Yearly Archives: 2008

Tuesday night – the desert

What a full day… It’s only 10:30 and both Diane and I are trying to stay awake.. me to write.. her to read.   We woke around 5:30 due to the time change.. then we went for a wonderful longish run down a gravel track along one of the river canals.. It was cool running through the neighborhoods around Phoenix. Many folks have cactus gardens instead of lawns.. work for me !

Around 7:30 we wandered over to breakfast and from there into the kick-off section of the CTRE conference. As always the conference stuff was superb.. Great speakers and good fun. This year the conference has about 1000 folks and is being emceed by my friend Doug. He and his team made a cool IBM video that described the reach of the company and all the countries we work in… He managed to hide an image of a SamStone in the movie. It as so cool !!1!!!  I’ll get a copy of it and post it when I do !  It was so nice of him that I really got choked up.

There was a great speaker(Franz Johansen_ as well as a bunch of awards given out. Near the end of the session. Sam P.. our CEO came out and gave a short. great talk about the state of the company. He was in a really great mood… and did a wonderful job of outlining the companies good health.

After his speach. Sam introduced the new crop of IBM fellows.. There were 9 this year.. more than any other year in the companies history.. After accounting for retirements.. I think this now makes it 67 active IBM fllows. 

I was asked to do a quick video interview with each of them in the spirit of an academy awards paparazzi. We even had our own red bathmat to act as a red carpet.

After the session and a brief lunch, we all broke up into a bunch of different recreation activities. Diane and I had signed up for ‘vigorous hiking’ .. We got on a bus with a bunch of friends and drove only 15 minutes t the base of a range of hills.  The hike was rugged.. but not particularly steep or fast. We had a good time looking around and talking to your friends. .

We saw some great flora of the sonoran dessert. Take a look at the top of this flowering saguaro.

And this retired watermelon

Here’s the nasty jumping churros.. The common churrs had detachable seed pods that propagate when an animal get son in his/her skin n and cant get it  out.

Kerrie got one of the little creatures in his leg…

I’m getting too tired to stay awake again !

We put a few SamStones in the desert with  full guides permission…

We eventually wound ourselves back to the staring place.   The ride back was quick. We took advantage of our early return to sneak a peek of Glen and Liesel’s new baby ‘Sam’.. sh is so adorable.. and named.. albeit indirectly… after our Sam.. It was just wonderful to meet her.

We then went back tot he quiet zone and had a up of tea.. I ran into Georg.. the Nobel Prize winner for his creation of atomic force microscopy.

Here’s Glehhhhhn..

Here’s wonderful Joan C. the boss of this whole event. . she’s retiring at the end of this event.. not sure how we’re fill her shoes !

Later that evening Glenn, Leisel , Diane and I were picked up at our hotel  and dropped off at a good Indian restaurant. I was sitting there talkign to them about Ruchir’s pratha-making skills when he came in the front door. We pulled up another table and all ate together.It was truly lovely !

Here’s aanika

And here’s isha

Well folks time to sleep.. I’ve fallen asleep 5 times as I’ve tried to write.
I will do some more to flesh in details of tomorrows event… if I can stay awake !

OK.. that’s it for now.. more tomorrow.. We love you Sam !
– me

Monday night – phoenix

We woke at at 4Am to catch our 6AM plane this morning. I say ‘woke up’.. bu I cant really recall having been asleep. we showered quickly and left the house by 4:30.. It was cool being up that early.. it was pitch black when we walked out the door.

The flight out here was uneventful.. I know I slept some because the 5 hour flight from JFK to Phoenix hardly felt like anything.   Another plane was landing on a parallel runway as we came in…

Phoynexp Sky Harbor airport is know for it’s hospitality and friendliness. But I wonder how they were able to ascertain that it was indeed the friendliest.  .

We caught the shuttle over to the Biultmore.. It’s a large rambling building of art neuvue.. with lots of western themes woven into it.

The grounds of the hotel are like a tropical garden.Flowers and oranges everywhere…

Even the pool had some cool looking outbuildings !

Around 7 we shuffled back out to the central court for the CTRE welcome dinner. In the distance we could see this cool lone maintain. I understand that we’ll be climbing it tomorrow morning..

After dinner we went into the quiet zone.. They asked me to tape a short video segment where I thanked Diane for help They were asking lots of folks to .make similar segments. It’ll be interesting to see what they get…


Speaking of quiet zone.. I can no longer keep my eyes open. Tomorrow will be an early session.. so I’ll need to sleep now.. much more tomorrow.. gnite Sam. goodnight everyone..!

love -me

Sunday night – mother’s day

It was a beautiful Mother’s day today… cool, sunny.. dry. mostly happy with scattered sadness. We  started the day with breakfast outside that  had been delivered for Diane as part of a school fundraiser for the Schoolhouse alternative school We had fresh croissants, nutella, cheese, rolls.. yum.  

Then  gave Diane her Mother’s day presents.. we always give her stuff for the garden. the boys picked everything out this year. She got white clematis, perennial daisy’s, bleeding hearts, petunias, impatiens, globe flowers, and bluebells.

