Yearly Archives: 2008

Thursday night – VoMIT

Interesting day. I woke up thinking about work for the first time that I can remember in more than a year.  It was a strange feeling.  I generally wake up thinking about Sam every morning. It wasn’t that I wasn’t thinking about Sam..   It was just that I wasn’t only thinking about him.. I wasn’t sure how to feel. I’ve learned not to think to much about how I’m supposed to feel when something like that happens. It doesn’t help

For some reason I was able to concentrate today better than most. I got on the phone at 8AM and and really didn’t look up until just before 2. I got a ton of stuff done . I had a meeting at work at 2.. then worked until about 6:30 there.. From there I hurried over to the Inn at Essex for a board meeting of VoMIT (Vermont’s Own M. I. T. club.)  I love that acronym and I love these meetings. They are always gloriously wide ranging and disorganized, but somehow we manage to attend to all business I love the people I know from MIT. they’re all so quirky and funny.
Here is the VoMIT board: Jim. Laura, Jeff and Michelle.

We had a great meeting.. We were trying to figure out something fun and meaningful for our alumni club to do. One idea was to hold a ‘hack fest’. MIT is known for harmless high-tech pranks. Our idea is to create some sort of big high-tech prank  that somehow raises money for a Vermont charity. I know it sounds like a weird idea.. but I’m sure we can come up with something. Any ideas/.suggestions welcome.. you don’t even have to be from MIT to play.

The board meeting was over at 8.. Diane was up at the mountain teaching Yoga and Gabe was boarding (I think).. so I decided to stop and see Hannah and Daves’ new baby, Senyah, on the way home. I called Hannah and found out that she was at her folks house in Williston. I did a quick visit there to see … and hold.. new baby Senyah.. She’s so beutiful

As is her big sister Adah

I got home to find out that everyone was home.. and watchign a scary moview (Alien III) in Sam’s room . I just can’t watch anythign scarier than Bambi.. so I came in here and started blogging..

No sooner had I sat down than our good freind Claire showed up !. We hadn’t seen her in months .. It was great catching up.. We’ve known Claire from the day after she was born.. In fact, she was born so quicky that she entered the world on the floor of her parents bathroom. She’s just back from Barbados with her family. She’s a freshan now at UVM and loves it.

OK.. All for now.. gotta get some sleep.   GNite to you all. gnite Sam..

-me

ps.I just got a note that I’m in my firned Ann’s blog tonight.. so here’s a pointer to her very colorful blog.. It’s fun to see how cross linked the blogosphere is !

Wednesday night – home again

Home again after a quick trip down to NY… I didn’t have a download cable last night.. so here are two pictures from yesterday’s amazing head wave .. I just read that it it 63 degrees in Burlington yesterday.. 12 degrees above th previous record for this date !  Not the best snowshoeing weather….

It was so warm… we actually had to open a window

Here’s yesterday’s sunset of Champlain College.

… and here are a few of my friends at Champlain who are helping me with the ‘Good Games’ project… Here’s Ann

.. and Laren, Bryan, Wes and Mike.. aren’t they cute ? They are amazing folks to work with. I’m learning lots from them

Ahh.. here’s Jai, a virtual member of our team..

As I said yesterday.. After I  left Champlain and drove 320 miles down to Armonk listening to NH election returns.. Yet I managed to stay awake. I got to the hotel at 12:30 AM and checked in. I just love this hotel… they have comfy bathrobes for guests…   What more can you ask for ?!

I slept great last night.. woke up early and went for a run.. came back and checked out.. before I did I hid a SamStone in the room.

Here’s a few views of the IBM Learning Center Hotel … I think it feels like a monastery..

OK.. a monastery with ping pong and pool tables.

I took my camera on my run this ironing.. I jogged over to IBM Headquarters and got these pictures in the mist.. I think the place looks like a sci-fi movie set..

I remember Sam getting sick right outside this loading dock as I was preparing to go in to do a science show several years back.

Here’s my office in Armonk.. I’m borrowing it from my friend Grace who’s out on maternity leave.

Here are a few past IBM CEO’s ..

An here’s my good freind Marylou.. She’s my ‘handler’ during my assignment to Headquarters.. She’s great.. as was the sushi at lunch today !

Headquarters is such an interesting and different place.   Even the political views are different !

OK.. that’s all for now.. I’ve driven 600 miles in the last 20 hours and need to sleep. G’nite for now all.. g’nite Sam !
-me

ps… I just found out today that my work colleague Deb is a good friend of my college suite mate Chris.. They both lived in Tucson.. very tiny world !

