Monthly Archives: February 2011

Saturday night – strange ending

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Woke this morning and couldn’t figure out where I was for a moment.. Oh yeah… 8 of us in Hannah’s 1 room apartment in central Montreal..

Deb, Diane and I took a ‘run’ to the Jewish section of town to get bagels. It wasn’t much of a run because the ice covered sidewalks proved too treacherous to run much of the time.. It was good being out , though.. it was in the teens and very windy.. .. it was invigorating to say the least. It was about a 30 minute run/walk to Deb’s favorite Bagel place. it was very cool watching them make bagels.. they made only one kind.. now that’s a bagel store.

We got back to the apartment about 9:30 ish.. everyone was just waking up.. We got off to a lazy start.. eventually we ended up downtown and did some shopping..   then we grabbed lunch at Reuben’s a Montreal landmark .. and home of the epiphanous sandwich..

Gabe had never had a smoked meat sandwich .. I think he liked it !..

Everyone shared a huge peice of their famous cheescake…  I gotta say.. it was not the best retturant for 3 vegans.. (Me,  deb. diane)

Then.. back out into (or under ) the streets of Montreal for more shopping.. Here the guys are helping me shop for sport coats..


The main event of the day was 2 games  of laser tag at LaserQuest… You basically run around an shoot at your freinds .. and strangers with a laser .. it’s indescribably fun.. and somewhat disturbing.   I stopped ot put a SamStone in the maze.. and got shot mercilessly as I was doing it.. Sm would have thought that was pretty funny i think .

The last event of the day (or so I thought)  was dinner at a Lebanese place I like.. The food was great.. and there was curling in the background.. How montreally can you get.. ?

Hanna, Deb and I offered to go get the car rather than have everyone walk back in the 10 degree weather..There was a very unpleasant surprise waiting for us when we arrived. Someone had broken in to Deb’s suburban.. and grabbed on of the bags.. unfortunately it was Sumner’s bag with his passport.. .. They left everything else..   It really felt weird seeing this.. we’d parked on a busy street in a nice part of the city.. Man !..

While the others waited for the police. and cleaned out the glass, Gabe and I wet out and scroungetd for repair material at a grocery store.. .. plastic garbage bags for plastic, shipping boxes for cardboard.. various types of substandard tape.. but we got something that worked.. By placing the patch inside the car, ewe were able to make the car roadworthy..

I

Deb managed to bleed all over her registration..

I managed to bleed all over everything …

Around 9L30 we were ready to drive home.. Deb drove the whole way. Diane kept her company. … I slept

Miraculously. the juryrigged patch held for the whole highway trip

Now it’s past midnight.. and we’reall beat.. and a little saddened by the turn fo the day.. Still it was a great trip..

More tomorrow..

nite all, nite Sam

-me

Friday night – montreal

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greetings from Montreal.. we’re up here visiting friend Hannah.. It was a very busy day..I didn’t move from my desk.. but I could see that it was sunny out.. the computer told me it was 55 degrees today.. that’s 60 degrees warmer than to days ago…

The warm temperature started to work it’s magic on the 2 feet of snow we have.. .. everywhere you could hear water flowing.   All day I heard snow and ice falling from our high roof. .. One of the big icicles from the corner of the house dropped an bounced off of the garbage can and broke one of our windows…

Just before 5 , 8 of us piled into Deb’s suburban and headed north.. i must have slept most of the way because it seemed like we were in Montreal in minutes.

We got to Hannah’s in downtown Montreal about 7. She has a beautiful and small 1 bedroom apartment..   Just perfect for 8 people 🙂

Hannah’s place is very welcoming.. She has lots of sam stuff around here.. Here’s the bear we gave her. made from a sam shirt.

. I like looking at it..

Deb and Diane made us all dinner in Hannahs small kitchen.

Around 10 we all headed out to a nearby0ish Irish pub with fresh Guinness and decent live music.

It’s been a nice night .. I could use this getaway..

More tomorrow..

nite all, nite Sam

-me

Thursday night – old sole

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Woke today to an empty tank of gas.. .. automotively and personally. Step 1 was to get gas in the car.. I coasted into the gas station just as the (very accurate) gas gauge dripped to zero…

I gassed up the car.. and then set about thinking about how to do the same to myself …..  I’m still thinking.. I need to to get back to the place of coming from love and fun.. it’s tough to do that now.. I tool several moments through the day to stop and breathe and stare out my window at work..

I did one thing today to restore my soul.. (pun.. sorry). I ran out in what would have been my lunch break and bought a new pair of shoes.   I go through them so fast.. just like cameras.. I want to find some way to honor this old pair of shoes.. their not much more than 6 months old, but they are beat.. I bought these in July when I was going to eat dinner with Al Gore in Las Vegas. .. .. Since then, these shoes have been in eight countires, h. have served as snowshoes, slippers, bathing sandals. I should be a spokesman for Rockport…

What should I do wit these old guys  ? Any suggestions..  What to do with an old soul..

OK.. I gotta go..

gnite all. gnite sam

-me

ps. Welcome back  Airman Cafferky !

Wednesday night – what is Watson ?

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I just finished watching the third day of the Watson Jeopardy challenge..The Watson computer handily defeated the two best human champions.   What an amazing experiment..  We don’t have TV hooked up here, so I had to wait till now to see the shows recorded by someone else. I ‘watched’ the three day match real time in Twitter. which was very interesting.. By and large, the reaction was very positive.. .The funny thing is.. many folks grew up on Hollywood’s version of computers . The idea of a ‘HAL’ or a star trek computer is so imprinted on us that many folks don’t get that computers have a hard time understanding written language very well.. and  just don’t ‘know’ things the way we do. Quite a few people have reacted to the Watson Jeopardy challenge in that way.. saying.. ‘of course it will win it’s a computer’.. Others were joking that this is the beginning of the end.. (many references to the Terminator’s ‘skynet’) .. ..

Most just see it for what it is.. ..  an amazing breakthrough..

I am so proud of my friends and colleagues across the company that made this happen. My own contribution was pretty indirect.. i worked on the Power processor chips used in Watson;s  ‘brain’. .. Folks from all over the company helped… in designing the hardware. software I’m particularly impressed and proud of the guys in Research,( Dave F and co. ) who drove the project and developed the deep Q & A algorithms that Watson uses to decode the clues and codify all that information. It is fun to imagine what they are thinking tonight.. !

. I’ve watched the project mature for about 2 years.. I remember seeing some of the first scoring results about 18 months ago that showed how  the machine stacked up against average jeopardy players.. The machine staked up pretty well, but it was well beneath the historical record of games played by some of the all time champs like Jennings and Rutter  .. I  remember wondering if it would ever meet the goal… Then I saw some data a few months back that showed it winning over these guys.. and I just couldn’t believe it.

I’m a huge Jeopardy fan..and a huge fan of computing.. I know how hard a task it is to decode the cryptic clues and codify all that knowledge used to frame the answers… i mean questions.   en imagine the ways that this type of deep computing is going to change the world.  in ways we can’t even imagine…

Really an amazing experiment… What is Watson …?

We’re so proud of you !

night folks, nite sam

-me