W also got her something from Sam.. i asked the gy at the nursery if they had any plants that began with ‘s-a-m-…’.. He thought fro a bit then told me that the genus for  Elderberry’s is ‘Sambuccus’ .. So we got her a Black Beauty Elderberry

In the the early afternoon we all took a picnic hike in the woods up in Honey Hollow. . It was a great day for a hike..

We did a nice loop up the logging roads, then settled in a nice spot for our picnic.. I had brought a ton of food.. since it was easier than deciding what we wanted to eat !  We toasted Diane.. and toasted Sam with the chocolates we’d brought

Gabe took advantage of some of the spare foil to make a hat to keep the aliens from reading his thoughts.. good thinking !

Diane put one of the  SamStones in a nearby tree.

Gabe wanted to put one way up in a tree. We couldn’t find a good climbing tree, so we wrapped one of the SamStones in foil, bent down a tall sapling and wrapped the foil around it..

Then gabe goutned to 3 and let go.. tthe tree snapped up again with the samstone now about 20 feet in the air !

Chai and Satori had a great day up there two.. they were playing in the mud !.. ewwww

We came home finished packing for the trip Diane and I are taking..  We spoke to our Moms. and sent them our love..  I know mother’s day will have a mix of happiness and sadness for both of them, too..

Later in the evening we all went out for a great dinner at Mexicali..

It was a great day.. Diane is such a wonderful mother.. it was nice to spend the day thinking of that.. It’s … well.. it’s different being a mother.. or a dad.. now since Sam’s passing. Yet he’s so much here with us on days like today…. He’s here with us always..

Happy mothers day Diane.. All your guys love you so much.. We know oyu do, Sam

-me

Saturday night – corrections

Well… my photo site is down for a few hours.. so no new pictures for this evening.. I think I’ll do what newspapers sometimes do every once in a while.. I’ll run a few correction notices.

Corrections:

In the spirit of journalistic integrity, my vast staff has  poured over the recent content of this blog and found the following important discrepancies.
Tonight I will do my best to set the record straight. 


1) It’s been pointed out to the author by his beautiful wife that on the blog entry from May 1st, I mistakenly called a camel a dromedary and a dromedary a camel.,.. Here for the record is the camel

and here is our friend Otis the dromedary

The editors would like to apologize to both animals and hope this mix up caused them no inconvenience or crises of identity.

2) On April 24th  I reported that I had removed about 30 old bottles of wine when we cleaned our cupboard. I just checked it was actually 25 bottles..

3) On April 14th I said that I got 85% of the Sex Pistols ‘G-d Save The Queen’ correct in Guitar Hero..  with a string of 83 correct notes. I now realize I had those numbers reversed. I had 83% correct with 85 notes played correctly.

4) On April 29th I notice that the picture labeled ‘digital ICs’ , The chip showing through the front cover is actually not a digital IC at all, it’s an analog LM565 phased-locked-loop chip. I guess this isn’t a journalistic problem, it’s more of a sorting problem..

5) On March 21st I reported that it was ‘nice and kinda sad’ being in this house alone for the night . I was mistaken. it was actually ‘nice and very sad.’

And that completes the list of know corrections . Again, I apologize if any of these factual errors cased anyone distress

OK… so that was pretty random 🙂 but it gave me something to do until my photosite came up.. Here are some fresh pictures for our day.

It was such a beautiful day today.. It was a pleasure to be outside.. Diane and  each had less than 4 hours sleep. She got home from Springfield last night at about 2:30 and I was still up working.. Satori woke us both at 6.. ugh.. but she’s so cute !.. We drove up to Milton around 12:30 for Gabe’s Lacrosse games..
They had two tough opponents (i.e. they lost both games) .. but the guys played well. Gabe got 3 of the 5 goals they scored all day.. he’s really looking good.. He’s also half a head taller than most of his teammates. He’s really shooting up He’s such a great kid !

Before we left the field I went over and placed a SamStone under the old wooden skateboard halfpipe. I remember several cold, wet days standing under that thing watching Sam play lacrosse here. It was a good spot for the stone.

Our buddy Tim grabbed a skateboard and dropped in just for fun. he’s such a kid.

It was fun hanging out with Tim, Wendy, Vivian and Zion (not shown here) while Gabe and Ellis, Time and Wendy’s other son, played.. Wendy even fed us while we watched the game !

After the game, we headed home.. Gina and Matt stopped by to give Diane some mother’s day flower.. we thought they matched Gabe’s shirt !

round 7 we went up to the Jen and Tim’s for a cook out.. There were some tofu thingys in there as well. Tim’s Cousin Alcid and his wife also came buy. itwas good talkign to the. It was a really nice evening !

One startling discovery was that we realized that Gabe is now taller than Marie !

OK.. gotta get some sleep. Tomorrow is mothers day.. An advance happy mothers day to all you mothers out there.. Happy mothers day to my mom Judy and Diane’s mom Marcia .. And to my wonderful Diane.. we all love you.. I know that you do Sam !.. you show us every day.
-me