Tuesday night – Obsolete

So.. I’m driving in to work this morning after dropping Gabe off at school, ready to get on my first call of the day. I was to have been talking to my friend Sridhar in India.. I dialed into the conf call then  BOINK .. my cell phone crashes. I have a blackberry.. I think the software on it is more complicated than the stuff on my laptop and about 10 times as buggy. I stopped the car and tried to reboot my phone.. I try artificial respiration, I try my most powerful magic.. nothing works. I have no choice but to pull out the battery and restart it that way. The trouble is.. it takes nearly 15 minutes to restart when I do that (why.. I can’t even begin to guess)… Meanwhile. poor Sridhar is sitting there waiting for me … and it’s nearly 9 PM there.. I start driving around looking for a pay phone.. Guess what.. they’re all either broken, non functional or they’ve been removed.   In the  end I was not able to find a public phone.. my phone came back to life and I finally connected with my friend. albeit 15 minutes late.. But.. the payphone predicament stuck with me..    Think about the last time YOU used a payphone.. // It’s been a while.. no ? They’ve been made completely obsolete by cell phones.. Pretty interesting that something that’s been an icon of communication for more than 80 years would disappear so suddenly… and that no one would even really take note that it was gone..

That got me thinking of the panel I’m to be on tomorrow night.. I and the other panelists are supposed to predict the future in 2050. What will things be like? What common things like pay phoens will have disappeared form the face of the earth ?   What new things will there be ? It’s interesting to note that most futurists of the last century failed to see the advent of such innovations as the cell phone, the internet and the personal computer. From what I can see.. most predictions for the future are either too bold (eg. flying cars, time machines, free lunch) or not bold enough linear predictions from where we are..

T Here are about 500 of you out there reading this tonight.. do you think you can help me out here ? What do YOU think the world of 2050 will bring ?! What new inventions will there be ? What will have disappeared ? What changes to society will have occurred  ? Will it be nirvana or hell ? or both.. or neither ? I’d like to hear what you think !  Please help me not suck tomorrow when I have to predict the future…

It’s only appropriate that I’m using myspace, facebook and twitter to make this plea… they weren’t predicted by anyone either

Night folks.. happy prophesying.. Nite Sam !
-me

Monday night – 300,000

I passed an interesting milestone today.. somewhere between 12:30 and 3:15  this afternoon, this blog had it’s 300,000th read.  was wondering if that 300K mark would actually occur on Nov 25th.. the

anniversary that I started writing here.. which was 3 days after Sam’s

passing. Tat’s what happened at the 1 year mark.. I had exactly 100,000

viewers on the year anniversary of starting here.. last year, things

had slowed down.. and I was onl at soemthign like 180,000 readers on

the 2nd anniversary.  This year I’m at 300,000 3 weeks early..  It’s a funny landmark.. Kind of meaningless, I know.. but as someone who’s neurotically obsessed with numbers.. and their occurrence, it was an interesting passing.

Here’s hit count at 9:30 AM (not counting RSS or readers  reading 1 of the two copies of the blog .. or reading it on facebook)

here it is at 12:30

And here just affter coriossing 300K at 3:15 PM

   You are probably saying to yourself.. ‘who cares’  .. and you’re right.. But I see significances in all sorts of numbers.

    I think there are no real coincidences.. just number sequences we’ve failed to follow.  . I have a ritual whenever a car I’m driving hits a magic number (eg, a 100K .,, or al digits the same.. eg 1111111) I feel compelled to get out of the car and run around it three times. I only make phen calls on even number seconds.. I only drink out of water glasses which have been filled three times.  I see special meaning in the number of hotel rooms that I’m given . I see portents, good or bad , in times of emails I receives..  n phone numbers, in addresses..  I subconsciously factor numbers (combination, hotel room  numbers, parts of phone numbers) to see if they might be prime numbers… like my lucky number (911 .. yes.. 911 ) . All in the hope of what ? … Perhaps in the hope of finding some clue … some answer … to this wacky universe.. perhaps of knowing g-d..   ?  

 Does that make me a bad person ?    Hope not…. 
OK.. enough.. time for bed. Night folks, night Sam !
-me

ps. I’ on a panel discussion on Wed night about predictions for the year 2050.. Anyone out there got soem cool predictions ?

Sunday night – Friends of Sam

Peaceful day today.   We spent the day trying not to eat the candy that Gabe managed to collect last night.   Exactly 233 pieces…   fewer by my count today 🙂


In the afternoon, Diane and I went to the Haunted Forest to do a little filming of the Pumpkin King. We had to do it today before we lost the gneerator an compressor. Believe it or not, I’m trying to use it to make a rap video about the joys of  engineering. It’ll ether by funny or awful.. you’ll get to judge in a week or so…

The other acomplishments for the day were ..   getting a run in with the dogs and diane.. putting up our interior storm windows.. and a project with Jen. 

I spent a couple of hours over at Jen and Tim’s working on the Friends of Sam page on Samstones.org. Jen’s idea is to collect all of the material that the kids have done with Friends of Sam to help them with their college applications.  These kids have done such great community service in Sam’s Honor. I hope it does help them get noticed as they apply..

Here’s a list of the stuff off the page…   If you’re reading this and your’ve been involved with Friends of Sam.. please check out this list and let Jen know if we’ve left anything out.. or if you have some pictures  or documents you’d like us to add in.. 

Here’s the material.. so I’ll end here… Have a peaceful novermber folks. It’s a tough  month for us.. but we’ll get thruh it.. Nite all.. Nite Sam
-me

Friends of Sam is a group of kids helping kids. Friends of Sam is

made up of several of Sam’s good friends. They have been doing fund

raisers to raise money to help kids in need.

