed back to IBM.. I wanted to see my friend Sharon’s talk.. good thing I made it.. Turns out I was doing her introduction.   We had more than a 100 folks turn out to hear Sharon talk about IBM’s new focus on alternative energy, climate protection and water management. It was really interesting. It was really great having Sharon visit !

Sharon’s travel plans got messed up when her return flight got canceled. Her buddy Gina was able o book her an earlier flight, so I had to speed her to the airport.. we got there in plenty of time, though . After dropping Sharon, I was going to head back to Champlain… but I couldn’t figure out if anyone was there. Instead, I stopped at Talent and borrowed some of the internet and worked there for an hour or so. I had some email stuff to do.. It was fun working there.. they kept feeding me !  i got to see Hannah, Dave, Adah and Senyah…

And even got to meet their frind Matt, who runs an after school program fro the South Burlington schools.

After that I had about another hour and a half of work calls. I took them in the parkign lot of the Japonese resturant.. (again.. free wireless !) ..I had good calls with friends Wolfgang and Ruchir.. always very good to talk to those guys !  Then picked up some take out and headed home. I ran into Bark W, Mallory C and two of Brandon Kilborns’ cosuins. It was good talkign to them. We were all heading up to Jen’s for a psuedo-suprise brithday (real birthday.. only the surprise was ‘psuedo’) . Deb and Hannah had made jena collage of pictures Hannah had taken of Nate and Marie.. they were really god pictures !

We drove up to Jen and Tim’s with Deb and the kids.. We had to sneak past the stair railing that their dog Wilbur had pulled off when he tried to chase a scent while on his leash.. He actually managed to get pretty far with the banister banging behind him until Nate caught up and jumped on him.

Jen was sitting upstairs not expecting us.. which was great… Here’s the table she made…complete with SamStone.

She loved the pictures from the Townsends…

Then out came the feast. it was a standard P.M.S. dinner.. (Pizza, Meatloaf and Sushi)

Here’s Gabe taking his first ever bite of meatloaf.. Amazing that a kid 12 years old has never had meatloaf.. but stranger things have happended. He said ‘it tastes like meat’

After dinner it was time for cake and candles.. Jen did the honors

The icing on the ice cream was an attractive blue

Tim gave Jen a book called ‘Porn for Women’.. don’t worry.. it was pretty tame..

Lots of normal dressed guys saying stuff like:

and …

It got late pretty fast.. so we packed up and headed home. Jen gave us a brand new box of SamStones that she had fired recently.. Good thing.. we were almost out..

Folks
   Not much to report today.. I had a productive morning at Champlain. working with Iain, Allison and Mike.. then a packed.. if not productive afternoon at work. About the only noteworthy thing I remember about the stretch in my office  is that I uncovered a bag of peanuts that was more than one and less than 10 years old. I bet on closer to one and ate them for lunch. So far.. so good.

The high point of my day was dinner with my friend Sharon who’s visiting from NY.   We had a great dinner.. and even better talk at the Inn at Essex this evening.  We did a bunch of catching up… talked about families, jobs and mutual friends. We also discussed Sharon’s cool new job. She’s running IBM’s focus on all things ‘Green’. Her area includes work on photovoltaics and water conservation. It’s really cool to see how the company is committed to working on those big problems.. and making them pay off at the same time. It’s going to be very cool to see how the company does in this arena. We have so much excellent technology .. and even more excellent smart people.

The food was very interesting.. and artistic. It started with a spoon of… something buttery and artichoky.

Then came a great soup  of Jerusalem artichokes !.

The chef made up a spicy dish for me.. it was stuffed cabbage with hot sauce.. pretty good !

Then lavender sorbet (no joke) for desert !

Sharon and I had talked for nearly 4 hours.. before I realized what time it was.. I checked with eh Champlain guys by phone.. I wasn’t needed there.. so I came home.

When I got home, there was a sheet of glittering ice covering the walk from the house to the driveway.. It was beautiful and treacherous… !

OK.. that’s it.. I can’t keep my eyes open anther sec.. Tomorrow is a busy day.. Talk to you zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Gnite Sam.. we love you
-me

Friends…
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You know..sometimes.. there are no words to desribe your day.. and you just have to make stuff up. I love you all.. Love you Sam..
-me

I’m just sitting down at 6PM after getting home from another full day of working at Champlain. We have our first review of our Good Games project tomorrow. I’m pretty nervous about it.. But I’ll tell you … I really can’t remember a project that didn’t involve blowing stuff up that was this much fun…

Oooops.. Gotta take a break.. Susan and Sumner just showed up!.. More later !