Tuesday evening – cable-less in Armonk

I’ve just arrived in Armonk at about 1AM… only to find that I do not have a USB cable to download pictures. That’s pretty funny because just 2 days ago I had three of them in my backpack.. Oh-well, It’s just as well… I need to get to sleep now.
   The abbreviated report from the day was:

1) sloshy snowshoe in melting snow
2) work calls all day
3) late afternoon meeting at Champlain
4) 5 hour drive to NY

Ya know. 1-3 seem to be a repeating pattern lately.. Not all that bad.. I’m really enjoying what I’m doing and I’m feeling pretty productive.   I guess the most remarkable thing about the day was the warm weather. We had to put in a screen in one of the upstairs windows.. I think it might of hit 50 outside !!!!  It’s supposed to rain tomorrow which could mean some pretty bad flooding. when the rain hits all that snow.  I remember the January   thaw of 1992.. We were pregnant with Sam.. We were forced to evacuate the house late at night due to imminent flooding. It never did hit the house .
     The most remarkable thing about the drive down was how the news channels could take a 20 minute story about the New Hampshire primaries and stretch it into 5 hours of news… What was even weirder is that I listened to it. I have to admit I took a 5 minute detour into New Hampshire before I headed south on 91 just to say that I was ‘there’ for the NH primaries.. So.. Hillary won one.. this could make things interesting.. I like both her and Obama… it’s not a bad choice to have I think..
   OK… that’s really all I have now.. sorry not to have pictures tonight.. I’ll double up tomorrow.. Gnite all.. nite Sam
-me

ps.. Aha.. I do have some pictures to post. My friend Laura just sent soem really cool pictures of the site of the southern most SamStones

The first is of the Martial glacier on the soutehern tip of Argentina..with the  town of Ushuaia  in the distance.


the second is of the summit of Mt. Demaria in Antartica.   It is about 635 M tall, and is at 65 degrees, 17′ south and about 62 degrees 32′ west.


Thanks Laura !

Monday night – matrix

Not much happening today… I guess the big news is a powerful January thaw.. It was 50 degrees Fahrenheit at 4PM today.. which is about 65 degrees warmer than it was about 4 days ago… All our beautiful snow is turning into… yuck.. The thaw is supposed to last a least the week.. so Diane and I got out for a snowshoe this morning to enjoy the snow before it disappears. The one good thing about the thawing snow is that it shows us exactly where we need to dig when we replace our failing septic system in the spring..

(insert loud cursing here.. Myspace at my blog at this point after I’d completely typed it in… the rest from this point is retyped as best I can remember it)

Where was I ?? Oh.. I think I was talking about my day.. not much special there… though. I had back to back meetings this morning.. then ran to Champlain at 1 for an afternoon of working with Ann and Ray on the Good Games media application we’re developing. We had a great brainstorming session about the content of our media application..

I also spent a few minutes talking to Kris,  the Champlain’s media relations person, about the project.

Then  i spent a few minutes working with Lauren, one of the students who’s working with us.. She’s an ultra-creative programming artist… or artistic programmer.. She’s very good at Flash programing. She can take a goofy idea and making it work beautifully on the screen in minutes. Watching her work reminds me how much of an artist I am not.

Speaking of artistic.   after yoga tonight I came in the house to find a present from friend Abbot. Abbot is taking welding at MMU. A couple of days ago I sketched out a picture of a ram’s head that I’d learned to make in blacksmithing when we lived in England 20 years ago. From those junky drawings he made this in class today. 

The idea now is to flatten the other end and sharpen it into a knife to make a ‘buttering ram’ .

We’re all feeling pretty low energy tonight. We decided to hang out and watch a movie in Sam’s room. We were watching the Matrix III

I’m proud to say that I still don’t understand that movie.. but it was fun to hang out and watch something mindless.

Speaking of hard to understand movies.. Gabe just pointed me at this out on YouTube.. It’s Gabe’s principal, Mark Carbone doign the ‘Crank dat Soulja; dance with his hair died pink. He did the dance and the hair after the kids at CHMS collected more than 2000 cans of food for the local food shelf. Now that’s a good guy.. if not a good dancer 🙂

OK.. That’s it for now… More tomorrow. Nite all. Nite Sam
-me

ps. Here’as picture Trevor took of Gabe at Bolton yesterday..yow