Monthly Archives: November 2008

Saturday night – Druming circle

 

Quiet productive and emotional day. Diane and I spent most of it putting pictures up on our newly painted walls. We have piles o stuff that used to be up on the walls.. now we’re trying to figure what of it goes back up on the walls… what we store.. an what we burn.   As you can imagine, handling these pictures is a deep emotional experience. So many emotions.. happy and sad.. We had to stop a few times just to cry.. It just feels so good to see these things up.

We also hung up our70-ish year old phoen we got in england. It took me over 2 hours to figure out how to wire it into or network. It’s insides arent’ as old as the phone.. from what I can tell. it was rewired in teh 1960s.. It’s cool to talk on it now..

 E

Tonight I had a cool expreience.. My friend(and mailman) Scotty Ravenclaw invited me to a Drumming Cricle and mini-sweatlodge at his yurt. We had a small pot luck before then climed up to the 16 foot yurt up in the woods behind his house..

The ceremony was very cool.. It has four segements,one for each of the cardinal directions. Each direction has it’s totemanimal.. East is the eagle, south is the coyote – the trickster, westthe Bear, the medice man, and north the white buffalo. Each segemnt invoved drumming, chanting and personal prayers from each of the people there.   During each segment, Scotty placed sage and poured water  on rred hot rocks he pulled form the stove. The steam rased the temperature in the room to near 90 degrees. It was a very cool tradition.. We spoke of and meditated on what we needed in our life, the places our heart strings needed to go.. and who in our lives needed strenght. it was the perfect thing to do as I go into theis very difficult week. I  felt Sam very present.

Here are the hot rocks after the ceremony.. (it was pitch black dring the ceremony)

The smudge on one of the support rocks  looked like Sam’s name when I didn’t have my glasses on.. what do you think ?

There was a ton of natice american stuff in the yurt.. it was a comfroatable and special place.

We fnished up around 10.. It was a great expereince.. it would be fun to do again in the real swaet lodge.. those are much smaller,and much hotter. I’ll try yto go to the next one.

I sad good bye to the folks at the ceremony.. Scotty, his son Sam Peter, John and Diane. they were all great folks. I particulalry enjoyed speakign with Johnn He has a bran enjury from his late teens that prevents him from remember ing anything.. Every day is a new expereince fr him.. he’s always in the present.. and an extermely nice and wise person. Whata cool hono r to meet him.. and all the folks at the ceremony.

On the drive home I had to stpp twice.. irest to usher this frog out of my way.. then to scre off a large herd f deer on the street.

It was wierd driving home whit this weathr.. 64 degrees  at 10 PM !.. That could be a summer evening !

Summer evening or almost winter.. It’s late now. Diane, Gabe and I watched a very dumb movie (the promotion) which we started around 1030 We all sat and watched it on Sam’s bed.. and it still is Sam’s bed.   Now I’m too tired to keep my eyes open.. I gotta sign off for today !

nite all. good night Sam !We love you !
-me

Thursday night – virtual

I had a curious day. I spent a good deal of it meeting with people all over the world in a variety of online tools like second life.  I spent a good part of last night and this mornign just trying to get the stuff to run…

Finally SL is supposed to allow people to interact in a make believe 3d space where they can talk and watch presentations. It’ a pretty interesting piece of technology..Many folks love it, but I find it disorienting and weird..  I think I’m a luddite…

I have to admit it’s a cool to see how people choose to represent themselves in the virtual world. For example, I ran into a guy I know named Craig who’s  virtual avatar is an attractive woman with a spear and flying boots that shoot flames..

Here I am

Here I am wiht my friends Suzi (th fish), Susan (the elf), and tom

Here’s a sky view of our meeting room.. prety empty at 11PM .

Here’s Tom.. from Nebraska

Here’s Suzi (sometimes she’s a motorcycle)

I finally came back to this world…. I ran into my friend Paul. His son Nick designed a shirt and a skateboard in honor of Sam and sold them at his school. He made $387 dollars fo rthe Sam Cohn fund. Paul gave me one of the shirts.. It’s so cool. I think it’s socool that Nick did this for Sam.

