Monthly Archives: August 2009

Friday night – Little Fenway

Beautiful, beautiful day.. low 70’s or high 60’s during the day.. 50’s at night.. My favorite part of summer.. the part that feels like winter.. seriously.. it never needs to get hotter than this for me..

Te last two days at work have been busy and productive.. not much to report there… I did host a lunch for our summer interns. We have about a quarter the amount we usually have. The interns have had a good time.. though they admit it’s been a little quiet and strained this summer. We spent abotu an hour and a half talking about their summer, The colony.. and what they and I wanted to be when they grew up..

Speaking of ‘growing up’ today was Anita N’s last day at work.. at least for a while>She is off to business school at Dartmouth with her new fiancee.. that would be so cool to be heading off to school again..

Everyone brought Anita the perfect going away gift for someone going to grad school.. pasta and Ramen ! 

After saying hi/bye to Anita, I zoomed home, picked up Diane and headed back to Essex to Pat O’s for the opening of the Travis Roy Wiffle ball tournament.  Pat is an old buddy of both Diane and mine from work. I’ve known him for 28 years (gulp !)

Pat has devoted a large part of the past several years building replicas of Fenway and Wriggly fields in his back yard. The fields are exact scaled down replicas of the real thing..


The Fenway field even has a little Citgo sign.. I could see that sign from my dorm room window at MIT.

The event today is an annual fundraiser for the Travis Roy foundation. Travis was paralyzed 11 seconds into his first hockey game in college. He is completely paralized from the waste down. He has focusde his life since the accident on doing motivaitoanl speaking.. and raising money for spinal cord injury research> The wiffle ball tounrnement will raise more than 200,000 dollars for the foundation this year !

Both Ben C and Jerry G. were on hand to through out the first pitch. I;m used to seeign them on the timecycle project.. it was fun seeing them being celebrities. Ben brought peace pops to share with folks which was very generous …   Here are B and J with my friend Ron.

Around 5:30 things started to move.. the crowd got seated..

And Pat, marge O and Travis Roy opened the tournament..

Our friend Mike R. was honored as the volunteer of the year.. which was wonderful..

They then invited down a bunch of local ‘celebrities’  to help kick things off. They had Ben, jerry. the head of Jetblue, Ms. Vermont, a retired hall of fame pitcher from the Red Sox, a UVM basketball start a wounded vet from Iraq (got a 10 minute standing ovation) . .. They also unexpectedly asked me to come down because of the show.. whcih was both nice and weird. ..   (Johnny V.. this would be the equivalent of the Covina new years parade for me)

Both Ben and Jery through out the first pitches.. we’d shared stories about being last chosen for sports in middle school.. but their aim was pretty good today..

I couldn’t wait to get home and see Gabe.. he’s been gone nearly 3 weeks and I missed him so miuch. All night he’s been tlakign about his trip out west. he had a great time.. Max is here too with friends whcih is also relaly wonderful. Max, Aaron, Lianm and I ran into Home epot tonight to find parts for the time cylce and Dan’s new store.. We then came hoem and had soem of Diane’s killer Gneral Tsao’s Tofu.. all vegan for max..   Everyone headed to sleep so I started workign on the timecycles electronics. I got the LED strips and Laser in the mail today from China.. I just got the LED strips workign.. is this beautiful or what ? !

OK.. I gotta sleep.. lots to do tomorrow.. Night everyone. nite sam !
-me

Thursday night – 10 percent

OK.. I am down to 10 percent on my laptop battery.. I need ot finish blogging in less than 10 minutes. THat’s good.. because  didn’t have much to say today.. One thing that was funny is that I managed to get out and walk around at work today.. I didn’t realize it.. but it must have been the first time I’d done so since the show went on the air.. Most of my work collaborators are at other locations, New York, Texas, India, China, Germany.. I rarely if ever have any ‘need’ to interact face to face with anyone in the same location…. I either sit in my office.. or more and more work at home. the phone experience is the same.. That’s pretty strange for a person as social as I am… i think it’s drainign the fun out of work for people.  anyway.. I was walking around the site today feelign kinda grumpy… but then.. every person.. not nearly every person.. but every person I saw came up to me and made some funny/good/goofy comment about the show.  Several folks mentioned to me that they think the pshow is a bit contrived.. but how could it not be..?  All in all.. . I could tell that folks are enjoying it.. and LIKE the fact that I did it..
It was funny that I could go three weeks without casually running into lots of folks that I know…   what does that say about my life ? …   ahhhh. it says that I need to recharge my bateris.. lierally and fgurativly.. yikes.. seconds of power left.. gnite all.. gnite Sam !
-me

Wednesday night – old man

It’s always funny the day after a colony episode.. I end up reading through the blogs to see how folks liked the show.. It’s cool seeign what folks think.. what they liked and what they didn’t like. While  I’m looking,m it’s impossible not to see what they think of us.. most of it is great.. but sometimes.. it’s stuff you reallllllly don’t want to see.. Honestly, I like the way I come across on the show.. in fact.. it reminds me exactly of me..  I get a bunch of good feedback…. but I get soem funny stuff too.. One freind said that I should be a rabbi.. several called me ‘naked santa’ ..  one guy said that I loked older than vlad (which I do)k  one person thought that we were all professional actors.. and that I was really John Williams.. the composer… pretending to be an engineer..  For the record… Mr Williams.. is 20 years older than I am…. and fabulously wealthy after writing the score for Star wars and other great movies

 I guess this all comes with the territory.. I didn’t really think out what it would be like to be so.. so what.. so .. public.. 

