Yearly Archives: 2008

Thursday night – everywhere at once

I’m still trying to recharge after my last trip to Florida . I think I got 12 hours of sleep in 3 days..  Ate only 3 real meals and only ran once. It seems that all my careful attention to deliberate mindfulness , sleep, diet, meditation, etc. go out the window when I travel.   The funny thing is that many friends at the conference told me that I was looking/seeming/acting more like ‘my old self’ . I’m not sure if that’s a) a sign that inside feeling and outside appearance aren’t always linked.. or b) ‘my old self’ was always burned out, sleep deprived and spacey.. I’ll go for b)
   I spent the day trying to get started on stuff.. and for the most part didn’t get anywhere.. mostly got caught up on stuff left undone while I was gone. One thing I did get done while I was traveling was to get about half way through Brian Greene’s excellent (so far) book “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality” .. The book gives a very accessible (i.e. no math) overview of the evolution of our physical understanding of the world. It starts with classical Newtonian mechanics then describes how Einstein and relativity showed that as appealing as they were.. Newton’s laws were only an approximation of the way the world works. It then goes into the introduction of quantum mechanics and how it challenged Einstein’s view of a deterministic world.. Right now the book is talking about the concept of spacetime. It spends a great deal of time discussing the very meaning of time.. what is time ? .. and why does it only appear to flow forward. ? . It points out that there is nothing in the math that we use to describe the universe that prefers forward time to backward time.. Our perception of time seems to be the only thing that is asymmetrical there. Greene talks about the ever increasing entropy.. the disorder in the universe, and how it relates to the ‘arrow’ of time… Right now he’s talking about how time and quantum mechanics relate on the scale of very small things… on his way to describe string theory and eventually the current thinking on ‘M’ theory.  The thing that has me really thinking hard at this point in the book  is how some folks think about the dual wave/particle nature of things like electrons and protons.   E.g. It turns out that you either know where an electron is.. or how fast it’s going.. but never both at the same time. The ‘where’ an electron is ,in general, can only be described as a probability distribution… all that I’ve ‘known’ since I was a kid.. but here’s where it gets weird.. Many folks have tried to explain this dual wave/particle nature .. The strange thing is that if you observe where an electron is.. it suddenly isn’t in all the other places it might otherwise  be.. If you don’t observe it.. it can literally be anywhere.. And that ‘not being elsewhere’ effect can effect the outcome of experiments that are far away in both space and time.. In fact observing a particle at one moment can,  mathematically speaking, change it’s past. This effect can actually be observed in the laboratory in experiments like the double slit experiment.  (I know I posted this before).. I just got a note from the producers of ‘What the Bleep do we know’ that these videos cost $250K to make.. eeek !)

The way this works has changed the way that physicists think about words like ‘now’ and ‘then’ .. Folks like Richard Feinman chose to explain the distributions of ‘wheres’ as a sum over all history that is.. every thing that could ever happen to you .. if you’re an electron.. does happen to you .. in one universe or another.. all at the same time.. every possible place, every possible interaction.. all right now..
Greene is talking right now about how by extension it might imply that everything that can ever happen to us actually happens all at the same time. An infinite number of possibilities and outcomes playing out in an infinite number of interacting worlds.. right ‘here’.. right ‘now’ .. Now wonder I feel tired.
Maybe there are a huge number of worlds out there were Sam is still snowboarding or floating down a river. I really hope so.. in fact I’m sure I’m right there with him right  ‘now’ .. Gnite folks.. I have a bunch of universes to go through tonight. Catch you later Sam.
-me

Tuesday night – waiting for gus

Hi friends… I’m sitting in my little corvette in a parking garage waiting for my friend Gus to show up.. Gus is the friend I ran into miraculously at hertz the the other night.
    I’ll get as much blogging as I can now.. Probably I’ll just post the pictures and add the text tomorrow.

The conference started yesterday morning with a main session. There are about 4100 people here.. quite a crowd. The kick of included some acrobats from disney/ Most impressive

Then  talks from management folks..like Ted.. the companies vP for training.

And Fred the VP for Services..

And my buddy John the Sr VP in charge of research .

The initial session lasted 2 hours..

(more later.. gotta run)

I just spent a very excellent 2 hours catching up with my freind Gus… which was really great.. the only catch is… it’s now 2:30 in the monring.. so My comments on the rest of the blog will be sparce 🙂

Where was I.. Oh yeah… yesterday…

I had a great conversation with my friend Chandu .. He’s in the process of building a crbon nuetral home.. very cool and contentious

We sepnt the rest of the day going to talks of various types.. from the technical to the …. well… non-technical. this one was actually pretty good.

