it was 20 years ago today… ! Today is Max’s 20th birthday.. unbelievable !. My first kid is a grown-up.. and a really, really good one at that. He’s such a an amazing person.
I spent the day thinking about that day 20 years ago when we became parents for the first time..it was one of the happiest days of my life. I remember it was fathers day.. and one of the hottest days of the year. Diane had a 36 hour labor then we were holding this guy in our arms.. He can lift me as easily as I can lift him now.

We all came together this afternoon to do the birthday thing.

We put max on the birthday ‘throne’.. ie/ the big wooden box that serves as our table.. and he opened presents..

Satori wanted a piece of the action too !

My folks found Max the most amazing toaster for his apartment. Is that not amazing ?

Max wanted Chinese take out from Silver Palace.. so Diane and I hopped in the car and went and picked it up.. On the way home, Diane snapped this picture of the sunset in our rearview mirror

There were about 6 or so friends over when we got back.. so we all dug in to the birthday meal..

It was Gabe’s last day of school which the girls celibrated by painting the boys nails. good color on him.. no ?

Then it was time for cake.. 20 candels.. one whole package !.. Now there’s a milestone !

Out in one blow ! The Sam candle is still lit ..

The birthday crowd looks on approvingly.

The candles are too tempting..

Out with one snort !

Happy birthday Max.. we love you so much !

Gnite all. gnite Sam
-me

Happy fathers day friends.. It’s a been a pretty good day.. bittersweet as you mightt expect.. but my family is around and that feels good. We’ve layed pretty low today.. I am really, really  missing Sam..

 I did my posting early yesterday so let me pick up with what happened after Diane picked me up at the plane.   No wait.. I still have a few pictures form my trip for some reason.. I had a very short layover in London yesterday. I used my time to drop a SmStone in a very nice looking vending machine.

The flight back was uneventful.. I worked the whole way.. I watched Casablanca as I worked.. Ahh.. now there’s a movie.. “Play As Time Goes By for me Sam”… that line has new meaning to me now.

The flight to JFK went by quickly as did the flight back to BTV. Diane picked me up at the airport.. and I was feeling pretty good.. We decided to do a little Graduation party hopping on the way home. First stop was Tim R. .. It was great seeing Ron, Paula and family.. Tom and Beth were there as well.. nice bonus.

We then headed back to Richmond to see Aaron L. On the way back we passed this little guy in the middle of the road on 117. Diane circled back just  in time. I jumped out of the car and redirected him/her into the weeds again.

It was great seeing Aaron and family..at his graduation party.  Aaron’s dad Jake showed me a great picture he’d taken last week  of a bear he’d found sitting on his porch and drinking his humming bird feeder .. It looked like a tiny cub.. until I saw that the feeder was about 5 feet high.. Yikes !  I’ll try to get a copy of that picture

One more stop before home.. We went up to Tim and Jen’s to congratulate Marie.. I can’t believe that all of these kids are graduating !

It was after 6 by the time we got home.. First thing I notices was Satori’s new haircut.. Diane had gotten her trimmed because of the heat.. and they’d given her a Mohawk !  They;re goign to trim it off this week.. but she looks so cute.. She’s a completely different animal without her long coat !.

I was still feeling pretty awake and un-jet lagged so we decided to go crash our friend Deb’s wedding . She married ran who’s such a nice guy.. The wedding was in the afternoon before I got in.. but 6 hours later there was still a party going on over there..   Bed and Fran looked so happy together !

It was a great time.. we had some great talks with Deb’s son Nick and his cool girlfriend .. They are both such great kids. Nick and I had the best talk about Sam.. he really misses Sam..   I cant believe I didn’t get a picture of those two..

I did get a picture of Jeremy and his girlfriend.. they were the bartenders. Jeremy told us a great SamStone story about a Samssone he left near Panama city.. I’ll get a picure and post it..

We got home around 10.. Wow.. 3 graduations and a wedding .. and a 25 hour plane ride.. I was beat..   One last thing for the day.. Max opened a gift we’d received from Emma.. it was this awesome flower arrangement made out of fruit !..  She’s such a sweetie..

That was it for me yesterday.. I was asleep by 10:30 and slept all the way until 6AM this morning..  I woke up feeling great..   I took a quick run then got ready to  go with Gabe to his early Lacrosse game in Middlebury.. an hour away.   It was the second day of a tournament.. and the last game of the regular season..
The fields were SOAKED form last night’s rain.  Here’s beautiful ‘Lake Lacrosse’.

the water on the field came up over my ankles  in places..

