Monthly Archives: May 2011

Saturday night – Greenup day

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Today was greenup day.. Its a day when all Vermonters are asked to walk a stretch of road and pick up all the trash they see. It happens the first saturday in may.. after the snow is gone and before the ferns are too high to see the trash

 

.It’s a wonderfull custom .. Our family has been cleaning the same stretch of duxbury road for close to 20 years.. This year diane and I took the garden cart and a bunch of plastic bags and cleared the first half mile of duxbury rd..  By the end of the stretch, we’d completely filled the garden cart with four big bags of trash..

 

It’s an interesting experience.. you can learn much about your neighbors doing this.. We found, for example… that folks seem to be smoking less.. we found far fewer cigarette butts than we’ve ever found before.. We also saw far less junk food wrappers.. and fewer convenience food packages.

also a good sign.. and far fewer beer cans (though bud light still seems to be the beer preferred by litterers) We also found quite a bit more  ‘healthy’ garbage.. Though..the number of folks who eat healthy-ish food and still chuck garbage from their cars is probably pretty low

Todays big surprise was the large amount of single serving wine bottles we found   Most were sutter home Chardonnay..

though we also found some woodbridge..All in all we must have found about 40 of these bottles.. scattered over a quarter mile stretch.. I can only imagine that we’re discovering someone;s  goign home ritual..

Ahh.. another surprise was two golf balls… one of which was even wearing a helmet !

After today, the roads of Vermont will be much closer to pristine again.. someone told me that over two garbage trucks worth of stuff had already been collected by richmond residents by midday.. Even though we were walling in other peoples garbage.. it’s such a nice tradition..

I really love vermont !

 

happy mothers day eve everyone..

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

friday night – Beekman on the brain

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High point of today was gettign to watch an early morning show at the flynn from buddy Paul Z. Paul had a long running and wonderful science show on TV called Beekman’s World.. and he was the ringmaster at bread and puppet forever.. I met him when I attended a puppetry workshop he gave 3 or four years ago.. For the past year , Paul has been working on this new stage show called’ Beekman on the brain’.. I’ve met with Paul about 4 times since he began writing the show.. twice here .. once in LA and once in Pittsburgh with friends Larry and Leah e met here .. It’s been so cool to watch the thing take shape. I began by offering to help Paul build a bunch of high tech props.. in the end he opted for low-tech puppets, optical illusions, eggs, ventriloquism, optical illusions.. dancing bird videos and Paul’s special brand of  zaniness  to tell the story …. and it worked superbly. The jokes were great. the effects were great.. … I particularly loved his use of toy theater to tell some of the stories.. The theater was packed with kids for two shows today.. about 1400 kids at each show.. And Paul kept every one of them laughing..   I felt good because IBM  had sponsored  both shows..   these kids got something really special.. today.. Paul did a very cool collection of word illusions.. including this one at the end of the show The previous slide was… move the bar and you see.. Now.. how cool is that. ?!?! I was really proud of paul.. and I know he was psyched… OK., it’s late.. gotta go.. nite all, nite sam -me

Thursday night – sink-o de mayo

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Hola freinds.. I’m writing on about 4 hours of sleep and struggling to stay awake. We left the boat this morning around 6:30 and drove through the day back to VT> thanks to my rooted droid I now have a good internet link.. so I was able to work the whole way down and back as diane drove..  On top of a wonderful visit to see max, It was a productive set of days..

Even so.. the trip has me worn out.. I used to be able to run on little sleep.. now I get kind of sad when I’m sleep deprived.  During a lull between meetings  today I found myself thinking about the changing moods of the world.. I was thinking of writing down all the bad stuff that happened near us in April (Dylan’s passing most of all).. but then stopped … . A bit later I as thinking of a rash of good things I’d noticed goign on in the world.. nothing major.. just encouraging signs.. I was tempted to think of this as a positive and much needed sea change.. a turn of luck.. but then checked myself.. Why ? Was I afraid of tempting fate ? …  Not that, not really.. Instead, I came to the conclusion that  there’s always good and bad happening around us.. sometimes one dominates our attention.. sometimes another.. but they exist in more or less equal amounts..   good comes to bad, bad comes to good.

Just then I heard the weather report for tomorrow..   showers to the south of route 2, cloudy to the north of route 2.. .. a perfect metaphor I thought as I headed straight down route 2 towards home..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Wednesday late nite – may the fourth be with you

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Happy may the forth… may the forth be with you.. actually.. buy now it must be cinco de mayo.. .. so happy that too.

Very cool day.. Diane and I left home about 7 am headed for NYC.. I spent the entire day.. and the entire druve working and tlakign on the phone thanks to my tooted droid phone and it’s internet tether app…Diane drove.. so I worked the entire day and was pretty productive.

We got to Max’s boat around 3.. but he wasn’t getting home until 5.. Iso we parked and I just worked in the car.

Max got home just before five… we unloaded the car then made dinner for the 9 folks we could round up from the boat.    Diane had made thai curry. and Nan bread  both of which were very good.. It was great meeting soem of the new oat crew members.. the most recent , Tom, just arrived from England only this morning..

I couldn’t help noticing that the spritz of hot sauce I made on my curry looked like Josef Stalin.. a good omen ?

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Just before 7 we all crammed in the car and drove to downtown B’klyn to see Max’s senior show. It was in a high end opera hall turend movie theatre

The movies were tuly excellent.. there were 9 of them.. 2 of which were from Max… The first of max’s wsa a wonderful tribute to Sam.. I can’t really describe it here.. it was beutiful, powerful and sublte.. I can’t wait to see it again.. it was so moving..

His second piece was a tribute to living on the boat.. also beautiful and subtle..and compelling.  t was really a wonderful experience being there to watch the show.. I was SO proud of max !!!!! i

here we are after the show.. here’s max’s girlfriend jack.. she’s so  great.. .. us.. then Ben and Maryanne.

Then we headed off with Max’s friends to celebrate at a local German bar..

Freind Pat from Vermont and his friend Alex were in NYC. so they came too !..

And then came a surproise visit form Uncle Billy.. he’s in town for a medical conference.. he was able to leave the conference and join us fro ssome family bonding.. and fun

Here he is working hthe cards.. he’s a fabulous magician..

It was such a great surprise to get to see Billy..

We got home around midnight..  and watched gabes telecocina project.. also very cool

OK..it’s 2am and I need to sleep.. More tomorrow.. I’m so proud of max !

nite all, nite Sam

-me