On  thing I did notice.. the gender ratio here is so bad that there line to the men’s room was 10 times longer than the lien to the women’s room.. have you ever seen that ?

Here are Sharron and propeller-head Curry.. both from canada

Curry and me… Curry is one of my favorite mischief makers in out traveling group/

I ren into my old friend Kursad .. originally from Turkey. but now in Raleigh

Here are Jai. Joanne and Dan.. all friends from corporate / the Academy

After the day.. we went back to our hotels.. here’s the view off the balcony near my room.. nice

Then we went to Animal Kingdom for a private party.. very cool. it was strange waling in there.. the last time I was in there was with the sam, gabe and diane.. I think Max came later that trip)

Here are Chandu and Bruce right before we stared riding the Mt. everest Roller coaster a bunch of times.. wheeeeeeee (I’m still dizzy a whole day later)

Me and Mr. Yeti

I tossed a SamStone into the main pond at animal kingdom ..   I felt so much better after I did that !

Here’s Ron with his candy flower

and Lori demonstrating her dance moves…

I drove back to my hotel around 11:30

And found this guy blocking my path.. This palce reminds me aof houston .. where I grew up.. the air is almost as humid as being under water.. all the bugs and slimy things love it !

OK.. now it’s today.. I drove to the convention center.. I got out of the car and my glasses immediately fogged up.. again.. just like Houston

I ran into friend Jose.. who sometimes looks so much like my brother .. it’s spokes me out.. Look around his eyes.

Hey.. I found some lint on the floor in the shape of a valentine.. even in the middle of 4000 walking folks there is sometimes magic.

We had a great meeting of our outreach volunteers at lunch.. many of these folks had never met each other in person.. only over phone and email.. it was pretty cool meeting face to face.

I spent soem time catching up with friend Glehhhhhn from Australia.. he described how he’s wired his new house to be so automatic that the toilet flushing can open the garage door.. if thats what you want. Here he is logged on to his house in Sydney Australia looking to see if anyone is up and walking around at 5AM there.

I also ran into my friend Barbara.. she and I were working in Corporate at the same time. She’s a specialist in the math behind modeling rivers.

And here’s his emminance Chris. my friend and co-conspirator from England.

After the days meetings I drove Joanne. over to our dinner. I took a short stop to help a turtle cross a fast road…   Luckily.. not a snapper !

At the reception we welcomed the newly appointed Distinguished Engineers.. Here are Cara and my friend Romellia..

At the reception I met my friend Peter for the first time face to face.. he’s  an alpha geek here at IBM.. and a great classical musician.

And two friends Sub and Bala.. both with the last names Iyer.. I learned about the cast name Iyer and what it meant..

Hey Leo.. (another canadien)

Ann from Poughkeepsie .

David from California.. he once got us out of a bind in China by producing an American Chinese restaurant menu .. we used it to help us communicate with the waiters in Beijing when we couldn’t speak Chinese.

My hero Karl-heinz from germany

And friend Kerry from SanFran (originally from Cuba.. I think )

I saw my old friend Dave from Enidcott.. We haven’t really tlaked in 24 years !!!

Wendy and Luba (ukranian)

And our patron Nick with Lisa and Karl Heinz

OK.. that’s it.. I’m goign to sleep now. More tomorrow. Gnite all. Gnite Sam !
-me (3AM).

Monday midday – yesterday

I was to have left at 8AM yesterday.. but I changed my flight to give me at lest a half a day at home with family. I ended up spending the time doing some early spring cleaning.. I must have taken 25 trips up and back to the attic hauling stuff up and down .. Going into the attic is quite an emotional experience for me these days . So many wonderful memories locked away in all of those boxes.   I talk to Sam when I’m up there with all of his stuff…  it makes me feel good.

My next task was to take down the interior storms.. It’s quick work to take them down..They are 4’ by 7’ huge glass plates.  Half of them are harmless safety glass, the other half are deadly untempered glass.. I never remember which one’s are which.. it keeps the job interesting.. Here too, signs of Sam are everywhere.  He’s still so much part of our life

My last task before leaving was to hep give the dogs a shower.. they’d both found some fresh horse manure to role in.. Here’s ’Tori ’before’   (note her face is getting whiter.. pretty cool)

Here’s ’during’ she looks like an entirely different species when wet..

