I woke this morning in Pittsburgh.. showered quickly and drove to the airport. I got to the airport with none o the delays I had anticipated which gave me more than an hour of wandering around time. One of the the things I wanted to see in the airport was the doorway that my friend Mike (the one from yesterday’s blog) had designer here nearly 20 years ago.. Amazingly, it was just down from my gate. I remember seeing all these models of this structure on Mike’s desk. He agonized over the design and worked out every detail. Should the blue be on the right.. or the left ? That process made me realize how much thought goes into everything in our daily life.. Everything man made thing we touch or see was designed by someone..

I worked hard on the flight to JFK.. IA few min after I got off the plane I ran into my friend Tina. She’s from Austin.. We work together closely on a number of IBM projects. It was great running into her because we had several things to talk about.. It really is a very small world.

I got back to Burlington around 4.. then had a couple of phone meetings in the afternoon. By around 5 I was pretty beat.. so I headed home. Ave, Kevin and Nate stopped by just as I got home just to say ‘hi’ They’re on their way tot eh homecoming bonfire at school.. Sam belongs there, too.

Diane, Gabe and I decided to go to the Burlingotn Art Hop this evening. it’s an annual collection of local artists and shops. We staryed at JDK.. and worked our way basically south.

At JDK we met David’s good friend Marshall..who’s a painter. . There’s a certain resemblemnce.. no ?

We stopped at Church and maple and saw some of my good freinds from Champlain who were demoing thier wares.. Her’s Brian.. fresh back from South Africa.

Mike man was there..

As were Awesome and Alex.

We wondered from there down pine street. Most every shop and buliding had soem thing goign for the art hop It was a lttle like a microscopic comercial version of burning man ! There were art instalations. cosutmes, etc.

Here’s a funny group doing a movie using paper rollers which they accompanied with home made folk music. . i think this song was called ‘Jesus goes to Gitmo’
It was pretty strange and funny.

Thereywere still a few hours off of metling so we wandered down pine streed. We ran intoold frineds Robin and Sandy. It wsa Robin’s birthday. We hadnt seen each other in maybe 15 years.. whihc would make me pretty hard to recognize.

From there we toured a few gallerys and stores..

In one exhibit I saw this woman with a funny logo:

We then made the long hike to see the tail end of the fashion event. We went tehre also to meeteup with Tim and Jen..

Tim and Jen’s daughter Marie was on of the models.. she looked good !

From there we went back to the iron pour, but the furnace was still not up to speed. I saw many of my old iron pour friends there.. It was great to see Matt.

And Thea …

We just couldn’t wait for the pour, so we packed up and headed home.. right past the fire dancers..

I tell you .. this really is a bit like a scaled back burning man. lights. pvideo. techno music the works.

OK.. I really need to sleep .. More tomorrow.. Gnite all.. Gnite Sam !
-jc

Tonight I’m writing from Pittsburgh. I was invited down to speak at the 25th anniversary of the CMU CAD Center.. the place I did my doctoral work. It was a really nice invitation… I was glad to go since the program and it’s members were such a big help to me over the years.

To make that work.. I had to leave the house today at 4:30 AM.. yuck ..

It was cool to be coming back to Pittsburgh. Diane , Max and I lived here from 1988 through 1991.. Max was 5 weeks old when we first got here.. In fact.. I think I started grad school here exactly 20 years ago today !

The city looked unchanged

I took several work calls.. then had a luch break… I used it to go find our old house at 2331 Pittock. It looked great.. as did the neigborhood. No on one was home.. so I just lefet a SamStone there.

THen I stopped by the University of Pittsburgh Fine Arts bldg.. I snuck up on my old friend Mike who’s a professor there. We hadn’t seen each other since Sam’s death. He had one of the Sam cards sitting on his desk

I also liked looking at Mike’s art.. seeing these pictures now shows me just how beat my camera is now.. These paitings actually have really nice colors.

At that point it was time to head to my meeting. i drove back across the bridge to CMU.. From there I got a great

I parked the car then met up with JohnL and Shun.. we walked back across campuss to the meetings.

