3:30 AM.. that’s what the clock said when I woke up last night.. . I’d gone to bed at 12:30. and 3 hours later there I was lying in bed.. wide awake. it was either one of the kids or one of the dogs that made the noise that woke me.. but despite meditating, listening to music and lying quietly.. I just could not fall back asleep. I had way too much on my mind.. After about 30 minutes.. I decided I had to get up and walk around. I went downstairs. then.. went outside for a walk.. It was wonderfully quiet and calm outside.. It was magical to be out walking around then.

About a half hour later. I came back in and sat down and wrote out a massive todo list.. I also wrote a list of all my ongoing projects… andwere they ended up on a fun vs/ importance graph.
The reslut of that was very interesting.. It also made me feel much more restful having written it all down.. out of the mind and into the page. I apologize for having to obscure the names of the project.. but I make it a point of not talking about my work here.

It was about 5 when I got that proritization finsihed.. I walked back upstairs and almost fell asleep again for 30 minites.. then it was time to get up again.. i ‘just’ need to clear some stuff off my plate.

Right now. me and my plate are really tired.. I keep falling asleep as I write. I’m goign to try this sleep thing one more time. Gnite everyone.. G’note Gabe

-me

I’m still in this strange state of having way too much to do.. . not enough time to do it.. and really liking everything I’m doing/ I’m used to being over committed and hating everything I’m doing because of it.

I’m even liking my work quite a bit now.. I’m trying hard not to bring it home with me.. but it’s getting harder to do.. I find myself leaving work when the parking lots like this.. (That’s my prius out there alone)..

2 days ago I got a survey where they were askeing each oft he execs on site to answer questions about work life balance.. It was fun filling it out (I love surveys) .. It was also good thinkign about the ‘balance’ I have now. One of the questions was ‘how many hours do you work a week’. I did soem quick accounting and realized that I’m now down to 55 hours per week.. that’s down from more than 70(counting working at home) where I was before Sam’s passing. That’s pretty cool.. it think. The problem is that I’ve said ‘yes’ to so many cool things inside and outside of work that those 55 hours are not leaving me enough time for …. goofing around.. hangining out, just doing nothing…. or thinking

TANyo make matters more complicated, Max and I just decided that we are goign to Burning man at the end of the month.. We bought our plane and event tickets last night.. Now… why in the world would I take on a major trip like that when I’m already so busy…. on the other hand.. how could I say ‘no’ to going to burning man with my son…

Not sure how to change this… but I need to get it back to sanity.. I went to Marci today.. one of the things we talked about was maybe its just about changing my attitude.. instead of focusing that I have too much to do.. focus that I’m doing so much fun stuff…

I wish it were that easy to shift my perspective……

Anyway… I came home this afternoon to find gabe and justin on bikes pulling Nate around in a wheel chair that Max had found the other day.. It was hilarious, .. and crazy…

Then another 4 hours work session at Homers on the robot project.. tonight we made good progress.. but we have so much more to do. Here’s homer ‘contemplating’

Sara and ‘becca the artists are looking at our animatronic face.. Sara is doing here best evil laugh here and we’re trying to capture it n our faces movements.

Here’s Cesar tweeking the code for the motors.

here’s jana trying to grease the lift that will be the creatures body

These are the solenoid valves that will control the monsters arms.. look at the initials.. SMC.. Sam’s initials/

I got home around 11:30 to find Gabe and Ian hatching a cool plan. They movd the basketball net next to the tramp.. what a cool game.. I got up there and di some killer dunks myself.. That boy is very crazy and clever.

OK.. I have a 7am (yuck) burning man mtg tomorrow morning. Gottasleep.. Nite all. Nite Sam !
-me

Change feels funny to me now.. And change is all around me always. This week our neighbors big red barn is coming down. it’s been about to fall down for some time.. Its not a particularly old barn.. I think it’ s form the mid to late 40’s the old barn that was on the roughly the same spat burned in the 40’s. Still.. I’ve gotten pretty attached to i tin the last 26 years. Believe it or not.. I talk to this barn every time I run by it.. I ask it how it’s doing.. and it asks me how I’m doing. Since Sam’s passing I respond by saying// ‘thanks for asking’. You probably think I’m kidding.. but I never kid.
The big red barn became a landmark in the week after Sept 11 2001. Our friends Bud and Bob (or maybe it was just Bob ?) got out there and put the most amazing american flags on the front and side of the building. I remember watching them paint it one day and thinking that was the most amazing, patriotic and positive thing I remember from that awful week…

They’re taking the barn down gently with the help of Recycle North.. the windows and the siding will all be reincarnated into something else. Building material karma…

I took these pictures yesterday

You know.. I’ve lived here more than 26 years.. and I’ve never stuck my head in this bulding.. here’s the cows eye view of the innards.

I came back today and found they’d gotten the windows and half of the siding out..

So.. I walked over there tonight and asked the barn.. “how are you” This pictures says it all for me… ‘What’s happening to me !?!?”

Well.. It’s good they’re taking the building down.. I know it’s unsafe.. I’ll just miss seeing it..
Good luck my wooden freind. I hope your boards go to soem good use..
Good luct to all of you.. good luck Sam
-me

ps. Folks.. our good friend gary just sent me an amazing song he wrote. he says it was inspired by Sam’s passing.. though it’s not about Sam.. Take a listen.   I think you’ll like it ! 
-me

Blissfully little to report today. It was a great transition day from vacation.. nothing planned.. and not much attempted. Diane and I took the dogs for a run up honey hollow this morning. It was a bright, cool clear morning though it rained most o the rest of the day.

