We began the day with breakfast at Jean and Gary’s with friends Jane , George, Lou and Kathy. It was nice standing in their sunny kitchen and watching the ice flow by on the river.
We started with a scrumptious hearty breakfast…
Then a hike up to the the land that Betty and Billy Preston just conserved with the state.
The land is really beautiful. It follows the old 19th century town road between Huntington and Richmond then cuts left up the ridge towards Jonsville. The plan is to someday connect these trails with the ridge trails and create a system that would allow someone to hike all the way from our house in Jonesville into Richmond.
The land was crisscrossed with old logging trails.. thetre were a few old trees still standing.. but most of the growth was in the last 70 years.. Here’s a beutiful old hollow tree we found.
It was wonderful being out with friends in the new year. we talked about the new year.. and our resolutions and hopes.. What a great group of folks.
We got off the trail and bushwacked for a ahile.. eventually Gary foudn this old foundation.. the old springh ouse for the Richmond water supply many years back.. and he knew where we were.. I can tell these trails are goign to be a great resource for the town…
The rest of the day passed pretty quietly.. I had two nice visits.. first my friend Bob from Massachusetts came by to talk.. he was up visiting freinds.. he’s looking for some help on writing soem software to help stimulate differnt parts of the brain to enhance certain drug therapies and diagnostics.. It sounds like a cool project.. I hope that I cna help him.. Later on , my friend John and his son Sam came by. John had given me two robotic arms which his copany had developed for the medical testing industry. I’ve gotten one working.. He, his Sam and I spent abotu an hour writing soem simple code to get the robot arm to do some cool movces. I’m trying to convince the two of them to help us build a robotics club up at MMU next year… That would be so fun… !
After Dinner, Gabe and I went tin the lab and started working with the fiber optics stuff we got for xmas. We want to embed it in a wall in our house. I had an old pice of sheetrock to use as a test.. Gabe drew some designs than drilled holes in them for the light guides.
We poked them through…
Then pluged them in.. It looked great !
Even better at night.. they’re actually a little too bright to photograph !
Well.. That’s it for the day.. and for my vacation !. I’ve bene off two weeks .. and really enjoyed it. I can’t say I got any major parts of my life worked out.. but the hanging out,and puttering in the lab have really cleared my mind. I knwo that these are tough times.. but somehow I feel excited abotu the changes and challenges that are coming. My mind feels clear and open.. which is relaly all I was lookign for in this vacation. I’m actually lookign forward to goign back to work….
Good luck to all of you and yours in pahsing in to the new year.. U2 Sam
-me