Monthly Archives: January 2009

Thursday night – Brrrrr

Lessseee.. What’s up here.. Not much. I’m spending  all of my time split between work and working on my ISSCC talk . Not much time for just hanging out these days. I worked at home again today.. again, I am finding it to be really productive, especially when I need to write.

I worked until about 5, then I had to head to UVM for a meeting about the Cystic Fibrosis Game that I’ve been volunteering on. The meeting was the first full group meeting we’ve had. I twas lead by Peter and Jason. both Doc’s at UVM’s medical school. Also there were Ann D and Jack from Champlain, a dad of a girl with CF, A 32 year old CF patient,  several respiratory therapists.. and me. I’m the hardware geek on the project.

This is the first time I got to see the prototype flash game that the Champlain students have create.d It’s a cute and simeple driving game. Gwen demonstrated running the game by blowing into the spirometer. It was cool to see the whole thing working. it’s all being readied for a clinical trial which will begin in May. It’s all very cool. I like the thought that something I helped build will be used to help kids who are ill.

In keeping with the nights medical tone. I came home to admire Gabe’s school project a complete model of a cell made out of Sculpy.

Though this one will be the envy of all other cell models.. because theis is the only one wiht a glow-in-the-dark cytoplasm !. Cool work, Gabe !

Max had a whole cadre of freinds over and they cooked us a great falafal dinner.. It was like eating on a streecorner in Israel.. it was yummy.

It was great being there with all of Max’s friends..   Mason

Jessie

Emma, whos’ visiting from New York

Max-man

Chris

and Alex.. It was a spontaneous party !

Yikes.. It’s now about -18 out.. Time to go get under the covers.. it’s a long cold night..

OK.. there go my battieris.. that’s all for now.. Nite folks. Night Sam !
-me

Tuesday night – Facebook

Not much to report today.. I worked at home again.. a full day of work mixed in with lots of work on my paper.. I feel so productive when I’m working at home.. Sometimes I think I should do it 100 % of the time.. On the other hand.. I do miss seeing people. I think I’ll try to keep it to 1-2 days a week for now. The only noteworthy thing I can think of that happened to day was a midday visit by our friend Bess. Bess it the writer, director and Producer of the Shout it Out movie that Max was in

She came by to say hi.. and we ended up talking about ways to get the movie in front of more kids. We talked about ways of leveraging social networking tools like myspace and facebook. I hope it was helpful. It would be great if that movie found its way into more schools. Speaking of Facebook..I think something interesting is happening on Facebook… and I wanted to know if others are seeing it. I had heard that Facebook at passed Myspace as the number 1 social networking site back in April of last year..

 but I never saw any difference in My Facebook activity..But, something happened around new years.. I saw activity on my Facebook just explode.. all of a sudden I’m getting friend invites, messages, activities from all over, .. I don’t think it’s anything that I’m doing.. I suspect that it is something to do with many folks making the new years resolution to jump into facebook this year.. Are others seeing it ?   I’m finding that I love facebook.. and so do many of my work colleagues.. I’m finding that I often end up discussing work on Facebook.. which has got to be a no-no ..   What’s more.. my friends are always n facebook. I sent out about 12 ‘friend requests’ about an hour ago 1t 11PM.. and half of them have already responded.   I’m also finding tons of old high school and college friends pretty easily over there… It seems to have less of an age barrier than Myspace. I’m curious to hear from folks what their Facebook experience has been… Are you seeing a big upswing in the number of connections you have ? Unfortunately.. Facebook doesn’t have a good blogging facility .. (but then again.. neither does Myspace haha).. So.. what I’m doing is mirroring this blog on Myspace as ‘Notes’.. I’m not sure people can read it there.. but We’ll see how that goes.Well.. gotta go check my Facebook…   More tomorrow then.. Stay warm.. we’re expecting a low tonight of -16 F
Nite Sam-me

