Yearly Archives: 2008

Wednesday night – fried

Friends,
     It’s almost 11:30 and I still haven’t gotten time to work on my paper tonight.. We had our kick off meeting for next years Burning Man vehicle tonight at Ben’s.. then I had to listen to the debates. It’s late now, so I gotta make this brief. It’s been an absolutely insane week for me and for the world. I guess. This is one of those convergence times when everything seems to be happening at once. So. what’s on my plate for the next 2 days ?

  • multiple crises at work.. some brought on by the global economic crisis.. others just normal planned crisis.. all with deadlines either this week or next.. As always.. I won’t describe them here.. but work is absolutely insane right now
  • my ISSCC paper due on friday..
  • the Projext-X pumpkin guy has to be inslalled at the Haunted Forest on Friday. We’re still working out the kinks in the Wiimote numchuck joystick interfaces that move his arms.
  • the spirometer video game interface I’m doing for UVM medical school and Champlain College is due tomorrow. This si the the thing that will allow kids with resperatory illnesses like Cystic Fybrosis to have more fun while doing their breathing exerciese.. by controlling a video game with their breathing.
  • I’m leading a UVM CS department board of advisors meeting tomorrow
  • Gabe’s last soccer game is tomorrow

It seems I’m forgetting soem stuff on top of all this.. but it’s really not all bad. In fact much of this stuff is really, really fun.. 

  • As big a pain it is to write, I’m really enjoying doign the research for the ISSCC paper…. it’s on the topic of technical education outreach.. which is near to my heart.
  • The project-x pumpkin guy really looks and is working great.. it’s ben so gret workign with Homer, Sara, Becca, Jana, Seth, Berndan Cesar anfd the rest. I can’t beleicve how well this thing came out (so far).. Let’s hope it stays OK for the show !
  • I deleiveerd the working C++ code for the spirometer interface to Prof Joe at Champlain today.. I think h’s all set for Peter B’s demo .. I like workign on aproject like this that may help people. 

When it rains. it pours..  they say…  pour me 🙂

OK..   back to the @$% paper.. Sleep well folks.. Nite Sam
-me

Tuesday night – Andrew Levitt’s birthday

Today my friend Crolyn sent me a pointer to today’s entry in Steven Levitt’s blog. Steven co-wrote the book ‘Freakanomics’ which is one of my all time favorite non-fiction books.   Today would have been Steven’s son Andrew’s 10th birthday. . Andrew died ajustr after his first birthday of meningitis.. His post today was really touching.. he wote..

October 14, 2008,  10:59 am

My Son Andrew Would Have Turned 10 Today

By Steven D. Levitt

.. –> end post-info –>

My son Andrew would have turned 10 today.

I usually try to say a little something about him on the blog around this time of year.

This year, I commemorate Andrew through the words of a new friend, John Latham. In his day job, Latham is a leading climate scientist. He also moonlights as a poet.

I generally don’t have much appreciation for poetry. I have to
admit, when Latham pulled a book of verse he had written out of his
briefcase and handed it to me, I would have told him to keep it if that
hadn’t seemed incredibly rude.

But it turns out that, like me, John Latham had a son who died. The poems in the book, entitled Sailor Boy, are dedicated to his son.

These wonderful poems transported me back to the time of Andrew’s
death in a way I never could have imagined. I would never want to stay
in that state permanently, but nonetheless it is a gift to be able to
go back and visit once in a while. As time passes, it gets harder and
harder to reach that place.

Perhaps my favorite poem in the collection (although it is an odd one) is the one I’ve reproduced here:

Feast

She cuts in before I can explain.
Yes, I recollect your booking:
Three-tier cake. July.
Marinated prawns and quiche.

I say we have to bring it forward.
It wasn’t my reception, but my son’s.
Not his wedding, now.
His funeral.

At last she breaks the silence.
How about some nice pork pies?
Folk eat more when they’re sad.

I hear you laughing.

Andrew, we still miss you every day.

Addendum: Thanks so much to all the kind folks who posted comments below; they were profoundly moving.

