Tonight was the second annual Jam for Sam

fundraiser at Talent Skate Park. The Jam had been organized by Sam T

and the Friends of Sam kids.   The money raised in this Jam is being

used to fund the drilling of water wells and other basic quality of

life improvements in the Cambodian Village of Krang Biang  The Friends

of Sam folks learned of the needs in Krang Biang through an article

about our cambodian freind Khem in Williston.

There

were a ton of kids there tonight.. Our thanks go out ot all the kids in

Freinds of Sam, their parent helpers and the fine folks at Talent. ..

The FoS kids coordinated food and drink. they had a ton of pizza and

baked stuff.

I…. includign jam for sam cookies and cupcakes !

Here’s our lovely hostest Hannah

…

and lovely host David… standing here with Khem, who’s helping us get

the money to the village in Cambodia where she was born.

There

was a bunch of info on Khem and her cambodian village. it’s a great

story hearing how Khem reunited with her family after so many years !

We also had info about our Sam…

… including organ donor info .. one of our favorite causes .. !

Sam

was very much present tonight.. Many.mnay of the kids had on Sam T

shoirts… if they didnt have them, Talent still sells them.. .!

Sam

T had really been the organizer behhind this and the last years Jam..

his band provided most of the music.. They had some great stuff. Allman

borthers, The Fead.. and newwer stuff. some realllly great Jams !

The place was full of skaters.. and folks watching the skaters.. It was really jumping !

Between band setsm Sumner did the DJ-ing.. he’s really very good !

I liked seeing so many really young kids there.. Avery was helping wth Senyah..

Phil

L came in with some custom painted grip tape he’d made. He hand cut

this stencil of sam It looked awesome. We auctioned it off and made

soemthing like 35 dollars !

I

was showing folks the book that Max and I had bought Gabe at maker’s

faure last week. Dave W and I agtreeed that we have to build it.. Gabe

and I are going to start getting it ready !  Speaking of Max.. he

showed up in town this afternoon. He showed up for the Jam too.. but

somehow I missed getting his picture I was glad to have my ahole familt

there !

It

was a great success tonight.. by 9 folks were starting to clear out. We

still had some  pizza and backed goods. We packed the leftovers in the

car.. and diane drove them over to Spectum Services for the homeless..

Meanwhile I took Kristin and Gabe home..    Gab’es gotta get a good

nights sleep. his LAX playoffs are tomorrow !

It was a great event.. Sam’s spirit was there everywwhere… !

OK

folks.. I’m falling asleep.. and we have ealry morning Lacrossse

playoffs. So I’m going to bed. Gnite everyone. Gnite Sam.. we’re still

jammin’ for you !
love -me

ps.

This morning we went to teh MMU awards ceremony to give away the third annual Sam Cohn musical soul award. The award allows the winner to go pick out a guitar of his/her choice from Advanced music. We give this award to a kid at mmu  high school who has a musical soul like Sam’s. Anybody can be nominated for the award by a freind or a teacher. It’s not based on current musical ability, grades or anything else…  they just have to love playing music.

It felt good to be back up at the high school… we saw so many freinds !

THi year we got a bunch of nominations. We put them all in a basket and pull one out at random.. that way Sam gets the final choice !

This year’s winner is Eric M. a very nice kid who loves composing muusic. He was so happy and surprised to have won the award.. His nomination said that music would always be a central part of his life.. .. and his favorite band is State Radio ! Sounds perfect. It felt good to make soemone that happy.

We really appreciate the help that MMU and Jen B have given us in setting up this award !

We got home by 9:30 in time to take delivery of 500 pounds of clay that jen had ordered. It came in a huge 18 wheeler semi truck. The truck was too big for jen’s steep road. It was funny seeing this little load of clay come in such a huge empty truck !  I helped the driver move the clay then gave him a samstone as a thanks fpor brining us all more clay.

I worked soem then ran off to a lunch meeting. I stopped at Homer’s on the way to delvier the remote control setup I’d rigged up early this morning for the 1/4 scale burning man vehicle. I’d bowrrowed a 2 channel transmitter and receiver from my freind bernie.. then I’d interfaced that to a new 3 channeldc motor contrtoller. I only had a few minutes at homers between my meetings, but wr managed to get the motors to work by remote control !.. That felt like progress.. HOmer still ahs to finish wiring the motors to the vehicle.. hopefully he can finish that on Sunday.

OK.. getting sleepy here.. time for bed. Tomorrow’s an early day.. Gabe has a Lacrosse game at 8 in St. Albans… then tomorrow night we have the Jam for Sam at Talent from 6-9. Be there or be an equilateral quadrelateral !

Gnite all.. Gnite Sam !
-me

I got on the road this morning at about 6 AM and got back to Burlington in time for my noon face to face meeting. The drive back was beautiful and restful.. Got some good work done on the phone. I had a full day of meetings at work then came home to find the septic project complete. I’m glad it’s done.. but the yard is a mess.   The guys did a really nice job with the install and with restoring the yard to some semblance of flat.. but now we have these really freaky hatches and tubes sticking out of our grass. It’ll take some getting used to.

 The back step had to be removed for the work which revealed some bad rot around the sill.. We have to fix that before we replace the back step.. so for now.. it’s a long way up or down from the back yard.

Tonight Gabe had lacrosse practice.. He got a ride while Diane and I went to S. Burlington High School to hear Ralph give a presentation for his public speaking class. There were about 14 kids in the class. Each one did a short piece as a tribute to a, parent, mentor or  friend. They all did such a great job !

Ralph had written his about Sam… so that’s why we were invited !

The teacher had written the secret to success on the podium…

Each kids tribute was so heartfelt. I think the format allowed

several of these kids to say publicly stuff that they couldn’t say

privately to their parents. It was really touching.

Ralphs peice on Sam was the last one. it was such a wonderful message. Ralph talked abotu Sam’s easy freindship, his snowboarding skills, his music… and his bravery . It made me cryt and smile at the same time. I was so glad to be there to hear it .. I could feel Sam close by as he read.