Yearly Archives: 2009

Sunday night – art car

Folks,
    I need to apologize in advance. It’s nearly 2AM and I need to go to sleep.  I’m also using  differnt editor.. so I have even less of  a spell checker.I really can’t see the spelling errors without it.  Hope this is legible..     I’ve been working most of the day on the charts for my talk next month. I wonder if My Obama is working as hard on his speach. Diane has been a wonderful help goign through and helping me refine the message. It’s a complicated, subtle  and maybe contraversial set of suggestions I’m makingin this talk . She’s really helping me to make sure the points come across.. She’s wonderful.

Not much to report on the rest of the day.. I did take a break midday to work with Homer and Mitch on two projects. The first is a variable delay timer for the propane flame throrower that Homer is teachign the Middllebury college kids how to build . It needs to have a way to adjust boththe flame time and the repitition rate of the 25 foot flame jets.. I ended up using a small microcontroller to build this little delay relay. It’s not pretty.. but it works well. Homer’s testing the flamethrower next weekend.. stay tuned for that…

The other thing we worked on was designs for the Burning man art car design.. As  you may recall, it’sgoign to be a 20 foot ferris wheel.. Homer’s built a great scale model.. We discussed the loading and unloading.. saftey (believe it or not) , and started estimates for weoght and cost.. It will be a big project. Does anyone have 30 thousand dollars lying aroudn that they’d like to toss into this project.. Not us !

Homer’s models are always great.. this thing is a work of art.. and works beutifuly…




OK.. Starting to nod off here.. so more tomorrow…   Big week this week…. Obama will be our pres.. That’s so amazing and cool

Nite all  Nite Sam
-me

Saturday night – stuck in Facebook

The day started very early   with Max packing up and heading back to school for the spring semester.  It’s always tough to say good bye to him.. but I know that he’s enjoying Pratt. I’m so proud of  him down there. Here he is saying by to the girls…

Abbot and Lindsey are driving Max and Emma back in Mason’s car. It was a tight squeeze with the four of them and Reptar. They had to leave soem stuff here fdor me to bring when I take Gabe  down to NYC in early Feb.

I have to admit that I’m already missing Reptar.. He may be crazy.. but he’s so cute and crazy.. It’s certainly much quieter now that he’s gone.. and no low objects are in constant danger of getting shredded.. but I miss his weird obsessions. I sensed that we were kindred spirits somehow.

Gabe. Diane and I actually headed out before Max left.. We had to get Gabe to a competition at Sugarbush.. and besides.. if we got out the door first it would probably help get max out the door.

It was a beautiful, cold mornign.. around -8 I think.. it was about the 3rd day (I think) of zero degree weather or below. Gabe got dressed as we headed down to Waitsfield.

We got to sugarbush in time for Gabe to register, then DIane and I went and holed up in the lounge.She’s helping me with my slides for this ISSCC talk. She’s such a good reviewer.. she asks just the right questions. Her input has really improved the clarity and flow  of this talk.. We worked there for about an hour.. then it was time to go out and watch Gabe. First, I left a SamStone in the lounge…

Diane and I trudged up to the terrain park. It was about -6 when we headed up there. I think it probably warmed a bit after that.. We stood and watched the skiers and riders and tried to stay Warm. We were right under the lift.. which gave us time to shoot plenty of lift pictures of Gabe.. Unfortunately.. I didn’t have enough smarts to catch any pictures of him competing. he had a pretty good day out there.. I’m so impressed that he competes like this.. he’s getting really good !

There’s no missing him with that pink helmet !

I slipped another SamStone in the crash pad of one of the lift towers…

After the awards, the guys from Pure a local board shop .. had a swag toss.. Gabe got some good booty.. These events are so cool.

We dropped Gabe off at Bolton on the way home.. Then I started back on this talk.. which is what I did until about midnight.. Then.. I was just about to go to sleep.. and I made the mistake of logging in to Facebook. Big Mistake !.. I’m trapped in there… there’s so much going on.. I’m running in to all sorts of old friends.. It truly is amazing.. but .. I’m afraid I’ll start hanging out in Facebook instead of sleeping one of these days… Yikes !

