Yearly Archives: 2009

Tuesday night – Happy 111111

A funny thing happened the day before yesterday.. It was early morning and I was coming back from a run with the dogs. I saw Diane in the van parked at the corner in front of our house. She was waiting for me.. As I got close enough to hear, she yelled for me to come over and look at the car..   The odometer on the van read 111111.. That’s amazing.. most cars only get six of the same number twice in their lives… 0000000 and 111111. what are the chances that it would happen exactly in our garage as this had done. Diane knows that I love stuff like this.. and she was waiting there for me to get back and see it. You know you married the right woman when she indulges your obsessions like that.   What’s even more interesting is that 11’s have always held special meaning for me.. My lucky number has always been 911 (long before sept 11).. 411 has always meant visitors,  611 has meant changes and 211 has always meant ‘watch out’.  111111 looked pretty auspicious ..   I don’t know if it’s a bit of the obsessive compulsive in me.. or its some deep channeling of the mystic numerology of my culture… Judaism has always had a strange fascination with the meaning of numbers.. the whole mystic tradition of the Cabal is about divining spiritual messages from numeric coincidences.

What amazed me even more is that Diane found on the web that 11:11 is a particularly   auspicious time.. Evidently, there was some big consciousness opening period that began on 11/11/08 and ended on 01/11/09. Check out some of these links and this and this

11:11 Higher Consciousness Pt.1

Whats cool is that the odometer thing actually happend on 01/11/09.. How cool is that ?

OK.. I nede to go to meditiation class now.. so that’s all for today…
Happy two two days after 01/11 everyone

nite Sam
-me

Monday night – Ronnie Lafrenier

I saw in the paper this morning that our down the street neighbor , Ronnie Lefrenier, passed away last Friday. We’d seen a bunch of cars at his house on Sunday .Ronnie had been living with Parkinson’s disease for many years.. He’d always wave as we ran past his house or he drove past our house. He farmed about a mile down Duxbury rd.. in fact his house and barn are the mile turn around for my old road run.. He milked, made syrup and had a few turkeys and beef cattle. We’d buy hay and manure from him from time to time.. Most of our conversations were short.. but he was always funny and freindly… and he always waved.  I can only guess how many times I’d run down by his house in the past 27 years. He’d be sitting on his porch waving.. and his dogs Nosy and Niky would run out to me. I always remember the big lilacs in his front yard. Ronnie’s wife Charlene once gave me a big armload of those lilacs to give to Diane when we were expecting Max… Charlene passed away in 1998… They were both really nice people…

I went to the visiting hours at Giffords on my way home today..I wanted to wave at Ronnie one more time,  The place was absolutely packed. .. I’d never seen it more full. I was waiting in line when I realized that the last time I was in Giffords was when Diane and I were making arraignments for Sam’s Memorial here at the house… I had to stop and take that in … Tonight there were pictures laid out all over the small waiting room which we could look at while as the line slowly moved along. I was there for more than an hour….before I had a chance to talk to the family and pay my respects. I loved looking at the old pictures.. Here are a few of them I saw.. Here’s Ronnie as he always looked…

Here he is recently sitting on the rock behind his house out on the Winooski…

I found this picture of Ronnie and Charlene.. It was good seeing her picture too. I remember when they got the dogs.. Charlene was pretty ill by that time and they got the dogs as companions for her. These dogs always ran out to great me.. I saw in Ronnie’s Obit that they must have also died recently.. I’ll miss them too.

I also saw this article abotu a bad chainsaw accident that Ronnie had when he was younger.. I’d never heard about it.. but it must have come out all right.. he had full use of his hands as far as I ever knew

I finally got up to the family… and Ronnie and paid my respects.. One last time I gave him the same small wave that we’d traded over the bast 26 years. He looked like he was at peace.. I talked a bit to the family then headed out.. I was glad to have gone there tonight.. Rest in peace Ronnie.

That’s all for tonight..   Good night folks. Goodnight Sam
-me

Sunday night – challenged, not frightened

Very busy and social day today. I had intended to spend it working on my talk.. but I guess that’s what I’m doing tonight. It’s worth it, though.. It was fun getting out of the house and seeing people.. First up this morning was breakfast with my friends Bart and Bob at On The Rise. .. Bart works here at IBM in an area related to mine… We’re something like 3rd cousins once removed on an IBM org chart. Bob live in NY and works in Yorktown. I’ve known Bob for longer than I can remember.. I met him at a pizza shop in Austin… when he came over and started eating my pizza as he introduced himself.. The three of us talked about work stuff and family stuff and state of the world stuff.. A good way to start the day… It was really good seeing them both.

I got this one picture of Bob that caught him looking so serious and wise… .. even wiser and more serious after a little photoshop…

I left those guys at 10:30 in time to go home and get Gabe up to the mountain . There was a Snowboard competition up there that he hadn’t signed up for.. but wanted to see … He said the snow was great today…   On the way back down the mountain, Homer called to tell me that his fnew friend Whit was coming by the shop at 1:30 and wanted us all to get together.Whit is only in town until tomorrow..  I called Max and invited him and Jesse to go with me.. We headed down to Monkton around 1:30.. .

