Taday was near perfect.. nothing to do but hang out.   Our first event was Gabe’s lacrosse game in Jericho.. The weather started nice, the game was good… and.. we got a chance to puppy-sit Jay’s dog Onyx… !

Having a puppy on the field is like having a cute new baby.. everyone wants to come up and play with him.. People….

… and dogs.. It was great to have all of that furry attention

Gabe had two games with abotu an hour break in the middle.. I messed around and stared at the sky and the flowers.. and talked to diane and one of the other parents.. Very peaceful !

We got home around 2 and just hung out the reast of the day.. I wrestled a little with the motor controllers which continued to vex me.. and when that didn’t work.. I decided to sit and do nothing.. something that I worked hard to learn to do on the colony..   I finally managed to do nothing for abotu an hour.. While I was doing that.. diane was prepparing food for the vegitarian potluck we were attending tonight. Her contribution was home made hummus and home made pita breaad.. When she pulled out the 2nd batch of pita.. this is what she saw.. Do you see the face in the middle pita ?!

Here;s a closer look..Religions have been started for less ! Pretty funny.. eh ?

We went over to teh veggie potluck at anne and kieths.. abotu 5:30 ,, It was a fun get together.. soem of us drank a drink I accidently made up at an earlire party at anne’s.. carrot juice and white wine.. It’s much better thnan it sounds ! I think it makes your eyes sharper even as they get blurrier !

Dinner was great.. conversation was great… 

The hilight was inidng out that two of the families kids had been featerued in the burlington free press B-side photos for havign taken part in the naked bicycle ride  a few days ago.. Here are abbot and patrick with their freinds devon and lindsy celibrating the near end of the semester..

It was a great evening.. Good freinds and good food…. so good night !.. Nite sam !

-me

Last night I started noticing that I was returnig to some mndless habits I had before my advventure at the colony.. nothing major.. just mindless actions.. I didn’t make time to run in the morning. I found myself eating through the night.. I had a couple glasses of wine .. I made a few phone calls I spent an hour on the computer… I checked my phoen messages while I was talking to Diane.  Again.. nothing major.. but they were all habits that I’d managed to break during my stay away.
  THis morning I woke up with the best of intentions … I was planning on running… but I couldn’t resist checkign my email.. I lopened my laptop.. but for some reason.. I couldn’t connect.. I then tried to check my blackberry to check my messages and emails.. For some reason my phone wasn’t working.. Then the dogs came in an basically dragged me out for a run.. As I was heading outside to run I saw our box of Angel Cards.. They’re a deck of cards weach with a word that you use to meditate on. I figured I’d grab a card on the way out.. The card i grabbed was ‘Balance’ . Everything  felt like the universe was trying to help me remember to stay centered..

I thought about that for the rest of the day..

Speaking of balance..  Check this cake out.  I had a late mentoring meeting at Mexicali . My freind Erin works there and asked me to borrow my camera.. They were having a going away party for one of the guys who worked there and she wanted a picture of the cake.. Check this out (Erin.. The full res picture is in my photobucket)..

The rest of the day was pretty quiet.. After work I went home and helped diane in the garden which was pretty peaceful.. even though my hands kept twitching for my cell phone.. it wasn’t working again  whcih was good.

Gabe called because he needed a ride. I went down to pick him up at the park and got to check out the new ferry boat that’s runnoing while the bridge is out. Check this out !

The evening was peaceful… The Atwoods came by to talk about the new spetic system they’re putting in for us the week after next.. Now that’s pretty exciting !!!!

Right now we’re siting in Sam’s room watching a wierd movie.. Juast as we turned the lights of Gabe found a glass of many month old kool-aid.. Yummmmm

OK.. I just realized I’m doing it again.. I’m typing while hanign out wiht my family.. When am I goign to learn ? 🙂
Gotta go now. Gnite all. Gnite Sam
-me

I ended up with an unexpected quite night. Gabe is at a school thingy and Diane is at the laundromat.. We’re still having to was our clothes there until the new septic system goes in .. We have our first meeting with our friend the excavator tomorrow.. so we’re getting closer to being able to do laundry at home again !
   Anyway.. I had the house and time to myself.. My mind is still so empty that nothing jumped in to fill the time. I decided to look at a few of the lectures on TED (http://TED.Com ) Ted stands for technology, entertainment and design. It’s a set of wonderful lectures on any topic imaginable. They’re all about 15 minutes.. and they’re all free. There are some great pieces in there on science, inventions, human behavior, future ideas.. really.. something for everyone. I’ve watched these things on and off over the past year.. but I rarely make the time to go and check out what’s new. Yesterday my buddy Sue turned me on to a talk she’d seen by Seth Godin  on the concept of ‘tribes’   Godin is  a blogger and the founder of yoyodyne.. a marketing firm (named after a fictitious company in two of my favorite books by thomas pynchon) 

