Another day back closer to treality.. somehow it didnt’ feel s strange as the last couple. I was telling Diane last night that one of the ways that I knew I was getting back ‘in to the world’ is that I noticed that voice in my head.. You know, that constant dialog in your head that analyzes everything you do in life. Some Zen practioners call it the ‘monkey mind’ .. I hadn’t really noticed it until yesterday, but that coice had completely vvanished while I was working on ‘The Colony’. Normally the only thing that shuts it down is my meditation practice. I now realize that the whole Colony thing was like a moving meditation..Even though it was grueling and crazy,  it brought me to the same peaceful and timeless place that meditation does.. strange…   My hope is to keep the voice in check.. one way or the other.   I’m determined to hang on to the sanity that I picked up at the Colony.

I continue to talk to my frineds from the cColony expereince nearly every day. I miss them all. It seems that many of them had hard things come up with their family and reinds while we were off-line. I can’t really go into details  here becase we’re not allowed to talk about the show.  I do want to say to them that my thoughts and heart are with them all..

Work is starting to settle down a bit. I still feel like an outsider there . I’m trying to reclaim some old habits there, too. I began by taking my ‘path less taken’ through the parking lot. I always like to walk the tunnell in the middle of a line of parked cars. It’s like my secret road…

The day passed smoothly enough. I am spending most of my time trying to get my head around a new set of porblems and find a way to be useful quickly. It’s harder than it should be for me. My skills feel rusty.. my instincts seem a little dulled.  think I’m still floating a little from the Colony expereince. I feel my focus returning.. at leas I hope I do : -) 

After work I went down town to have dinner with a bunch of work friends that are visiting from New York..   I spotted this great bumper sticker  and grafitto on the way

Dinner was great.. there were many freinds there.. two very old freinds were there.. Chandu V. and Peter F. both freinds from Grad school 20 years ago (wow .. is that possible ?).. Diane caem in to meet us after dinner. It was so wonderful catching up !

Hear we are wearing clay goat heads from our bear bottles.. stylish.. no ?

Well that was the day.. Ahh Diane and Gabe managed to get the last coat of urethane on the skate ramp.. I think it will be ready to ride tomorrow. It’s been really fun to build .. Here’s a picture from yesterday after Gabe, Kristin and I finsished moutning the top layer of Masonite.

It’s been great working with Gabe on the rnap project.. I hope he really enjoyss using it.Looks good, doesn’t it  Sam. ? . Gnite !
-me

It’s abotu 10:30 on monday night.. and I’m having trouble staying awake. I have a meeting in downtown burlington at 7 am-ish.. and I made the mistake of lying down in bed to blog.   Big, big mistake.. I keep falling asleep.. I fell asleep 3 times trying to help Gabe with his geometry and french homework. Bad dad !
    Not much to report today anyway. I felt like this was the first ‘normal’ day since I returned form the Colony. I say normal becaue it was a Monday on a full week with no travel or other special stuff happening. It felt a little strange to be so back in the world. I made an effort to not get too swept up in the normal workday.. but by mid afternoon I found myself tangled in the normal days quicksand of meetings and powerpoint. I have to tell you that I was fantasizing about flamethhrowers and drill presses by mid afternoond. Maybe I’m just not cut out for corporate life anymore..
    Man..I’m realllly struggling to stay wake.. I think I’m goign to give up and see hwat I can dream about. Hope that’s OK with all of you.. OK folks… more tomorrow. Gnite all.. Gnite Sam
-me

Happy mothers’ day everyone. Hope yours was as nice as ours. As you all can appreciate days like today are bittersweet for us.. but the dominant emotion for the day was really good. My folks were up so we had a joint mothers day breakfast for Diane and my mom. Hey… Diane had to cook it.. I must have been slacking off.. in fact I slept until 9 am which is the latest I frmember sleepign in years !  We had crepes with rhubabrb and strawberrys from last years garden.. and berries . Yum !.

We visitied with my folks for a while then they headed back down to Boston. It was really nice spending time with them..

THe rest of the day was a sleepy blur.. We spent sometime outside  gardening .. but it was only 41 degrees.. not the best summer weather.. we did manage to weed and mulch most of the front flower beds… 

One nice feature of the day is that we had a steady stream of kids drop by to wish Diane a happy mom’s day.. starting last night with Abbott and lindsey, then tn jack, will, and austin .. then today nate, rusty, tyler and a suprise visit from Chris and Amanda.. It was great seeign them all.. these kids really ‘get it’ .. and realize the extra love means so much to us.  

Chris showed us the new ink he’s gotten including a tribute tat for Sam and Chris’s grandfather..

We also had a great call with Max today. Sam was also very much on our minds..I felt him so strongly near us today.  Last night I was standing in the old lab under a mechanical snake that Sam and I had once built.. One of it’s scales dropped onto my hand. I took it as a reminder to pass on love from Sam to Diane today as well.

Well.. I hope you’ve all sent passed on some love to the mothers in your life.. where ever they are.. wherever they live.. in this world or not..  Happy motehr’s day everyone.. happy mothers day, Sam..
-me

Pretty uneventful day. Mostly work calls. I did manage to get to homers for abotu 30 minutes this morning just to say “hi” and to look at his quarter scale model of our burning man car. Homer was  fresh back from Peru sporting a new beard.. lookign good.

He never ceases to amaze me with his ability to turn an idea into metal His quarter scale model of our ferris wheel sofa thing was a work of art.. and completely functional. The final model will be 20 feet tall and will have independently operated, remote control motors for eahc of the wheels. It’s goign to be awesome !I’m going to work out the motor control and remote control stuff.

Here’s the 10th scale (or smaller ?) model that we originally started.. The design has evolved considerably

I can’t wait to begin working on the project again. Homer, Ben. Mitch and I are going to get together hopefully next week to discuss next steps.

After work I went home to work with Gabe on the skateboard half pipe. We were able.. to get the plywood deckign on.. no small feat for us. It looks pretty good. We still need ot get on the masonite outer shething to make it usable..  Gabe tooka  few rides on the rough plywood base abd prounounced the design workable. We’re all proud that we’ve gotten this far ! 

Just as we were screwing in the last piece of plywood my mom and dad showed up from boston… They’re up for the weekend whcih is really nice. They both look great…

THat’s about it for the day.. not much queued for the weekend.. Lacrosse3 tomorrow and hanging out wiht my folks. .. HOpefully enough breaks of sin to get a coat of urethane on the half pipe. We’ll see.. For now.. time for sleep.. Nite folks. Nite Sam !
-me