Diane took me to the Airport around 2 to make my 3PM flight.. Turns out my flight was delayed. My lovely Diane volunteered to run to the University mall and buy me a new set of Khaki’s.. .. She dropped them off in plenty of time for me to make my delayed flight.. Is she a sweetie.. or what ?

We finanly took off anout an hour and a half late… It was a beutiful flight.. here’s a shot of Camel’s Hump.. and home.. as we swooped south.

One thing about flying jet blue is the TV’s.at every seat. . I need to be careful around TV’s because I get so sucked in. I can’t turn away !  I ended up watching a great documentary about the evolution of Heavy Metal…   Gabe and Sam would have loved it.. I now know how to relate the Sex Pistols and the Clash to Heavy Metal.. I learned more than I could ever want to know about Black Sabbath., Motely Crue, Megadeath, and Iron Maiden !

I must say I’ve always really liked Ozzie !

The trip down to Orlando wasn’t so smooth.. My Burlington flight was so delayed that I missed my 4:50 flight to Orlando. I waited in line with all the other folks who missed their flight and finally was told that the next flight out was all sold out. I asked to go standby.. they said I could try but I was 9th on the standby list or a sold out plane. Turns out I was lucky.. I was the last person taken.. !

I got down to Orlando about 9:30 PM a few hours later than expected. It was absolutely pouring.. I waited for a half hour for the rental car bus.. then caught the ride to the Hertz center..Oh-oh.. bad sign.. there was a long line sticking out of the Gold service office.. the rain was causing a huge back-up in car turn around. We were told it could be an hour until we each got cars.. grrrr.   Well… I say ’grrrr’.. but actually I now seem to be able to look at stuff like this kind a funny diversions/adventures..

Anyway. I waited my turn and was talking to the person behind the desk when another Hertz employee walked by. My draw dropped. It was my old friend Gus !.

Gus, who’s from Brazil  was an intern at Disney many years ago when I used to bring the kids down here while I did science shows at IBM’s Epcott exhibit.. I did it 5 years running. One year, I brought only Sam down with me.. I remember it was his Birthday !  Gus volunteered to take Sam to Disney for the day while  worked. They had a great time.. Then we all hung out that evening.. The next year I had the whole family in tow and we met Gus and his then fiancee Julie, who’s from Peru,  for dinner. We stayed in touch… Gus left Disney and started workign for Hertz in Del Ray.. then I lost track of him. He heard about Sam’s death and wrote us a nice heartfelt letter.. but then we sorta lost touch..I’d asked my friend Linda about him.. but no one knew where he was.  And .. here he was.. I gave him a big hug and dragged him outside to talk.. we spoke for a long while about him and about us. and Sam. I called Diane for him to say hi… I leanered that he and Julie are expecting their first kid in August !!!!. It was so very cool running into him..

We talked and talked.. unitl it was pretty clear that he had to get back to work.. I  said goodbye with a hope of seeing him later this week. I went to my car rental stall and found a nother guy about to drive my car away.. we’d been given the same car.. and he had the keys.. I walked back into the Hertz place.. and there my buddy Gus took care of me. I probaby shouldn’t go on record here witht eh details of my rental.. but suffice it to say.. I’ve never driven anything like this car in my life !!!!

By that point it was getting near 11.. I had agreed to meet my very good freind Bruce for dinner when I got in.. and he was still up for it.. I drove the 30 minutes to teh Wilderness Lodge and found Bruce..

By the way.. I had my first beer.. actually my first alcohol of any kind in a month. I’d given it up as part of the Ayurvedic diet I’m on. Sharon.. my Ayruveda practitioner had actually told me that it would be OK to have a beer or wine every so often . but I wanted to go a month to see how it felt.. It felt good. .. but boy that beer tasted good last night..   I’m going to keep it down to a beer or glass of wine or two a week to see how the whole Ayruveda thing plays out

Bruce and I hung out on the porch of his room and talked. It was so good to catch up with him. He’s been a close friend for several years… He and our friend Jim came up for the week after Sam died an really took care of me.. I’ll never forget that.> We talked about our families, life and work.. too much work,. I’m afraid. He’s such a great guy..

