It’s starting to feel a lot like spring these days. Cold nights and warm sunny days. It’s still cold enough to freeze the tea I left in the car .. but warm enough for shirt sleeves by afternoon.  It was about 14 degrees when I ran this morning. and about 45 by the time I took Gabe to lacrosse.

We can see more bare ground every day.. though the yard is still mostly covered with snow…   It’s staying lighter, later too which feels good

I had a jam packed day.. my 2nd meeting of the day was pretty interesting. My friend Kim has offered to help me make my office usable again. I’ve been using it as more of a storage room for the last couple of months… I ended up emptying the contents of an other storage space I had into there. The result is a place that isn’t really conducive to working. Kim’s offered to help me find  some furniture and find a way to store/get rid of 25 years of gunk that I have in there now. We spent about 30 minutes looking around in some of the old labs.. and I found some cool looking lab fixtures I may be able to press into service as a desk and chair. Should be cool if I can figure out a way to move it to my office.

I did have one offsite meeting today with friends from UVM and Champlain. The two places are discussing ways that they be able to collaborate around using modern multi media, gaming  and social networking to help promote science technology engineering and math careers. I love the fact that they’re looking for ways to work together. I’ve hung around enough in both places to know how well their skills and needs compliment one another. It was really fun to be in a room with these two sets of friends coming together for the first time. I’m cautiously very optimistic that this will be the start of of something good !.

I got home to find the living room full of Lacrosse stuff. mason was stringing up one of Sam’s old lacrosse sticks for Gabe.. Gabe was running around bouncing off of things with his new helmet. Tonight as supposed to be Gabe’s team’s first practice. It was to be indoors until it gets a bit warmer.

Diane made Gabe’s favorite dinner.. cheeseburger burrito with fries inside to give home energy for lacrosse

I drove Gabe up to Brown’s river only to find that the 5-6’s were practicing earlier this evening.. It wasn’t a waste though.. we were able to get Gabe signed up and get him a jersey.. I’m excited about the season starting up.. I love watching Gabe play..

Lacrosse season brings up some strong memories of Sam, too. He just loved the game…  I look at this picture of him in his lacrosse gear every day…

Gabe and I took a quick detour on the way home and dropped in on a conference I’d helped organize that was being held at the Inn at Essex.Gabe and I just walked around and said hi to some friends then left. One cool thing about the conference is that they had these great bunny ice sculptures ’guarding’ the doors.

We left a SamStone on one for folks to find…   OK.. It’s getting late.. gotta sleep More tomorrow   .. Rah-rah everyone.. rah-rah Sam (that’s what they always say at the end the lacrosse games)
-me

ps. I just got word from USAIR that they allowed me to reinstate those 67K miles that had expired and donate them to their Miles of Hope program.  The program uses donated frequent flyier miles ot help with ’angel flight’ programs forfamilies of sick kids, make a wish foundationand the red cross. It’s easy to donate the miles.. just do it before they expire.. .. not like me 🙂   Thank you USAIR !

Busy day at work…. but not much worth relating here. I managed to make it to Tim F’s chiropractic clinic in Jericho again.. Whatever Tim’s doing seems to be working.. My back doesn’t hurt for the first time in about 10 years.. that’s kind of cool when something like that just stops…   I got home in time for Diane’s 6PM yoga. It was a quite/slow  class tonight just what I needed. I love Dianes yoga.. I love Diane.

Gabe and I had some minor mischief planned for the evening. I’d made a bunch of Aluminum and Potassium Perchlorate (Sam always loved to say ’Potassium’) … flash powder yesterday. Gabe and I were messing around with it yesterday after Max left… I had a fair bit of it left over in the lab.. All through Yoga I was getting the creeps knowing that it was sitting in that jar right under us.. Even though Perchlorate compounds are ’relatively stable’ .. I wanted to get it out of the barn….   After dinner (peanut noodles – yum !) … Gabe, Mason. Abbot and I took the flash powder outside, poured it in a paper cup, stuck in a fuse, lit it and moved back These pictures just do not capture the beautiful white flash and mushroom cloud.   I was 20 feet back and I felt like I’d gotten an instant tan form the thing and  I’m still seeing spots. Diane came outside right after to tell us that Brad’s dad, Lee, was sitting in his house on the hill on the other side of the interstate when he saw the explosion.. he figured it was us and called down to ask for more.. It was very cool

Note: don’t try this without a reasonably sane  adult..The following can be dangerous.

