Monthly Archives: June 2011

Staurday evening – quiet

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Peaceful day.. amazingly, incredibly and eerily peaceful day.. Gabe was out camping with Ian and Hannah.. leaving just me and Diane here . Not only that.. but I had nothing big to do.. no huge deadlines.. no big projects.. (but a big stack of small ones) and no plans . I slept late, .. Diane and i then took a run with the dogs, did some yoga ate breakfast.. .. then came the tough job of figuring out what to do with my free time.. How do people deal with leisure..maybe that’s why folks have TV’s It’s a tough concept coming off of a week where I didn’t even have time to think.. It’s a bit like running off the end of one of those moving sidewalks at an airport… and forgetting to slow down at the end..
In the end we found good ways to fill the day.. Diane and I solved the mystery of the broken dryer.. we’ll Diane figured it out, actually.. she discovered that the cover of the ironing board had fallen down into the air inlet of the dryer causing it to burn out two thermal cutoff switches.. We cleaned the garage .. (sort of).. and we cleaned the three wood bins preparing for the 6 cord of next years fire wood which will come on Monday or Tuesday.. . I also dismantled, debugged and replaced and errant silicon control rectifier in the repulsion coil that my friend Marty had built for me.

That got me to till about 1 PM. when I was overcome with a strong need to sleep.. despite nearly 8 hours of sleep last night.. I couldn’t fight this off.. Next thing I new it was almost 4.. I woke to a call from Max.. he had a welding question.. two welding questions actually.. and I eased back into consciousness trying to imagine the machine he was trying to fix..

Now it’s 7:30 and I’m alone in the house.. everyone’s out shopping (I think) .. It’s extremely calm and quiet

now what ?

nite all, nite sam
-me

Friday night – goodbye columbo

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I was in a conference call at work in my office with the door shut this afternoon.. As I st there listening I distinctly heard my friend Don’s voice come through the wall saying that he’d just heard that Peter Falk had died. It was strange to hear .. because Don’s office is an aisle and a half a way.. but I knew what I’d heard.   I got up from my call and, walked over tO Din’s where I found a small group of people sitting around talking about Falk.

I’ve never been a big TV watcher.. but I loved Falk’s show Columbo.. I have always felt a deep kinderment with Lt. Columbo.. his rumpled appearance.. his distracted and disorganized conversation.. his humility and and his sharp mind beneath. II loved the way that this dishevelment and  bumbling disarmed good guys and bad guys alike…. He’d mumble and walk away.. then at the last moment turn and say “there’s one more thing/…” and reveal the clue that crAcked the case.

I think I’ve always used Falks. success as an excuse for my own lack of attention to grooming.. hey.. if it worked for Columbo.. why not for me.. ?

As much as I loved Columbo,Falk’s favorite role for me was as himself in Wim Winders great film WIngs of Desire.. In the movie.. which is half in English and half in German, two angles watch over the grim city of Berlin in the early 80’s .. they can hear peoples thoughts.. Falk has a long cameo as himself.. claiming to be a former angel who fell to earth. He can’t see the real angles.. but he can sense them . The movie is so beautifully shot in black and white.. I found this scene of Falk in the movie

I was trying to find my favorite scene in the movie.. it’s of an old man wathcing a sunset.. saying to himself that none of knows how many sunsets left we have to watch.. the scene has always stuck with me.. I’ll keep trying to find it.

for now.. I need to say goodnight columbo.

but wait there’s just one more question….

nite all, nite sam
-e

Thursday night – cool chips

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I had fun at work today.. .. mixed in with the regular work day. I had a very cool set of meetings down at Columbia University with my friends Paul, Bill and Ted. . I was down there to meet with my good friend Ken who’s been a prof there for the last 14 years.. One reason I was down there was to check in on Ken and his colleagues’ work on cool chip technologies.. but my real reason for gong down was to introduce Ken and his students to my friend Ted.. an ultra genius with superpowers in chip design.. I see one of my missions in life is to introduce people to Ted and visa versa..

Ken and his colleagues have been doing some very cool stuff in integrated magnetics and integrated piezoelectrics.. …We also got to hear about their work in biochips.. and that’s what impressed me the most. Ken’s group is doing stuff like interfacing chips to rat neurons and building tiny labs on a chip. It was amazing seeing the amazing stuff they were doing with our  and our competitors’ technology.. stuff i never knew was possible… like this chip… that moved tiny droplets of chemicals around using just switched  electric fields …

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Or this chip which used unbelievably tiny holes to measure the presence of specific organic molecules such as proteins..

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or this chip that detected the spread of chemical messengers a colony of bacteria uses to communicate…. What does a colony of bacteria have to communicate.. maybe its’ ‘the weather is fine down in this corner of the petri dish 🙂

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we also found time for some macroscopic science.. Ken slet both Ted and me sit in his brand new Chevy Volt.. He drives it to work everyday from Westchester on zero gallons of gas.. how cool is that. ?

 

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Seeing ken and his students was a great break from the routine..  I had pletny of time to think about what I’d seen today as I drove the 7 hours home after my flight was canceled due to weather. These chips that Ken and his group are making are paving the way to new ways to detect and treat diseases.. I love seeign how technology can effect the world like that..

 

OK.. time to sleep.. more tomorrow

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

ps. no trip to NYC is complete without a picture of a cockroach..

 

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Wednesday afternoon – Rundspringen

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Busy day here in NYC.. I had a very interesting set of work  meetings this morning at our 590 Madison Ave building. I spent the rest of the day doing my normal stuff from the guest offices here..  Very productive.. but I just can’t hack cubicle life.. I’m too loud…

I’m staying comfortably with my friend David. he has a great place just down the street from IBM. He’s graciously letting me stay here. It’s really fun hanging out with him.. We’re off to a Greek restaurant in a few minutes..   sounds good.. i look forward to navigating the city to get there.

One of the cool things about traveling is the opportunity to ‘dip my toe in the onrushing stream of culture ‘ (as friend Rob would always say). That means things like seeing billoards, riding on trains, eating on the street, people watching, etc..It also means watching TV>. which is something I never get to do in VT.. we don’t have it at home.   .. On the way down I saw a show about the Amish.. on National Geographic channel. .. The first segment was on Amish weddings. The show portrayed their lifestyle as simple and appealing. It was followed by a segment on the Amish practice of Rundspringen.. Amish is a bit like low German.. so I’d make that to be something like ‘jumping around’   The idea is the Amish youth are encouraged to go out in the world and look around and then consciously decide to rejoin the faith forever. From what I gathered.. this generally happens around age 16.. some kids head off to cities.. they try drugs alcohol.. maybe sex (the show sidestepped that).. some decide to stay in the ‘English’ world (as they call it ). Most decide to come back to the simpler lifestyle they’ve always known. The camera followed a bunch of Amish kids on their  Rundspringen.. Or some reason the scenes of chaos, noise, temptation, fun, stress delight  and sensory overload are exactly what it feels like for me to walk around Manhattan..   (well.. except none of it looks too tempting to me)

 

Maybe those of us lucky enough to live in the soft green Oz of Vermont need to send our kids on a Rundspringen of their own.. Go try and lieve elsewhere and decide..  I wonder if they would come back..    Would I want them all  too ?

I guess Max is my test case 🙂

 

nite all, nite sam

-me