Change feels funny to me now.. And change is all around me always. This week our neighbors big red barn is coming down. it’s been about to fall down for some time.. Its not a particularly old barn.. I think it’ s form the mid to late 40’s the old barn that was on the roughly the same spat burned in the 40’s. Still.. I’ve gotten pretty attached to i tin the last 26 years. Believe it or not.. I talk to this barn every time I run by it.. I ask it how it’s doing.. and it asks me how I’m doing. Since Sam’s passing I respond by saying// ‘thanks for asking’. You probably think I’m kidding.. but I never kid.
The big red barn became a landmark in the week after Sept 11 2001. Our friends Bud and Bob (or maybe it was just Bob ?) got out there and put the most amazing american flags on the front and side of the building. I remember watching them paint it one day and thinking that was the most amazing, patriotic and positive thing I remember from that awful week…

They’re taking the barn down gently with the help of Recycle North.. the windows and the siding will all be reincarnated into something else. Building material karma…

I took these pictures yesterday

You know.. I’ve lived here more than 26 years.. and I’ve never stuck my head in this bulding.. here’s the cows eye view of the innards.

I came back today and found they’d gotten the windows and half of the siding out..

So.. I walked over there tonight and asked the barn.. “how are you” This pictures says it all for me… ‘What’s happening to me !?!?”

Well.. It’s good they’re taking the building down.. I know it’s unsafe.. I’ll just miss seeing it..
Good luck my wooden freind. I hope your boards go to soem good use..
Good luct to all of you.. good luck Sam
-me

ps. Folks.. our good friend gary just sent me an amazing song he wrote. he says it was inspired by Sam’s passing.. though it’s not about Sam.. Take a listen.   I think you’ll like it ! 
-me

Blissfully little to report today. It was a great transition day from vacation.. nothing planned.. and not much attempted. Diane and I took the dogs for a run up honey hollow this morning. It was a bright, cool clear morning though it rained most o the rest of the day.

Around 12:30 I drove over the Homer’s to pick up some of the microprocessors I’d left over there the other day. Unfortunately Homer and Mary were not home.. I think they were kayaking.. I grabbed my stuff and came back home.

Buddy and Seth came over at 3 for a work session on the Haunted Forest Project-X project. We’ve been falling a bit behind on our schedule.. A bunch of the intern’s who are helping with the project are about to go back to wherever they came form. i was determined to get the face animatronics done this week in time for our work session with Sara and Becca.. the articts.. on Wednesday night .

We got a ton tun between about 3 and about 11 tonight. Seth Buddy and I finshed the mechanicals for the the face animations including the jaw that moves to sound/voice, moiving eyebrows and lights that flicker and brighten in synch with the sound.

I really enjoy workign with these kids.. they’re shapr prorammers.. It’s fun watching them get familiar witht he joys and limitations of 8 bit microcontrollers.

We broke for a delicous dinner that Diane made… We had a bunch of kids around for one reason oranother.. gabefriends, maxi’s freinds.. my project friends..

Dianemade a mutant vegan pizza.. it looked lik it was ready to explode when she pulled it out of the oven.

Then back to work.. Around 11:00 everythign came together. I’d finished the wiring and Seth had finished the programming. We actually got everything we needed done for ou rwednesday meeting with the artists who are doing the creatures skeleton .

We still have lot sof tuning to do.. but the creatures jaw moves and eyebrows move to sound.. And it’s lighs flicker and brgheen as the sounds changes.. Here’s a low quality first example.. many more to come

If anyone’s interested.. here’s the Arduino code we wrote tongight.. Not beutiful.. but it’s fun to post code in your blog…

---

include ..nterrupt.h> // For interrupt functions cli() abd sei()
include ..o.h> // This file will look for the appropriate header file for the chip being used (ie., iom168.h will be included in our project)
include “Servo.h” // For open source servo library

// Create a count value for the timer to reset to:

static const unsigned char countValue = 6;
int in = 0;
int dimCounter = 0;
int yellowSwitch = 2;
int powerYellow = 0;
int yellowLED = 5;
int redLED = 3;
int inputVal = 0;
int mouthAvg = 0;
int inputTotal = 0;
int eyebrowVal = 0;
int inputArray16;
int i = 0;
int countMouth = 0;
int countEyebrow = 0;
boolean yellowOn = false;

// Make a macro to reset the timer when called:
define RESET_TIMER2 TCNT2 = countValue

// Evil global servo handlers:
Servo mouth;
Servo rightEyebrow;
Servo leftEyebrow;
// Timer 2 ISR:
ISR(TIMER2_OVF_vect)
{
Servo::refresh();
RESET_TIMER2;
}

