Yearly Archives: 2010

Tuesday night – austin

Hello from Austin TX.. home of one of the largest under bridge living  bat colony.
I just spent several hours trying to repair a piece of equipment I was planning to borrow for some of my talks down here.. only to find that it was too far gone to  repair on the road.   No worries though .. I enjoyed hanging out with the pieces owner Carl.. He’s big time into doing science outreach with kids as well.. so the time we spent was good time. I didn’t really need the device in my talk anyway..

I’m excited and also nervous about the talks.. all three of them. When I have the jitters like this I keep wondering why I agree to do this kind of thing. Public speaking is so scary to me.. I just hope the message I’m bringign resonates..

I’ll let you know.if it does.. (I think it will) . wish me luck

nite all, note sam
-me

Monday night – Dia de los Muertos


Happy day of the dead.. strange concept, I know. On this day many folks in Latin America go to visit the graves of their loved ones and bring them their favorite foods
and flowers..

Diane and Gabe made this special Dia de los muertos bread… in the shape of a skull and cross bones. for Gabe to take to school

In the spirit of the day, I just went out and put some Halloween candy on Sam’s
memorial stone in the back yard.. Not that he’s  ‘there’.. any more than he’s everywhere.  .. It just felt good to do (enjoy,  my son…)

I hope everyone takes some time to send some love to your own ancestors today…

In the same Halloween theme.. Herb sent me some pictures of Project-x.. aka the pumpkin king from the Haunted Forest. Homer and I built this robot 2 years ago for them. It’s about 6 feet tall when crouching.. then rises to a full 23 feet when actuated. It has two 8 foot arms controlled by pneumatic cylinders that are operated by wired contacts on a pair of gloves. When the opperator speaks into a mike, the monsters 3 foot wide mouth opens and closes in time with the speach and his eyes flicker red and yellow.  Unfortunately, I didn’ thave much time to put into the project this year.. I did help them get the electronics running. Homer redid the pnematics this year. Evidently, it’s all worked pretty well for them this year.  It was good to hear. Here are soem pictures from Sunday’s matinee show.. the Matinee is for little kids.. This thing is pretty scary at night..

Well.. that’s about is for tonight.. more tomorrow fro Austin..
nite folks.. nite sam
-me

Saturday night – Jonesville Free Library

Ahhhhhh.. I took the day off.. and really needed to..   I slept late (7 AM).
puttered around the house for a it (Diane was out helping friend Maureen move)..
I the wandered out and cleaned my lab.. It had gotten into an amazingly bad state over the past 3 weeks. I have the tesla coil build going, some stuff for the Haunted Forest pumpkin and a huge mess for various Halloween costumes. Cleaning the lab is like uncluttering my mind.. putting back all the components, tools and instruments back into their places is strangely soothing..

The clean workbench inspired me to finally debug our broken invisible fence.. We’d noticed the dogs getting dangerously close to the road.. I started by checking the wire continuity with an AM radio.. it’s a neat trick.. you can actually ‘hear’ the fence underground as you move the radio over it.. No breaks… hmmmm… I checked the loop with an ohmeter and confirmed it was connected.. so.. I took the whole unit apart..  After a bit of snooping, I found the culprit.. a 50 cent high voltage suppressor had blown and shorted.. I popped it out and the unit started right up.. (need to order a replacement) .. Very strange.. the only thing I can figure that might have done that was a lightening strike to the house.. our lightning rod ground goes right next to one of the lead wires to the fence loop..   pretty cool.. no ?

I managed to get in some more goofing around.. some meditating, a nap and a run..  I felt rejuvenated.. which I really need because I have such a busy week coming up.

Later in the afternoon, Diane and I walked over to visit neighbors Bob and Amanda.. You can always recognize Bob as he drives his orange truck.. I was tickled to see he’d decorated it with a pumpkin face.

Bob had been cleaning out his old house and his mothers old house.. so he had some cool stuff to show us.. like this old sign they used t to advertise all night barn dances in their barn. It’s on the ack of a very old map of Vermont.

He’d found an old teachers desk that he figures must have been from our house at some point.

He also had found a bunch of old books.. including a nice

collection of urns poems.. all form the ‘Jonesville Free Library’.. which we

just learned today was in the room we now use as a mudroom. How cool is that

?!?! How often do you learn a new fact about the house you’ve owned for nearly

30 years ?

It was great visiting with Bob and Amanda.. and checking out their new house.. They’re trying to sell Bob’s mom’s house right next store.. it’s a nice old place if anyone is interested in a real Vermont farmhouse.  Here’s a mid-late 19th century map of our neighborhood..  Bob’s mom hous is labeled ‘S. Coly’  We’re the ‘Jonesville Academy’

Now.. just sitting around trying to figure out if we feel like going out for a Halloween party. .. or just staying here.. both sound fun..

Mmmm.. diane just pulled some cupcakes out of the oven.. one even looks liek a ghost.. maybe that means we should go to the party ?

OK.. that’s all for now..  more tomorrow..
Happy all hallow’s eve-eve

nite all, nite sam
-me

Friday night – TGIF…

So, so , so glad it’s Friday.. I was running out of energy y the end of this week. This time of year is always really busy.. this year it seems busier than ever. I’ve got lots of stuff coming up next weeks.. a trip, and three talks.. and 2 other places I’m supposed to be..

Its nice not to think about that on a friday night…

not thinking, not thinking, not thinking

Today was costume day at MMU.. so Diane re-inked lil’ wayne for breakfast.


..

Then.. dinner at Tim and Jen’s.. Peggy was ack in town..   Betsy and Fritz were there for awhile before their 11PM bus to the Jon Stewart/Stephen Cobert march in DC

Is it me.. or do these slices of bread look like rabbits ?

Afterwords a dumb movie an samstones.. nice !

simple post for a complex day..
have a nice start of your weekend friends

nite all, nite sam
-me