Monthly Archives: April 2008

Friday night – reruns

Well folks..I’m feeling pretty lazy. I had a hard, hard day at work (but fairly productive.. I think)… Then I took off around 3 to work on the house with Diane.. Today’s project was the new lab… my workspace in the barn.. It’s a pretty amazing mess..and it feels good to go through it… But . I’m not through cleaning it yet.. and I didn’t have my camera today.. so I’ll write about that tomorrow. So I got the idea to do today’s blog as a rerun .. I figured I’d go back to a year ago today (April 25, 2007) and see what I was up to .. It’s pretty interesting for me to read back like that… I had just returned from an IBM conference (TLE ) in Anaheim. I’d been frustrated in feeling out of step with the world at every turn.. I remember feeling at the time how difficult it was for me to get motivated to work hard…and that’s just where I feel I am this week… looking back gives me some perspective on where I’ve been and where I am now.. the funny thing is that it actually makes me feel better… not worse… I remember wondering to myself at the time how I’d make it through the year… and I did just fine.. more or less…

So without further explanation.. I bring you my blog from a year ago tonight… I’m shading it in an appropriate flashback color so no one gets more confused than they already are .. Gnite all. Gnite Sam !
-me

John’s Blog from 4/25/07




I feel like I have been just a little out of step the world for these last two weeks. I seem to be constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time… or… actually … not at the right place at the right time. It’s like my whole ‘be in the moment’ thing has slipped a few hours into the future. Not wildly so .. like it used to be.. but just enough that I keep missing stuff I feel like I’m intended to see. None of it’s earthshaking stuff.. I’m thinking of stuff like missing that Ben Zander talk at the conference last week.. and having everyone come up to me and tell me how much the message was perfect for me.. or at the same conference last week.. always being in the boring conference presentation while hearing laughter or loud clapping coming from the meeting in the conference room next door. Monday I managed to miss an important meeting at work in which the secrets of the universe.. ..actually the secrets of our product roadmap and the budget for the year…. were finally revealed.. Everyone has been talking about that ,meeting all week about wha a great turning point it was for our area… sigh.. Tonight I had another one of those things. Several of our friends went and saw the Nobel prize winning Holocaust witness Eli Wissel this afternoon at UVM. Wissel was in town to receive an honorary degree from UVM. I’d thought about going.., the talk was free and open to the public, but I had work meetings throughout the afternoon and miles to go before I sleep…

From what I heard from Deb, Jen and their kids Wissel gave a memorable talk. They said he talked three types of reaction to tragedy like the holocaust: the first is to close off the past, try to forget it and live for your own pleasure and preservation.. the second is to become bitter and angry about the wrong that has happened to you and to stay angry at the world.. the third is to become a witness to the world of what has happened to you and to become a force to teach and to prevent others from ever having to face that same pain. Those descriptions sounded alot (I know alot isn’t a word, mom 🙂 like the way that people react to a tragedy like the death of a loved one. Since Sam died we’ve met folks who’ve reacted in each of those three ways.. I always try to live in the third way….. that is live in such a way that we help others learn from Sam.. and learn by our experience of his passing. but I don’t always get to choose how I react. In fact, I’ve come to believe that people generally don’t get to choose the way that they react.. It comes from your nature, circumstance and surroundings more than from choice.. and for that reason, I’ve also learned not to pass judgment on people who react in one of the first two ways. Deb told me that Wissell said exactly the same thing.. I think grief has no scale.

Deb and Jen told me that Wissel also talked about how unbelievable it was to him that despite all that the world has learned from the Holocaust that we still have genocide in our time: in Darfor.. in Rwanda, Kosovo in Iraq.. He told a story about when Pres Clinton had said that ‘if Americans had been in Rwanda.. 400,000 lives could have been spared…’ he wrote to Clinton and said ‘why if ?’ . I think that’s a pretty telling story when you think about how fast our country moved into Iraq or Kuwait when our business interests were at stake.. makes you think.. no ?