I posted a comment there:

  • 20.
    October 14th,
    2008
    2:10 pm

    Steven,
    My friend Carolyn just sent me a pointer to your blog. Thanks so much
    for this post. Our beautiful 14 year old son Sam died in Nov. 2006.
    (see http:….Samstones.org ) Your comment ‘it is a gift to be able to go
    back and visit once in a while.’ rings so true to me.
    As I read about Andrew I had this flash of reading Freakanomics and
    coming to the part about his passing I remember putting the book down
    and crying. I couldn’t imagine then what it would be like to lose a son
    like you had. That was before Sam died. Now I still can’t imagine it..
    if you know what I mean.
    Thanks for the pointer to John Latham’s book. Think he’d mind if I
    include this same poem in the blog I keep for Sam
    (http:….blog.myspace.com/johncohn) tonight?
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts about your son… Happy birthday Andrew
    -jc

    — Posted by john cohn

I was goign to repost that poem.. but I guess I just did….

Happy birthday Andrew,,,
Goodnight firneds
goodnight Sam
-me

Monday nigh – Chai’s birthday

Today is Chai’s fifth birthday.  if you ask me.  I guess that makes her middle aged like me. That’s really hard to believe ..  I think she’s still got some puppy in her.. She’s been such a good friend through the years.   Our running buddy, playmate.. and a warm and furry shoulder to cry on when we needed it.
Gabe decided to make her a cake,. it had hamburger, bologna (where’s he get that  in a house of vegetarians ? ) cheese, peanut butter and 5 dog biscuits on top. I have to admit it smelled pretty good !>

We put one of those blinky LED candles on it.. Gabe ran and got a SamStone for it too…

Then we sang happy birthday.. (boy am I tonedeaf)

..

Both dogs loved the cake.. Gabe has a future as a doggie chef..!

I can still remember when we got Chai.l. it was wnter and we drove up to meet her in Montreal.. She’d flown in from toronto.. she was so tiny.. The boys just love holding her.. Sam really loved her.. and she really loved Sam..

Happy birthday Girl….

Woof woof everybody.. wooof.. arrrrroooooooo Sam
-me

Sunday night – window pain

Today was kinda strange. I had planned ot spend the entire day working on my paper.. but it didn’t work out that way. I got some time on it this morning.. but then we decided to take advantage of the unseasonible warmth to fix a few broken windows in the spare bedroom (strange to call it that because we now we now have 3 spare-ish bedrooms) .. and the two bad breaks in the tower.   There were 3 windows in the spare bedroom. there that had one way or another gotten broken enought to be able to insert a peice of your body through the whole.. not great for dead winter.. While I was in the mood to fix windows, I figured I’d look around for other windows in need of repar.. Beleive it or not, I found 12 window panes thta had some degree of cracking.. none as bad as the aforementioned 5.. 12 broken windows.. sounds like a big deall.. but not when you consider that our house has 530 pains of glass (not counting decorative cubbords or glass in the front of funrinture.. or the yoga studio/garage/lab .. Wait.. now that I think of it, It’s actually 538.. since one of the doors has a window that Sam punched out once when we were goofing around.

Here’s 10 of the broken windows.. the other 2 I forgot to grab pictures of.. because they’re on a bell tower window (and curved – ick)

Diane and I muscled the huge ladder in place and up I went..  the top window I had to replace was about 24 feet up.. Diane looked smaller than ususal

I dug out the old window and   handed it into Diane.. Then cleaned out the old putty..

When they were all cleaned out, Diane handed me out the new glass, and I placed it and stuck it into place withh glazing points.

Finally I squished the putty in .. after I’d wamred it enough to work..

I spent a good hour and a half up at that height.. it was nice and peacful up there… When I came down, we walked up the hill to meet the folks Marcia and Tim wo are buying Justin and Barb’s place. Justin and Barb had a small party for us to all meet the new neighbors.. now that’s a nice seller.. and a nice neiborhood. The new folks are realy nice but//and we’ll miss Barb and Justin.. THey’re not going far, though.

We’ll that’s it for tonight.. back to working on my paper.. More tomorrow… Nite all.. Nite Sam !
-me

Ps. On  the way up to Barb and Justin, Diane spotted this hige spider in the field.. Looked like he was getting ready for winter..