What a beautiful fall day..I worked at home in hopes of making some progress on a paper I’m writing.. but  the wonderful weather made me take an unintended mental health day.. I worked all day.. but my mind and heart were outside. Diane and I took a great walk up honey hollow during my lunch break..  the colors were amazing or this early in the season..bright reds , oranges and yellows miced in with lots of dark green hold outs. I’s more colorful for this time of year than I can remember it being for years !..   .. and wouldn’t you know I forgot my camera !

You can just feel fall everywhere.. in the colors, in the smells .. in the animals.. ike this guy.. I’m sue he’s just trying to top off his reserves before the snow hits.

Aroudn 4 I took another break and went and watched Gabe’s soccer game.. He’s really getting good.. It was nice just lying in the grass as they tried chasing the ball around.. I defintely prefer the spectator role ..

Diane and I hpkanned to work on the house painting project tongiht I’d suggested ordering Pizza.. but Diane offered to cook instead.. and what emerge was the perfect cohn-mariano pizza.. one pizza, three different types of topping.. !

Cheese and suteed onions for Gabe..

Onins, olives and cheese for beutiful Diane..

And the random condiment , no cheese vegan model for me !

After dinner we spent  few hours working on the painting prep. I managed to cut myself pretty badly with a coping saw (can you believe that ?!) fixing a piece of molding . After the project I was covered with blood and caulk !.

After prepping for a bit, Gabe came down and asked for some help with the audio editor.. He’s   getting very good with this remix software that we found.. Right now he’s helping me build up a science based musical thing for my show. It’s really fun working with him on this..

OK.. change of gears.. I’m participating in a study at work on innovation.. they’ve asked me to keep a journal about innovation for a complete week. I’m not interested in taking on another writing project like that.. so I agreed to do it  only if I could include my entries in this blog as well. ..As such, I’ll keept this on the topic of non-work related innovation.  So here goes:

 

–1. What, if anything related to innovating occurred for you today?

I did not have a particularly innovative day.. I did spend some time thinking about the Project-x robot monster. I debated rebuilding it’s arduino-based control board to clean it up. in the end I opted not to do  that given time constraints.  I did some experimentation with the creatures jaw.. but I couldn’t find a way to improve it’s electronic bite.My main concerns wrt. innovation at this moment are related to how we cna make the three basic power supplies for the beast (24vdc,6vdc, 9 vdc) tight, robust and waterproof. ….I had some ideas on how I could do the whole thing off a  single24vdc supply.

2. Who else was involved (knowingly or not!) in what happened for you on that effort today? (Please don’t forget to include STchats, email exchanges, etc.)         

Diane helped me out by taking the monster’s head into Williston to give it to jana. jana in turn took the thing to Sara and Becca. Homer helped me.. but he didn’t know it.. I  talked an idea over with him in my own mind. .. I never called him to discuss it though.

3. In general, do you feel more optimistic or more concerned about the potential / likely success of this effort today than yesterday?  Why?

 Uhhhhh.. I’m till scared about our deadline.for Project-X. so I’d guess I’d say I’m the same level of concern . It’s an insane project with insane constraints.. that’s part of what makes it fun !

4. Please take a picture of something (anything) that is suggestive of this effort in any way that is meaningful to you….  (or draw one)…

Can’t be much more suggestive than this !
 

 

 

 

5. ..Did anything hinder your innovativeness today? 

Loaded question.. the fact that I have a day job got in my way f innovating today.. but I did actually innovate a bit there as well.. just not in a way that I can share here.. My stumbling blocks at home are always lack of time..at work it’s often much more complicates. .. it is a combination of lack of time., fighting established agendas, scarcity of funds.. and my own shyness.

 

6. Add anything else you think pertinent to your day. 

 I hope thiat doing this survey daily in this bog will be fun and useful..

I also hope to get some sleep tonoght.. so nite all. Night Sam !

-me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got home around 11:30 to find Diane still up and painting.I was glad to see her !. It was a good fast trip to NY.. the highpoint was seeing Max.. Here’s a a couple of pictures I took after blogging last night.. They decided to give their freind Ross an inverse Mohawk..
 

We all got to bed around 2:30.  Around 9:30 I dropped Max off at math class … and then I headed north.   Before I left, I ddi get a shot of the bullet holes in max’s building’s door… pretty strange !

