We stopped in Colchester to consolidate cars and get soem snacks.. Then headed north

Our caravan made it  up to the boarder in no time.

It’s amazing how quickly the scenery changes once you’re in Quebec.. It’s pretty flat and treeless along the route in to Montreal .. Last time I remember coming up here it was with Diane.  Gabe and Sam on our way tot eh Red Hot Chile Pepper concert in Quebec City. Sam was on my mind all day today..

The drive is about 1.5 hours.. but luckily we were able to put the kids in suspended animation… so they didn’t notice the ride.

We crossed the Champlain Bridge and got our first view of the city

I’m always amazed that such a large city could be so close to the us.. and to the rural backwater  (which I love) of Vermont.

The place gets more impressive as you drive in.

We found a place to park near Drumont and St. Catherin.. We ducked into a hotel to use the facilities. They had this cool fountain.

while the other folks were waiting, I dipped into a Lebanese restaurant next store to get an early afternoon dolma fix.. Yum…

The prices were not as cheap as we were used to .. the US and Canadian dollars are almost at par..

We dawdled a bit as some store and a coffee shop waiting for our 4:10 slot at Laser Quest..    During the wait I called my long-lost friend Milton back.. Milton called me out of the blue 2 days ago. He and I went to high school together.. I haven’t seen him in just about 30 years.. We’re slowly telling each other our life stories. . So far I have heard his up to about 2005. From me.. he’s only heard about my kids.. and about Sam’s passing. The rest will come tomorrow. I had to tell him about Sam before we talked more. It’s hard for me to talk to anyone when they don’t know.

At 4:10 we all met back at Laser Quest and signed up. There were 18 of us and about 6 other folks in the group.including a couple that some of us knew from Bolton.. which just happened to be there. They led us in to don our equipment.. then let us loose in the 3 floor laser tag maze..

I wasn’t even that in to it at the beginning… but something about it was so… I don’t know… cathartic ? Stress releasing ? …

They wouldn’t let me take pictures in the maze.. but it was a very cool setting.. lots of stairs and catwalks.. and lots of stuff to hide behind.. You waited for someone to come buy then you shot them with your laser.. If you hit them.. their lights would go off for a few seconds.. and you’d get a point.. if they hit you, your vest would rumble, the lights would go off.. and you’d loose a point.. You then spent 30 minutes running around like a mad person shooting at anything that moved..   Well…it surprised the hell out of me.. but I was good at it..  very good at it it seems.. I was the high scorer of the group (by nearly 2X).. .

. actually the high scorer for the day… and the third highest score the place had had  since the beginning of December. I can’t figure out exactly why I’d be good at it.. … unless this is like the Bourne Ultimatum… hey.. wait… I’m starting to remember now…..  🙂

We did a second short game of guys vs. girls… Winner buys dinner.. we bought dinner.. but the ladies fought valiantly.. There’s something just so wrong about pointing a laser at your wife and friends.. but man is it fun.. what’s that say about all of us ?

We were hot and tired by the time our session was up.. We went out on the street .. which quickly fixed the ‘hot’ part. 

We headed down St. Catherine to find a restaurant.  It’s an amazingly lively, colorful and pleasantly seedy place.

We found one we liked on the 2nd bounce.. A Mexican place. It was really very good…

After dinner.. it was time for home. I loved seeing how much fun all the kids were having.

We had a full moon that was like a searchlight. We had moon shadows all around us.. It made the city look even more beautiful.

Lazy evening after a good day outside.   I have some pictures left over from yesterday. I didn’t want to post newsy stuff about my day at the same time I posted about Brandon Kilburn’s death. I realized this morning when I read his obituary that Brandon was our friend’s Wes’s brother in  law. Wes’s dad, Marvin, is a good friend of most folks in Richmond. He runs Bridge Street Cafe.. My heart goes out to all those guys.

I was thinking about Sam all day… yesterday I had to go to Advanced Music to pick up one of Sam’s guitars… His Les Paul SG.. his first good electric. . It had been broken accidentally at one of our parties. Matt from Maple Street Guitar Repair had done an amazing job at restoring the broken neck. no matter how close you look., you cannot tell that it had been broken.   Matt told me that his 18 year old nephew was killed in a car accident a few years back. We sat and tlaked about life for awhile.. He’s a great guy.