I finally got out of work around 6:30..I headed out to Monkon to our 2nd meetign of the Duane’s  World  Burning Man Car association. We had an absolutly wonderful planning meeting fo rthe car… I think we have a good design… It’s goign to be a 20 footferris wheel made of couches pulled by a tractor.. Sound Fun ? I think this is goign to be fun to make !!!

OK.. I cna barely keep my eyes open.. More tomorrow.. Nite folks ! Nite Sam !
-me

Wednesday – love fun

So… I’ve been thinking about how to get back in the cosmic groove that I so much need to be in. I’ve had several good friends point out to me recently how I seem to be constantly  justifying  to myself  why my situation and mindset have to be just the way they are. I’m realizing that I’ve become much less open to the world in the last year. This time last year,we were struggling as we approached the first anniversary of Sam’s passing.. even so, I felt open and alive. I was determined to take my grief and hammer it into something good and useful for me and the world. I put that intention out there and a mountian of possibilities and opportunites showed up. It happened in just about every facet of my life. Just in the area of workign with kids and science a ton of things opened up::e,g,  the champlain project, the echo porjects, the UVM Board, the ISCAS and ISCCC  conference invitations, burning man with Max, the pumpkin project, the breathing game with UVM and Champlain. 
   THis year I’m approachign this sad time feeling much more subdued and .. I don’t know.. dull ? .. I’v ebeen thing a bunch about it.. in fact.. I’m taking the next 2 weeks off form work to think about nothing else… My gaol is to get back in touch with what I need to be doing.. and what I want to be doing..   I’m feelign better just by making that committemnet to think about these things…
    I was lying in bed last night thinking about it when a small insight popped into my head. I was htinkign about the short TV interview that WCAX did of me abotu doing the Huanted Forest Pumpkin guy as a tribbute t Sam.. The last thing I said in that interview was “… at it’s essense, life is about love and fun… really ”  .. Now there’s something fr me to think about..  Right now though.. I gotta sleep
Nite all.. Nite Sam !
-me

Monday night – my generation

I’m just home from a very interesting  VoMIT (Vermont’s Own MIT) club meeting.   VoMIT is my faorite collection of geeks and nerds in the state.. no make that the whole world.  Every couple of months we get together and do something really geeky. This  meeting was at Green Mountain Power’s hydro generation plan on the Winooski River near the IBM plant. I’ve been driving by this place for nearly 30 years and never really looked at it. I got there tonight around 6 and drove down the long driveway to the generation station . Walked in .. the nosie was deafening..

There were abotu 20 of the VoMIT members collected on a narrow stage overlooking the generator floor..

It was incredibly cool and beutiful.. About 30 feet below on the gleaming wooden floor were four of the cutest turbine’s you ever did see.. Each of them humming along merrily as it pumbed out 2 megawatts of electricity.  (For the record, the 8 megawats the plant puts out  is roughly 1/50th of the nominal power required to run the state of vermont.. or even more sobering.. it’s about 1/7th the power needed to run IBM just across the street)

What was so amazing is that these machines datedd from 1915 (!) and
were still pumping out power ! It looked like soemthing out of an old
scifi movie.. kinda steampunk .I just loved it..

Note the patents on this werefrom 1899 !

Here’s one of the four penstocks that carry the water to teh turbine… It was huge !

here are the carbon brushed that feed the power to the armature.

Here’s the governor that regulates the speed and power output.

Here are the new backup generators used to fill in demand when the water is low.

GMP  ex-CEO and Chairmon fo the Board Chris Dutton was out host. he gave us an excellenthistory of the place and an overview of Vermonts energy past and futre. He ws a great speaker and great host. I sat across from im at dinner and really enjoyed speaking with him and his wife.

Here’s Gary. a GMP tec whos’s been workign in this plant for more than 37 years !.. He explained all the technical details of the pant to us..

After the tour we all went our to dinener.. it was a really fun and relaxing night. Well. my gneerators running a bit low now.. so I’ll sign off.. nite folks.. Nite Sam
-me