Saturday night – Waterville valley

January 10, 2010 johncohn

Beautifully simple day. Gabe and I left home at 6:30 this morning for a snowboarding meet in Waterville New Hampshire. Gabe is riding with the Mount Mansfield Snowboard team from Stowe.. It was about a two and a half hour drive.. . It was cool watching the sun rise… I generally only see that If I’ve stayed up .. Gabe and I talked about music, physics and snowboarding the whole way there..

Despite a late start, we got there in plenty of time for Gabe ot sign up for the competition. Waterville is cmall ski and boarding place a little bigger than Bolton.

It was a perfect day.. and the place was packed..

The competition today was mostly about fun. It was sponsored by Transworld Snowboarding magazine, a bunch of gear makers and High cascade.. the snowboarding camp that Gabe and Sam have gone to. Today they even had a s’more stove in the shape of High Cascade’s mascot.. a giant marshmallow.

Gabe, Dylan and the gang spent some time checking out the terrain park.. here they are at the top of the hump rail. basically a set of concrete stairs out in the snow…

I stuck a samstone in the rail near a picture of Sean White.. I once gave Sean a Samstone.

Gabe had a good day out there.. he’s gotten some serious skills in the last year.. Here he is on one of the down rails..

Soem of the older kids were doing some extreme stuff. her’s Gabe’s friend Dylan on his way to being upside down.. (I shut my eyes)

Gabe managed to badly jam his middle finger on his first run today.. After the competition I watched him make a splint out of two plastic forks and a plastic bag..

Later on, he replaced the plastic bag with a sticker.. Here he is showing it to me.. or at least, that’s what I think he’s doing here.

Around four Gabe went off with the other 8 kids in the team. they’re spending the night in a hotel in Concord so they cna go to another event tomorrow. Sounds like a party tonight !

The drive home by myself was very peaceful I took the route thorough Franconia notch.. so beautiful.. sorry the pictures suck. as I took them while driving. but it’s really spectacular..

I got home around 7 to a peaceful house.. We all curled up on the couch after Dinner…

Now it’s not even 10 and I’m going up to sleep.. .. .

I have few days that are this quiet and peceful.. so I savor them when

they come..

Nite folks.. nite Sam !

-me

Friday night – That guy

January 9, 2010 johncohn

I love being useful.. but not like this.. I got a bunch of emails the other day that a friend of mine’s son had died over the xmas break. As soon as it happened I started getting mail and calls..   It’s not because we were particularly close. friends . I don’t think we’ve seen each other in more than 4 years.. he lives in New York and now works for a differnt company. He used to work for IBM .. and we collaborated a few times.. I’m not sure, but I think we even have a few patents together.    Folks reached out to me because I was ‘that guy’.. the guy who’s son had also died..    I was ‘glad’ tthat folks reached out to me.. if that’s the word to use in a situation like this. I want to be there for my freind.. What struck me as curious is that folks thought I would know ‘what to do’ . It’s kinda sweet and sad. there’s nothing anyone can ‘do’ in a tragedy like this. .. but.. I do want to help …
    I remember when Sam died I was surprised to find out that several of the folks who showed up to help us had gone through some sort of personal tragedy of there own. .. I now understand so much better that need to give back.. for all the help and love and support that folks showed to us.
    Today my friend’s boss called me from California.. and asked me what he could do..   I gave it some thought.. And gave him some advice of what had worked for me..
Like

– letting the guy decide for himself when he was ready to dive back in to work.. and how much he wanted to take on..
– Realizing that people sometimes through themselves into their work as an escape.. only to realize that they can’t work as hard as they once did.
– Recognizing that the guy could feel really good one day.. one hour. one moment .. and really bad the next… with no warning
– Recognizing that folks don’t always know what to ask for.. when someone says ‘if you need something, just call’.. is good intentioned.. but often folks don’t know what they need.. offer specific help.
– Understand that while someone may look OK after several months, they are still going to be cognitively impaired .. They might not even know it. Help them adjust their workload to what they can handle .
– I also reassured my friends boss that he needn’t worry so much about saying the worng thing.. folks get so worried that they’re going to say something that reminds someone of their loss.. no worries there.. you can’t be reminded of something that’s always on your mind.

