I’m here at an IBM meeting.. Drove down this morning. It was a beautiful day to be driving. Here’s the view f the charles river from my hotel room.. I’m staying just up the street from my old dorm at MIT. This is the hotel that my folks stayed in when I graduated from college. mroe than 25 years ago.. !..
Our meeting doesn’t officially begin until tomorrow. … but my friend David had arraigned for a short tour of the MIT Media Lab. I worked in the precursor to the media lab in the late 70’s and early 80’s . It’s changed quite a bit since then as you would imagine. .. but.. it still had the same sort of cool energy that I remember.
We saw the maings of a machine opera.. where the main character becomes a computerized bookshelf (?!?!?)
a new fold up electrical car !
What a great workspace !
Here’s a gesture operated flecible interface fro making music…
and a real time wind and shadow simulat0r.
and a LADAR contour mapper…
Hre it’s seeing my arm in the field
The ceiling in one lab was covered with pinweels that spun in response to entwork trafic.. (wierd)
The tour was so cool.. it was over just too soon. We walkde out to find some sort of emergence thing goign on. Lucily we were able to back down the street and escape !
I invited my folks o coem out and ea with us.. I coaxed the group inot goign to the ‘Middle East’ a favorite haunt of mine when I weant to school here.. I love the food there. My folks fit right in.. It was great getting them to meet my colleagues and visa versa.
OK.. gotta sleep now. more tomorrow !. Note all.. Nite Sam ! -me
Man , am I beat.. I had so much going this weekend.. and in the middle of it, Diane and I decided to take on a major household project. The funny thing is, I think I got everything I was trying to do done.. That rarely happens with me now.. .. Well whatever we got done.. I’m completely exhausted.. I feel completely empty.. physically and emotionally. .. and somehow peaceful at the same time.
I have a small backlog of pictures that I’d like to post.. I know I’ve been lazy the last 2 days.
Hers a view from Friday.. Richmond is still cut in half by the failign brisge. It might be hard for folks who live elsewhere to appreciate the major effect this bridle closing has on the town.. Our road is the next possible detour.. anf that alone is a 7 mile side trip.. Folks who live on one sie of the bridge are a good 20 minutes from their friends on the other side.. unless the walk across the broken bridge.
As you may recall.. Diane and I had Friday night to hang out in Burlington while Gabe whent to a movie. we ended up sleeping in the car in the parkign garage.. but we did have soem excitement before that…we crused around Borders looking at books. I likeed this ones title.
.. and I even found a CD with Max singing on it.. !
Once the bookstore closed, we went to Dobra tea and had a late night pick me up. I had smoky lapsong suchang… I love the name almost as much as the taste !
Sat. morning.. I had to run over to Sara G. to pick up the pumplin monster’s head.. Sara and her friend Becca are making the decoratins for the beast.. They did a great job with the head !
I ewroked on marrying the creatures jaws to the rest of the head.. so that we can move it to speaking.. I love that kind of work..
Abot 6:30 PM Diane and I started a hike up the Catamount Trail.. Somewhere on that hike we decided to go ahead with teh crown molding project.. We we’re alone wiht no kids.. so .. why not ?!
We headed to Home Depot where another cutomer captured us in American Gothic posture.
We grabbed 10 feet of molding and crammed the 16 foot sections in our car.. CAREFULLY !
We came bck and started working at 10.. THe first job was to tear down the old square milding.. ewwwwwwww huge caps, old plaster.. and g-d knows what else came pouring down on us when we pulled off the old boards.
We worked until abotu 1 putting up the modling. then woke around 7:30 and got right back to it… We hid a buch of SamStonesthroughout the project.
Soem of the old stuff we had to pull down was up there for a centruy or more.. look at this old writing on the back f some old moulding ..
We ended up borrrowing a nailer . another ladder and a mitre saw form Tim.. that made the project easy.. by afternoon we’d finished.. and it really looked great !
Around 6 gabe went to a movie.. and I headed over to Homers. we had to find a way to marry the head to the body.. we had a great work sessions tonight.. the thing is relly looing scary !
Unfortunately.. I manage to burn ot one of the creatures jaw motors when it got jammed.. 🙁 .. Luckily.. I ave a replacement !
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OK.. it’s time for sleep.. if anyone can sleep in this heat.. It’s over 80 degrees here at midnight.. That almost NEVER happens…
You know what else NEVER happens.. me goign to sleep on time.. ok.. time for bed. gnite everyone.. Gnite Sam.. !..
Ok.. the title’s a pun.. we’re doing fine. What I mean is..Diane and I have been putting up crown molding in the living room but we’re using these nifty pre-mitred corners.. and you don’t have to use a coping saw to get the corners to mate. It’s saving aus a bundle of time. The funny thing is we just decided to start this project at about 7:30 tonight.. Gabe decided to go over to Ian’s… so Diane and I had another night to ourselves.. We did what any couple in love might do.. we went to the hardware store… (and ran into our neighbors who were also on a hardware date 🙂 We baugt about 140 linear feet of molding .. and without really knowing what we were doing, we spent abou 3 hours and got about a third of it up.. We stuck soem SamStones behind it for good measure. So far, it looks great ! The catch is.. it’s now getting close to 1:30 and I’m too beat to uplad the pictures.. so that will have to wait for tomorrow… The only other thing of interest I did today was work with Sara G. one of the artists on Project-X.. diane and I picked up the giant pumpkin head that she and Becca had build. I spent about four hours figureing out how to marry the jawbone they’de made to the servo structure we’d built.. By the end of the day I had the creaure tallkign pretty convincingly … and his eyes sparkling eerilie.. He’s goign to be wondrefully creepy.. Anyway.. sorry for now pictures.. more on both projects tomorrow.. For now.. good nite and good dreams.. Nite Sam -me
Another overly busy but uneventful day. Gabe had his first soccer game at 5 today so I left work on the early side.. Though I guess it’s not that early now that I get in by 8. It was a perfect day to be out watching soccer. Gabe is playing on a team with his friend Jack.. He looked good out there today.. He was running well and got 2 impressive head balls. He makes it look pretty easy. I’m glad he’s playing.
It was nice hanging out and talking to the other parents.. Jean and Victor where there ans well as Fran and Kathleen.
Sometimes I forget that Jean and Fran are sisters.. until I see them standing next to each other.
After the game, Diane, Gabe and I went to Bridge street for a quick dinner. We were happy to go there. They need the business since the bridge was closed .. (Subliminal message.. go to bridge street for dinner tomorrow !) ..
We ran into Kasey there.. whose as big as a horse now… He’s been playing football and they keep him pretty busy,..
Check this out.. in Football he got a bruise in the shape of a smiley face !
After dinner I went out to Homer’s to do a little more work on the project-x monser.. We still have a ton to do.. but it’s looking very good. It turns out that Raye is heading out tonight.. so I got to say goodbye to her… Here is Homer , Mary and Raye. Aren’t they cute ?
Well.. that’s all the news that’s news.. gotta sleep now. Tlak to you all tomorrow. Nite Sam.. -me
ps. My friend Charlie took some SamStones to Vienna.. He put soem at my old apartment.. the Erol’s house.. at 43, Graf Starhembergasse Here’s m old place.. !
