I’m still catching up from being out of town on Monday/Tuesday. I realize that I’ve been on the west coast during each of the past 3 weeks. It’s catching up to me now.. My internal clock is so confused.   That said, I really did enjoy my short trip to Seattle. I really enjoyed the people that I met at ISCAS.. .. After hanging out at the conference all day Tuesday.. I had the afternoon and evening to work.. I found a quiet place and dropped back into my day job.. I did run into  a few friends.. Like my buddy Patrick from Belgium.. but for the most part I just worked . 

About 20 minutes before 9PM when I was going to catch my limo to the airport, I got a call. it was Bill B.   I’d called him earlier trying o find a replacement transistor for my shorted out tesla coil.   I’d invited Bill out for a beer.. but he’d had a meeting.. turns out the meeting ended in time.. so we had 20 minutes to meet each other and grab a beer.

I gotta tell you how cool it was for me to meet Bill in person His web site amasci.com has been one of my favorite places for weird science..  (Check out his weird science videos here).   He had his web site even before there were things like yahoo or Google to make things findable on the web.     Anyway.. Bill and I had one of the most interesting 20 minute science discussions I’ve ever had.. he’s tried everything.. and knows tons.. He’s into so pretty far out stuff.. like tesla’s mythical energy beam weapan technology.. It was a great conversation.. but it was 9ON and time to grab my limo.. We were having such a good time talking that Bill decided to ride with me in the limo to the airport.. then catch a cab back to his car.. We got in the limo .. said a brief ‘hello’ to the driver and kept talking.. all the way to the airport.. .   In no time it seemed we wer at the airport.. we pulled up to the curb and I was preparing to get out when the driver sad  .. ‘i don’t mean to but in.. but… ‘ and proceeded to tell us how he’d volunteered to watch nuclear blasts in the south Pacific.. and was a mad scientist in his own right.. His name was Don..

The three of us sat around geeking out for a while.. it was very cool talking to them.. Don had to run.. and I had a plane to catch.. so we said goodbye to him.. . Bill and I wen tin to the airport to check in my flight.. As we walked into the building I saw the cool light sculpture made from bike reflectors.. I’d taken it’s picture the day before and put it my previous blog entry

This time there was an interesting looking guy with his nose pressed against the piece.. he was wearing a white shirt and hand tied US flag bow tie.. Since we were ogling the same sculpture, I started up a conversation.. To make a long story short.. He is Prof. John Sidels of the U . of Wash. . He was there with his smiling wife, Connie

Prof Sidels  is working on perfecting a magnetic resonance force microscope that will someday soon allow scientists to image individual viruses and things at that scale. We had a really, really interesting discussion abut the challenged of making such precise measurements so near to the quantum limit for noise. His story sounded like a mystery novel mixed with science fiction. It was so cool. We ended up knowing lots of the same folks.. since John works in the same field as several of my friends  at our Almaden labs.
   We talked until I absolutely had to run to catch my plane.. I aid good bye to John and his wife.. and to Bill and made a mad dash to the plane.

I made the plane.. slept through the night .. woke up in DC (the other Washington) .. caught a plane ot BTV.. Worked all day then went and saw Gabe play lacross in the cold (45 F) weather. We came home to fnd that Max and his friends had made aa great stirfry for us..   It was nice to be home…

I’m now just sitting down to blog.. I was looking up John to put a link to his work (which is here btw)   In searching I was saddened to learn that  John and I had another connection:. John and Connie’s foster son Glen had  passed away in 2006 while in the military..  You can see Glen’s Myspace tribute page here.

It is such a small and connected.. and sometimes very sad world.. eh Sam ? Gnite all. Gnite Sam !
-me