Tuesday evening – three short stories for tax day

Hey friends.. happy tax day..   Diane just reminded me.. no Guitar Hero until I’ve finished blogging… I have three wierd and disconnected short stories  for you about conincidences… just like my day.. wierd and disconnected.. .

The first is probably only interesting to me. I looked at my calendar today and realized that I had back-to-back meetings with people named ‘Tim Farrell’.. One a freind and senior chip scientist in East Fishkill, NY and the other, my buddy Tim, the chiropracter. I don’t know whay that struck me as so odd.. maybe because that’s not such a common name.

OK.. second story… Our Van turned 100,000 miles today.. in our driveway.. OK.. so   gave it a little help. I noticed it was at 99990 last night.. so I took Gabe to school this morning.. and did 4 laps from our driveway to the Willis’s driveway to make it land exactly on 100000 . I was actually able to capture the change on  video .   For some reason, changes involving  numbers like that have huge significance for me.  It’s linked to the part of me that thinks all things have souls of some kind… After all.. a lot happens in a car…they can take you to births, to picnics.. .. and to memorial services. We’ve been through so much in this one.

I toasted the car with a cerimonial Red Bull to honor it’s birthday..  

Thank you DTB 241

For the record.. I still carry the key to my first car.. a ’71 volkswagen camper named maggie..    Here she is.. I hope she’s still haling hippies somewhere in California.

It reminds me of the song “Long May You Run: .. a love song that Neal Yong wrote for one ohis old cars

Long May You Run
by Neil Young

Weve been through some things together
With trunks of memories still to come
We found things to do in stormy weather
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes have come
With your chrome heart shining in the sun
Long may you run.

Well, it was back in blind river in 1962
When I last saw you alive
But we missed that shift on the long decline
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes have come
With your chrome heart shining in the sun
Long may you run.

Maybe the beach boys have got you now
With those waves singing caroline no
Rollin down that empty ocean road
Gettin to the surf on time.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes have come
With your chrome heart shining in the sun
Long may you run.

OK.. here’s the third story.. and it’s the strangest and coolest. This morning I was talking to my friend Marc at work.Marc and his wife Peggy have always been adventurous travelers . Marc was telling me about the  trip that they had just taken to Antarctica in March. He mentioned that their boat had stopped in South Georgia Island off the coast of Antarctica .

I realized that I’d never told Marc about SamStones. I told him that friends of our our friends Jeanne’s mom  had visited South Georgia  Island  last year and had left a SamStone on Shackelton’s grave. Marc looked at me a sec and told me that he had a bunch of pictures of Shakleton’s grave. About 30 minutes later he sent me the following picture. Take a look in the lower left.. . I was actually able to enlarge that part of the picture… looks familiar.. no ?  Marc had never even noticed the stone in his picture before this. Is this a small world.. or what.. Sam’s spirit is truly everywhere..

OK.. I gotta sleep now. Hope all your taxes are in.. Talk to you tomorrow.. Gnite Sam
-me

Monday evening – breakthrough

I was out of sorts all weekend … angry and sad even though we had a bunch of fun stuff going on. It happens …..     The funny thing is my mood didn’t shift until Gabe sat me down and told me he was going to teach me Guitar Hero..

Now.. you must understand how strange it is for me.. I thing about video games all the time.. I work on the processors, I talk about their technology.. but secretly.. I just don’t ‘get’ video games of any sort. Maybe I lack the eye hand coordination.. or the attention span.. but I’ve never, ever, ever enjoyed holding a game controller in my hand.  (sorry EMC friends.. I’m from another planet, I guess) .. Anyway.. Gabe stuck the Guitar Hero controller in my hand and switched the thing to sub-pre-beginner-neub mode..   He let me pick a song.. Well.. first problem.. no Mozart… OK.. what’s the next best thing. I selected ‘Anarchy in the UK’ from the Sex Pistols from 1976. I have a big attachment to the song dating back to 1991 when I was writing my  thesis in Pittsburgh.. It was a hot August day.. I hadn’t slept in 2 days.. the windows were open..and I was busy writing. Suddenly my elderly neighbors put on Frank Sinatra at eardrum splitting volume… I tried closing the window… but it was too hot.. I ended up putting on this song at full volume   to neutralize the Sinatraism…

Anyway.. Gabe showed me how to work the controller.. and started the song..  First I got a few notes then lost it… failure.. then I got a few more… then a few more… I kept going back and re-starting the program.. Well gentle readers.. I  ended the evening with 85% correct and  a string of 83 correct notes .. Yeah. It was still on easy.. but somehow it felt like a breakthrough..   It was all I could think of today. I felt much better… like I could do anything…   Actually the only thing daring I tried today is that I ran my morning jogging loop backward… not much of a step.. I know… but it was progress… It was stepping out of my rut a bit.. and in that, it was also a breakthrough…

OK.. Gotta sleep now… (actually gotta go play Guitar Hero)  See you folks.. Nite Sam
-me

Sunday evening – Birthdays and other passages

Yesterday I told folks that it was my sister SPG’s birthday. I can’t believe it, but I just found this picture from when she was 3 or 4 day old… Se still looks a lot like this. For those who are wondering… I’m the guy on the left.. I shaved  for the picture. The other guy is my adorable brother, bizzy-wizzy-woo-woo . Happy brthday again SPG…

I didn’t realize it until last night, but our friend Adah shares SPG’s birthday. Adah is the oldest heir of the vast Talent Skatepark legacy.. We met Adah, her folks Hannah D. and Dave and her baby sister Senya up at Deb’s last night for falafel and barbecue.  Adah loves horses… so Hannah T. made her a cute cake in the shape of a horse.
Adah loved her presents.. she even got a cool stick pony.