Next on the list was to try an experiment I’d seen which used confectioners sugar as a ’safe’ way of shooting 10 foot long jets of flame from your mouth. (Again.. ’safe’ being a relative term here).. You can do this with any fine milled substance such as powdered sugar, corn starch, flour, coffee creamer etc.   Anything that fine burns like crazy when you mix it with enough air because it’s got such a big surface area to volume ratio.  This is what causes things like grain elevators and sugar factories to blow up.. (In fact there was a tragic sugar factory explosion just a few weeks back) ..
   Anyway.. the idea is you pour a cup full of powdered sugar into your mouth.. then blow it out forcefully over an open flame. We used an alcohol soaked paper towel on a coat hanger.   You don’t want to use anything that would low out like a match.. and you certainly do not want to be holding the fire source in your hand.
These movies don’t really do it justice.. you produce quite a jet of flame this way.. and it’s much safer than using flammable liquids  such as alcohol or kerosene like fire swallower’s use. These powders are non toxic.. and non flammable until they’re spread in air. The main downside is that you’re left with a mouthful of wet powdered sugar at the end.. ewwwwwwww

Here’s the aftermath… a bunch of sugar coated nutcases !

Sweet dreams all.. sweet dreams, Sam
-me

Sunday night after a very busy weekend. Last night there were a bunch of kids here just hanging out. Max had a hankering for Pizza Hut pizza so Diane picked some up on her way home from Stratton with Gabe. The Pizza entered the house at about 10PM.. and was gone about 3 minutes later… It looked like a bunch of prehistoric ostriches attacking. (I have prehistoric ostrich’s on the brain tonight.. we just came back from watching the movie 10,000 BC where said birds are in the supporting cast)

Gbe and Diane had a great time at the US Snowboarding Open in Stratton Friday/Sat. They went down with Dylan and his mom… they all had a greatcouple of days skiing/riding and got to see a bunch of the competition. I’m glad that they got a chance to go…

    We woke today at 6:30 for puppy call… then went downstairs. Look what the easter bunny brought ..

There were even baskets for Chai and Satori.. this year.

We sat down for a nice breakfast of fruit crepes and smoked salmon. We took a few minutes to bring Sam into our day.. as we always do with family gatherings. I missed Sam like crazy today.. as I do every day. Every holiday since he died is hard for me… but I don’t think I’d say harder than any other day.. it’s just .. I don’t know… a milestone  I guess.

After breakfast we did the search for eggs… As I type this evening.. I can still see a couple.. so there’s still more to do.

Somehow candy leeches figured into this year’s haul

Ooops.. this egg must be from last year !  Wrong candy !

… and jelly beans as always.

Easter reminds me of a very funny (and true) short story by David Sedaris in his book ’Me Talk Pretty One Day’ . In this story Sedaris describes a group of beginning French students  trying to describe  easter traditions from around the world… you can read it here.. but be advised.. it has some  … uhhhh…  ’strong’ language…

One thing I noticed while we were looking for eggs this morning is that there’s a hidden bearded sunglass dude in the patter of our carpet.   Look in the middle..

Mason,Abbot and Alex came buy this morning on the way up to work on the mountain.. So did Alex and Martha Alexander. Emma was still here as well. It was jumping this morning.

Emma was taking Max part way back to Pratt today.. so we all did a bunch of soaking up Max …. It’s been really wonderful having him home.

It was time for them to leave at about 12:30.. We all crowded out side to say ’bye’.  Emma was dropping Max off at Albany to catch a train to NYC while she drove back to Endicott/Endwell.

There they go… I missed Max the moment the car door shut.. It really has been nice having him and his friends around.. Now it’s back to the quite 3 of us again.

Gabe and I messed around for a few hours this afternoon. One project was to try ’flying’ a 50 foot hot air balloon I have. It’s basically like one giant ultra thin garbage bag. It works best on a cool, sunny day like today (mid 20’s outside) . The wind was a little strong.. but it worked pretty well. The sun warms the air in the black plastic.. making it lighter than air..It floats up and whips around like a giant snake. If you let them go they will fly up into the path of airplanes.. which is a no-no. 