On my way home I popped into Talent to buy Gabe some shoelaces.. No sign of Hannah, Dave, Adah or Senyah.. but  found the laces. I always appreciate the signs of Sam they keep there.

Last night was pretty quiet here. Gabe was up at the mountain. Kevin came down.. He’d passed his driving test yesterday !! (as did Hannah B and Alex B)
Unbeleiveable.. (not that he passed.. that he’s old enough to drive !)

Kevin doing his ‘drivers licence face’

Kevin took Sam’s newly fixed guitar and went out to the barn to play for awhile. That made me feel good.

This morning I managed to sleep until 9.. I think that was 11 hours ! (not counting 2-3 AM when Chai woke us up by having a really good/loud tail wagging dream)  I hadn’t gotten more than 5.5 hours any of the nights I was in NY last week. I guess I was tired..

Diane and I were eager to get outside today before the really cold air showed up this evening. We called Kathy and Lou and invited them to snowshoe from their side to our side of Robbin’s Mountain .

It’s an easy climb up from the Wes White Hill side.. and a not so easy descent down to our back yard. It’s only 2047 feet.. but the descent down to our house at 300 feet made it the steepest ascent/descent on the old long trail route.. The trail has been moved down Duxbury Road to the Banforth Ridge trail..

I’d inadvertently worn socks that were too small for me.. Wonderful Diane offered to swap with me.

It was a beautiful climb up.. not too steep.. not too cold..

I asked my favorite glacial boulder to pose for me…

There used to be a really rickety fire tower at the top of Robbin mountain. You could climb up it and see for miles in all directions.. if you held on tightly enough. One time Diane and I slept underneath it.. then hiked down in time for work. Now it’s been replaced with a huge (and ugly) radio, TV and Cell tower,,

But at least the cell reception is pretty good up there…

There’s a look-out right behind the tower with a great view of Camel’s Hump and Honey Hollow

… and a great view of Diane !

We ran into tow women hiker up there.. One of them, Krista, works at the Montior Barn where we had Sam’s concert in November.

We started getting cold so we headed down the western side of Robbins. There are soem great views looking North West and East  from there.. Here’s a pview of Bolton.. Hey.. I think I can see Gabe up there 🙂

Here’s looking over at Bolton Notch road.

It’s always a little dicey finding the old trail down that side of Robbin’s. The old Long Trail blazes have been painted over.. and many of the trees that were marked have since fallen down. We were happy to find these gray blazes. Even though it’s literally our back yard, it’s easy to get off the trail and have to bushwhack.. not always easy given the steep terrain.

Sam was very  much in my mind as I slid down the hills.. I took a sec to write his name in the snow as I always do..

We loved seeing all the  signs of life out there in the woods. We saw bear scratching, critter tracks and wood pecker holes.. Here’s someone’s home neatly chewed above one of the old trail blazes.

Home looked pretty inviting as we came down the last bit over the sledding hill. As I said.. it’s not far.. but it’s steep. We went in and had a hot bowl of chili

…then took Lou and Kathy back up to their house and picked up our car. .. Now.. I’m so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open.. and it’s not even 7PM..
I’m getting pretty lazy in my old age I guess..

Oh… one cool thing..While I was taking a bath to warm up my stiff and tired bones,  I was reading Dava Sobel’s excellent book ‘The Planets’ that came out in 2005. The book has some interesting stories, histories and poettry about each of the planets. Tonight I was reading about Mercury. She mentioioned the MESSENGER spacecraft whhich was headed towards Mercury. MESSENGER,which stands for Mercury Surface Space Environment GEochemestr and Ranging. was launched in 2004.   The book mentioned that it was scheduled to approach Mercury in Jan of 2008. Well. .. I checked.. it had it’s first good look at the planet 4 days ago.. and the first good pictures came back today…. Pretty cool coincidence.. no ?  Here are a picture that MESSENGER took of Mercury earlier this afternoon

Well.. that’s all for now.. have a good night folks.. Good night Sam..
-me

Ahhhhh – home again after a very succesful and fun trip down to NYC and Fishkill I got home around 10:30.. Gabe Diane and Chai were all still up so I got to see them. I miss them so mch when I’m gone. It’s back to the three of us at home. I wonder what it feels like when I’m not here… guess I won’t know

Woke up late today with just enough time to get to my meeting.. I almost forgot to leave a tip in the room .. but I remembered at the last sec.. I always try to leave some thing funny with it to brighten the receivers day a but. . Here’s the best I could do today.