Tuesday night – Happy 111111

A funny thing happened the day before yesterday.. It was early morning and I was coming back from a run with the dogs. I saw Diane in the van parked at the corner in front of our house. She was waiting for me.. As I got close enough to hear, she yelled for me to come over and look at the car..   The odometer on the van read 111111.. That’s amazing.. most cars only get six of the same number twice in their lives… 0000000 and 111111. what are the chances that it would happen exactly in our garage as this had done. Diane knows that I love stuff like this.. and she was waiting there for me to get back and see it. You know you married the right woman when she indulges your obsessions like that.   What’s even more interesting is that 11’s have always held special meaning for me.. My lucky number has always been 911 (long before sept 11).. 411 has always meant visitors,  611 has meant changes and 211 has always meant ‘watch out’.  111111 looked pretty auspicious ..   I don’t know if it’s a bit of the obsessive compulsive in me.. or its some deep channeling of the mystic numerology of my culture… Judaism has always had a strange fascination with the meaning of numbers.. the whole mystic tradition of the Cabal is about divining spiritual messages from numeric coincidences.

What amazed me even more is that Diane found on the web that 11:11 is a particularly   auspicious time.. Evidently, there was some big consciousness opening period that began on 11/11/08 and ended on 01/11/09. Check out some of these links and this and this

11:11 Higher Consciousness Pt.1

Whats cool is that the odometer thing actually happend on 01/11/09.. How cool is that ?

OK.. I nede to go to meditiation class now.. so that’s all for today…
Happy two two days after 01/11 everyone

nite Sam
-me

Monday night – Ronnie Lafrenier

I saw in the paper this morning that our down the street neighbor , Ronnie Lefrenier, passed away last Friday. We’d seen a bunch of cars at his house on Sunday .Ronnie had been living with Parkinson’s disease for many years.. He’d always wave as we ran past his house or he drove past our house. He farmed about a mile down Duxbury rd.. in fact his house and barn are the mile turn around for my old road run.. He milked, made syrup and had a few turkeys and beef cattle. We’d buy hay and manure from him from time to time.. Most of our conversations were short.. but he was always funny and freindly… and he always waved.  I can only guess how many times I’d run down by his house in the past 27 years. He’d be sitting on his porch waving.. and his dogs Nosy and Niky would run out to me. I always remember the big lilacs in his front yard. Ronnie’s wife Charlene once gave me a big armload of those lilacs to give to Diane when we were expecting Max… Charlene passed away in 1998… They were both really nice people…

I went to the visiting hours at Giffords on my way home today..I wanted to wave at Ronnie one more time,  The place was absolutely packed. .. I’d never seen it more full. I was waiting in line when I realized that the last time I was in Giffords was when Diane and I were making arraignments for Sam’s Memorial here at the house… I had to stop and take that in … Tonight there were pictures laid out all over the small waiting room which we could look at while as the line slowly moved along. I was there for more than an hour….before I had a chance to talk to the family and pay my respects. I loved looking at the old pictures.. Here are a few of them I saw.. Here’s Ronnie as he always looked…

Here he is recently sitting on the rock behind his house out on the Winooski…

I found this picture of Ronnie and Charlene.. It was good seeing her picture too. I remember when they got the dogs.. Charlene was pretty ill by that time and they got the dogs as companions for her. These dogs always ran out to great me.. I saw in Ronnie’s Obit that they must have also died recently.. I’ll miss them too.

I also saw this article abotu a bad chainsaw accident that Ronnie had when he was younger.. I’d never heard about it.. but it must have come out all right.. he had full use of his hands as far as I ever knew

I finally got up to the family… and Ronnie and paid my respects.. One last time I gave him the same small wave that we’d traded over the bast 26 years. He looked like he was at peace.. I talked a bit to the family then headed out.. I was glad to have gone there tonight.. Rest in peace Ronnie.

That’s all for tonight..   Good night folks. Goodnight Sam
-me