I was very, very surprised to see this right inside the front door at Hammershlagh. It was both nice and freaky to see my name and picture there right as you come in. I think it’s been there quite awhile. The publicity flt a little creepy.. but I did like the call to do school outreach. that was worked into the article.

We went upstairs and immediatly started seeing our frinds. Wojtek dragged me over to see a plot of my first class project chip (and it worked !)

I then checked out my advisor Rob’s new digs.. snazzy !

THen I went upstairs to see my old offic.e.. I stuck a SamStone on the window I used to stare out of.

Then it was time for the meeting… ther ewere more than a 100 folks there.. Here’s Diana and her friend from Intel.

My friend Bill from IBM who lives nearby here.

Bill. Dave and Steve D.

Tamal and Saul

why good freind Bill J !!!!

Me and Tom S.. whom I havents seen iun about 17 years ?

Then came the speaches… Firstup was Prof Steve Director , He was the first Cad center head.

And there’s always Roxxy !

Next up was Larry S..,. CEO for the SRC.

THen Ralph C.. who talked about the successes between the the SRC and CMU.

Then Shawn Blanton, the head of the center gave a good talk.. Then it was mine turn.

My talk went pretty well (I think).. short.. and maybe a little funny. I ended by asking all the folks there to consider doing volunteer outreach .. It felt karmically good to ask them.

Larry, Leah and Hannah were there.

Then we all walked over to Phipps conservatory for a great meal amoung the orchids..

Here’s our rowdy table.

Here’s John M

Dinner was great all round.. great company. great conversation, great food. I’m so glad I came !

Then we walked back across campus to get our cars.

Several of us returned then to the hotel bar..They had wall to wall McCains i.

I had an iron cirty.. ‘what was I thinking !?!) Unfortunately it tased like I rembererd it. : You can’t keep an Iron man down” they said that right !

Afterwards, Jay and I sat around talking about his book had the attached Wiki. He has this cool thing going on.

OK.. tjat’s it for tonight.. I am falling asleep at the keyboard.. More tomorrow. Gnite All.. Gnite Sam !

Home again home again… jiggedy-jig. Burning Man was great.., but It’s so nice to be back here with Diane and Gabe in cool lush Vermont. Today is labor day.. and I did nothing of the sort.. we spent the day chilling out. More on that in a bit. I wanted to share a few pics from our last day (sat) at Burning Man.

The big news on Sat was the sandstorm. It started around noon and lasted unitl just after 8. It was unbelivablly cool to walk around as the milky dust swirled around us. At time you couldn’t see 15 feet in front of you. At one point I walked about 20 yards out into the playa and found thta I couldn’t see anything.. not a person. not a camp… nothing but milky whiteness and howling wind.. I even managed to get lost trying to retrace my steps back to esplanade..

The wind wsa so firece thta it trashed many folks campsites…

It tried to take us down.. but we survied.. Here’s Max and my tent at one point in the storm..

We did loose our tarp at two points ..

Sara and Jeff dind’t seem to mind

Max and I cruised around in the storm just checking it out.

He looks good with a touch of grey !

Yeah… right..

At one point feerless leader Ben dragged us out in the storm to serve blender drinks at 4:30 and Esplenade. It was cool working there.. people just appeared out of the grey.. Our drinks were nuch appreciated !

The drink stand was fully personed.. so Max and I wandered out to explore soem more. We stopped in on my friends Jeff and Michelle.. they were doing a bizzarre craft experiment that I can’t really go into here.. But.. it was great hanging out with them and their friends Shelby, underwear-dude and Ben..

We finally braved the storm and went back home for dinner. We passed this parade on the way

Ben was on for dinner.. and really outdid himself.. cous-cous salad with capers.. tuna stuff and gralic bread.. and fresh waffles for dessert. It was really good.. We left a plate on Duane’s belly so he could eat it when he woke up.

Neighbor Woody dropped by with a shirt he’d made,, cool and spooky. He sort of adopted us after I picked the lock on his cars bike rack for him.

