Monthly Archives: December 2009

Wednesday night (I think) – slog

It’s about 11:10 on either Wednesday or Thursday night.. I’m truly not sure. I know that I left here at 3:30 AM yesterday and worked my way down the entire state of NY. I ended up in NYC and had a great dinner with friend David.. I then fell asleep after blogging on David’s couch. I over slept my alarm…. as did David.. We piled in my car and headed back to VT. Challnege one came when I took a wrong turn when going over the triboro (aka RFK) bridge.. we ended up heading into queens.. the GPS in the car got completely messed up … and had us heading out Long Island.. by the time we reversed it, figured out our bearings and got turned around. we’d burnt an hour.   It was 8L30 by the time we were pointed east on 95 and heading home. The weather got progressively worse until we were going 30 mph or so.. the stretch between Springfield MA and White River VT was the worst.. I gave up counting how many cars I’d seen off the road.
  The trip took 9 hours.. the good part of that was that I had plenty of time to catch  up with David on the ride.. we talked politics. kids, healthcare, cities, states, food, careers, coworkers, companies, coffee, town politics, skiing, airplanes, old freinds, colors, futures, stocks, shoes, games, ad campaigns, politicians, cell phones. colleges, skate ramps, etc.. etc etc..

It was actually fun hangin out in the car..

I got to work about 5 PM in time for a 2 hour meeting..   after that I wnet to the Daily planet to meeti up with the Dad’s group… I had written down 7PM.. they met at 5:30.. I caught them just as they were leaving.. then my friends England and two freinds from Switzerland showed upo…. we had a quick dinner.. then I came home.. I’ve beenaway for 44 hours.. and it feels like a week…

time for bed..

nice to be home ya’ll.. nite Sam
-me

Tuesday night – long strange trip

I’m at the end of a very long very good day.. it started around 2:30 last night.. I woke up and found I couldn’t go back to sleep.. lots on my mind.. all of it good stuff.. I lay in bed for an hour to try and sleep.. but no sleep came (that’s really, really unusual for me).. so I got up. showered and started driving to NY for a days worth of meetings.

On the way down I happened to go by the Markowski’s barn in Vergenees.. I pulled in to tak ea quick picture of the recently re-assembled Time cycle..

I pulled off the road for an hours more sleep, then I crossed into NY.. it was a beutiful sunrise !

Next stop was the Albany Nanoscience center. I had a 9:10:30 presentation I had to do, and I didn’t want to do it from the road. The guys at ananu were kind enough to lend me an office for y calls…

That talk went well…..

Then I got back in my car and headed south to Poughkeepsie …   I got there just in time for lunch with friends Bruce and Jim.. Friends Lisa and Bill wondered by as well.

At 2 I gave a Colony talk for well over 100 folks.. It was a good crowd and the talk went pretty well.. I did a little visiting with folks after the talk.. Then I headed down to  Ruchirs for his holoday party…

There were a ton of my friends there.. and Rashi had made an indian feast.. I just sampled.. rather than ate …   it was delicious as is everything that Rashi cooks.

around 7 I headed down to NYc.. to meet David K for an 830 dinner.. We went to an all vegetarian place. It was excellent !  ow I’m camping at David’s for the night.. Tomorrow, the two of us will drive back to VT..

Wow.. 4.. no 5.. stops all for different purposes.. all in a day.. no wonder I can’t stay awake to write more…

Night folks.. night Sam.
-me

Monday night – Seiche

Very interesting day..   I found out late last week that my friend Tim in Corporate had gotten some extra money to film the third installment in his ‘Mad Science’ series on IBM’s Smarter Planet program (I’ve already posted the link to the first one he did) .
The catch is.. the money had to be spent this week. I like doing these vids because I think they help raise folks awareness of how technology can help the environment..   I managed to clear my calendar today to help with filming. I met Tim and the film crew at about 10 this mornign and we began working on a story.. this movie would be about managing water quality in places like Lake Champlain.

The story took us to the Champlain Water District, the utility that provides drinking water to south burlington. shelbourne, essex and jericho.   I’d driven by it for years without noticing it.   The guys at CWD were amazingly nice, smart and helpful.. they showed us their hold setup.. it was really impressive.. I never new there was so much science behind clean water !

I was amazed at the array of chemicals it takes to make the water safe and healthful…..

Our first stop was the sampling station on Potash Brook.. this is where they measure temp. flow, turbidity ph, organics, etc for the water entering the lake. There are hundreds of small stations like this around the area.

The instrumentation in the control room was pretty fancy..

This was my favorite instrument.. this shows the water temperature profile near the two big intakes for the water system which are both about a half mile off shore at about 75 down.   The colors map to temperature.. you can see the shapr line between the wamr surface water and the colder deep water.. This scan was actually from this summer.. the real temperature today was all blue.. as in .. the low 40’s .. which proved to be pretty chilly as I later found out.

One cool feature of these plots is the periodic humps which occur at roughly 3 day period.. it’s evidence of the seiche, (isn’t

that a COOL WORD ?!?!) an underwater standing wave that traverses north

south in Lake Champlain all the time. it’s caused by the prevailing

north wind.. As you can see on the plot it makes a HUGE difference in

the distribution of the water temp.. which in turn allows the water

guys to adjust their treatment..

After we got those shots, we went to Echo to film the rest.. It was already near 3 PM.. and the sun was setting.. so we did our last shot next.. it involved me jumping out of a canoe into Lake Champlain.. Did I mention that the water was in the low 40s.. and it was in the low 30’s out.. and that it was snowing ?   I don’t want to give away the story line ..  so you’ll have to watch the vid to see why…

Anyway.. it was C-O-L-D out there !  Time was nervous thta he’d end up in the water too !!!!!

And guess what… I did manage to tip over the canoe.. and Tim went in too.. It was… uh… cold.. I mean really cold… but it was funnier than it was cold.. I was laughing hard enough to keep myself from freezing as I pulled the canoe over to the doc. Man, I hope they got the shot.. ‘cuz I wasn’t about to do it again..

We ran inside and dried off..  

As soon as our teeth stopped chattering we got in dry clothers and went and shot the rest of the vid in Echo with the ancient Sturgeons in the tank looking on..

.It’s 6 hours sinc eI was in the lake.. and I just realized I’m finally warm.. Never a dull moment…  

OK.. I need to leave around 4 AM tomorrow morning so I need to go..
More tomorrow.. nite folks.. Nite Sam !
-me

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Sunday night – Muddled

I spent all day working .. as in IBM working. I am trying to pull together a short presentation on something that I am both knowledgeable and passionate about. .. yet I am really struggling to put words to paper. What I’m realizing is that even though my brain seems to be working close to 100 % these days.. I’ve never really gotten back the ability to read or write much  since Sam’s passing. I used to read every night.. I’d always have several books going at any one time and probably read 30-50 each year.. now I’m lucky if I read 34 a year. Similarly, UI used to be able to knock out a set of powerpoint  charts in minutes if I knew what I wanted to say.. now it takes me hours or days.. I do a ton of staring at the blank screen, struggling to put one word after the other…

Now.. I know it sounds sort of silly given that I have no problem blogging every night.. but here, I’m not trying to convince, explain or teach anything in a linear way. I had thought it was something related to my diminished cognitive  function  after Sam died.. .. but .. as I just said.. my thinking feels pretty clear these days.   It’s more like I caught a mild case of dyslexia.. Is that possible ?

Or.. am I just lazy ?

nite folks, nite Sam
-me

Tell me to get back to work…