Yearly Archives: 2009

Sunday night – sam's pants

I’m in South Bend IN today giving a talk at Notre Dame. (just gave my talk.. went ‘just ok’ )  The good thing is getting to see my friend Jay B/ and family. I also got to see the Notre Dame campus.. what a great place ! (I apologize for my phones poor camera)

Here’s the old admin building

They even have  a grotto modeled after the grotto at Lourdes

The basicilica wsa as beutiful as any I’ve visited anywhere in the world

This place is oozing with school spirit.. hey even have Notre Dame carpeting !

I spent the mornign with Jay and family. It was wonderful hanging out with them. I knew Jya and his wife Jean in Pittsburgh when I was in Grad school. They now have 2 kids.. sam age 11 and abbey age 14. Jay and jean also had a daughter Dylan who lived only 4 months back in 1993.

Sam and Abby are great. they showed me a bunch of hteir stuff.. including soem magnifying glass wood burning.. Sam even managed to get a fire started with friction using a bow. very cool.

One of Jay’s most prized possesions is a signed picutre of the professor from Gilligans island.. one of my all time heros.. sweet !

They also had a painting of an old guy who looks somewhat like me.. ok a little older me.. but still kinda close..

Jay then took me by the ‘angel of hope’ memorial garden.. A place where people remember childeren who have died. It was very moving. To me.. I spent several minutes crying which feltreally  good.

There’s a brick for Dylan.. we put a samstone next to it…

It was good being there with Jay next to our two kids names..

Then I remembered.. I was wearing Sam’s pants….  felt good…

that’s all from here. gnite folks.. nite sam
-me

Saturday night – wrong cable

Folks,
    Sitting in Ohare airport. Just realized I don’t have the right cable to download the pictures from today’s’ very cool assembly of wheel 2 for the time cycle. Instead, I’ll show you a quick experiment I did.. Here are two wordles’ (word frequency diagrams) from the last 9 days of twitter searched for ‘the colony discovery’.. Interesting to see..

Here’s the first

How cool is that.. Ooops we’re boarding. More later. Love you all ! Love you sam
-me

Friday night – thinkign of Sam

I’ve been thinking about Sam … I always think of Sam.. Today I was going through a couple of thousand pictures which were taken during the making of The Colony. I came across this picture of Morgan and I soldering soemthing together.. Not sure what.. but I noticed the memory band I always wear for Sam.. It made me happy and sad to see.. It’s always that way.

Nite folks.. Nite Sam you’re always with me..

Thursday night – Tish B'av

Very productive day.. worked at home again in the tower. I find I get so much more done when I work up there. It’s quiet and there are no distractions. I was so busy that not much else happened that was worth recording here.. Tonight we had a nice break .. we walked over to Dawn and Jim’s for dinner. It was great hanging out with them. We ended the night with stupid yoga tricks.

One other thing of note.I learned from a friend that today is Tish B’Av.(תשעה באב)  .. the ninth day of Av… a day of mourning in the Jewish calendar. It’s like Friday the 13th.. but sadder. According to Jewish history there were 5 major calamities on Tish B’av.  (I learned from Wikipedia)
    The twelve scouts sent by Moses to observe the land of Canaan returned from their mission. Two of the scouts, Joshua and Caleb, brought a positive report, but the others spoke disparagingly about the land which caused the Children of Israel to cry, panic and despair of ever entering the “Promised Land“.

    For this, they were punished by God that their generation would not

    enter the land. Because of the Israelites’ lack of faith, God decreed

    that for all generations this date would become one of crying and

    misfortune for their descendants, the
    Jewish people. (See Numbers Ch. 13–14)

    The First Temple built by King Solomon and the Kingdom of Judah was destroyed by the Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE and the Judeans were sent into the Babylonian exile.
    The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the Jewish exile from the Holy Land.
    Bar Kokhba’s revolt against Rome failed in 135 CE. Simon bar Kokhba was killed, and the city of Betar was destroyed.
    Following the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the razing of Jerusalem occurred the next year. A Temple was built in its stead to an idol.

    I’d never heard about Tish B’av before yesterday. It’s strange to learn something new about your own culture at age 50..

    I hope it was a thoguhtful day for everyone..

    It was for me..   OK.. All for now.. Nite folks,
     Nite Sam

    -me