We had a good few hours of TC meeting until I had to leave around 2:30 I had a meeting with my boss John. I had to walk across the site to get to John’s building. Fishkill really is a concrete jungle. This sign says it all.

One treat was a chance to stop in and say hi to some old friends.. including Ang..my friend Kevin’s extra special helper… She’s a good friend..

I had a really good meeting with John… It was good catching up with him. He’s been so great to me through this past year.  I told him about how my assignment was going and we talked about my return to the real world.I am actually getting more and more psyched to get back to technical work.

After seeing John.. I went back to the TC meeting… which was just ending, said goodbye to my friends there .. then made a quick run over to Dave and Jeans in Holmes NY to return Dave’s potato guns / He’d lent them to me for a demo for a talk I was giving. I ended up not using them in the talk because the setting wasn’t all that conducive to indoor firearms.. but it was fun having them just the same..

There was something ‘American Gothic’ about the scene as I handed Dave back his musket.

I only had a few minutes at Dave and Jeans.. but I got a picture of the cool Nixie clock that we got him as a going away gift from the TC. I love this clock !

.. as well as a picture of his lock picking paraphernalia.. It was a funny surprise during my last visit that both Dave and I picked locks for fun.. Come to think of it.. it’s not that surprising.. We have many similar impractical hobbies.

Jean even warmed up soem of the left over Thai food I brought and sat me down to eat it..

I ate and ran.. I don’t think I was there for more than 15 minutes. I zoomed back to Beacon to meet Mason’s train. He’d been down in NYC visiting Max and his friends.. It was so great driving back with Mason. Not only did he keep me awake as I drove.. but we had the best conversation. We talked about so much stuff on the way back. He’s such a good kid. .. One of the things we tlaked about was my ‘kids these days….’ rant.. that’s my observations about how Gen-y folks and old timers (like me) have such different work styles, priorities and attitudes in the work place. It’s really interesting to see this generations Idon’tbuyyourstudyhardinschoolsoyoucangetintoagoodcollegesoyoucangetagoodjob life template… or the older generations whydontthesekidswantoworkharderandgetaheadlikeme attitude.. I can understand both sides.. but the difference sure causes some miss communications at work and in life.   I wonder how we can get better understanding across the generations ?

  Anyway, we were talking about that when we stopped in briefly to see Homer and Mary as we came through Monkton on the way home

Coincidentally.. Homer had out the Cat Stevens album with ‘Father and Son’ which is the song that the aforementioned old guy/young guy conversation had me singing in my head.

It’s a great song.. take a listen.

hood, gloves, bunny suit…

Here’s Jane (China)

… and Joanne (US)

and .. me.. I think ?

and Hugh (UK)  I think

This must be Carolyn (australia/US)

and John (Canada)

Trust me, we are smiling !

I’m pretty sure this is me also …

Our tour lasted an hour. It was truly awe inspiring that that many different machines could be hooked together to work that efficiently.. The high point was seeing the $50 million dollar deep UV  immersion stepper.. what a cool piece of machinery !

After the tour, we had to quickly dash to teh cafeteria to do a round table with the Fishkill employees.. I met these guys   Orazio and Donato Forlenza  .. They were a riot. they’re acutally brothers working in the same department.. (Let’s see Forlenza .. is that an Irish name ? ) Donato is going to a wedding in India .. I showed him some pictures from our trip.. He’s going to let me know how his trips go.. He’s not sure he likes Indian food.. I told him to pack a lunch.

Here’s all the Academy TC and the Fishkill TVC before the panel

Here are some of the folks who showed up for the panel..

And here’s a quick shot of my fellow panelists.

I had many freinds in the crowd including Bhavna.. in profile you can almost tell that she’s expecting her first baby in April !

The rest of the day was very good discussions with the TC. … Not much I can report on here.. but there’s a very good ernegy abotu the group now. We worked until about 6.. then I zoomed off for dinner wit my old boss and very good freind Kevin. We had a really great dinner.. at a Thai place in Beacon.. I absolutely love talkign with Kevin he is such a cool and interesting guy.. we talked families, work, music, hiking.. I never get tired of listening to him

which is not to say that I never get tired… I’m about to fall asleep .. so time to sign off…  Sleep tight all.. sleep tight Sam..
-me