Whit and Nicole arrived right before we got to Homer’s shop.. They’ve been visiting from San Fransisco as Whit teaches a class in Fire art at Middlebury.  The class of Middlebury students are building Fire trees and Propane flame canons..  By day, Whit is a corporate attorney who helps get green energy inventors linked to venture capitalist in a socially responsible way.. By night he’s an artist… actually a fire artist.
Nicole is a skin consultant in SF. They’ve been going to Burning Man for many years… Last year they worked on two pieces Max and I saw and loved. at Burning man last Summer. The first was a piece called pyrocardiem , it was a ring of flame jets that was hooked to a pulse detector..you slid on a little pulse oximeter… and the torches flared every time your heart beat !… (Is that cool .. or what !>!).. Max actually got hooked up to it .. The second was a 15 foot tall polycarbonate shield where you could blow propane, oxygen  and hydrogen through soap and make floating explosive bubbles. You popped them with little glow plugs. It was honestly m favorite piece at burning man.. As Whit described it.. i had this flash back that I’d actually met him and talked about the piece for a few minutes at the show.. it is a very tiny planet … no ?

Max, Jessie, Homer Nicole and I talked for about 2 hours about flame cannons, Burning man… names of contacts the other might find usefule and possible things we could build together. It was really great getting to know them…   ..

Next step is to build one of those propane cannons.. but not until after my talk….

Thanks to Jessie’s’ mindfulness we got back on the road towards home in time.. We’d invited Lou, Kathy and August over for an early dinner… That was another very nice meeting. I had a few minutes to talk to Augie about school. He’s in the Computer Science program at UVM.. and I co-chair the board of advisers for that department… It was a great chance to get some first hand feedback on the program.. He had some good ideas which I’ll filter back to the board

Dinner was really nice.. we hadn’t all sat down for a meal together in quite some time.. it was good to catch up…

Diane figured out a clever way to keep the dogs chilled out during dinner.. She gave each of the dogs a bone to chew.. so they all sat quietly as we talked… Right before Lou and Kathy left, Max asked out permission to show them what Reptar is usually like.. He went and got the dog’s favorite toy.. his old rugby ball. When Reptar sees this ball, he goes absolutely crazy…   See for yourself

..

OK.. All for the night.. I’ve got to get to work on my talk.. I’m getting nervous… ande excited about delivering this talk… It’s the largest group (~4000 folks) I’ve ever spoken in front of…If  think to hard about that, it will freak me out.  It made me think o fa great interview I heard on NPR  of a woman who will be reading a poem she’s written at Obama’s inauguration next week. The interviewer asked her if she was frightened by the prospect of speaking in front of all those people.. She answered “challenged… not frightened”.. That’s how I’m choosing to approach this talk… Please remind me of that if you see me veering towards ‘frightened’..

That’s it for tonight.. Goodnight my friends.. Good night Sam
-me

Saturday Afternoon – quiet

We’ve had a wonderfully quiet and uneventful day.. We woke up to a cold (-7) and bright morning…  Diane got up much earlier so all three dogs climbed in bed with me. I felt like staying there all day… but managed to pry myself out of there around 9.  By the time we had Gabe and his friends up at the mountain it was 11..

At that point Diane and I started working on the travel logistics for my talk in San Fran on Feb 9th… which is also  my 50th birthday. In fact, my talk is  scheduled 50 years  to the hour from my birth. Thinking about getting out there got me thinking about this upcoming birthday which is something I’ve been doing quite a bit lately.Society tells us that  50 is a big deal. So… how will it feel ? Will I feel suddenly old ? Will I freak out and some sort of mid-life crisis ? I can’t predict the future.. but I don’t think it’s going to be like that.  I’m feeling pretty good about where I am in life right now.  Sam’s passing has changed so much for me. I miss him so much…. yet at the same time, I’ve found a strange sort of peace. I think his death fundamentally changed my priorities. At this point I don’t think there’s anything more I need in my life..  I love my family, I don’t need more things, I like my place in my community…I feel fit… I have more interests than I have time for  and I love my profession..  Sure, money is a bit tight as it is for everyone ..  but … we have what we need…  . …and I need to do better at aligning my work and my passions… but I’m working that…     I think  I’m going to like being 50…. 

Now… I do want to do some things this year to mark turning 50… I’ve been trying to come up with some ideas..  Maybe a trip with my family ? Maybe a retreat somewhere  I’m still thinking.. and . I’m open for suggestions…  I’ve got time to think about this.. My birthday is still a month off. .. and I need to spend much of the time between now and then gettign ready for that talk in San Fransisco…  

Speaking of which.. my talk beckons.. back to work.. More tomorrow.. Nite friends.. nite Sam..
-me