I hadn’t gotten very far when I got a call from my good friend Camil.. he was calling from Lebanon.. He needed some info about Sam. He was planting a Cedar tree in Sam’s honor and needed some  details..   and an inscription. It is so wonderful for camil to do thiis for us !

As I drove out of the city I was thinking how cool it is that there will be a samll memorial to akid with the very jewish name Cohn in muslim Lebanon..  Speaking of jewish.. I’m still supriised every time I drive through Max’s neighborhood and bussess and stores with their names written in Yiddish..  (here yeshiva (school) y’sahdi hatorah)

From there I drove up to Yorktown for a day full of meetings. I took my firest meetign with friend  Mark.. we went out hiking rather than staying at work, we were evidently at great peril of tick bites.

Weused a beutiful trail that used to be an old railroad.

Then i was back at work.. I rnan into many freindstrhough the day.. including Bob M who had this poster the wall..Makes me feel like a bolshevik !

The drive home was uneventful. I listened to  ‘ A whole new mind’  by Daniel Pink.. So far, Ireally receommend it..

As I said I go home around 11:30 … to find diane still painting.. She’s still wrkign onchoosing the colors.  Judging by the swaths of colors..  Diane’s still looking !

It’s about 12:30 and I’m sitting in Max’s apartment in Brooklyn. I made the call midday to come down to NY for a party tonight and a set of meetings tomorrow. I’m really glad that I decided to come

My main motivation for coming down was to go to a retirement  party for Nick D. the ‘godfather’ of the IBM technical community. He’s retiring after 44 years at IBM.. including several years up in Burlington. Nick has been a patron and mentor to me and thousands of other technical folks here at IBM. He’s an amazing guy.. I’ve seen him walk into a room of 500 people and know more than half of their names, where they live, what they do.. and even stuff about their families. He’s so smart and so down to earth at the same time..  and so passionate about what we do and who we are. We’re all really going to miss him.  

There were about 300 of us there tonight.. including many friends from all over the place.. I ran into friends brad and carl in the bar.. I knew most of the folks there. It was fun seeing so many freinds in one place.

They had some great old pictures of Nick..

My freind Doug kicked off the program.  Frist Adalio S.  (I think ?) got up and made a presentation to Nick on behalf of hispanic engineers. Then My freind Joanne and I got up and presented Nick with a cool word art thing we’d made for him… Then   there was a live CSPAN segement of Vermont’s Congressional rep, Peter Welch making a proclimation at the US Capital in honor of Nick.

Then Nick’s successors John K and Linda S. got up and announced a new scholarship created in Nicks naeme at hisalma mater of RPI.

Then there were tonsof video tributes form customers, IBM folks and nick’s family.. His grandkids (in vermont) were so cute !

Sam P. made a nice video tribute

As did Lou

Even Nick’s mom did a piece !

Then Nick got up and spoke..  He was inspiring and human as always..  He talked about how much he loved this place.. and you could tell that he really meant it..

Everyone was standing at the end.

As Nick Sat down. they rolled a movie that the guys in Austin had made. It was all IBM execs playing a song  they’d written.. and .. they didn’t suck at all  !.  Tony B. actually played excelelnt lead..

I grabbed this shot of the 4 ‘dancers’ .. Note cousin Mark on the left  (with Helene, Calvin and Brad. I

The party went on for an hour or so, then we all filtered out.. I drove into the city to Max’s .. There was hardly any traffic so it was only about 30 minutes in..   Max and his friends were just hanging out in there very awesme apartment.

Max cooked me a great dinner.. then we all hung out

Then Max cut his own hair.. then some of his  freindshair.. It was fun and bizzare.

Now.. it’s 1AM.. and they are shing Steves head for soem strange reason..   Interesting place !

It’s been reat seeing Max and his freinds.. They have a good life here..

OK.. I gotta sleep.. more tomorrow.. Nite all. Nite Sam !
-me

Sunday night.. I just realize I’ve been sitting in the bathrooom for about 40 minutes reading email … I came in here to take a bath..

But sat here and worked while it got colder and caoder.. I desperately need to soak.. I’m covered head to toe with spackle and caulk..

Speaking of workout.. every boan in my body seems sore.. I’m goign to take a lukewarm bath… ewwwww… Gnite folks.. Nite Sam.. we love you..
-me