Monthly Archives: April 2011

Wednesday night – memories

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Greetings from Sherborn.. I’m down visiting my Folks for a few days and giving a couple of talks at BUI tried blogging last night, but managed to loose my wireless connection before I was able to annotate these pictures..

I spent an hour going through old papers with my dad.. He’s collected a ton of stuff through his life tracking some of the stuff he’s done. One of the things he’s done over the years.. One cool thing we looked at was his ‘7 for Safety’ series.. A set of 7 safety promotion movies he made in the early 1960’s as a  volunteer contribution for the US Department of Public Safety.  I remember seeing them as a kid.

THe series was narratoed by Raymond Burr.. TV’s Perry Mason !

THe first was a mock trial  on ‘the people vs. accidents’ where Burr.. as Mason, put accidents on trial ..

I gotta find a copy of that ..  The second was on seat belts.. which were not standard equipment for cars at that time..

THe third was on pedestrian safey..  (sadly prophetic….. not sure what to say here)

the forth was on safety steps ?

the next was on fire safety.. there were several letters in the stack from a fire marshal in the mid west that credited this movie with saving the life of three young girls.. Their house was burning,.. and because of seeing the movie, they new not to open a door who’s doorknob was hot.. It was so cool to see that letter !

the next was on falls

then there was one on water safety

One other thing we found was my grandfathers birth certificate.. in Spanish.. from his birth i Bluefields Nicaraagua..
Very cool

and of course.. there’s lots of stuff here on Sam..

ok.. gotta run.. I love seeing this stuff..

nite folks, nite sam

-me

Tuesday night – Monkey

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Greetings from Danbury CT.  On the drive down I was listening to the radio and heard a really cool story about a quadriplegic guy, Ned, who’s got a Cappuchin monkey as a assist pet. The monkey, who’s name is Kasey helps her owner interact with the world. She can understand many commands in spoken english.. and is dexterous enough to fetch food from the fridge. change tv channels and pick up stuff from the floor. More than that, she’s a constant companion to Ned.. Caring for her has been great physical therapy which has restored some movement in one of Ned’s arms. Ned’s mom’s just written a book about the experience I’m not sure why the story struck me so deeply… but it did.. it was both sad and encouraging. The movie’s not as compelling as the radio story I heard, but it gives you a view of what Kasey can do.. Take a look .. .

nite friends, nite sam..
-me

Monday night – creativity

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What do you call it when several folks send you the same thing at the same time ?

Several folks sent me this Ken Robinson TED video…   I really like it.. He points out that our society is unwittingly chasing the creativity out of kids by trying to bring the all to the same level. Instead, he says we should be trying to find what each kid really loves and let the excel at that.

Robinson has such a great and simple way of getting his point across..

Take a look and let e know what you think

nite all, nite sam

-me

Sunday evening – no letter after l

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You’ll have to forgive e…. y ” key  (the one after ‘l’ and before ‘n’) isn’t working at the oent. I can get it to work but I need to really ash on it. y poor coputer takes so uch abuse.. I ust have spilled soething on it…

What can I write about that doesn’t require the letter ” ?  I can’t tlak abotu ixing ilk in assive ugs ..  or aking ovies of igrant agpies … or otivating irads of odern ongols.

but …. I  can talk about the glorious weather.. diane and I got the dogs out for a run again today.. the rivershore trail was still covered in about 6 feet of ice and snow.. a little slow going in our 5 fingers. We had to avoid a part where the river had coe up and left refrigerator size chunks of ice on the trail .   It was so great being out though.. after last weeks flu and weird weather today was brilliant blue and in the high 40’s .. it won’t be long until ost of the snow melts.. we can already see grass on about half of our land.. .. it’s a great contrast with diane’s daffodils already pokeing up in the front yard.

I just took down tow of the stor windows in our roo.. (we like to sleep in the 50’s ).. With the storms down. the sounds of outside and of spring are even more in the house..

It’s been a great winter.. I’ now ready for spring..

nite all, nite sa

-e