Here’s an article in the Burlington Free Press that announced the group’s mission and some of the founding members:
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Here’s a list of events that Friends of Sam has held since 2007:
 

2007

Friends of Sam supports local teens who lost their home to a house fire…..

 

Friends

of Sam sent two Williston teens $200.00 gift certificates to the

University Mall in order that they could replace some of their clothing

and belongings that they lost in a house fire.

 

 

 

May 28, 2007 : Friends of Sam supports the Tyler Eklund Fund

 

Fourteen year old Tyler Eklund broke his C3 vertebrae while snowboarding at a national competition.  He was paralyzed from the neck down.  Friends

of Sam supported the Tyler Eklund fund with a check for $2526.83 with

the intention that it be used to help his family make his home wheel

chair accessible. The funds for this donation were raised through the

sale of T-shirts and Frisbees at a memorial birthday event in honor of

Sam Cohn.  Tyler was a participant in the High Cascade camp program as was Sam.

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August, 2007 : Friends of Sam supports the Camels Hump Middle School

 

Friends of Sam purchased and donated new school supplies to the Camels Hump Middle School in Richmond, VT.  They

shopped for and delivered $420.00 worth of much needed supplies

including notebooks, pencils, rulers, gluesticks, paper, etc. with the

intention that it be made available to kids in need.

 
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November, 2007 : Friends of Sam supports the Burlington Emergency Food Shelf and Local Families in Need:



Friends

of Sam presented an art auction event at Jager Dipaolo and Kemp in

support of the Burlington Emergency Food Shelf.  At this event, Friends

of Sam provided musical entertainment and refreshments, while visitors

enjoyed the hand made art donations by the kids, their friends and

family members.  This event, combined with the Chili Cookoff with

Hettena-Wright and Horton, netted close to 4000.00 in cash and food

donations for area families and the food shelf:

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May,

2008: Friends of Sam supports Abraham Nhail and family with $3000.00,

that was raised at the Jam for Sam event at Talent Skate Park:

 fos7a.jpg

 Here’s Abraham’s story:

 

fos7b.jpg

fos7c.jpg

 

We’ve just learned that Abraham is close to being reunited with his family

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December 2007 & 2008: Friends of Sam supports Jingle Rails:

Jingle

Rails in an event held at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in support of the

mission of Friends of Sam. Skiers and Snowboarders competed for

placement and prizes.


 

June 2009:  Jam for Sam at Talent Skate Park

Friends

of Sam and Talenet Skate park joined together again to raise funds for

the Kraing Baing Village Project, a non-profit organization whose

mission is to help the impoverished village of Kraing Baing, Camboidia.

Friends of Sam raised and donated $700 to the project which was enough

to support their goal of the installation of two clean water wells.

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Saturday night – Bittersweet.

We’re just back in from trick-or-treating .

It’s been a good day.. not the day I expected, bit a good day

nonetheless. I had a ton of stuff planned, but this mornign I got a

call from Herb at the Haunted Forest, .. the Pumpkin King aka

‘Project-x’, hadn’t been tied down properly and blew over in a high

wind gust at last night’s performance. Luckily, no one was hurt.. but

you couldn’t say that for the pumpkin, he’s head had beenn early 

knocked off, his fingers were all broken, and arm was dislocated and

the wires were all ripped up.. Worse.. his whole 20 feet was lying

horizontal on the ground. Homer got there around 11 and I got there a

little later..they took off his head.. homer worked on the arm while I

redid the electronics and repaired the jaw. . Herb repaired the fingers

It was a mess !

By

about 1 we had the whole guy back together again and completly

working.. I couldn’t beeive it. Homer is a mechanical genius…

As

I was packign up, a couple of parent visitors to the forest recognized

me from the show.. so I grabbed a picture.. . I was id’ed 4 times

today..  It still happens every time I go out in public  I love talking

to folks about the show.

During

the afternoon, Sam M came over and interviewed us for a journalism

class she’s taking. She’s doing a paper on ‘folks who overdo

Halloween’.. and she thought of us.. The funny thing is.. with the

party being last week, we weren’t too motivated to go out tonight. Gabe

was going out with his friends… but they don’t need us tagging along.

So… it looked like it would be the first time I hadn’t gone out trick

or treating for the past 20 years…..

I

dropped Gabe and his friends off.. then had to drop Kristen’s bag at

friend Scouts’.. I ended up trick or treating by myself at Scout’s

house….   and realized I wasn’t old enough to skip trick or treating

yet.. I zoomed back home

..

and Diane and I whipped together a costume .. We tied ropes between our

arms and clothes pinned on a bunch of old clothes.. We came as a

clothesline… or ‘airing our dirty laundry’.. in recognition of our

towns bizarre and amusing politics of late…

Wouldn’t you know that as soon as we got out of the car in town we ran into Gabe and co..

We

did our normal rounds, first down Bridge street .. with a stop in to

see Marvin and Bridge Street.. Half the town was in there…

We ran into Chris K as ‘iron man’

Then we headed down pleasant street to see Gretch’ , Marshall and Ben and have one of their traditional cider doughnuts.

We

then wandered round town, running into old friends and reliving those

decades of carrying kids. repairing costumes and eating the candy that

the kids didn’t like I can remember so, so many of those Halloweens in

Richmond.. It’s got to be one of my favorite things abotu living in a

small town like this.. I love our town.

I love our memories.. Happy Halloween folks.. happy Halloween Sam..  Trick or treat !
-me