Tuesday night – Looking for trouble..

September 6, 2011 johncohn Leave a comment

Today I was speaking with my freind Scott at work.. In the course of trying to untangle a particularly thorny political problem he shared with me a quote from his Grandmother.. She used to say.. “don’t go looking for trouble.. trouble will find you”. In this case.. he meant that it would be best to wait for the hornets nest to come to us.. rather than to kick it and see what comes out (sorry to mix metaphors )

I thought about that bit of wisdom all afternoon. I’ve been really stewing about finding the ‘next big thing’ that I am supposed to do.. I am going through life these days with the feeling that I’m supposed to be doing something ‘bigger’ and more important .. something that matters more in the world than working at a big company. . The funny thing is.. over the past several weeks I’ve been getting a quite different message from the universe.. not that I shouldn’t be thinking bigger.. but that I shouldn’t be trying so hard to find it.. it will find me….

sounds like trouble.. no 🙂

nte all, nite sam

-me

Ps.. I mentioned above that the universe is sending me consistent messages about where I am now.. . just before I hit ‘post’ on the above entry.. I got the following note from Diane.. She follows this guy’s blog called Heron Dance. Every day he posts one of his watercolors and a thought. She sent his post today to me .. Today it included a short poem by Wendell Berry

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

– Wendell Berry, Collected Poems

Monday night – fewer things… better

September 5, 2011 johncohn Leave a comment

Before I talk about my day . I have to reflect a bit more on yesterdays strange coincidence.. .. I think it’s really strange and amazing that only 20 minutes after I posted “86 degrees .. ugh .. won’t winter ever come”

the sky opened up and covered the ground with ice pellets.. .. not only is the timing strange.. .. but it seemed to be localized to just where we were in Jericho Center.. Folks int adjacent towns of Richmond . West Bolton and Jericho only saw rain…

Maybe I should wish for world peace next time ?

hmmm

Well.. I’ve been thinking about labor on this labor day.. more about the amount an type of labor I take on. Anyone who knows me knows that I frequently feel over committed. And it’s almost never someone else’s fault.. The combination of being an adrenaline junky and my inability to say ‘no’ often has me ‘red lining’ with too many things owed to too many people all at the same time….. and it frequently happens around this time of year. I hate letting folks down.. so i often go without sleep.. and certainly without peace as I try to make good on my commitments.. and .. I’m not always happy with the results of my work.. This fall I’m making a real effort to do fewer things.. and to do them better . I also want to spend less time tlaing about projects before they’re done and working.. This last few weeks I’ve bene making soem progress.

in the past week I’ve worked really hard to catch up on old projects..

I finished up a prototype for a music/lighting project Homer and I are doing for a freind.
I finished a wireless remote control for the giant pumpkin robot.. I had hoped to put that in last year.. but ran out of time
I finished a programming project I’d been trying to get done for work for months
i wrote the minutes for several meetings that I’d neglected to document
We finally got started on prepping the tower for paint

More importantly I’ve said ‘no’ to a bunch of opportunities to do stuff that folks have offered me. And I’ve asked for help on a few projects (Jerome.. thanks for your help on Echo !.. Scott.. my eternal gratitude for your work on restoring the coil )..

So Fewer things.. better.. let’s see how I do..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Sunday night – in the moment… or at least in the weekend

September 4, 2011 johncohn Leave a comment

Greetings from smack in the center of a three day weekend.. It’s got to be the best time there is.. far enough away from Friday’s day job hassles.. and not quite close enough to Tuesday’s planned frustrations.. i

Somehow the day conspired with me to let that perfect ‘in the moment’ moment last. Lots has happened today.. but the time has passed gently and smoothly..

Starting last night.. I was getting so nostalgic for burning man.. that I tuned into the live webcast.. and watched the man burn

It wasn’t like being there at all.. but.. it was fun to have the vicarious thrill with all the folks I know that were there watching (love you Max and Jac) .. and with the 9000 or so other souls watching on line..

We slept late today.. and went for a run.. there were folks out already to watch the Green Mountain Stage Race. It’s evidently one of the biggest cross country cycling races and it went by our house.

hey had to change the route of the race a couple of days back because some of the planned routes were badly damaged by irene. in fact they were goign to use the road we live on.. Duxbury road.. but ithe are it goes through was so badly damaged that one of the main roads off of it is now closed to the public and will be for weeks. We woke today to find this sign planted just down from our driveway.. “‘No Tourists !! ”

ANyway.. we got to see several of the packs of riders go by.. they were moving so fast and packed so close togheter. it was really cool !

Early this afternoon we wandered back into Richmond to help some neighbors.. A couple of folks were gathered at gary and jeane’s to clean up their yard.. The water was so high that it covered all but the top of the full size soccer goals in their yard !

check out what the storm did to their driveway !

