Monthly Archives: February 2009

tuesday night – away for awhile

Friends….
      I have soemthing interestign and important to tell all of you… and I’m not quite sure how to say it.. but here goes:
I have been offered a very interesting and unique once in a lifetime opportunity  This opportuunity is going to require me to be away from my family, away from vermont.. and away from my work  for about eight weeks begining next week. It also means being away from computeres and phones. This will be the first break I’ve taken from blogging every day since November 26th, 2006, just five days after Sam’s passing. I’ll be blogging with pen and paper while I’m away.

I don’t know how any of that will feel other than I know that I will miss Diane, Max and Gabe .. I also know that this opportunity is very much aligned with my lifes’ purpose of making science interesting and fun for people.  Even though this is a tough decision.. I know in my heart that this is the right thing for me to do. 
The 2nd hardest part of this opportunty is that I can’t discuss the details until  well after it’s done. You’ll just have to belive me that I’m doign the right thing. I’ll tell you all about it when the timing is right.  For now I’ve got about 5 more days of online blogging before I dissapear..   I told you it was interesting news!
 
I love you all.. I love you Sam
-me

Sunday night – welded

Nice day.. My folks stayed till just about noon. We had a great time with them up here.
Gabe was up at the mountain today.. so he said good bye before he left..

Later in the day. my buddy Bob from the Cape came buy to talk about a project we’re thinking about. My folks enjoyedd speaking with him  .. Bob is a Psychologist with a background in psychopharmacology. He’s interested in creating some computer applications that would exercise certain portions of the brain while a patient was on certain drug therapies.
Evidently, the efficacy of the drugs can be enhanced by doing this type of stimulus. Bob’s interested in incorporating this in some sort of video game to make it more palatable to kids with early onset Aids induced dementia.  It’ a cool project. I’m goign to put him in touch with Ann Demarle at champlain on the game topiuc (Ann Dif you’re reading.. heads up)  and wiht my cousing Sam at Harvard for a pointer to soemone wiht access to  functional MRI . (Martha P,.. if you’re reading this.. can you send me Sam’s cell number ? )

My folks took off around 1 so that they’d be driving in daylight. We said goodbye… It was great having them up here…

Then Diane and I went for a hike up Honey Hollow with the dogs.. We got all the way up to Wootan’s .. It was a beutiful walk..

Around 4::30 my friend Bruce came over to give me a gas welding lesson.. I was boning up oon a few practicla skills thta might come in handy in the next few weeks. I always do MIG welding.. but I’ve never bene very good at gas welding. Bruce got me started.. He got me doign soem simple welds with real rods.. Then I treid welding with a coat hanger.. just to see that it worked..

OK.. maybe not the prettiest wes in the world.. but.. coat hangers are cheap.. !
OK.. I can’t keep my eyes open any more.. so gotta sign off. It’s goign to be a busy and interesting week. Hope it’s good for us all.. Nite folks. Nite Sam !
-me

Saturday night – valentines day

Happy Valentines day folks. Quite day here wiht my folks. Gabe was up at the mountain with our friend Eddie..    We got a nice Valentines day suprise when we found that someone hand left valentines day flowers on the Sam sculpture outside.  Things like that mean so much to us !

Ma, Pa Diane and I went out for a couple of hikes today. it was sunny and wamrish.. It was good being in the fresh air.   My folks are pretty game for anything outside.

We crossed the Hunnington and notice the ice had broken up and moved down stream.. I remember a few years back watching the break up/. it sounded like thunder.

Areound 4:30 Diane went up to pick up Gabe and Trevor and say goodbye to Eddie. Eddia nad his mom were up since last night checking out colleges. Eddie is a friend of Sam’s from High Cascade.. he’s also th guy that got Gabe and I into the backstage of the SnowScrapers event in NYC last week.. great guy.. and his mom’s a hoot , too !

Here’s Eddie with Gabe, Trevor and Diane.

TOnight My folks took Diane and Me out for a birthday dinner. We chose the Cider House in Waterbury in honor of my dad’s New Orleans hertage. They have Gumbo, Okra, grits. and all that good stuff from his youth.  They also had a grat selection of hard ciders.. Yum !

It was a great evening !!   Nice to be all together..

Well.. that’s about it for the day.. I have some deep thinking to do tomorrow.. so I’ll get off to sleep.. Good night everyone.. Happy valentines day.. Be my love,Sam
-me

ps. Here are soem new pics I got today from Uwe and family from Manchu Pichu.. I think they were beutiful so I wanted to pass them along here.   You can follow their travels at http://web.me.com/uwefassnacht

friday night – samstones

Another busy day.. not much new .. still confused about my future.. looking for clarity.   I did get a nice break midday when I went to friend Pete’s 25h IBM anniversary. His actual service anniversary was last Summer.. but his bosses.. Zahi and Gopal drove up from NY to take Pete out to lunch in honor of the milestone.. Kerry, Dave H and I got to tag along .. It was really nice. We all told pete stories . I even made a little Pete glossary to translate his highly customized english..

One thing I put together was a set of anagram for ‘peter osler’ .. It’s a pretty good scrabble hand.. eg

Peter’s Role

The rest of the day was in meetings. I had one bright spot when someone sent me a link to a new article on the front page of EETimes today which was bout my talk last monday. It made me happy because I think this article and the last may get even more engineering folks out doing outreach.

I got home around 6 to find my folks had arrived. It was really nice to see them. It was particulaly nice to have htem up tonight becaue we had a party to make SamStones.. Diane made cheese and choclate fondue.

 

Luke and Gabe were accidentaly dressed the same.. when guys do that.. it’s cool.. when girl’s do that I think it’s a disaster. no ?

Adah liked the chocolate !

We had the bottle of champaign my folks had sent us in Califrornia.. so we used it for a birthday toast for me..

Midway through the night we called Deb and the kids in Chile .. It was great letting them see all their freinds here.

Between us we managed to make a shole 50 pound box of clay into SamStones… Which is great because we were running low.

Diane got soem really beautiful roses from her folks.. I wanted to get a picture of them.. so they can see how nice they are.. and how nice Diane is !

OK my freinds.. time for sleep.. lots to do tomorrow. Nite for now. Nite Sam
-me