One of the things that makes him really great is that he’d ordered a pizza.. I was starving.. so it was heaven

I took off from there about 12:30.. Got to my hotel, the Coranado at about 1.. and worked a bit until 2.. That didn’t leave much time for sleep.. So that was yesterday.. This is today..
I’ve been in the conference all morning.. seeing tons of friends.. having some really good business discussions. Tonight we’re going to a reception at Animal Kingdom.. I was last there with my whole family I’ll take a SamStone..  OK
I’m going to try nd fit in a nap before I go.. Talk to you later folks.. talk to you always, Sam
-me

Saturday night – second best faceplant

Today started out so lazily.. We’d talked about going up to Bolton for pond skimming .. Pond skimming is when you ski/board/sled down the hill into a 75 foot pool of water and try to skim over the top to stay dry..  At around 10 AM we were all sitting in the living room flopped on the couches thinking about how much we didn’t want to go outside and get wet… Gabe and I had tried several times to come up with an idea for a float or something like we did last year..   but we couldn’t come up with anything. Gabe and Jack decided that they were going up to Bolton for the second to last day… so I decided… what the heck.. I’d go check out the pond skimming and decided then if I wanted to do it.   I didn’t have a float… so I grabbed our old Little Tykes teeter-totter and drove the boys up the mountain. I walked in to the registration room and they only had 3 places left.. I grabbed one.
I walked out to check out the pond.. it looked… uh… cold…

Here’s my trusty skimming device…   all three kids played with this for years.

Zack H, the director of the night riders series.. and a good friend was going to take the first run.. they’d even made him his on ramp to get a flying start !

There goes Zack..  .. splash.. the first face plant !

Like always.. there were a ton of costumes… and a few sleds, floats and other conveyances.. Mine was the only teeter-totter. Here’s Hayden R. with his cool sled.

Here are a bunch of Gabe’s friends  freezin’ in their bathing suits.. (even though they were on the outside of their clothes )

Mr. Claus tunes up

As did the sun-burn duo

And lady Chiquita

I hung out of the wind by leaning against the Sam rail… Sam was all over today.. I felt him everywhere.

Vivian took her turn…

It was almost my turn.. I practiced the Captain Crunch pose.. All the kids used to say this teeter-totter thing looked like Captain Crunches hat.

Gabe was up hanging out with us..

As was Austin

The girls were shivering by this point.. I lent them an extra shirt I had..

Scout, Kirsten and Katy took a sled down..

Then it was my turn.. I used the standard riding position dictated by the United States Pond Skimming with Little Tikes Plastic Teeter-Totter Association (USPSWLTPTTA) guidelines… It was all I could do to balance.. Steering was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

Things went pretty well until about 10 feet from the pond.. I flew over the front of my trusty steed ..   I grabbed it and ran face first with it into the water.. Success !

I stood up out of the water and struck a Captain Crunch pose with my teeth chattering.> Man, that water was COLD !

I charged inside and changed into warm/dry clothes.. I went upstairs to wait for the judging.. Lots of friends were up here.. I hung out and talked to Hannah and Carolyn for a while.. and a whole lot of other folks..

Gabe came in shortly…

Brandon was there in his 2 dollar crabbing pants..

While I was waiting I wedged a SamStone into the rocks of the fireplace.

Fianlly, it was time for the judging. We all crowded into the pub… They gave away quite a few prizes.. a few of them serious… most of them not. I’m glad I stayed.. I won “2nd best face-plant” .. I can’t remember who won “1st best face plant” .. But next year.. they better watch out !

After the awards, I went and tossed a SamStone into the pond..

That’s just about it for Bolton.. just one more day. the kids are going to have trouble adjusting to this place being closed…   Gabe’s bummed. I know.

There really is so much Sam stuff up here… shirts, boards, stickers, helmets.

Wouldn’t you know.. the sun came out the moemnt the lift stopped for the day.

I took my wet clothes, got the car, went and got the car and drove Gabe and a bunch of his friends back home.    After a snack, we all got motivated to set up the trampoline.. There’s no better medicine for the the closing of the slopes.. First order of business was to untangle a few of the remaining springs from the safety net.. That was the hardest job !.. It was Spring Fever !

we got the pad, stretched it out and started hooking in all of those springs. We replaced about 2 dozen of the most stretched out ones with new ones..

Soon, it was time for the first bounce of spring.. The Legit crew strikes a pre-bounce pose..

Then they all layed hands on the tramp and performed a little ’big fun / no injuries’ ceremony .

And here it is folks.. the first back flip of spring…

OK.. gotta sleep now.. I’m too tired to keep my eyes open. Tomorrow I head to Florida for a conference. Lots of good talks.. and great friends. Should be fun..   Goodnight all, goodnight Sam !
-me

ps. here’s a picture of Sam all wet from Pnd Skimming in 2005