Oy.. what lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng day.. My frst meeting was at 8.. and my last … albeit not a work meeting.. ended at 11:30. I’m very. very glad that I’m taking next week off. I need it..

I had a fstrange Sam dream just before I wokke up this morning. I reamed I’d made a huge holographic pictrure of Sam playing guitar. I was headign downtown tot eh formal unvailing..and I couldn’t find a place to park.. So .. what’s that mean ?

Another interesting Sam thing.. All of a sudden I can hear/ Sam’s voice in my head.. For some reason it’s been hard for me to imagine his voice for a while.. now it’s back.. and I’m really glad..

It’s late now.. so I’ll doa quick once over on my day

First… I disobeyed a sign !!!!!!!!

Then I had dinner with my friend Chuck who’s visiting from Austin and my buddy Pete. Chuck wand somewhere Vermonty. so we went to the Kitchen Table. We were so loud and animated in our work talk that once of the other couples asked to be reseated !

The restaurant embraced my veganism and worked up a special just for me.. fried green tomoatoes with wild chanterall miusrooms.. Yummy !

Around 8:30 I managed to get to Homer’s for a Haunted forest work sessin. Tonight it was just me, Homer and Brandon. we got a ton done !

Here’s one of the sholder joints of the creaure..

And one of the elbow joints.

We als managed to build up a framework of the face animatronics. We were using the monster servos that I’d bought online. We got the jaw working pretty well:

Finally, the face is coming together.. Here’s Brandon with the Face skeleton

OK.. I’m falling asleep. Time to go to bed.Talk to you all tomorrow
Gnite Sam.. Gnite me
-jc

Somehow today wasn’t nearly as chaotic as I expected.. I’d stayed up late last night trying to figure out how to manage all the things I’m trying to do at once. It just didn’t seem so bad after a good night sleep. I’m in a funny space right now.. I felt like I was beginning to max out on many axis t once.. but it feels like I was able to catch it and back down.. I feel like I’m in a sort of dreamy slow state.. it’s kind of weird. I find my self staring at things or listening to things with different eyes and ears.. Like things felt the months after Sam died. Sort of magical..

Well… I got through the busy day sort of peacefully..

I had an IEEE meeting today after work.. We’re scheming some good enineeering outreach fun in about a year.. It was good seeing those guys.

It was a steak place.. so only salad for me.. well.. that and the best Black and Tan I think I’ve ever had… Isn’t it beautiful ?

One fun surprise is that Jim from the IEEE just bought a moped.. it’s only 150CC’s and gets about 100 miles per gallon !..

I couldn’t resist a ride

One thing Gabe hadn’t planned for was an intruder.. One drawback of sleeping near the floor .. It’ll be hard to get Chai up.. she looks so comfortable !

Gabe just called me in to look at the way he decorated thhis room. He has every light up gadget we own in there.. (and that’s quite a collection) . Here’s a small tour of Gabe’s light garden :

OK.. That’s it for now.. There’s a hot ath waiting for me.. more tomorrow. Nite all, Nite Sam
-me

Great day.. great weekend.. I was getting so stressed by the end of last week with all I had to do I was having trouble sleeping. This quiet weekend was just what I needed.

Somehow I managed to sleep until about 8:30.. We got up and took the dogs for a fast long walk up the Catamount ski trail about 2 miles down Duxbury rd from our house. We were trying to find a place that was a bit more open since everything here is so soaked from all the rain. The trail was beautiful and clear.. the flax was out with its beautiful blue flowers. The air was warm and dry ….. for a change.

All of the streams were filled with rushing water.. the sound was very cool .

We took a detour through the woods on an abandoned logging road. The rains had spawned a huge vaiety of mushrooms.. Wish I knew which ones we could eat !

It was a great walk.. we went all the way to the top.. as we turned around. Satori ran right into me because she wasn’t looking. She really hurt herself… she was wimpering.. we thought she might have broken soemthing.. she managed to get up and walk.. but whe was really favoiring her left front leg.. We took our time getting down.. She’s fine now..

On the way down we met another Labradoodle.. This one’s name was Khrama.. and her owner drives a prius and a subaru.. (but the subaru was in the shop getting new kayak rack).. I told her she matched the perfect profile for a McCain voter.. She looked at me. horrified… She couldn’t figure out that I was kidding..

