Monthly Archives: September 2009

Friday night – thanks for thanks

So,   day 3 of the post-post apocalypse. Life is slowly getting back to normal.. I still have many folks bringing up the show in everyday conversations. Right now, I like that because it prevents the experience from fading in my mind.. as it eventually must.
What’s kinda surprising me now is the large amount of email, myspace and facebook  (85 new friends just today !)  mail that I’m still getting since the show ended. Stranger still, the message of quite a bit of the mail is ‘thanks’.. as in .. thanks for being on the show so I didn’t have to be.. or thanks for making the science part fun. .. or thanks for sticking with the show till the end. Don’t get me wrong.. I am happy with how it all came out.. and I could understand ‘good job’.. even ‘congratulations’.. but   ‘thanks’ is still a suprise

All I can say is thanks for the thanks.. I hope you’d do it for me as well !

Not much to report for the day.. another 8am till 6PM on the phone day. Chris dropped by some tribute catfood for me to eat if I got hungry

I did get caught up on my email during those calls.. and found some great new SamStone placements.   I love this one my friend Hugh placed in Italy.

I also found some pictures from the Finale party that Max had posted on his facebook.. I especially liked these two.. The second one was near the last moment of the show.. I love our expressions.. !

Friends Chris and Kim came buy around … Chris had made us some new SamStones out of real stones. Chris was the maker of the first stones. In fact the ‘Sam’ stamp on all the Samstones out in the world is made from an imprint from the original sandblasted stones.  I love these things.. Chis is so wonderful

OK..I’m dozing off now.. and it’s just 10 PM.. I’m goign to take a nap.. Have a great night folks. Nite everybody, nite Sam
-me

Thursday night – Campy

Today was gloriously uncomplicated. I can already feel my life returning a bit more ‘normal’ as our 15 minutes of fame ala Colony starts to fade a bit. OK.. so it wasn’t really completely normal because I spent last night camping with Gabe at Button Bay State park with Gabe and his classmates. It was a fine night for camping.. a few light rainshowers.. but nothing too bad, cool weather and a ton of creative students..  

I showed up a few hours after the kids arrived. They’d already had a chance to build a secret fort in the woods.

Around 7:30 we all gathered for a campfire..

Each of the camping groups had prepared a skit..   Gabe’s posse did a touching rendition of ‘ice-ice-baby’ acapella.. It was heart warming..

All the skits were good.. some funny, some scary. some just.. goofy.. It was a riot. I did my part by doing some fire/light  magic (spinning steel wool. ultra powerful green laser  and hot air balloon)

I have to admit that I don’t remember much after that.. At that point I’d had about 3 hours sleep in the last 36 hours. I was asleep by the time my head hit the pillow I didn’t have. Some chaperon, huh ?   For all I know the kids took the car keys and drove into Burlington.   I did here today that I wasn’t the only tired guy. Gabe told me that he fell asleep on the ground outside .. and didn’t wake until 1:30AM when we woke up on the cold hard ground.

I slept great, though.. a full 8 hours of sleep.. can’t remember the last time I did that !.. Sleeping on the wooden platform was great for me.. just like in The Colony..

OI woke about 6:30 and took a short wak.. I saw my first flock of southward bound geese.. It reminded me of one of my favorite songs: Urge for Going by Joni Mitchell

“.. see the geese in chevron flight
flapping and a reeling before the snow
Well the got the urge for going
… and they’ve the wings to go….”

Here’s a version of Joni singing it back in the 60’s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3EofN3Flag

The boys eventually woke and made breakfast.. Chocolate chip pancakes.. yum !

I left them at around 8:30… I had meetings sold for the rest of the day.. but I managed to stay relaxed through the day..   I’m so glad I went on that camput with gabe…

Speaking of camp out, Discovery just released a spoof video that Diane and I had done for the other Colonists.. It’s loaded with inside jokes  but even if you don’t get the references, you’ll see how much we miss the Colony and the other colonists.. Check it out !

