Monthly Archives: October 2011

Monday night – Halloween

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The kids might be out on their own. but Diane and I were not about to let Halloween go uncelebrated..

 

We headed about around 6:30 and checked out the Halloween scene on bridge street in Richmond. We love this town.. and it’s at its best on Halloween and the 4th of July.. Our kids always love this day and so do we.

Marshall as a ‘ceiling fan’ ugh

Our tradition is to end up at bridge street cafe and hang out with all the adults. marvin always makes us feel very welcome there.
We love him and bridge street cafe

THis year in homage to the wall street protesters, we were about ‘occupying bridge street ‘ (the main street in our town of 3000)

 

then we went back out on the street.. here’s my custume.. a few lights and a bed sheet..

reflected in one fo the 5 glasses of wine I had before leaving (diane was driving !)

I love halloween.. everyone..

Sam, we miss you everynight….

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Sunday night – Snow !

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After a quiet night last night, Diane and I woke early to snow !.. not lots.. but enough to hike through it with tim and his dogs. It was so peaceful . We put up the storm windows this weekend.. and the outside sounds are now muted.. i just love this time of year..  It was a quiet and fun day all around.. a nice contrast to the difficult time I’m having at work.  We got to hang out with friends all day.. nice.

 

 

. I began the weekend by cleaning (sort-of) my lab.. at least i can now walk through there..

 

I have a couple of fun projects going.. I’m doing lots with lights. with some help from Max remotely.. and homer locally ..

 

 

I’ve also been doing soem welding with Gabe. here he is finishing up the legs for a set of two tables we’re helping Deb build. Gabe’s gettign to be a very able welder.. .. very porud of these kids.. they’re both really good makers.

 

 

ooops. I forgot that I gotta watch where those sparks go..   I managed to almost light the place on fire when sparks hit this piece of paper..

 

Another milestone .. with Scott’s major help. we’ve been able to rehabilititate my soldid state tesla coil I had it working very well this summer.. but then an unfortunate primary strike zorched all the elctronics.. Scott helped me rebuild it.. with some more enhancements for robustness.. I finally sparked it up at home again.. so far.. so good. Thanks so much Scott !!!!!

OK.. gotta sleep now.. more tomorrow..
nite all, nite sam
-me

 

Saturday evening – not my party

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I never thought I’d see the day.. but here we are.. home on the Saturday night before Halloween having a very nice and quiet evening at home. ‘Normally’.. tonight would be the night of our annual Halloween party That would mean about 300 folks packed into our house like sardines. crazy costumes, spooky food and drink and loud music. The lead up would mean about 2 weeks of moving furniture, securing breakables, stocking coolers, putting up lights, spiderwebs, and  decorations. Followed by about of week of undoing the same starting the day after. Don’t get me wrong.. I love our parties.. and there will certainly be more.. but it’s been just SO nice giving it a rest this year. There’s just so much going on in our house right now. eg. we’re halfway through refinishing the  bell tower.. , Deb’s stuff  is all packed up to move up to her condo this week and my work is in transition. All that lead us to decide to give it a pass this year.   We’ve been having that party nearly every year since we moved her in 1982… i say nearly because I know we missed a few here and there   It’s nice to break with tradition every once in a while.. so it doesn’t bind you.

Like I say.. the party will likely be back next year.. so.. for the 298 or so of you not here tonight.. we wish you all a great Halloween.   We’ll see you out trick or treating on monday..

 

night all , night sam

-me

 

 

Friday night – Tech Jam / Complex systems

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I took a much needed vacation today and attended two events in Burlington. I began the day with a an informal roundtable discussion at UVM with a group of really interesting and bright folks on the topic of ‘complex systems’ the room was full of physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists who were turning their tools and skills to the study of large complex systems with huge data-sets. Many of the problems were around social systems and used data gleaned form social networking sites.. It was strange and cool to see the cross application of disciplines. It would be interesting to see what would happen if sociologists suddenly started delving into particle physics.. (The analogy was made.. elementary particles can be either attractive or repulsive as can be people 🙂

 

Around 10L30 I had to bug out and go downtown to the Techjam.. it was held in the old Borders bookstore.. It was weird seeing the bookstore devoid of books.. I guess folks like me who by ebooks off amazon spelled the demise fof the brick and mortar bookstore.. *sigh*..

Anyway.. Techjam was AMAZING> it was absolutely packed with visitors and with cool high tech companies.. and most of them were hiring. !  It had such an upbeat feel it didn’t not feel like a recession inside the building today !

 

Here are some picks.. most of them from Stephen Mees of Champlain College .. my own camera ran out of batteries.. Stephen.. I hope it’s ok to reuse these. they have your name on them..

 

My show was at 11.. I even got introduce by Governor. Shunlin  .. only in Vermont !  (The Gov is a huge backer of science and technology.. thanks for that Peter !!!)

 

 

 

 

My show went pretty well.. lots of people there.. I couldn’t tunr the lights off.. which was a bit hard.. but overall.. went ok.

 

then after my show.. I quickly pacekd up and headed back to UVM for the TEDx talks..abotu a dozen talks on complex systems and ‘big data’

Cool stuff. including friends peter, chris and isabell’s project to measure happiness using analysis of the worlds twitter feeds. analysis of the frequency of human conflict (the answer is 2.5) .. progress that right equeations and telephone poles that tells who’s a stay at home dad.. all very cool.. Finally a quick beer withthe speakers and now home…

 

All iand all a very stimulating and enjoyable day.. and I really, really needed it.

 

ok. now I gotta sleep. more tomorrow..

 

night all, nite sam,

 

-me