Part of theur yard is still a lake..

the wierd thing is.. it was just a week ago that the flood crested.. and today it was hot. muggy and 86 degrees .. I posted to Facebook that I was ready for winter..

and about 30 minutes later Winter came.. or sort of came.. We were visiting our friend Chris when all of a sudden the heavens burst and everythign was being bombarded by marbel size hail. In moments the ground was nearly covered. with ice . it was just amazing..

here’s a piece of insulation board. the pock marks show how violent the hail storm was..

The hail passed.. then we drifted home and began the big project of the weekend.. well.. actually of the next several weekends. Diane and I are painting the inside of the bell tower. It’s the room I use as my home office.. and it’s been in need of paint for several years..

Friend tim had helped us rig a platform up top so can reach the cieling to paint..

it’s pretty spooky up there when you think about it.. it’s nearly 55 feet in the air..

been a lonnnnnnnng time since this part of the house has been accessible.. lots of cleaning to do.

I’m looking forward to this project. I love that room.. it will be nice to have it clean and fresh.. maybe thta will make my work more fun

one can always hope..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Satureday night – A tale of two Esplinades

September 4, 2011 johncohn Leave a comment

Funny juxtaposition today.. All this week Max has been out in Black Rock City Nevada at Burning Man.. I didn’t go this year.. and am missing it. Max, Jac and Scott are out there .. and I hope/trust hey are having a blast. Burning man is absolutely the most amazing experience.. Every year about 50,000 freaks, artists, scientists, gawkers and g-d know who else gather at a circular camp in the Nevada dessert and practice a week of random beauty and radical self sufficiency. .. On Saturday night the festival culminates with the burning of the 90 foot wooden man.. usually it’s loaded with explosives.. sprayed with jets of kerosene.. anything to feed the flames as the 50,000 burners go totally nuts around it. .. The burn will happen in about an hour weather permitting.. I’m watching it on live webcam here . here are a few screen grabs of whats going on out there this evening

can’t wait to see them burn

.. an odd coincidence occurred to me today.. Burning man is arraigned like a large clock. the ‘man’ is in the middle of the 3/4 mile wide ‘playa’ / around that is arraigned all the camps.. .. if you imagine the site as a clock.. the temple is at 12, base camp is at 6, the man is in the center.. The camps are arraigned around a set of radial streets at the hour and half hour marks from 2 til 10 that intersect a set of
concentric streets that start with ‘E’ (or esplinade).. then go f, g, h, i , j, k… usually out to about l. . Eg in 2009 we were at 2:30 and j in 2010 I think it was like 2:30 and k.. Here’s a map

Anyway/. the inner and man street surrounding the playa is ‘esplanade’.. it’s crowded 24 hours a day.. here’s a screen shot I took of esplanade at base camp from the burning man web cam this morning.

At the very same time. Diane and I were headed over to Esplinade in Richmond.. the road which runs along the richmond Green. its the street hit hardest by the flood. many of the houseses sustained very serious damage when the winnoski river flooded a week ago tonight.Most of the houses on the street had dumpsters out front filled with ruined with furniture sheetrock and appliances.

The basements flooded, then collapsed in our firend aisha and her neighbor harlands .house. Aisha and her boyfreind John were actually in the basement at 3AM moving stuff out of the water when the baseent wall collapsed.. they were swept up to the stairs and escaped.. but the house was left teetering with about a third of its foundation wall down.

over the last couple of days townsfolk have come in with house jacks, girders, backhoes, shovels and buckets to shore up and save both houses.. first they stuck in big steel girders, then they gently lifted the houses then shimmed up the girders to level the houses.. Then folks started digging the silt out of the ruined basements. Next week they will pur new concrete walls to replace the cinderblock walls that collapsed.

diane and I helped remove the back porch so that the excavator could get under the house.. to get the mud folks hadn’t already gotten out with buckets

a bunch of us held the porch while one guy chainsawed it away from the house.. then we chained it to the backhoe and lifted it away..
Nothing like having the right tool handy !

we hadn’t worked that long when Joe and Teresa called everyone to lunch.. they were from huntington.. but they were feeding all the folks ho lived on the street.. or who were there helping .

The spirit of cooperation was wonderful.. as i always is in this town.. check out these two kids chipping in 🙂

There were soem cool thins folks dragged out of their basements.. like this 1920’s gasoline powered washer/wringer that was in Harlan’s basement.. He thinks it might still work !

We worked in town until about 1:30 .. WHile we were working, friend Katehrine had the idea of a town wide talent show to raise money for the town’s food sehlf as part of the Irene relief.. What do any Richmond folks reading think of that idea ?

Later in the day, Diane and I decided to go with Gabe to see the Fair.. it wouldn’t really be the end of summer without a visit…