OK.. that’s it for today.. I’m in bed already and it’s only 10PM.. this is wonderful. Nite folks.. nite Sam !
-me

Wednesday lunchtime – Pics from last night

I really don’t know where to start describing last nights Post-post-apocalyptic events.. We decided to do it up right for the season finale of The Colony.. and put a good finish on one of the most interesting chapters in our lives. After a long day working at home, I walked down from my home office (the bell tower) to find the house full of people.. and in true colony style.. our water system not working.. 6 folks needing showers.. and not a drop. I fiddled with the pump switch enough to get the water working for the girls in the house to shower.. but.. once Gabe got in and soaped up, there was no turning it back on.. He ended up rinsing off the shampoo with two cans of pomegranate seltzer and a bucket of water from our next store neighbors hose.

Around 7:30 our good friend Gary showed up in his veggie oil powered Solar bus.. Gary had offered to chauffeur us through the night…. what a wonderful friend.. Arriving in the funy bus was a fitting start to the end of the apocolypse.. The bus was a bunch like our battle truck, complete with places to sleep, palces to store and a big bank of lead acid batteries. It felt very much like home to us !

Max had flown in just for the night to be with us. I can’t tell you all how much it meant for all of us to be together for this..I love my sons and Diane so very much !.  I had a bunch of Sam moments last night.. the first was when we all piled on the bus.. we were counting heads, and I said to myself ‘where’s sam’.. he was with us through the evening I could feel him.

Gary drove us to Mexicalis in Williston.. where we all piled off the bus.. and took over the place !

We even met our first fan that we didn’t know.> Chris W found us through the show. He hung out with us all night.. very nice guy !

The good foks at Mexicali’s did the place up for us, baloons., special menus (Ozonator shots, pos-apocolyptic nachos !).. and really did everything to make the night amazing.. there were toasts all around !

All in all I think there were about 120-130 folks there.. we had all sorts of friends there.. it was fun mixing connections form all across our busy  lives.  kid friends, burning man friends, work friends, town friends, college friends, resturant freinds.. all just friends !

Having Amy and Alison here with us made the night really special, We even skyped in to the west coast Colonists to see how their party was going.. It would have been fun to be all together.. but this was great, too !

Then suddenly, it was show time !

The show passed by in a blink.. and suddenly again.. it was over.. all over !  Wow.. what a ride.. It felt GREAT !  .. it was so cool to do this with our own posse of survivors ..

We ended up hanging out with the great folks at Mexicalli for about another hour. They had some wonderful habanero and jalapeno steeped tequila.. Yum !  They even provided the hats !  Really.. I can’t thank Nick and the crew of Mexicali enough for making this memorable. I’ll get a copy of thier special menu and poost it when I can !

As ew were leaving I neurotically checked my email/myspace/facebook/twitter.. and I was amazed and happy to see a Samstone Request from Samuel Cohn…   another snowboarder just liek our guy.. who’d seen the show, seen the stones and was doing a shout out to us for his nameake.. Thanks Sam.. both of you..

From there we piled back on the solar bus.. with some of the mexicali folks and fan chris and headed downtown to see what we could find at 1AM..  We ended up going to red square for soem reggae dancing.. Details are foggy here . it was a happy blur

We closed down the bar at 2AM .. then back on the bus we went.. and we headed down to the waterfront..

Max and Amy jumped into the lake.. and I joined them a few secs later.. Amy even took her cell phone swimming 🙂

About 3 we all decided it was time to move the party to our various houses…   We got back in the bus… and headed home.

We got home just before 4.. I’m not sure what everyone else did.. but I was unconcious 2 min after getting home..

What an amazing evening… what an amazing expereince.. what amazing freinds.. what an amazing thing life is.. Thanks you all for takign this journey with us.. We love you all

You especially Sam
nite
–me

Tuesday night – It's over !

Friends,
     It’s about 4 AM and we all just came home from a night out in honor of the last night of the Colony. I have a ton of pictures and a ton of stories.. butI’ll have ot save them for tomorrow. All I know is that my feet are bleeding, my underwear is  soaking wet from swimming in lthe lakeat 3AM..and  I’m wrapped in caution tape. I guess it’s a normal night in the post-post-apocolypse..
Love you all.. love you Sam
-me

ps. My feet are REALLY bleeding !