I really wish that I’d heard Wissel’s talk today… but I was in the wrong place at the wrong time… .. and you already know what that’s like Sam.. you really know

-jc

ps. The TakeYourKidsToWorkDay thing I did yesterday was covered by the Burlington Free Press and WCAX TV. Here’s a low-res video of the story

Thursday night – pantry

I woke today feeling very low .. . no particular reason.. just one of those times that happen now. It took all the energy I had to pry myself out of bed.
I walked into Sam’s room as I sometimes do in the morning and looked at the pictures in there… I realized I was wearing the same shirt as I was in this great picture..  Cool and sad at the same time

I went downstairs and had a great talk with Diane.. she’s so wise.. Her advise is always to just be with whatever your feeling.. and she’s right.. It didn’t make me feel any better.. I just stopped feeling bad about feeling bad.. if you understand what I mean.
I did my best to throw myself into my work today.. and by the time afternoon came I was feeling pretty ‘normal’ again.   Around 12:30 I took a break and took the Prius to RoadResQ to get it’s snows swapped out.. It was good to see Phil and Shawn.. I always like talking to them. I found a sunny spot out of the wind next to the garage and took work calls while they worked on the car..

I got home around 2. I had planned to take the 2nd half of the day off to work with Diane . We’re takign advantage of Gabe being in S. Carolina to do some major house projects. Last Sunday we cleaned the old lab.. Today we tackled the pantry…  A huge job.. First we took everything out.. We found some amazing stuff hiding in there…

About 30 bottles of wine including some that were 22 years old from our wedding ,

15 year old seaweed, a whole crate of Indian pickle…

One of the less pleasant surprises was to find the entrance/exit to our friend ‘Raticus’s basement condo. Whatever is living here is either very big.. or owns a chainsaw. I spent an hour rebuilding the wall.. I boarded the whole thing over with 3/4″  lumber.. hopefully that will slow him/her down for at least a night.

We also found many signs of our past year odyssey.. including bags of dishes and trays from neighbors and friends who dropped off food after Sam’s passing.. These are actually warm memories attached to these trays.  Cookies. brownies, … all made with love.

We also found bag after bag of colored lights from Halloween parties past. I can nly guess that each year we couldn’t find the previous stash and bought more. There must be 30 of them.. I tested them all.. which was kinda fun.

Finally, by about 7:30 we had tossed out a ton of stuff, put a bunch aside for good will and stacked what was left back in the tiny room..This morning.. it was hard to even walk into the room.. now it’s mostly empty. We both felt great about getting this done.

The dogs were looking at us pretty funny at that point. they were adamant about taking a walk.   So out we went to the rivershore.. Diane’s daf’s have really sprung to life over the last couple of days. they were so bright and pretty in the fading light..

The woods were actually full of flowers too. We were really surprised to see Trillium in bloom .. they usually don’t appear until mother’s day. They are my favorite wild flower.

Actually, Diane is my favorite wild flower…

On the way back we stopped by to admire neighbor Jinny’s fairy house.. Her sister Elly has one jsut down the yard.. Notice the SamStone !

On the way home we stopped to chat with our long time neighbor.. She was telling us some wild stories about the tunnels beneath the old Huntington Lodge where she used to work.

As she told the story, I saw a huge raccoon jump off of her front porch> the big guy waddled back to a nearby tree.. climbed up a few feet and turned and watched us. The dogs were going nuts.. but the ‘coon just sat their quietly.

It was getting dark at that point, so we scooted home and drove down to Waterbury to pick up the Subaru.. We found it in the lot looking $600 happier.. It was cool to see the Sam buttons reflecting the street light…

OK.. I need to get in a couple more hours of work tonight.. So I’ll end here.

Oh, We also heard from both Gabe and Max tonight. Gabe is having a really good time at Hilton Head with Alex et. al.   He told us that he ran into Avery on the beach today !.. (Ave called us and told us too !) …Max called to tell us that he may have found another apartment … I hope it works out for him.. he’s been working really hard on finding a place to live next semester. I miss those 2 boys  so much… You too Sam.
-me

Wednesday night – honey dipper

 Last night after I blogged I got on the flight back to BTV. NYC is pretty from the air.


As soon as I got on the plane I recognized an old friend of mine sitting right behind me. She used to be my admin at work about 7 years ago… (and I can’t believe it.. but I can’t remember her name now … $^%@)

We got back to BTV about an hour late.. the airport was empty.. except for this little bird who was flying around in the terminal..He actually hit a window pretty hard.. but seemed ok .  I went and got the airport cops.. they were going to catch the little guy and put him back outside.

Today was pretty slow. I had a another day of trying to focus. I’m  not sure what’s  stopping me.. but I’m really struggling to get stuff started. I seem to spend a bunch of time just staring at the wall.

< I just wrote a deleted a long rant about how hard it is to care about stuff now... I don't even want to go there tonight>

I couldn’t get out of work until about 7.. I was so happy to be going home. I ended up getting stuck behind the ‘honey dipper’ .. that’s what we call the septic pump truck that they spread on the fields near our house.. here’s no mistaking the smell of human sewage… Somehow getting stuck behind the truck seemed to be an apt metaphor for my day.