I ran home while Diane and the dogs drove.. A bit later we got back in the car and drove to Charlotte to the MIT Club picnic. It was at the summer home of John and Alice Outwater. John was one of the original founders of the the MIT Club of Vt (AKA VoMIT – Vt’s own MIT club) .. John’s now 83 years old and is in a nursing home because his memory is failing.. He’s an amazing guy.. He graduated from MIT with a PhD in 1951 after graduating from Cambridge University in the UK.. He was an inventor, professor and entrepreneur for more than 60 years.
Even as he could no longer remember our names, he was able to tell us amazing facts about all sorts of scientific curiosities.. i remember him tellign me how tree’s were able to lift their sap much higher than could be explained by simple capillary action. I also remember him giving me a very eye opening and risque treatise on the sexual prowess of drysopholae (fruit flies).

Alice hosted us today.. Though John wasn’t present in person today. .. he was very much in spirit.

There were abotu 40 people at the picinic.. the largest turnout we’d
ever had. TheThere are about 380 MIT grads in the state of VT.. so
today’s take wasn’t bad. it’sa a very interesting and diverse group of
folks.. Lots of different interests, professions and skills. We even had two of the three kids who have bene accepted as freshmen there in the fall. I’ve known one of them , Colin S. , since he was little I worked with him in science camps when he was in elementary school. He’s a tru math prodigy
. He got 1st place in the US math olympiad this year.. and helped his
team win 3rd place (after china and russia) in the international math
olypiad in Spain last week..

My freind KC was there (her licence plate is KCN..
her initials.. and the chimical symbol for Potassium Cyanide.. one of
the worlds most dedly poisons)

We stayed at the picninc for about an hour and a half.. went shoping.. then came home.. My folks called to talk about the vacation we’re taking with them next week. As I was speaking with them I noticed that we had our first ripe tomatoes on the vine !!!!

Diane used them to make a great dinner for the 8 folks here. , cuke and tomoatoe salad, fresh Pesto pasta and garlic bread.. all the veggies and the basil for the pest were right out of the garden.

As we were cleaning up, nicholas serenaded us.. This is a song he wrote since he’s been staying with us.. I relaly like it (I apologize.. there are 2 short gaps in the recording.. but you can get the idea)

Since I’m adding movies, I wanted to share this one that Gabe and I made ysterday.> We put up blue tarps behind the trampoline then ised the ‘chorma key’ feature in Adobe Premiere to drop out the blue.. Digitial video rocks

OK.. I have a few hours of work to do now.. so I’ll quit here.. This is goign to be a wicked busy week and I need to prep for it. Love to you all.. Love you Sam
-me

I am victorious… Our lawn mower was conspiring to take the day off. but we would have none of it. A couple of weeks back the cable that controls the power drive to our mower snapped. I did an emergency cablectmy and fixed it with two plastic tiewraps.. A couple of days ago the kill switch cable mount broke.. ad I countered with a clamp to allow us to pull the cable. This morning the whole assembly that holds the kill switch broke off.. I had to create a multi-part steel contraption to tension the cable in order to get spark to start the mower.

That worked beautifully.. Nicholas offered to use it to cut the grass which was about 4″ high at this point.. Unfortunately on the first pull,. the starter rope snapped.

mama mia !… Nicholas decided to go with it anyway and managed to cut more than half f the lawn without letting the mower stall. All this while Dian. Chai. Satori and I ran up Honey Hollow.

Shortly after we got back, my friend Chris dropped by on his way to cut wood up in Honey Hollow.

He dropped off some new SamStones he’d sandblasted for us !.. He and his family just came back from a cross country oddessy where they dropped SamStones at places like Mt. Rushmore and the Cascade mountains.

I spent some time of the mid afternoon working with Gabe and Trevor on shooting trampoline movies.We put blue tarps around the tramp and filmed s we could chrom key tings out.. Here’s what we came up with .

Late in the afternoon. Tom. Aton and Selean came by

Sleena brought us the most amazing surprise.. This week she’d gone woth her mom down to Boston to see Ama.. the Indian guru AMA… Ama is famous for hugging people… We were only 30 minutes from her ashram in kerala last fall.. Meanwhle we keep hearing what an amazing presense she has.
Anyway… Sleena asked Ama to bless a SamStone for us..here it is !

The kids all decided to go tube the hintington.. The water was way up which made the tubign much easier..

later in the afternoon, Gabe and trevor went up to Ian and Matt’s .while we wne tto Owleshead to a party thrown by Pat and Larry.. It was eally nice.. great food and great company !

We even had some fireworks !

Beleive it or not.. it started raining.. who would have thought hrain in vermont during the summer :-)/ I actually got a little cold.. so Krista wrapped my head in her scarf.. it really helped.. and it made me feel… well.. Sheek (ugh) …

Great party.. great setting…

OK sleep beckons.. More tomorrow. Nite all. Nite Sam
-me