Here’s a view down the middle as we filled it.

I only let it go about 60 feet because of the trees.. It’s pretty cool to see, though since it’s so very big and twisty.

Gabe thought it was pretty cool..

The rest of the evening was very quit. The three of us grabbed some leftovers and went into town for a movie.. 10,000BC.. It wasn’t historically accurate.. but it was fun as an action movie.. A nice quiet close  to the weekend.. .. And I need to close.. I’m sleepy. Hope you all had a good easter if that’s what you celebrate. ..
Gnite all.. Gnite Sam. we miss you so…
-me
 

I’m just about through my 36 hours of solo puppy sitting  and I’m realizing that I’m not really a fit father. The puppy has had several ’accidents’ in the house no matter how often I find myself standing half clothed in the field with her. This is tough work.. even though Diane manages to make look easy…. She’s deintely the natural mom around her.. and the leader of the pack… The dog’s kept giving me the “you’re not the boss” look while Diane and Gabe were away..
    I spoke with them several times.. and it sounds like they had a great time at Stratton.  
    I haven’t done much since they’ve been gone. It was kinda nice being house bound by the puppy. I did get out a bit last night. I met Max, Emma, Meridith and Josh at Higher Ground to watch our friend Willa play as part of a 3 act show. Willa is one of the cast members of the Voices movie along with Max.. She’s a really talented singer/songwriter..She has a folky style with cool lyrics.. and interesting, unexpected rythems  (rythyms ? rithyms ?… man .. I can’t even get that close enough for the spell checker to figure it out) .  I really enjoyed her set..

She was followed by a kid who grew up in Vergennes named Justin Levinson. Most of his songs were about how tough it is that he went to college for music (Berkelee !) but is still waiting tables. He was pretty funny and was a good song writer… Not quite my musical taste.. but i enjoyed hs set, too

The last act was Jer Coons.. a friend of Jane’s .. He’s been over at the house before with his old band The Theory. They had a good high energy pop/rock thing going.. but by that time I had to run home and get Satori out of her crate.   It was a nice night out.
    One thing I noticed as how much those doggies missed Diane and Gabe.. They spent a bunch of time staring at the back door.. “when’s mom coming home” ?

    
My last surprise for the day was that the door to our room had blown open .. probably hen the front door blew open in the high winds we were having. I managed to get the room back up to  52 degrees before I went to bed.

This morning the puppy woke me about 6:30.. I woke again with a heavy heart.. somethings going on in my dreams, I think…  I fed the dogs and we all went for a walk in the woods. It was good to clear my head..

I’d had lots of expectations on what I was going to get done today…   and as always with expectations.. they backfired. It seemed that everything I got involved with didn’t quite work out.. I tried to work on my personal website (johncohn.org) to start putting info about my science shows.. but they’re having a huge MySQL meltdown and the servers are all backed up (It is effecting SamStones.org as well) . I tried listening to our online Yahoo Music Jukebox only to find they’ve removed all the ’interesting’ music stations that I like (klezmer, indian, asian. middle astern. brazillian, world beat. african, etc)… All they have now is standard pop/rock/country.. I asked about getting my money back .. and they said no way.. they’re ability to change your musical tastes is in the fine print of the contract.. grrrrr.. I also had a note exchange with USAIR who just told me that a whole bunch of frequent flyer miles I had just expired.. I asked them to donate the miles to charity.. and so far they’ve said no.. grrrrrr**2
   I had to get away from the computer. The opportunity came around 9 when the folks at the Richmond Land Trust folks invited me to go walk our friends fields and woods  with them. The lands are going to be coming up for sale and the land trust is looking at what they might be able/willing to purchase to keep it open. It was nice walking around with everyone. it was a beautiful day..

Chai and I went for a run.. then I spent the rest of the day puttering.. but not quite succeeding at anything..  .

Max invited me to have a late lunch with him,Jessie and Emma at Bridge street.. which was really nice and relaxing.. Then back here.

More in the ’weird drinks series’

I tried doing some torch cutting practice. While I succeeded in not blowing myself up.. I didn’t manage to cut anything well..  I finally gave up trying to ’do’ anything.. and just hung around.. nice.. if not productive.. 

Gnite folks. Gnite Sam
-me