My friend is actually coming to town next week.. it blows my mind that he feels up to travel.. but I’ll be able to sit with him and listen to him…

I’m looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time.. I like to be in a position to give back It both sucks.. and is a blessing to be ‘that guy’

nite folks.. nite sam
-me

Thursday night – free day !

January 8, 2010 johncohn

Thelow point of today was also the high point. My favoiret Geek emporium in the whole world.. Sparkfun Electronics was having there annual ‘free day’ . The guys planned to give away $100.000 dollars of merchandise toay.. It was pretty wimple. eeach person could get up to $100 of stuff free.. The only catch is you had to get your order in befor ethe $100.,ooo was used up. They do this as pure altruistic giveback. They have a rabid fan base (me included0 in teh geek maker community> this company is the onel place oyu can find cutting edge stuff to make amazing things.. Most of the cool stuff I build starts in one o ftheir part bins..

Anyway.. the free day event stared at 11AM EST today.. I’d carfully chosen the three itms I’d like to get in my free stash.. A blood alchohol sensor, an etherenet bridge and a speech chip. My idea was to dreat a talking, networked blood alchohol meeter.. it would swear at folks who were too intoicated to drive… My whol order was only $75.. I wasn’t going to be greedy.

Anyway I had my order all set to go at 11..

The trouble is.. there were 10’s of thousand of folks

trying to push the button at the same time I was.. I spent exactly 1

hour and 44 minutes trying to get my order into the system.. It kept timing out due to the huge amount of trafic..

at 1 hour and 52 minuts in, my order fnally processed.. but the $100,000 k limit had just been reached.. I lost out despite my best andm most dilligent efforts !!!!!

Initially I ws SO dissapointed. I’d alreaty bult my project in my mind.. I was mad and frustrated that despinte doing everythign wright, I hadn’t gotten my ‘fari share’..

Then….

I realize..’ wait..’.. this wanst semthign I’d lost.. I’d never had it.. t owuld only have been a windfall. My dissapoinment and frustration instanly got replaces with admiration and appreiation of the company that woud share such love (and it really is that) wiht their clients..

So.. I wrote the a longish letter.thanksing them so much for supportng our community (even if I lost out !) ” DOig that compeltey reframed my feelings..

try it soemtime..

>> Aywa.. the reat of the day was busy and interesting.. Got home in time to get a vist from good grind Seth, his GF. Katie and tha few of their freinds from WPI. They are all such geeks (anI mean that in the most complimentary way !).. Seth and I have collaborated on the giant pumpin guy and the bunrning man vehicle. He’s a top noch techical guy.. and a great guy as is Kate. thoghh she’s not a guy.

We had a good time showing them around the lab and messing with lasers, lights, and tesla coils. It was very good to see them.

OK. it’s getting close to 1:30/. time to sleep. More tomorrow !
night folks.. nite Sam
-me

Wednesday night – Glasses – half full

January 7, 2010 johncohn

I worked at home today .. Had a great productive day.. As I worked, for some reason I started to fixate on my glasses.. not sure why.. maybe it’s because I basically sat in one place for the entire day. Dunno..

One thing I kept noticing is that looking through glasses is like watching the world on TV. The world gets framed by your glasses. The world happens ‘out there’ on these two screens not in your head.. if you knwo what I mean..

Then I noticed that I could ‘watch my breathing.. maybe it’s because it was in the mid 50’s in my office.. my glasses would fog with every breath .. kinda cool.. made me feel like I was outside..

Then there’s the pushing piece.. every 3 minutes I have to shove my glasses back on.. How to do it ? finger ? wrist ? table. I’ve experimented with an indirect method.. slamming my head backwards against something.. nothing seems right. it always seems like the making..