Anyway.. I’m trying not to let the show creep into my skull during most days.. today was pretty normal for the most part.. I had pohone meetings from 8AM until 6PM .. (as usual..) then we headed to David’s for a night of Burning man building. The project is coming along great.. yet there’s soooo much more to do..   The giant wheels are both finished…

now we’re working to assemble the giant ‘clockwork’ at the heart of the machine. It’s really come together nicely thanks to the hard work today of homer, chirs , ben, jerry, bill and david

We now have all of the hydraulics in hand too. here’s one of the tiny but powerful motors that Steve pulled out of a small backhoe.. they will power the giant wheels and the carosel

we spent the rest of the evening specing out the parts we still needed david to cut on the water jet..   and all the electronic parts that seth, carly and I need to finish the lights and sound.

We had one cool science moment this eveing..Young Seth showed us how ot use a simple DVD to look at the light spectrum off of the lights in the room. David had purchased some high end LED ligfhts he hoped to use for hydroponic gardening.. We used Seth’s trick to look at the spectrum of the LED’s vs. the light coming form the fluorescent lamps..
Here are the fluorescents.. their phosphors give a pretty even spectrum.. as you can see in this smooth rainbow.

The LED turned out to be pretty broad spectrum too.. but as you see.. it has more discreet color components..   Not sure what that means to the plants.. but it’s sure pretty !

Speaking of pretty.. we  got to what the moon rise as we walked out to go home..

ahhhh.. I’m home now.. and sleepy.. so I’ll sign off for the day.. Hope all of you are well. night folks..  Nite Sam
-me

Tueday night – episode 3

Kate,Steve, Shannon and Matt are  up  from

pittsburghvisiting us for a few days   I met Steve in a grocery store

right after we moved to pittsburg.. I was carrying max who was less

than 3 months old. I could tell steve had a baby too because he was

doing the put-the-baby-to-sleep side to side rock that dads do. Kate,

Matt and Steve became our good friends .. and helped keep us sane while

I was in grad school.   Max and Cody also drove up from NYC to see Kate and Steve..

After dinner, we all drove to Avery’s where we all gathered to watch the third episode

of The Colony. I think it’s pretty funny that we have to drive that far

(10 miles ?) to find someone who has both cable tv and cell phone

reception.  

There was a pretty big crowd of folks there to watch..

It was a hoot watching the show this with friends.. I liked this weeks episode.. I didn’t have much of a role this week.. I’m glad hat some other folks are getting more air time. i thought Joey was excellent in this episode. It’s kind of funny to seem him portrayed as such a  serious , down to business guy.. He can certainly be intense.. but he was one of the funniest of all of us.. he was always clowning around.     Mike was mike this episode.. Folks either love him or hate him.. “What’s Mike like” is usually the firrst question anyone asks me about the show.. It’s not an easy answer.. yes.. he’s just like that in person.. but he’s also a really nice guy inside.. and a wicked smart guy too. I don’t think I want to go into who things work out between us on the show.. or I’d be giving too much away.. just keep watching. Just like the other episodes..I hadn’t seen what the producers had chosen to include or exclude..   I was so glad that they managed to capture our trip out for oranges.. I’ll never forget climbing into that tree and smellign the oranges and orange blossoms. It was the first fresh food we’d eaten in  3 weeks… Even handling the fruit made us smell better !  I was so greatful to the tree that I thanked it before we left. Sometimes it’s also really interesting to see what they choose to drop.. For example.. we put in a ton of work breaking apart and adapting an old water heater to get the tank we used to make the solar heater.. .. there were also some other things.. none of which I should mention here.. because they may appear in later episodes.

Like the last two episodes, I followed the east coast airing of the show on Twitter.   and commenting on it myself. . in the course of the two hours I was watching there were about 254 comments abotu the show.. about 95 of them just mentioned the show with no opinion indicated.. … as in ‘watching the colony’..  of the balance.. 145 were positive comments, and 14 were negative.. I think that’s about 10 to 1 positive.. that’s pretty cool when you think of it..   That’s better than the ‘C-‘ that entertainment weekly gave us.. even as they recomended the show.. Jen had a copy of it there tonight..

I liked seeing the questions folks raised.. As in ‘ do they shut down the streets every time we went out’ (Yes) Did we ever have zombies (no.. but I often felt like one) .. Was mike an ******** (maybe. but I like him alot) .. Can they date Morgan (be my guest…) was I going to take another shower outside (what do you think ?!) . Did we eat the goats (I’ll never tell) ..    etc..   It’s very cool watching this stuff roll by.

I spoke with Joey. Mike and Amy after the show.. we all try to connect after each episode  to compare notes. I have to admit it’s kind of hard sometimes.. watching the show and hearing what folks said privately stirs up some strong emotions.. but hey.. that’s what reality TV is all about..

I think the episodes, the story and the builds only get builds only get better from here.. I’m really enjoying this show.. Hope you all are too…

You too Sam..
-me