Around 12:30 I drove over the Homer’s to pick up some of the microprocessors I’d left over there the other day. Unfortunately Homer and Mary were not home.. I think they were kayaking.. I grabbed my stuff and came back home.

Buddy and Seth came over at 3 for a work session on the Haunted Forest Project-X project. We’ve been falling a bit behind on our schedule.. A bunch of the intern’s who are helping with the project are about to go back to wherever they came form. i was determined to get the face animatronics done this week in time for our work session with Sara and Becca.. the articts.. on Wednesday night .

We got a ton tun between about 3 and about 11 tonight. Seth Buddy and I finshed the mechanicals for the the face animations including the jaw that moves to sound/voice, moiving eyebrows and lights that flicker and brighten in synch with the sound.

I really enjoy workign with these kids.. they’re shapr prorammers.. It’s fun watching them get familiar witht he joys and limitations of 8 bit microcontrollers.

We broke for a delicous dinner that Diane made… We had a bunch of kids around for one reason oranother.. gabefriends, maxi’s freinds.. my project friends..

Dianemade a mutant vegan pizza.. it looked lik it was ready to explode when she pulled it out of the oven.

Then back to work.. Around 11:00 everythign came together. I’d finished the wiring and Seth had finished the programming. We actually got everything we needed done for ou rwednesday meeting with the artists who are doing the creatures skeleton .

We still have lot sof tuning to do.. but the creatures jaw moves and eyebrows move to sound.. And it’s lighs flicker and brgheen as the sounds changes.. Here’s a low quality first example.. many more to come

If anyone’s interested.. here’s the Arduino code we wrote tongight.. Not beutiful.. but it’s fun to post code in your blog…

---

include ..nterrupt.h> // For interrupt functions cli() abd sei()
include ..o.h> // This file will look for the appropriate header file for the chip being used (ie., iom168.h will be included in our project)
include “Servo.h” // For open source servo library

// Create a count value for the timer to reset to:

static const unsigned char countValue = 6;
int in = 0;
int dimCounter = 0;
int yellowSwitch = 2;
int powerYellow = 0;
int yellowLED = 5;
int redLED = 3;
int inputVal = 0;
int mouthAvg = 0;
int inputTotal = 0;
int eyebrowVal = 0;
int inputArray16;
int i = 0;
int countMouth = 0;
int countEyebrow = 0;
boolean yellowOn = false;

// Make a macro to reset the timer when called:
define RESET_TIMER2 TCNT2 = countValue

// Evil global servo handlers:
Servo mouth;
Servo rightEyebrow;
Servo leftEyebrow;
// Timer 2 ISR:
ISR(TIMER2_OVF_vect)
{
Servo::refresh();
RESET_TIMER2;
}

// Setup timer 2 to trigger an interrupt everytime it rolls over
void Timer2Init(void)
{
//Timer2 Settings: Timer Prescaler /1024
TCCR2B |= 0x07;
// Use normal mode
TCCR2A |= 0x00;
// Use internal clock
ASSR |= 0x00;
//Timer2 Overflow Interrupt Enable
TIMSK2 |= 0x01;
// Reset the timer to whatever TIMER_COUNT is set to:
RESET_TIMER2;
}
void setup()
{
// Initialize timer 2 for operation:
Timer2Init();
// Enable interrupts (cli() will disable them)
sei();
mouth.attach(9);
leftEyebrow.attach(10);
rightEyebrow.attach(11);
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
inputVal = analogRead(in);
inputArraycountMouth = inputVal;
countMouth ++;
if (countMouth == 8)
{
countMouth = 0;
}
inputTotal = 0;
for (i = 0; i <= 7; i ++)
{
inputTotal = inputTotal + inputArrayi;
}
mouthAvg = (inputTotal/2)+80;
mouthAvg = constrain(mouthAvg,80,120);

inputArraycountEyebrow = inputVal;
countEyebrow ++;
if (countEyebrow == 16)
{
countEyebrow = 0;
}
inputTotal = 0;

for (i = 0; i <= 15; i ++)
{
inputTotal = inputTotal + inputArrayi;
}
eyebrowVal = inputTotal;

if(analogRead(yellowSwitch) == 0)
powerYellow++;
if(powerYellow > 0 && powerYellow < 255)
{
dimCounter++;
if(dimCounter % 16 == 0)
{
powerYellow++;
yellowOn = true;
}
}
if(yellowSwitch == LOW && yellowOn)
powerYellow = 0;

if(inputVal>=8 && yellowOn)
{
analogWrite(redLED,random(100));
}
else
{
analogWrite(redLED,0);
}
eyebrowVal = eyebrowVal/16;
analogWrite(yellowLED,powerYellow);
rightEyebrow.write(eyebrowVal);
leftEyebrow.write(150 – eyebrowVal);

mouth.write(mouthAvg);
Serial.print(inputVal);
Serial.print(” “);
Serial.print(eyebrowVal);
Serial.print(” “);
Serial.print(analogRead(yellowSwitch));
Serial.println();
}

---

And there you have it.. the source code for my day.. OK.. I gotta get to selep now.. Gnood night to you all. G’nite Sam !
-me