// Setup timer 2 to trigger an interrupt everytime it rolls over
void Timer2Init(void)
{
//Timer2 Settings: Timer Prescaler /1024
TCCR2B |= 0x07;
// Use normal mode
TCCR2A |= 0x00;
// Use internal clock
ASSR |= 0x00;
//Timer2 Overflow Interrupt Enable
TIMSK2 |= 0x01;
// Reset the timer to whatever TIMER_COUNT is set to:
RESET_TIMER2;
}
void setup()
{
// Initialize timer 2 for operation:
Timer2Init();
// Enable interrupts (cli() will disable them)
sei();
mouth.attach(9);
leftEyebrow.attach(10);
rightEyebrow.attach(11);
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
inputVal = analogRead(in);
inputArraycountMouth = inputVal;
countMouth ++;
if (countMouth == 8)
{
countMouth = 0;
}
inputTotal = 0;
for (i = 0; i <= 7; i ++)
{
inputTotal = inputTotal + inputArrayi;
}
mouthAvg = (inputTotal/2)+80;
mouthAvg = constrain(mouthAvg,80,120);

inputArraycountEyebrow = inputVal;
countEyebrow ++;
if (countEyebrow == 16)
{
countEyebrow = 0;
}
inputTotal = 0;

for (i = 0; i <= 15; i ++)
{
inputTotal = inputTotal + inputArrayi;
}
eyebrowVal = inputTotal;

if(analogRead(yellowSwitch) == 0)
powerYellow++;
if(powerYellow > 0 && powerYellow < 255)
{
dimCounter++;
if(dimCounter % 16 == 0)
{
powerYellow++;
yellowOn = true;
}
}
if(yellowSwitch == LOW && yellowOn)
powerYellow = 0;

if(inputVal>=8 && yellowOn)
{
analogWrite(redLED,random(100));
}
else
{
analogWrite(redLED,0);
}
eyebrowVal = eyebrowVal/16;
analogWrite(yellowLED,powerYellow);
rightEyebrow.write(eyebrowVal);
leftEyebrow.write(150 – eyebrowVal);

mouth.write(mouthAvg);
Serial.print(inputVal);
Serial.print(” “);
Serial.print(eyebrowVal);
Serial.print(” “);
Serial.print(analogRead(yellowSwitch));
Serial.println();
}

---

And there you have it.. the source code for my day.. OK.. I gotta get to selep now.. Gnood night to you all. G’nite Sam !
-me

It’s about 2 Am and we’ve been home fro about 2 hours. It was a really good vacation.. relaxing and fun.. good time with family. Last night we closed the week by all going to eat at the funky bar in the resort we were staying in.. We couldn’t get seated until about 9:30… Gabe passed the time waiting by perfecting his Ollie’s on the wall outside.

As we went into the restaurant, Shaun showed me she’d hidden a SamStone.. under a stuffed wild cat just outside the bar.

Dinner was fun and chaotic.. here’s my folks and sybs.. (and Jake)

And here are the long suffering ‘outlaws’.. they put up with alot !

We went home and packed most of our stuff.. then Gabe, Max and Iwent down to do one more fire of the spud cannon come fishing pole.. We did a little fire experiment with glow sticks.. messy .. but cool

Gabedid the steel wool spin thing.. Looks cool in time lapse.

Then we coverd one o the golf balls we found in glow stick go, loaded it behind a potato with a tuft of steel wool attached . and launched out into lake superior. The film doesn’t do it justice at all. It was really spectacular.

This morning we woke up early to finish packing.. max and I zoomed down to the lake to do a quick divein.. We hadn’t seen anyone in the lake all week.. I guessed because of the 40 degree temperature.. Shawnand Betsy came down to watch..

In we went..

..

Then it was back to the cabin to move out.. I found soem cool tuff as I was cleaning.. Liek this clayhead that one of the cousins or syblings must have made while we were making SamStones.

Our last act was to place a SamStone. We’d been thinking that if Sam were here he’d be climbing on the rafters.. So Gabe colimbed up.. shimmied across the rafters and placed a SamStone on the crosspiece.

Then it was time to say good bye.. bye-Bye jake and mary

Bye-bye granpa and grandma ..

Sigh.. it was sad to leave.. but I was ready to go home.

We ran into Billy, ben and Betsy in th airport even though they’d leve about 40 minutes earlier than we did.. They’d had to change their flight.. so we hung out with them a little.. Itwas nice getting to say goobye to them again..

The trip home was long but uneventful.. a 2 hour drive, three flights and some long layovers made it nearly 15 hours door to door ..

There was a beautiful sunset as we left detroit..

Max and Rose met us at the airport.. . It sounded like they had a fun a peaceful stay at the house.. They loved the dogs and the dogs loved them . we drdve them home then came back to the house… which was spottless ! It was so great having them watch the place.

We all spent some time in the back yard watching the meteors. Thepersieds peakss tomorrow night.. and we saw a bunch of bright shooting stars tonight. Each one makes methink of Sam..