OK.. Now.. I must sleep.. Talk to ya’ll later.. ite Sam !
-me

Thursday night – Brrrrr

Lessseee.. What’s up here.. Not much. I’m spending  all of my time split between work and working on my ISSCC talk . Not much time for just hanging out these days. I worked at home again today.. again, I am finding it to be really productive, especially when I need to write.

I worked until about 5, then I had to head to UVM for a meeting about the Cystic Fibrosis Game that I’ve been volunteering on. The meeting was the first full group meeting we’ve had. I twas lead by Peter and Jason. both Doc’s at UVM’s medical school. Also there were Ann D and Jack from Champlain, a dad of a girl with CF, A 32 year old CF patient,  several respiratory therapists.. and me. I’m the hardware geek on the project.

This is the first time I got to see the prototype flash game that the Champlain students have create.d It’s a cute and simeple driving game. Gwen demonstrated running the game by blowing into the spirometer. It was cool to see the whole thing working. it’s all being readied for a clinical trial which will begin in May. It’s all very cool. I like the thought that something I helped build will be used to help kids who are ill.

In keeping with the nights medical tone. I came home to admire Gabe’s school project a complete model of a cell made out of Sculpy.

Though this one will be the envy of all other cell models.. because theis is the only one wiht a glow-in-the-dark cytoplasm !. Cool work, Gabe !

Max had a whole cadre of freinds over and they cooked us a great falafal dinner.. It was like eating on a streecorner in Israel.. it was yummy.

It was great being there with all of Max’s friends..   Mason

Jessie

Emma, whos’ visiting from New York

Max-man

Chris

and Alex.. It was a spontaneous party !

Yikes.. It’s now about -18 out.. Time to go get under the covers.. it’s a long cold night..

OK.. there go my battieris.. that’s all for now.. Nite folks. Night Sam !
-me

Tuesday night – Facebook

Not much to report today.. I worked at home again.. a full day of work mixed in with lots of work on my paper.. I feel so productive when I’m working at home.. Sometimes I think I should do it 100 % of the time.. On the other hand.. I do miss seeing people. I think I’ll try to keep it to 1-2 days a week for now. The only noteworthy thing I can think of that happened to day was a midday visit by our friend Bess. Bess it the writer, director and Producer of the Shout it Out movie that Max was in

She came by to say hi.. and we ended up talking about ways to get the movie in front of more kids. We talked about ways of leveraging social networking tools like myspace and facebook. I hope it was helpful. It would be great if that movie found its way into more schools. Speaking of Facebook..I think something interesting is happening on Facebook… and I wanted to know if others are seeing it. I had heard that Facebook at passed Myspace as the number 1 social networking site back in April of last year..

 but I never saw any difference in My Facebook activity..But, something happened around new years.. I saw activity on my Facebook just explode.. all of a sudden I’m getting friend invites, messages, activities from all over, .. I don’t think it’s anything that I’m doing.. I suspect that it is something to do with many folks making the new years resolution to jump into facebook this year.. Are others seeing it ?   I’m finding that I love facebook.. and so do many of my work colleagues.. I’m finding that I often end up discussing work on Facebook.. which has got to be a no-no ..   What’s more.. my friends are always n facebook. I sent out about 12 ‘friend requests’ about an hour ago 1t 11PM.. and half of them have already responded.   I’m also finding tons of old high school and college friends pretty easily over there… It seems to have less of an age barrier than Myspace. I’m curious to hear from folks what their Facebook experience has been… Are you seeing a big upswing in the number of connections you have ? Unfortunately.. Facebook doesn’t have a good blogging facility .. (but then again.. neither does Myspace haha).. So.. what I’m doing is mirroring this blog on Myspace as ‘Notes’.. I’m not sure people can read it there.. but We’ll see how that goes.Well.. gotta go check my Facebook…   More tomorrow then.. Stay warm.. we’re expecting a low tonight of -16 F
Nite Sam-me