I was to have left at 8AM yesterday.. but I changed my flight to give me at lest a half a day at home with family. I ended up spending the time doing some early spring cleaning.. I must have taken 25 trips up and back to the attic hauling stuff up and down .. Going into the attic is quite an emotional experience for me these days . So many wonderful memories locked away in all of those boxes.   I talk to Sam when I’m up there with all of his stuff…  it makes me feel good.

My next task was to take down the interior storms.. It’s quick work to take them down..They are 4’ by 7’ huge glass plates.  Half of them are harmless safety glass, the other half are deadly untempered glass.. I never remember which one’s are which.. it keeps the job interesting.. Here too, signs of Sam are everywhere.  He’s still so much part of our life

Here’s ’during’ she looks like an entirely different species when wet..

Diane took me to the Airport around 2 to make my 3PM flight.. Turns out my flight was delayed. My lovely Diane volunteered to run to the University mall and buy me a new set of Khaki’s.. .. She dropped them off in plenty of time for me to make my delayed flight.. Is she a sweetie.. or what ?

We finanly took off anout an hour and a half late… It was a beutiful flight.. here’s a shot of Camel’s Hump.. and home.. as we swooped south.

One thing about flying jet blue is the TV’s.at every seat. . I need to be careful around TV’s because I get so sucked in. I can’t turn away !  I ended up watching a great documentary about the evolution of Heavy Metal…   Gabe and Sam would have loved it.. I now know how to relate the Sex Pistols and the Clash to Heavy Metal.. I learned more than I could ever want to know about Black Sabbath., Motely Crue, Megadeath, and Iron Maiden !

I must say I’ve always really liked Ozzie !

The trip down to Orlando wasn’t so smooth.. My Burlington flight was so delayed that I missed my 4:50 flight to Orlando. I waited in line with all the other folks who missed their flight and finally was told that the next flight out was all sold out. I asked to go standby.. they said I could try but I was 9th on the standby list or a sold out plane. Turns out I was lucky.. I was the last person taken.. !

I got down to Orlando about 9:30 PM a few hours later than expected. It was absolutely pouring.. I waited for a half hour for the rental car bus.. then caught the ride to the Hertz center..Oh-oh.. bad sign.. there was a long line sticking out of the Gold service office.. the rain was causing a huge back-up in car turn around. We were told it could be an hour until we each got cars.. grrrr.   Well… I say ’grrrr’.. but actually I now seem to be able to look at stuff like this kind a funny diversions/adventures..

Anyway. I waited my turn and was talking to the person behind the desk when another Hertz employee walked by. My draw dropped. It was my old friend Gus !.

Gus, who’s from Brazil  was an intern at Disney many years ago when I used to bring the kids down here while I did science shows at IBM’s Epcott exhibit.. I did it 5 years running. One year, I brought only Sam down with me.. I remember it was his Birthday !  Gus volunteered to take Sam to Disney for the day while  worked. They had a great time.. Then we all hung out that evening.. The next year I had the whole family in tow and we met Gus and his then fiancee Julie, who’s from Peru,  for dinner. We stayed in touch… Gus left Disney and started workign for Hertz in Del Ray.. then I lost track of him. He heard about Sam’s death and wrote us a nice heartfelt letter.. but then we sorta lost touch..I’d asked my friend Linda about him.. but no one knew where he was.  And .. here he was.. I gave him a big hug and dragged him outside to talk.. we spoke for a long while about him and about us. and Sam. I called Diane for him to say hi… I leanered that he and Julie are expecting their first kid in August !!!!. It was so very cool running into him..

We talked and talked.. unitl it was pretty clear that he had to get back to work.. I  said goodbye with a hope of seeing him later this week. I went to my car rental stall and found a nother guy about to drive my car away.. we’d been given the same car.. and he had the keys.. I walked back into the Hertz place.. and there my buddy Gus took care of me. I probaby shouldn’t go on record here witht eh details of my rental.. but suffice it to say.. I’ve never driven anything like this car in my life !!!!

By that point it was getting near 11.. I had agreed to meet my very good freind Bruce for dinner when I got in.. and he was still up for it.. I drove the 30 minutes to teh Wilderness Lodge and found Bruce..

