Were in the middle of ‘The Thaw; . it happens most years.. for some reason temperatures suddenly go above freezing for a few days  and all hell breaks loose.. the snow turns to rain, the fields turn to lakes, and the rivers turn into …. well bigger rivers. The Winooski was out of its banks this morning and spilling into the field in front of our house.. It’s still a long way from our house.. it hasn’t reached here since 1992 when we re pregnant with Sam..

All along the drive to work I could see signs of the flood. roads were closed, fields were flooded.. and the river was covered with car sized chunks of jagged ice.. It was beautiful in an ominous kind of way

All floods are compared to the one in 1927 (i remember it well 🙂 ..   The winooski flooded so badly that all the bridges form montpellier to the lake were washed out in one day  . Here’s how our house looked a day or two after that.

I love it when the weather misbehaves.

Speaking of cold water

I’m planning on participating in this years Penguin Plunge when a bunch of crazy folks all jump into Lake Champlain in Feb. It’s a fund raiser for the Vermont Special Olympics.. I did it a few years back with the fine folks form Mexicali’s restaurant..  ( I go there so often that I consider it my second office)
If you’re interested in participating, let me know. If you’d like to watch me freeze my *** off, come on down.. If you’d liek to help us raise money for adults with special needs, please consider sponsoring me at   http://www.firstgiving.com/johncohn

It’s a great cause !

Thanks so much !

Nite all.. stay dry.. nite Sam
-me

I learned another new word today.. and I love it !.. Otaku..  (Otaku (おたく/オタク^?) is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests  usually video games, manga, etc) .. A new friend said that she was a Science Otaku ,too..  
   I’m finding the older I get the more I appreciate others.. and my own obsesions.   I love finding kindered spirits in others who share my own obsessions, but there’s nothing more entertaining than meeting someone who is irrationally absorbed with a topic I know nothing about.   I have friends who are in to model trains (you know who you are) ,
postage stamps, clarinets, word play, history, metal, music, player pianos, musicals, postcards, guns, languages, helicopters, orchids, accordions, ..

The world is a better place because of these obsessives..  I salute you (us) all.

Speaking of Science obbsesives..   I got the official word today that the colony is casting season 2. They’re specifically looking for the mad scientist person. Are you her/him ?
Here’s the official notice that I got today…

Now casting season two of

I’m thinking that a large number of evil or mid-evil mad scienctists are reading this blog right now thinking.. ‘hey.. I could do that..’  If you think you’d be interested.. let me know and/or.. go straight to metalflowersmedia.com  and  apply.

I can tell you it was a wonderful and difficult experience.  I’d love ot help find the next batch of .. uh… victims..

is it you ?

nite folks, nite sam
-me

I had another quite day at the house aloe doing geek projects which restoreth my soul.
I love just puttering on techie projects.. Midday I decided that the day was to beautiful to waste.. especially with several days of thaw and rain coming. I grabbed my snowshoes and running shoes and ran up t to the Safford Preserve. There I put in my snowshoes and ran/walked up to the ridge that borders the preserve. I clomped around up there for a while .. placed a SamStone in a tree.. then ran back down.. It was great being out in the woods on the crunchy snow.. Most of it will be gone in a few days.. bummer..
    On my run I was thinking about this crazy year.. this time last year I’d set my intentions on using media to help with my education outreach.. I had no idea how much of it I was actually gong to do in a year.. even outside of the TV show.. I’ve been a really getting in to mass media..from myspace, to facebook to twitter.. then the youtube videos.. and now a TV commercial. It’s amazing what can happen when you set you intentions..
I wonder when it will stop.. do I want it to stop ? How much is too much ? My ever neurotic mind is asking me those questions.. I guess we’ll see.
   Speaking of Youtube.. I’ve gotten a bunch of feedback on the Engineering Paradise spoof. Several folks have suggested that I change the tone of the chorus. Tonight Avery and Jacob B. came over an dwe rerecorded. Jacob did a great job with a single male line on the chorus. I’m still trying to mix it down and see if it makes the chorus clearer.. I’ll post both versions.. you guys let me know which you prefer..

Here’s the original..

and here’s the newer one. Which one do oyu prefer.. It’s only the chorus that’s differnt. Any suggestions much appreciated

Sorry folks.. listened this morning.. and didn’t like it.. so I pulled

sorry for the false start

Man.. it’s almost 1:30.. gotta sleep. More tomorrow.
Nite ya’all. Nite Sam
-me

Blissful day spent mostly by myself. Gabe was up at stowe,, Diane and I took a quick snowshoe this morning then She went off to a baby shower leaving me at home alone with  the dogs. I think I went almost 5 hours without speaking.. It was such a treat.. I spent the  time on a couple of geek projects I’d been putting off…  I have pictures.. but for soem reason I can’ get pictures off my phone this evening (and I call myself a nerd ?!)

– project 1 was an emergency trasistorectomy on my medium sized tesla coil . Last time I used it it stopped with a bang and I knew soemthing was up. it tunrs out that it ate one f the four big IGBJT transistors in the driver. Luckily, I had  areplacement.. unluckily.. those replacements are over 20 bucks each.. yow. It was a bit tricky finding the bad one and wrestling it free from its mates.. but once I got it extracated, the new one went in easily and voile la .. the thing sprung bakc to life with 40 inch sparks. Nothing liek a million volts ot make your moring.

– project 2 is goign to be part of my next big dream. I’v ebeen tlaking to some folks about building a really nice stylized statue of the lake Champlain monster “Champ” jus toutside the Echo museum. My idea is that folks would be able to send the scultpre a tetx message form their phone aand it would shoolarge jet of t fire (how cool is that ? ) it was inspird by a dragon sculpture I once saw in Krakow Poland. Today I did the first steps of wiring an odld cell phone up to intercept txt messages.. I also have a solar poweed charger for the thing.. so it should be self contained.. The whole thing is going to be pretty cool..

– project  3 is actually for work.. so I can’t talk much about it here.. / It’s a wireless project.that invloves both hardware and software  ; I realize that this was the first time I’ve picked up a soldering iron ithe course of my day job in a long time.. actually.. maybe in forever..  I hope to get some more time in that tomorrow..

– project 4.. after gabe got home, he and I completely finished his splitboard. It’s a conversion in which we cut an old snowboard of Sam’s in half then addedsoem hardware from a kit that allows it to clip back to gether as a snowboard, or unclip into two skis to be used with climbing skins. It’s been a great project.. and it’s been really fun to make togeter.. Gabe is hopign to test it out tomorrow.

Hmmm.. I guess that’s all for the day..   I love these islands of peacein my busy life.. Hope you all found peace today too
nite all.. nite Sam

-me

ps. The Engineers paradise vid is up to 26,000 hits. I think we’re going to rerecord the chorus tomorrow based on a bunch of feedback. Any other suggestions while I’m in there editing ?