Today was tough. I felt really overwhelmed.. everything I tried to do was hurried and incomplete.
I felt like I was running on fumes.. both cars had the same problem.

We were talking to Larry and Leah’s daughter Hannah just befre dinner.. she’d seen the picture of the picture of her that I posted of her the other night.. I asked her to take a picture of the pictue of the picture and send it back to me… So here it is.. round trip…

Ans here’s a picture of the picture of the picture of the picture just for good measure..
(How long can we keep this up, Hannah ? )

I have another set of friends in town as well. Murali, Anand and Mohit (not in this picture) are visiting from Bangalore to work with my firend Ed. We tried to meet up fo lunch.. but they unfortunalty got a bit delayed.. and I had a meeting to go to .. so our meeting was all of 10 minutes… They grabbed my lucnh for me and broght it to IBM.. We were able to get toghether for another 20 minutes later in th day.. and I was able to drink my Thai soup with them afterall.
hese guys are so bright and motivated.. it was inspiring to talk with them !

Here’s Ed looking wise.

I got home too late for Yoga.. LLeah called and asked us out to dinner again.. so as soon as Diane was done, out we went.. there were soem cool storm clouds gathering as we headed out.. We’ve been havign a huge sotrm for the last hour.

We got back around 10:30 to find Gabe playing Spin-art with a fan in his room. That kid is crazy creative.. look at this.. I love it !

Seconds after this shot the pen fell in the spinning fan.. that was pretty cool, too !

Last night Gabe showed me another funny thing. He was sitting there witht he dogs.. and they and him made a perfect valentine heart.. accidentaly .. and he noticed..

OK.. that’s all that’s goign on here.. Hope tomorrow I feel better and more at ease.. I hate being this busy.. Nite all.. nite Sam !

-me

ps. Saw this bumbersticker today.. wierd wording.. great message..

Nice weekend.. I’ve got too much stuff swimming in my head to relax much.. but we did get to see many friends.. so I can’t complain.

Yesterday afternoon we went to friend Patrick’s Eagle scout ceremony thingy.

It was good to see Pat, his family and all those richmond Scout folks.. Max and I had many years fo fun with them so many years ago.. It’s a nice group of folks.. and thay all look good in khaki.

Here’s Owen (aka Eugene).. He had a letter printed in Dear Abbey a few months back !

Brother Abbot… also and eagle scout…

Pat’s sister Elsa looking unboyscoutly

There was a nice short cerimony for Pat. they got his folks up there with him

At one point they had all the eagle scouts in the audience come up and stand behind pat.. I looked out of uniform

As soon as the ceremony was over we had to zoom own to Burlington to meet our out of town friends.. On the way we stopped in to see Max on his last day … actually his last hour… of work.. I think he’s had a good and productive summer…

We met up withour two sets of friends. Larry and Leah from Pittsbugh and Tim and Diane from Connecticut and their two kids Mathew and Katie.. Larry and I went to grad school togeher… he’s now a hot shot profssor at CMU… Leah’s a writer . (first piece published yesterda, congrats Leah !!!) .. and Tim’s an IBM buddy. He’s actually the IBM Corporate Comedian… What’s more we went to rival high schools in Houston (albeit 7 years apart) They’re all really nice follks.. it was cool that they could meet. Hey.. Nicholoas is in the picture too..

We all walked around for a bit… then Tim, Diane and the kids went back to their hotel..

Larry. Leah , Nicholous. Max, Gabe, Ian . Alex, Diane and I went to American Flatbread for dinner…

We also ran into Jesse and Chris H.. they came too. It was quite a crowd. Thought they swarmed out as soon as the Pizza was gone.. leaving us to talk..

Larry whipped out his ultra cool new Iphone and showed us a picture of their daughter at the Muscualr Distrophy camp wh’s a councilor at.. She worked with this cute kid this summer.
Hannah and I go waaaaaaaay back.. we were once picked up by the police driving the wrong way down a one way street.. long story…

We dropped by Dobra Tea on the way home and selected from their 11 billion flavors of tea.. then went home to bed…

This mornign Diane and I had a slow start.. we finally got out for a run around 11.. We went up and did the loop at Hiney Hollow… We took a SamStoen to replace the one we always put near the stream corssing. so far 2 have been picked up there.. I like that.

Diane was cleaver and had brought two good pair of garden clippers.. we spent abut a half hour cutting back soem of the stcker pushes that had grown into the trail… You can now get through there without bleeding !.. It felt good to do some coluntariy trail work like that..

Soeakign about trail work.. soem is badly needed up there.. soemone took a skidder through the wet muck. it was a MESS !

