Monthly Archives: May 2008

Monday night – phoenix

We woke at at 4Am to catch our 6AM plane this morning. I say ‘woke up’.. bu I cant really recall having been asleep. we showered quickly and left the house by 4:30.. It was cool being up that early.. it was pitch black when we walked out the door.

The flight out here was uneventful.. I know I slept some because the 5 hour flight from JFK to Phoenix hardly felt like anything.   Another plane was landing on a parallel runway as we came in…

Phoynexp Sky Harbor airport is know for it’s hospitality and friendliness. But I wonder how they were able to ascertain that it was indeed the friendliest.  .

We caught the shuttle over to the Biultmore.. It’s a large rambling building of art neuvue.. with lots of western themes woven into it.

The grounds of the hotel are like a tropical garden.Flowers and oranges everywhere…

Even the pool had some cool looking outbuildings !

Around 7 we shuffled back out to the central court for the CTRE welcome dinner. In the distance we could see this cool lone maintain. I understand that we’ll be climbing it tomorrow morning..

After dinner we went into the quiet zone.. They asked me to tape a short video segment where I thanked Diane for help They were asking lots of folks to .make similar segments. It’ll be interesting to see what they get…


Speaking of quiet zone.. I can no longer keep my eyes open. Tomorrow will be an early session.. so I’ll need to sleep now.. much more tomorrow.. gnite Sam. goodnight everyone..!

love -me

Sunday night – mother’s day

It was a beautiful Mother’s day today… cool, sunny.. dry. mostly happy with scattered sadness. We  started the day with breakfast outside that  had been delivered for Diane as part of a school fundraiser for the Schoolhouse alternative school We had fresh croissants, nutella, cheese, rolls.. yum.  

Then  gave Diane her Mother’s day presents.. we always give her stuff for the garden. the boys picked everything out this year. She got white clematis, perennial daisy’s, bleeding hearts, petunias, impatiens, globe flowers, and bluebells.

W also got her something from Sam.. i asked the gy at the nursery if they had any plants that began with ‘s-a-m-…’.. He thought fro a bit then told me that the genus for  Elderberry’s is ‘Sambuccus’ .. So we got her a Black Beauty Elderberry

In the the early afternoon we all took a picnic hike in the woods up in Honey Hollow. . It was a great day for a hike..

We did a nice loop up the logging roads, then settled in a nice spot for our picnic.. I had brought a ton of food.. since it was easier than deciding what we wanted to eat !  We toasted Diane.. and toasted Sam with the chocolates we’d brought

Gabe took advantage of some of the spare foil to make a hat to keep the aliens from reading his thoughts.. good thinking !

Diane put one of the  SamStones in a nearby tree.

Gabe wanted to put one way up in a tree. We couldn’t find a good climbing tree, so we wrapped one of the SamStones in foil, bent down a tall sapling and wrapped the foil around it..

Then gabe goutned to 3 and let go.. tthe tree snapped up again with the samstone now about 20 feet in the air !

Chai and Satori had a great day up there two.. they were playing in the mud !.. ewwww

We came home finished packing for the trip Diane and I are taking..  We spoke to our Moms. and sent them our love..  I know mother’s day will have a mix of happiness and sadness for both of them, too..

Later in the evening we all went out for a great dinner at Mexicali..

It was a great day.. Diane is such a wonderful mother.. it was nice to spend the day thinking of that.. It’s … well.. it’s different being a mother.. or a dad.. now since Sam’s passing. Yet he’s so much here with us on days like today…. He’s here with us always..

Happy mothers day Diane.. All your guys love you so much.. We know oyu do, Sam

-me

Saturday night – corrections

Well… my photo site is down for a few hours.. so no new pictures for this evening.. I think I’ll do what newspapers sometimes do every once in a while.. I’ll run a few correction notices.

Corrections:

In the spirit of journalistic integrity, my vast staff has  poured over the recent content of this blog and found the following important discrepancies.
Tonight I will do my best to set the record straight. 


1) It’s been pointed out to the author by his beautiful wife that on the blog entry from May 1st, I mistakenly called a camel a dromedary and a dromedary a camel.,.. Here for the record is the camel

and here is our friend Otis the dromedary

The editors would like to apologize to both animals and hope this mix up caused them no inconvenience or crises of identity.

2) On April 24th  I reported that I had removed about 30 old bottles of wine when we cleaned our cupboard. I just checked it was actually 25 bottles..