Right now, Max, Nicholos and Nick’s freind Wyndham are playing guitar and singing.. it’ now 2:15.. I better get ome sleep . More tomorrow.. Man it’s good to be home ! Gnite all.. Gnite Sam.
-me

Busy day.. I’ll talk about tonight tomorrow in the interest of time.. I need to get some sleep tonight. Lemme see.. where did I leave off yesterday ? Oh yeah.. we were gathering at my folks cabin for my father’s famous ‘bachelor’s spaghetti’ . It’s a family ritual whenever we get together. It’s so cute watching my dad cook

One of his secrets is to through the spagetti at the fridge to see if it’s ready to eat. If it sticks.. it’s done…

Looks like it needs a few more minutes.

Billy and Max provided the music while we prepped dinner.. This is Billy’s new carbon fiber guitar.. it’s waterproof !

We all sat outside to eat… either on the deck..

.. or more civilized.

Afterwards we all sat and watched the “shout it Out” movie that max was in. It was very cool watching it again and letting the relatives see it. Max looks good in there.

We closed the night by taking the potato gun down to the beach and and attaching some puffed out steel wool to the potatoes before firing. it’s a very, very cool effect.as the steel wool burns behind the launched spud. . a little dangerous but cool

This morning Diane and I took a walk through the trails on the resort… It’s very pretty where the Poplar river hits the lake.. You can see an old generator house.

We saw (and ate) tons of raspberries

Man.. they are delicious !

Soon after we got home from that walk Brother in law John came buy and asked if i was up for a rub.. We ran the 3.5 mile trail that we did a frew days ago while Diane walked it briskly. I was a great run.. and fun to get out with Jon and Diane .

Once we were home freom that, Dinae started packing up the SamStones we made here.. we need to ship them back to Jen for fireing..

By about 1, all the kids were awake . Our plan today was to go to the Alpine slide on Lutsen Moutnain and take the gondola to the resturant on top.. DMy mom and the billy’s kids went ahead of us. I got there in time to see my mom finish her first run

The ride closed for a bit just as we got there.. so we milled aroud the store a bit.. max tried on some new fashion..

Gabe is always styling..

We decided to go up the gondola’s first.. there were 4 to a car..

The guy who was loading the cars was pretty funny. he kept trying to get in our pictures..

The ride up was very peaceful.. e had fun by making funny noises when we passed the other cars goign the opposite direction..

Betsy and Berto went up with Diane and me.

The view a the top was nice.. and just like any other point around here.. lots of trees.. not many mountains. and thie realllllly big lake.

They had a nice resturant up there.. real food, and a cool water wall fountain.

Whihc now has a SamStone in it.

Everyone got a bite to eat at the resturant..

They didn’ thave anything Vegan.. bt they gave me a big tray of pickles for free.. they were yummy !

Chris checked out the surroundings while we ate.

Then came a tough and important moment. We decided since we were all together up thererthat it would be a good time to take a picture… something we haven’t done since Sam’s passing.. I’d been thinking of this moment since we started planning the trip.. We got everyone together then asked a nice man passing buy t snap a shot with each of our 6 cameras.. I noticed half way through that little billy was holding a SamStone. Man.. I could feel Sam so there and so not there.. I really got chocked up

I as so choked up that i went away a bit to be by myself. little Ellery came over and asked ‘what are you doing ‘? I told here was crying because I missed Sam so much . She thought about it a little then said Sam is in our hearts.. it was cute and touching..

Then it was tiem to head back down the hill.. we loaded back into the gondolas and headed back down.

Diane got this shot of Billy and me in the gondola car.

We got to the bottom then headed straight over to the Alpine slide.. up we went again.. Max and Gabe were ahead of Billy and me,

Here’s Billy ready to go..

Down I went.. it as a hoot !.. assoon as I got down, we baught another round of tickerts and went up for another ride. There go Billy and Ben below us..

Betsy and Diane were in front.

On their cars and ready to go !

..

Time to head home.. look how betsy towers over Diane and my mom.

The final project of the day was to finish the new invention.. the ‘Fish and Chips 5000 Fishing Cannon. ” The idea was to mount a fisnhing reel on a spud cannon.. then use a launced potato to carry a fishing lure way out into the ater. Last night Max worked to attach the fishing point ferrules and reel to the spud gun..

Then he added the all important logo !

Here’s the finished weapon.

This afternoon we did the real testing (no pun intended)

We went down to a deserted part of the lakeshore..

The first shot worked p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y !

Here’s an action shot of Max firing

And here’s gabe taking a shot

We eventually lost the lure and that was it for our first test.. The design worked perfectly.. A pretty fun idea.. no ?

Last job at the beach was for Max to clean the fish he caught the other day..

We talked bout respecting the fish who gaves it’s lfe for our food.. Max put the fishes head and tail on a little barge decorated with flowers and launched it into the lake.. It was cool and wierd… and nice.

This eveing we had a nice dinenr with everyone to do a late celibration of my folks 50th anniversary.. . It was a wonderful and sad evening. I’ll write about that tomorrow. Right now.. i’m going to go outand look for moremetoirs.. remember the Persied meteor showerr beaaks ealry next week !

Happy meteor hunting folks.. Sam.. send us some shooting stars. We love you !
-me