Around 2 Larry and Leah came by the house. Leah and Diane went off for a hike.. Larry and I went out to Homer’s to work on Project x. I could tell that larry liked the place… He enjoyed meeting Homer, too. Homer and I we’re trying to figure out how best to mount the creatures arms to the lift… Larry chipped in with some ideas..

The key problem we have is how to brace the bcreature against wobbling too much or even falling over.. Homer put soem heavy babatries on the lift. raised it to 16 feet then started shaking it.. Ut swayed like a willow. Larry and I were terrified 🙂

Homer had a good idea on using a ladder to stabilize the beast.. It worked.. sort f.. btut we still need to think this out.. We did manage to get one of the creatures pneumatic elbows hooked to the lift and to an electical solenoid.. … in the end we were able to raise the creature and wave an arm.. Sounds like progress to me !

THis is how projects evolve…

We ended up having another nice dinner with Larry and leah.. this time at Joyce’s .. a nice Chineese place near Larry and Leah’s hotel .Another great night…

The only thing that would make it greateer was a full night’s sleep.. and that’s where I’m headed.. Gnite everyone.. Gnite Sam
-me

We took a hike this morning. I decided to write my blog entry in the log book of Duck Brook shelter

Here are soem other quick pictures from our wonderful hike.

Muddy trails !

Beutful beaver pond.. but no beaver today. We were once surprised by a huge beaver here.. He slapped the water only a few feet from us.. It was so loud I jumped !

There are soem great views from this trail… including this good view of camels hump

Duck Brook has some wonderful waterfalls..

It’s a great place to swim… a little cool.. but really refreshing !

Near the end of the hike we came out on the rock ledge overlooking Jonesville.. You can see the roof of the barn they’re taking down. It won’t be there next time we hike !

Love them powerpoles.

What a great hike !

Ooops.. running low on batteries.. many more pictures fro today including Pat M’s eagle scout thingy and great visits with out of town freinds Tim and Diane (and Katie and Matthew) . and Larry and Leah.. . Those pictures and stories tomorrow.. Gnite all. Gnite Sam
-me

First things first.. I’d like to wish a very happy birthday to my dear pa Hugh.. 78 years old today and looking good ! Happy Birthday Dad !

Not a whole lot to report today.. One observation was that it was friggin’ cold this morning
when we went for a run. Even stranger was the look of some of the trees as I drove in and home from work.. What can this mean ?! It couldn’t be.. could it ?!

Work was busy and productive.. Not much to report there. One good thing that happened today was that I ran into a friend of mine who lost a child many years ago. This was the first time we’d ever really talked to each other about grieving and healing. I was telling her how mad I get at myself sometimes for letting myself get stressed and frustrated at work . She re-framed this for me a bit by telling me a story she’d heard at a Compassionate Friends meeting. A woman there told a story about going to work after a tragic loss and hearing a co-worker complain about her dishwasher. The woman was angry and sad that her coworker was complaining about such a trivial thing to her. Several years later… the same woman had a similar problem with her dishwasher.. She too found herself frustrated and complained about it to a co-worker.. She caught herself doing it and started to feel bad for her loss of perspective.. Then a light bulb went off in her head.. she realized it was actually a sign of how far she’d gotten in her healing that her loss no longer overshadowed everything else…

I thought about that story all day… soemthing about it resonated.. soemthing about it didn’t..

Anyway.. the rest of the story was all work and no play. I did have a late afternoon mentoring meeting at Mexecali.. but still had a bunch of work to do. I couldn’t bring myself to drive back to work on such a nice day.. At the same time, I knew that if I headed home, I wouldn’t finish what I needed to do. I compromised.. I stopped at a starbucks and worked there for a couple of hours .. I’ve only seen people do that in movies… But here I am in an actual starbucks ! (and I don’t even drink coffee !)

I don’t go into many Starbucks.. bt this sign on the back exit made me really wonder… I couldn’t figure this out ? What do you think ? Vampires ?

I got home around 6:30.. and we immediately left for Tim and Jens’ We were making Samstonesto give to all the kids who are goign off to college and for me and Max to take to burng man…

Tim cooked .. we ate

Then we all sat down and made 50 pounds of SamStoens in record short time… It was really fun.. One cool thing about this picture is that my camera had run ot of batteries.. I treidseveral times to get at least one shot of the SamStone making.. but no luck.. I thengot the idea to take the battery out of the camera and warm it under my shirt.. I did that for abotu 10 minutes.. and beleive it or not.. that etra warmth gave it enough ooooomph for this one last shot…

Speaking of ooomph.. mines flagging. Time for bed.. More tomorrow. Gnite all./ gnite Sam !
-me