3) On April 14th I said that I got 85% of the Sex Pistols ‘G-d Save The Queen’ correct in Guitar Hero..  with a string of 83 correct notes. I now realize I had those numbers reversed. I had 83% correct with 85 notes played correctly.

4) On April 29th I notice that the picture labeled ‘digital ICs’ , The chip showing through the front cover is actually not a digital IC at all, it’s an analog LM565 phased-locked-loop chip. I guess this isn’t a journalistic problem, it’s more of a sorting problem..

5) On March 21st I reported that it was ‘nice and kinda sad’ being in this house alone for the night . I was mistaken. it was actually ‘nice and very sad.’

And that completes the list of know corrections . Again, I apologize if any of these factual errors cased anyone distress

OK… so that was pretty random 🙂 but it gave me something to do until my photosite came up.. Here are some fresh pictures for our day.

It was such a beautiful day today.. It was a pleasure to be outside.. Diane and  each had less than 4 hours sleep. She got home from Springfield last night at about 2:30 and I was still up working.. Satori woke us both at 6.. ugh.. but she’s so cute !.. We drove up to Milton around 12:30 for Gabe’s Lacrosse games..
They had two tough opponents (i.e. they lost both games) .. but the guys played well. Gabe got 3 of the 5 goals they scored all day.. he’s really looking good.. He’s also half a head taller than most of his teammates. He’s really shooting up He’s such a great kid !

Before we left the field I went over and placed a SamStone under the old wooden skateboard halfpipe. I remember several cold, wet days standing under that thing watching Sam play lacrosse here. It was a good spot for the stone.

Our buddy Tim grabbed a skateboard and dropped in just for fun. he’s such a kid.

It was fun hanging out with Tim, Wendy, Vivian and Zion (not shown here) while Gabe and Ellis, Time and Wendy’s other son, played.. Wendy even fed us while we watched the game !

After the game, we headed home.. Gina and Matt stopped by to give Diane some mother’s day flower.. we thought they matched Gabe’s shirt !

round 7 we went up to the Jen and Tim’s for a cook out.. There were some tofu thingys in there as well. Tim’s Cousin Alcid and his wife also came buy. itwas good talkign to the. It was a really nice evening !

One startling discovery was that we realized that Gabe is now taller than Marie !

OK.. gotta get some sleep. Tomorrow is mothers day.. An advance happy mothers day to all you mothers out there.. Happy mothers day to my mom Judy and Diane’s mom Marcia .. And to my wonderful Diane.. we all love you.. I know that you do Sam !.. you show us every day.
-me

Friday night – mental floss

I woke at 8:30 this morning with he sneaky feeling that I had to do something this morning. I rolled over and squinted at my blackberry.. and EEEEK yes.. I had a dentist appointment in 30 minutes.. and the dentist’s office is 25 minutes away.. believe it or not I made it.. I’m not sure I was dressed or anything.. but at 9:05 I was in the comfy chair being jabbed with pointy dentist things.. believe it or note I love going to the dentist. It feels like your teeth are getting massaged.. the way it must feel for a crocodile to have those little birds come in and clean your teeth. I did ask for a little anesthesia.. to block the easy listening music in the office..   denied…

  P the dental hygienists lady and I talked about our kids… I gave her a samstone.. She let me take a picture of my Xrays..

I went back to IBM and worked until about 12:30.. then drove home to have lunch with Diane.. I hadn’t really seen her all week…we went for a run then had a great lunch outside. It was so nice talking to her. I’ve been getting so down and sad these last couple of weeks.. talking to Diane really helps me.. she’s very calm and wise..

The puppy got up to play with us and left a hug pile of dirt from outside where she was laying.. She’s like a little antidust mop.. I’ve never seen anything that could hold that much dirt !

I got back to work about 1:30 and worked until about 6.. Diane took off with our friend Gary to see a spiritual lecture down in Springfield MA..   Around 5:30 I dropped Gabe and Jack of at the movies.. then came back and started in again on my presentation for the ISCAS conference in a week and a half. That must have been about 7:30 .. next time I looked up.. which was basically now.. it was 2:00 AM ..  
   While I was looking for illustrations for my talk , I came across this flash picture that Max and Sam had taken of a balloon popping.. that’s Sam in the picture.. it’s a weird picture.. but one that brings back great memories..   



I’ll go dream about them now.. Seep tight everyone.. Sleep tight Sam !
-me