Anyway..  Godin explains the evolutions of the leadership model he calls ‘tribes;. His point is that ideas spread very differently now than they did even 5 years ago. The internet has give us such a capacity to share ideas and gather around them.. that anyone can lead.. from any position.. as long as he/she can speak to folks who are already of like mind. It’s a simple idea.. but one that I think about often now..

I was really thinking of this when I did my ISSCC talk in early feb. I realized that despite the work I’d put in.. I wasn’t telling folks much that they already didn’t know.. what appealed to many folks about the talk is that it reinforced to them what they

already knew or at least suspected… and i was on a topic that many of them were already passionate about..   I was starting to build a tribe around the idea of connecting green jobs and engineering careers.  to helping address some of the worlds most pressing problems. . It wasn’t that I was the only one saying that.. it’s just that  got the pulpit form which to speak to a bunch of folks who already knew what I was about to say.. and wanted to hear me (or anyone) say it..

So.. I think now, more than ever, we need to build that tribe.  how do we do that ? Not sure.. but on a related topic.. i just heard that Obama’s green job czar, Van Jones is going to be in Burlington next week to speak.. He’s got a major tribe going on the idea of putting jobless folks to work doing gree energy projects like insulating houses, etc.. I want to talk to him about extending this message to one that encourages inner city kids to consider engineering and technology jobs that can help us address energy and environmental issues.

I know that Jones will be speaking at the VT Expo during lunch.. does anyone know where else he’ll be during his stay in VT ?

OK.. I gotta go do some homework… hope everyone is well.. Note folks.. Love you Sam
-me

THoguhtful day today. I had a bunch of meetings woth folks in burlingotn. I took advantage of the good weather and coaxed all of the folks I had to meet with to take our mmeting outside for a walk. I managed to get 3  in that way. I also had lucnh wiht my friend Kerry. I was tellign him babout some of the fun and soem of the struggles I’ve had in coming back from the TV show experience. He said .. “don’t worry, it’s all good”.. I hear that expression often.. ‘it’s all good”.. but never really though of it. He’s right.. the things I’m struggling with … eg. the need to stay present, the need to stay happy at work.. the need towork more with my hands.. are all good choices I’m gooing to make.. It’s a good thing.. not a challenge.. Kerry’s comment gave me a simple but powerful reframing of my situation.. Thanks for that friend…

The day passed quickly and pretty productivly. after work I met Diane, Gabe, and Kristin in Essex to share a ride up to Gabes Lacrosse game in Westford. It was a beutiful drive on a beutifull day, We sat up on a hill to wathc the game it was so beutifull (even if I was too far away to recognize the players’ numbers)

I ran into my freind Mike out on the fireld.and enjoyed catching up with him.  Mike’s  dog lola (right) and the coaches dog Tiki decided that I was a dog person.

After the game (near 8PM).. I made the 40 mile drive down to Monkton to see Homer. We have tomake progress on the drive motors for the Burnign Man vehicle. I got to Homers about 8:40.. He had ‘H G Wells’… his intials.. in 4 foot letters in his front yard.. that was new..

We spent several hours looking at the 1/4 scale model of the feerris wheel car.. and checking out the motors and speed controlers for the full size device.  
Here’s Homer trying to check the speed on one of the motors He dug the motors out of old forklifts.

Homerhas three of the fdorklift motors and each has an old style switching speed controller. the good news is that I know these exact speed controllers form my time on the colony.. the bad news.is .. I wasn’t able to get them to work there.. I’ve brought one of them home to see if I can trick the controller inot working for us. If I can get it workign, we’ll be all set for our drive components. … the devicce will be able to  go forward. backward and turn on its own radius .. I plan to make it so you drive the thing with a Wiimote.. sound interesting ?

I’mjust gettign home now and it’s about 1:15.. time for me to sleep. I camein to find this cool sign that soemone made for the half pipe. I can’t wait to find out who did this.. It looks awesome !
  Thanks whoevr did that !

OKI’m getting so sleepy.. I’ll say gnite.. Gnite everyone.. Gnite Sam !
-me