By the way.. I had my first beer.. actually my first alcohol of any kind in a month. I’d given it up as part of the Ayurvedic diet I’m on. Sharon.. my Ayruveda practitioner had actually told me that it would be OK to have a beer or wine every so often . but I wanted to go a month to see how it felt.. It felt good. .. but boy that beer tasted good last night..   I’m going to keep it down to a beer or glass of wine or two a week to see how the whole Ayruveda thing plays out

Bruce and I hung out on the porch of his room and talked. It was so good to catch up with him. He’s been a close friend for several years… He and our friend Jim came up for the week after Sam died an really took care of me.. I’ll never forget that.> We talked about our families, life and work.. too much work,. I’m afraid. He’s such a great guy..

One of the things that makes him really great is that he’d ordered a pizza.. I was starving.. so it was heaven

I took off from there about 12:30.. Got to my hotel, the Coranado at about 1.. and worked a bit until 2.. That didn’t leave much time for sleep.. So that was yesterday.. This is today..
I’ve been in the conference all morning.. seeing tons of friends.. having some really good business discussions. Tonight we’re going to a reception at Animal Kingdom.. I was last there with my whole family I’ll take a SamStone..  OK
I’m going to try nd fit in a nap before I go.. Talk to you later folks.. talk to you always, Sam
-me

Today started out so lazily.. We’d talked about going up to Bolton for pond skimming .. Pond skimming is when you ski/board/sled down the hill into a 75 foot pool of water and try to skim over the top to stay dry..  At around 10 AM we were all sitting in the living room flopped on the couches thinking about how much we didn’t want to go outside and get wet… Gabe and I had tried several times to come up with an idea for a float or something like we did last year..   but we couldn’t come up with anything. Gabe and Jack decided that they were going up to Bolton for the second to last day… so I decided… what the heck.. I’d go check out the pond skimming and decided then if I wanted to do it.   I didn’t have a float… so I grabbed our old Little Tykes teeter-totter and drove the boys up the mountain. I walked in to the registration room and they only had 3 places left.. I grabbed one.

I walked out to check out the pond.. it looked… uh… cold…

Here’s my trusty skimming device…   all three kids played with this for years.

Zack H, the director of the night riders series.. and a good friend was going to take the first run.. they’d even made him his on ramp to get a flying start !

There goes Zack..  .. splash.. the first face plant !

Like always.. there were a ton of costumes… and a few sleds, floats and other conveyances.. Mine was the only teeter-totter. Here’s Hayden R. with his cool sled.

Here are a bunch of Gabe’s friends  freezin’ in their bathing suits.. (even though they were on the outside of their clothes )

Mr. Claus tunes up

As did the sun-burn duo

And lady Chiquita

I hung out of the wind by leaning against the Sam rail… Sam was all over today.. I felt him everywhere.

Vivian took her turn…

It was almost my turn.. I practiced the Captain Crunch pose.. All the kids used to say this teeter-totter thing looked like Captain Crunches hat.

Gabe was up hanging out with us..

As was Austin

The girls were shivering by this point.. I lent them an extra shirt I had..

Scout, Kirsten and Katy took a sled down..

Then it was my turn.. I used the standard riding position dictated by the United States Pond Skimming with Little Tikes Plastic Teeter-Totter Association (USPSWLTPTTA) guidelines… It was all I could do to balance.. Steering was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

Things went pretty well until about 10 feet from the pond.. I flew over the front of my trusty steed ..   I grabbed it and ran face first with it into the water.. Success !

I stood up out of the water and struck a Captain Crunch pose with my teeth chattering.> Man, that water was COLD !

I charged inside and changed into warm/dry clothes.. I went upstairs to wait for the judging.. Lots of friends were up here.. I hung out and talked to Hannah and Carolyn for a while.. and a whole lot of other folks..

Gabe came in shortly…

Brandon was there in his 2 dollar crabbing pants..

While I was waiting I wedged a SamStone into the rocks of the fireplace.

Fianlly, it was time for the judging. We all crowded into the pub… They gave away quite a few prizes.. a few of them serious… most of them not. I’m glad I stayed.. I won “2nd best face-plant” .. I can’t remember who won “1st best face plant” .. But next year.. they better watch out !

After the awards, I went and tossed a SamStone into the pond..