.. and Otter Creek behind the field was out of its banks and running muddy brown.

The kids had a great time collecting earthworms that were driven up by the water.. but they let them go.. this was strictly ‘catch and release’

Gabe had another good day playing.. he cored  bunch of times.. It was brutally hot (in the high 80’s)..

We got the team together for a team photo during one of the breaks.. Gabe’s the tallest on the team.. And.. Diane reminds him that she was the tallest kid in her 6th grade.. so who knows…

We sat under the shade for the first game.. then spread out with Tim and Wendy and family on the hill for the second.

Gabe was so hot after the game, his face looked like a beet. .. This was the last game of the regular season.. Just the allstar game next week and the season is finshed. it’s been a good year for Gabe.. I love this game.

We got home from Gabe’s game about 3:30.. and we spent the rest of the afternoon puttering around the house. I was trying to figure out something to make, but my creative juices just weren’t flowing, so I did some odd fixit jobs around the house..

Lots of friends stopped by today during the late afternoon which was nice…  Andrew and Elsa  and Elsa’s boyfriend Paul came by to borrow the inner tubes to raft the Huntington.

Tyler, Tom, RJ, Julia and Liz came by with Selene and Carolyn.  Carolyn was back from college and Selene has been oversees for most of the last year.. she’s been in Thailand and Cambodia mostly.. She loved Cambodia.. 

Liz and RJ were here.. RJ’s gaged his ears up to an inch .. we’re going to put SamStones in them !

We had a nice family dinner around 7 …  Diane put 5 plates out without thinking.. We lit our Sam candle and sat down to eat. It was so nice having all of us around the table.

After Dinner, Max, Diane and I watched a movie in the barn after Gabe went to bed.. (The Dewey Cox Story.. good and strange)… It was only after the movie.. when everyone else was in bed that I walked outside and talked to Sam.. I cried for about 10 minutes..   and realized that was what I needed to do to make this fathers day complete..

It was a good day..   Happy fathers day to all you dad’s out there.. Happy fathers day Dad.. and Big Gabe.. We love you both.. Happy Fathers day Sam.. I’ll always be your dad…
-me

I’m sitting in JFK airport on my way back to BTV.. It’s been a long.. but pretty easy travel day. We (me, and my friends Edie, Mike and Bill) left J’berg at about 8:30 last night..The flight to London took about 10.5 hours.. I slept a good portion of the way. We got to London at about 7:30 this morning.. stayed there for about an hour and a half Then took th 6 and a half hour trip here.. again.. I slept a good portion of that.. I feel pretty good for the miles I’ve put in this week. I suspect I’ll feel it in a day or two.. It was a great and productive trip on every dimension..

I have a big backlog of pictures from the trip to Pilanesburg Park yesterday.. so let me get busy posting those..

The van picked us up at the hotel at 6:40 in the morning.. (yuck).. everyone else was all bright eyed and chipper… all morning people.. eeeek..

We then started the roughly 2 hour trip out to Pilanesberg.. it was interesting.. parts of it were beautiful.. parts of it were grim.. It was mostly flat and covered with dry grass and scrubby trees. The whole way our driver Richard told us about local customs (men in his tribe have multiple wives.. he couldn’t believe that in India there were places where women have multiple husbands). He told us about the local languages and religions.. Here he is teaching us the all important phrase ” I dropped my pen in the mashed potatoes”. Here it is first in Zulu

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Then in Xhosa.. the local language of the bush

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On the drive, we past several towns.. all were pretty modest.. Lots of homes made of corrugated steel.. Some cool traditional round houses . All of it was a stark contrast from the gleaming steel and glass of downtown J’berg.

The kids were all on their way to school…

the plain that J’berg is on is actually 2000 meters above sea level . As we got closer to the park, we came upon the mountains. .. in fact these are very old volcanoes..

We stopped at a “Wimpy’s” for a quick breakfast.. (want a Wimpy coffee ?) .. It could have been anywhere in the world inside there.

Except maybe for the wild game jerky

We then passed several of the areas large platinum mines.. they employ most of the folks in the surrounding towns..

Each had a huge pile of tailings nearby.

As we got nearer the park we stated seeing a few animals.. like these baboons in the road.

At last we came ot one of the park gates.

Richard told us that the park actually sat in the collapsed crater of an old volcano.. here’s the map.

We got out and stretched and changed over to the land rover.