Here’s baby Senya

As always it was great being up there with folks…

I woke today feeling pretty low.. It’s amazing how much more linked my sense of the world is to the weather these days.. It was rainy and raw with periods of snow.. We all hung low this morning and stayed inside   Gabe had two friends over. . Around noon we finally escaped the house. We dropped Gabe off at a movie, dropped off Gabe’s friends and went back to join the tail end of Barbara P’s going away reception.

After 18 years, Barbara is leaving her position as paster  (priest ? minister ?, chaplain ? guru ? . what do Congregationalists have ?  of the Richmond Congo church. She’s joining the VT National Guard  to minister to the families of folks in Iraq.

She is so loved by this community. She’s been so interwoven into our lives.  She led the memorial celebration for Sam… I will always remember her loving and thoughtful leadership of the evening. I’m also so very grateful for the many visits she made to our home in the weeks and months following Sam’s death. .She made the time for us even though we’re not part of her large flock..  She’s one of the most calm, caring and wise spiritual beings that I have ever met.

I’ll always remember the interdenominational service she organized after 9/11.. she asked me to say Sim Shalom, the Hebrew prayer for Peace.. I also remember her beautiful handling of George Saffords  memorial service. 

The reception was nearly over when we got there.. many folks were there… Grit told me that it was the most full she ever saw the church on a non holiday.. We spent soem time looking through the pictures.. I loved this one of Barbara and her husband Charlie.. who’s also a Chaplain with the guard (Yes, Charlie Chaplain)

And here they are doing a handsome Grant Wood imitation..

The rest of the day was pretty quiet. I started working on the plaque for the Sam Cohn Musical Soul award which will hang at MMU. It meant spending some time going through some Sam photos.. It made me happy and sad to look through some of the photos we’re incorporating into the plaque. I needed that release.

OK.. now it’s dinner time.. so I’ll end here… More tomorrow… Gnite all Gnite Sam !

-me

Saturday evening – happy birthday SPG

Today is my seeeeeeester Mary’s birthday . Happy birthday SPG !!!! ( We call her that because before she could spell she used to write her name SPG……) , Oh, we used to be so mean to her.. I remember wrapping her old toys and given them to her again as Christmas gifts.   I was an evil brother.. forgive me Mary.. !

I woke late this morning..still feeling bad about the experiment-gone-wrong last night. I went around apologizing to the neighbors for the scare of the noise. From what I can tell it was still pretty loud a mile away. Tyler P. just walked in and told me that he was over at Texas Hill sitting on the roof of his car. He gave a salute to Sam.. and then he saw the flash from the explosion… He thought it was Sam..
Nice stry.. but still  stupid thing for me to do.. I’m getting rid of the chemicals

It was beiutiful and warm this morning. Gabe went outside to do some airbrushing. Iwent outside in sweat pants and a hoodie to go for a run.. I had to go in and put on shorts. It must have been in the 50’s .

After Chai and I went for our run Diane. ‘tori, Chai and I went for a fast walk along the rivershore. It was getting pretty gray by that point… the sky was gray, the woods were gray. .. I came across this tree that I run by all the time and noticed.. for the first time.. it’s great face.

Tori found a few nice patches of snow. She’s loves snow.. it’s been around since she was born.. She’d better get used to not having snow quickly !

The water is really up from the rain and snow melt.. Yesterday it was up in the field across the house. It’s still about 2-3 feet high.. it completely covered Chai’s favorite beach on our path.

The beavers are active again.. we saw a ton of new trees down.. it’s like they’re trying to stop the Winooski !

On the way hone we had to pull the dogs over to allow a pair of logging horses to go through. I remember seeing these big Percharon’s being driven by a cool old guy named Raleigh True. He was quite a character. Still logged with horses. He explained that they’re much better pulling timber through the mud than any machine. Sounded True to me.

When we got home. I ran out to my friend Paul’s on an errand. On the way there I came across a procession in support of a free Tibet… There was quite a crowd.  I honked and thumbs up-ed my support

Paul was doing a big favor for me and for Champlain College. They’re having their Student Exxcellence awards tonight. The winner of this year’s InterSteller Award is my firnd Laura N. She’s one of the students in the Champlain team that worked with us..In fact she was over here yesterday evening.  The Champlain profs wanted to make her an award . We’d been trying to see if we could ‘print’ Jai. the character from our project on the 3D printer at UVM. Unfortunately, the characters geometry wasn’t correct.. it had  holes in it that prevented me form turning it into a proper solid for printing. Last night I had the idea of ‘printing’ the character on a piece of wood using Paul’s computer controlled laser. I sent Paul this image.

He etched it  on the wood wit the laser. He called and told me that it came out pretty well. I came over to take a look.. I was really impressed. It was beautiful. We beveled the edges and put some lacquer on it

Instant award.. Not bad !

Luckily, my friend Jeff, R. who’s the Dean of Champlain’s media program lives just around the corner form Paul. I was able to deliver the award to him a full 15 minutes before he had to leave for the awards ceremony.  (The lacquer was still drying).   

I think Lauren must be receiving it tight now as I type !  Congratulation Lauren !!!!

OK.. We’re heading up to Deb’s for dinner so I’ll end here. More tomorrow. Gnite all.. Nite Sam !
-me