Then we took off for the Burn.. It had been put on hold because of the dust storm.. but the wind died.. and we we’re back on ! We were right up on the perimiter at about 3:00.. The art cars were all out behind us. We all sat down.. nearly 50 thaousand folks sitting out in the desert waiting for an 80 foot wooden man to be burned to the ground..

The brrn started at about 10..

First on came the lights.

Then fireworks.. lots of them…

Then a few massive explosions ..

Then more fireworks !

the Man was really burning at that point.

The air was thick with sparks.. We were showered with burning embers.

And then…… he stared to go down.. first an arm.. then the other. then the pedestal just toppled..

The crowd roared.. and surged forward…

Unfortunately.. in th e rush.. Max lost his camer and all of his pictures… We spent about 30 minutes looking for it.. then decided it must have been picked up. It was a hard blow.. and took th wind out of us for a while.. We walked in and put a lost and found request on the camp computer. Max was amazing and managed to shake it off .. The two of us walked back out to the man then walked over to the temple.. Once again that was an emotianl experience.. I was glad to be sharing it there with Max. I wish we’d been able to hang out on Sunday and watch them burn the temple.. they do that silently..

We walked aroudn the playa and saw soem of the art that’s in the far north..

Including theis buildig sized Tetris game..

Then we clibed the 10 story tower of babble . I took this 240 degree snapshot from the top using several pictures. This is what the lights of camp look like from 12 oclock .. As you can see, the playa is pretty big.

Then we walked home… It was about 2:30 at that point.. max went out again to find freinds and dance.. .I took a shower under the stas then managed to get 2 hours of sleep. I woke at 5 ,, and finished the packing. max came hoem at sun-up and helped me strike the tent and pack the car.. We left Duane’s World and Burning Man at 6AM .. it took us 30 min just to reach the gate of Black Rock City.. then about 2 hours back to Reno..

It was Pierre driving with Warren, Dal , Max and me as passnegers.. Very interesting conversations in the car . Pierre gave us another lesson in Matte making. I was the servador and served my car mates with mattee. Dal told us about his run for the presidency 4 years ago.. and his efforts to use his film projects as a tool to broker peace deals in Iraq. He also told us some more of his love life.. He’s a fascinating guy..

Pierre dropped us off at the airport and took the car to wash it. We all checked in and had most higly awaited breakfast .. THen.. it was time to say good bye.. It ws actually quite hard for me.. We all shook hands/hugged.. then Warren headed of to Seattlle.. Dal to Denvor .. (for the Republican convention.. as an ultra-leberal guest.. ) … a

Max and I went over to wait and ran into several other burners on their way back.. here are Wanda (chicago) and Heather. (amhurst) .

And soem nameless burners tring to recover on the floor

They had a great display for bruning man in the Reno Airport.. This case had a display of gifts folks had given out in prior years.

It cried out for a SamStone.. Luckily.. I had my lock picks.. max made a diversion while I popped the two locks, put int the samstone.. then locked it back up.. You know, Lock picking may well be the most useful thing I learned as an undergrduate..

I had to run to the Bathroom again.. I got in there and noticed that the urinals were missing.. uh–oh.. wrong bathroom.. I sprinted out just as tow women were coming in..

Then it was time for Max to go back to brooklyn and Pierre to head to the west coast.. and then back to his home in Georgia..

Just as those guys turned the corner, I had one of those uber-small world things happen that occur always in my life. My firends Al and Andrea and there kids walked by.. and they hadne’d been at burning man.. they’d just been out vacationing .. Wierder still, ndrea said that Al was now becoming obsessed with making high technology art.. I see joint projects in our future.. (Bob M. I can only imagine what you’re going to suggest..I’m sure I’ll hear from you tomorrow. . 🙂

the flight back was pretty easy.. there were some nice views as we took off after our short stop in Vegas. Here’s the ‘strip’

I got to albany around 10:30 got my car, grabbed soem food then started the ride back to VT. Igot hoem around 1:30.. pretty beat, but happy. I gave Diane a hug then fell asleep untill nearly 11 the next morning…