Diane had made an excellent thai tofu curry.. which we ate with our friend buddy.. Then we took the dogs across to the river.. to play  It’s an interesting perspective on our house from there.. The dogs had a great time chasing the beaver in the river.. i think the beaver was enjoying it too. he/she kept slapping it’s tail.. then diving and coming up somewhere else.. and doing it again. At one point, Chai jumped in and gave chase.. they were only about 10 feet apart.. then the beaver slpped and dove again. It was pretty funny to watch.

We had to drop of the subaru in Waterbury tonight.. so I went in the basement to grab it’s ummer tires. As I moved the stuff to clear the stairs.. this pin fell out of Sam’s old 5th grade backpack.. it was from the time I took him to Disney for his 11th birthday.. th same one where we met Gus.. It was a funny thing to find tonight.. I liked holding it.

OK.. that’s all I have energy to type right now.. More tomorrow..  Gnite all.. Gnite Sam
-me

-ps.. The coolest weather front just blew by our house !

Tuesday night – long day in NY

Greetings from Laguardia Airport… I’m sitting here waiting for my flight back to BTV in about an hour. I’ve spent so many hours in thes part of the airport over the last few years  that it’s not even worth exploring anymore… Maybe I can get my blogging in before we board.
    I’m down in NY for the day for two sets of meetings.. I had to leave the house about 5:30 this morning… Amazingly.. I woke up without an alarm… of course.. I woke up about 10 times through the night wondering what time it was.. Even so, I woke up rested…  I tried to sneak out with out waking Diane or the dogs.. but on my fifth time back into the room to find my @^$ wallet, I woke them all up…
It was fun being up before the sun.. I went out side and admired the flowers that have come up over the last couple of days They looked cool in the pre-dawn light. .Diane has been hard at work in the garden during this beautiful weather.

The sun was just rising as we took off… It was one of those old turboprop Dash8’s… I really like the way that they sound.. the two propellers create a cool throbbing in the cabin that lulls me right to sleep.

I got to LGA around 8:30.. then drove for an hour to get to Armonk.. I took work calls as I drove. Once I got to Headquarters , the early morning caught up with me..    Those of you who know me well know that when I stop moving I often have to go to sleep for a few minutes.. there’s just no fighting it..  I have a favorite place in one of the remote parking lots in Armonk where I go to meditate and/or sleep when I need to… 

 I barley made it there in the car.. stumbled out and fell asleep for 9 minutes in the beautiful sun… It was glorious  (ok… so the picture is faked.. but I really did fall asleep there… )

I like going to Armonk.. I always run into friends there..

I  looked up my friends Doris, Neal, Marylou, Robin and Grace. Doris just adopted a really cute little girl from China… and Grace just returned from a 5 month leave after the birth of her baby son. I loved looking at both of their pictures.. After some catching up, I went up to my old guest office and got to work on the phone.   After a quick lunch, Robin. Marylou and I went upstairs to one of the ‘big’ conference rooms.  The room has a huge round table that made me feel like a knight.  We had a very productive meeting

As soon as we were done there, I ran out to the car and drove up to Yorktown , taking work calls on the way.   I had a very productive set of meetings their with friends. I have a new assignment at work and these guys are going to help me get it done. I love the atmosphere in Research… it’s such a cool place.   Before I had to dash back to the airport, I had a short meeting outside with my friend Ruud (pronounced Rude… making him th most inappropriately named person I know. he is anything but !)   Ruud had some good insights into my assignment as well.

By the time we finished talking it was almost 6:30… I got in the car and drove back down towards the city. I called Max… but it wasn’t going to work out to get in to Brooklyn to see him. It was strange being so close and not getting to see him.. We’re driving back from NYC together in 2 weeks. I miss him so much.

Traffic was mercifully light so I made it down to the airport in plenty of time.. the setting sun made even the grimy parts of the city look nice.

I dropped the car and found my terminal.. I was starving so I grabbed a burrito and sat down and ate it by myself.. I just hate eating alone.. but I hate starving too. It’s strange.. everyone else was eating alone.. I was surrounded by lonely people.. In a past life I might have struck up a conversation.. Now I just sit and think.. or not think if possible. As it turns out, a good burrito can be a great meditation mantra.

OK.. that does it for tonight.. I’m hoping to board soon. More tomorrow… GNite folks.. Gnite Sam.. I love you
-me

ps. Gabe is still in South Carolina.. Should I call him ? .. or leave him alone on his vacation ? I miss him so much !