That’s just about it for Bolton.. just one more day. the kids are going to have trouble adjusting to this place being closed…   Gabe’s bummed. I know.

There really is so much Sam stuff up here… shirts, boards, stickers, helmets.

Wouldn’t you know.. the sun came out the moemnt the lift stopped for the day.

I took my wet clothes, got the car, went and got the car and drove Gabe and a bunch of his friends back home.    After a snack, we all got motivated to set up the trampoline.. There’s no better medicine for the the closing of the slopes.. First order of business was to untangle a few of the remaining springs from the safety net.. That was the hardest job !.. It was Spring Fever !

we got the pad, stretched it out and started hooking in all of those springs. We replaced about 2 dozen of the most stretched out ones with new ones..

Soon, it was time for the first bounce of spring.. The Legit crew strikes a pre-bounce pose..

Then they all layed hands on the tramp and performed a little ’big fun / no injuries’ ceremony .

And here it is folks.. the first back flip of spring…

OK.. gotta sleep now.. I’m too tired to keep my eyes open. Tomorrow I head to Florida for a conference. Lots of good talks.. and great friends. Should be fun..   Goodnight all, goodnight Sam !
-me

ps. here’s a picture of Sam all wet from Pnd Skimming in 2005

I worked at home  all day today  because Diane was out all day and I needed to puppy-sit   I love workign at home.. I seem to get so much more done I was on the phone working without a break from 8 through about 5. I even took the dogs for a walk in the woods while I was on a work call.. At one point, I lost my footing and slipped down an icy shoot.Luckily I was on mute whch blocked my swearing.

After work I took a  quick stop at Tim F’s to get my back adjusted.. He had this most curious diagram on his wall.

I got home around 6:30… just in time to run to Avery’s house to help celebrate her 16th birthday. Her folks had asked each of her friends to show u and play Avery a song..   I opted to bring my Theremin.. I played a rusty version of Happy Brithday on it.. At least I thought it sounded like Happy Birthday…

Even though it wasn’t my birthday. I got a present. Eric and Pam had commissieoned Ave’s mom Jen to make me a magic hat.. .. It is just so cool It’s covered in lightening bolts and looks just like Dumbledoor’s hat.

I only stayed at Ave’s for a few minutes.. then zoomed back to the house to intercept my buddy Jim. It was great having him come by. Jim lives in POK and has been  my close friend since we started working together in 2003. He Gabe and I went out to dinner. First we tried On the Rise.. but they were packed because there was music there.. Then we tried Bridge Street.. but it had just closed at 8… so we ended up at Zachary’s.. After dinner we came home and started some mischief. The first thing I wanted to show Jim was my new flash powder composition. I just got some new primo atomized aluminum.. I mixed it 30/70 with potassium perchlorate and put it in a paper cup. We lit it and got back… not far enough. It was so much louder and brighter than it had been with my 325 mesh Aluminum. It knocked me back and left us all seeing spots and with ringing ears.. it was quite cool..

Then we did some fire breathing using powdered starch. I rigged up a simple PVC pipe-like thing to allow us to blow the starch out without actually having to put it in our mouths. It was a pig step up from having a mouthful of starch powder

This simple set-up was amazingly effective !!! Here’s Gabe doing it.

And here’s Jim..

Jim liked it.. I think !

Diane got home around 10:30 .. She had some boxes to open.> The first was form Shaun and Billy and family.. It had some really cool stuff in it.. The bag they came in was pretty interesting too.. interesting English/Chinese hybrid language

Shaun had managed to find some very cool postcards of our town.  That took some real work !!!  Here’s a view of Mt. Mansfield form near the Richmond town center.

Here’s one of a famous train wreck from 1919.. This is the covered bride that used ot be next to our house before the 27 flood.

Here’s anaother view of that same wreck I found online

Here’s the Round Church where Diane and I got married !

…. and a very cool picture of Jonesville sometime near the turn of the last century. I marked our house with a red arrow. Note all the buildings near the river that were destroyed in 1927 Notice also how cleared all the hills were. Nearly everything was cleared to raise sheep at that time.

OK.. Time for me to got to sleep.. Busy day planned for tomorrow. G’nite to you all.. G’nite Sam !
-me