Ahh.. just back, It was great visiting with Sumner and Susan.. Sumner is in the Stowe Ski and Snowboard academy this year.. so he spends his weeks at a dorm in Stowe. We miss seeing him up at Bolotn. Sounds like he’s having a great time, though…   He’s such a cool guy.   

Where was I.. oh… I as talking about my day…    I stayed up ’till two again last night hunting down pictures and movies that we can use in the Good Games media package .. I was pretty sleepy when I went to bed.. but somehow I ended up dreaming about the project.. My dreams were all mixes of Flash code, Maya animations and JPG’s… not too restful. When Chai jumped in our bed at 7:30 I just wasn’t ready to get up. I had to get up though, the team was showing up at the EMC at 9 AM again. I went down stairs and started cleaning the kitchen.. I was thinking hard about Max for some reason.. as I was thinking of him, the phone rang… and it was Max.. and this is 8AM … so I was a bit freaked.. why would Max be up at 8AM.. well.. evidently my goofy cell phone had called him from my pocket.. I had a nice short talk with him then he fell back asleep. I know it may not sound like much, but the fact that my phone would come out of it’s locked mode, find Max’s number and call it from my pocket just as I was thinking about him is pretty cool. Blood is thicker than radio waves….

Anyway.. I left home and stopped at the Duncan donuts again and grabbed another day’s worth of fuel for the programmers and artists..  I figure you get about half a page of code per donut .. and 2 pages of code per quart of Mountain Dew. You can get 2 pages of code fro a Red Bull.. but the code will have more mistakes in it. I think I should write a paper on this.   I showed up and the room was full again.. I’m hoping that the team went home last night.. since they were all sitting in their same places.. I couldn’t quite tell..

There was some signs of activity.. there was broken glass everywhere and this sign.. I’m still not sure what happened.. but no one would tell me the gory details

We got rght to work,. One team (Laren and Bryan) worked on the interface in Flash.. they were writing tons of code.   Another team (Mike and Tony) were working on the artwork and design will another team (Max and Awesome) were working on the content.  Ray worked on some of the documentation while I bounced from team to team trying to help.. but mostly got in the way. I was looking pictures and videos, drawing some others..

Here’s our storyboard

Here’s a cool video of the PS3 processor helping do real time MRI processing

Here’s a dated picture of the new IBM video game that’s about to come out for Engineering week.

Here’s a stylaized picture of the dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death)  we’re using to illustrate a point on Game testing

And.. here’s a simulated picutre of a frerari done on one of the new game consoles.   Looks lamost real.. or is this real.. I forget..

Our freind Wes showed up for a while to heckle us.. He’s one of our Maya programmers.. Tomorrow he has a job interview at the CIA…. (but don’t tell anyone). I told him not to tell them he knows me since I  have an FBI record… but that’s annother funny (and true) story.

We finally had eaten all the food by about 5PM.. After two weekend days of working all day we decided to take a break.. though I know some of the students will be working more tonight. We all headed for home….tired but happy with what we’d accomplished so far… it really has been an amazing time working with these guys.. I’m looking forward to dong more projects with them in the future !

When I got home. Diane met me at the door and sat me down at the computer to listen to something. She’d just heard a radio program all about Nikola Tesla .. one of my big  science heroes.  Tesla was an amazing inventor in the early part of the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. H invented may of the worlds most important electrical  gizmoz including the AC generator, the AC motor, the florescent light, radio  and the tesla coil.   etc.. but somehow, history has given him a fair shake..Every school age kids know Edison or Ben Franklin.. few have heard of Tesla..  He was certainly a genius, but also an eccentric and complicated person.. Somehow his personality interfered with his rightful legacy. I’ve been so taken by his story that I do a traveling talk/show on him called “High Tension: the Life and Times of Nikola Tesla;

I’ve only had a chance to hear one of the sections. fro the Studio 360 piece… but it’s really great .. Check it out..

I’ll listen to the rest and pick out some choice nuggets to share.

OK.. Now I’m going to try and relax.. I’ve bee  working something like 16 hour days for the past several days and I’m beat…  

TTYL folks.. ttyl Sam…
-me

-jc