The whole place was covered with thorny Acacia trees.. the favorite food of Girraffes.. looks dangerous !

Here’s John R aboard the land rover looking Indianajonesish

We said goodbye to Richard.. then we were off

We went through an electrified fence that was worthy of Jurassic park

We only dorve a few minutes until we spotted our first Zebra…

And above him a pair of Kudu.. You can tell their age by the number of curls on their horns.

Here’s a tiny Stienbock.. very quiet.. with huge ears.

We turned a corner and found ourselves face to face with this guy.. The guide (I never got her name) told us that Giraffes sometimes eat bones to get calcium

Yikes.. now more Zebra.. they were everywhere. We learned that a zebra can mate with a donkey and have colts.. and that donkeys can mate with horses and have colts.. but that zebras and horses were too far apart to breed.. Strange.. no ?

More big guys

Then we heard a far away bellow and looked down to see these Hippos in the small pond.. At this point the guide explained that this place was totally natural.. no animal was fed by humans.. or protected by humans.. this was wild.

We lurched around a corner and I was the first to spot this guy a White (or weit) rhino..

I figured he needed a SamStone.. s I tossed one his way..

Then we came across a small herd of Impala..

We saw this starling.. the photo doesn’t do his iridescent blue plumage justice, though.. he was amazing.

Uh-oh.. Impala fight !

The un-victor walks away

Here ware some handsome Wildabeasts.. also known as Gnu’s… what’s Gnu with you ?
The guide says that no one can resist saying that.

This guy looked particularly gnu-like.. he was determined to cross the road.. we had to get out of his way.

Then they all crossed.

We saw these weaver bird nests.. they’re designed this way to keep out prsitors.. mostly snakes.

We came across another pond…

With more zebras..

This, unfortunatly, was as close as we came to seeing an elephant..

Here are some Cormorants.

And right under them, 4 big hippos.. We were reminded thta they are the most dangerous animals to man.. There are more deaths from Hippo rampage then from any other animal in africa.. Note the huge slash on this guys back.. We were told that it was probably the result of a territorial fight with another hippo .

We then came upon another group of Zebras.. These girls ere really cute.. one by one they crossed the street.. stopped in the middle and looked our way.. it looked like a fashion show..

Then they all lined up to drink. Is that cute or what ?!

That was it for the park.> We left through another gat, met up with Richard agian and had a great lunch at a very classy lodge..

Here’s Richard horsing.. I mean Hippoing around..

Like everywhere else we went, this place had ice in the mens room urinals.. we understand it’s easier on the septic systems.. Interesting custom.. but it was all over !

The lodge had this cool tile all over.. it was scary !

Yumm.. mango drinks for everyone ..

The food was yummy.. though not very African !

This guy was very interested in our meal.. He flew right in to our table.

Whatever a bush braai at a boma is…

Outside the place was crawling with Monkeys..

This guy had bagged a juice box..

Time to go…

We climbed back in the van.. on our way out,. we saw this one big Kudu buck..

We motly slept and read on the drive back to J’berg.. The papers were full of stories about the violence against foreign workers..

Wge got back to the airport around 4 in time for Lori’s 6:30 flight.

We said good by to Richard.. and I gave him a SamStone..

Then we charged into the chaos of the J’berg airport.. it was nutty.. all under construction and packed.

I found a quiet spot upstairs to plug in (Sout african plugs are mighty impressive) and began to work. I got a ton done

On the way to the airport I called my mentee (protogee ) Peleria who lives in Pretoria and is a grad student at the U of Pretoria. We were paired up through Mentornet.org..
He offered to drive into the Airport so we could actually meet in person.. He made it there abotu 5:30 which gave us an hour to talk. It was so good meeting him face to face. He’s in his final year of a PhD. in Computer Speech Recognition.. He’s about 30, is married and has a young baby girl at home.. It was so fun talking to him about grad school life. He told me about how hard he was working in this last year.. . i remember so well what that was like to be driving towards finishing with Diane and Max at home.. how hard I was working and how stressful it was. .. and how nice it was to come home to a family. We talked about his research and I figured out some very good contacts in his field which I’ll help him make . I think that’s the best help I can give him. I’m going to see if I can get him an interview in IBM next year when he’s closer to done..
It was so great meeting him face to face.. A

At 6:30 it was time for me to go through customs.. that took forever.. I met up with my IBM friends..boarded the plane.. then began the long trip home.. It was a busy wand fun week. I can’t wait to see my family.. Gotta board the flight now.. See you guys.. Love you sam !

-me