Monthly Archives: December 2011

Saturday night – Happy New Year !

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It’s about 6:3 on new year’s eve and the house is momentarily quiet.   In an hour or so our house will be full of people. Gabe is having a few friends over which will take us into the new year.. I’m glad we’re spending the new year here.. it’s been about 3 days since I got more than 4 hours sleep.. but.. still.. it’s been a really fun and relaxing break.. a great end to a pretty eventful.. and overall, pretty good year.. (more  end of year reflections later)

We got home around 11 AM after a very quick down and back to replace max on the boat.. It was great having him up here for the week.. We got to the boat around 2:00 yesterday. Max hasn’t had a key to his room for months, he had to pick the lock. I don’t know if I’m more disturbed that my kid doesn’t have a key to his own room.. or that I’m more proud that he can pick locks that much better than I can.. I think it’s the latter. His room held many treasures.. including his new adopted milk snake…   ( grew up with coral snakes.. I had to o the color thing really quick before I handled the snake.. red and yellow kill a fellow.. red and black.. lucky jack)…  We did get to see Jac.. .. which is always wonderful.

 

 

 

I then headed in to the midtown to see my friends Jeff and Michelle.. then met Diane and her yoga friend Sho, Max, Jac and Meredith for a great Thai dinner.. Getting to that dinner involved Sho ably navigating us through the crowds at Time Square.. which even the day before new years was way too much for me..

 

After dinner we retired to the boat for a reenactment of the last night of CHanukah.. about 3 days late.. Max had received a menorah from a drive by Chabad guy who noticed his ‘jewfro’

We took advantage of the burning candles of the menorah  to test out the robotic slider Max and I designed and built over the break.. I stuck my iPhone  on the carriage and took this..

 

Diane and I then retired to the car around 11 and got a few hours sleep before starting the ride home around 4L30 AM..

THe drive back was a great time to reflect on the year.. as always, since Sam’s passing, our measure of time and events is measured differntly.. I know that many folks will measure the year by world events, or the economy.. For me .. I’m feeling blessed that my family is doing OK.. my kids are doing well and following their passions. i have a wonderful life companion in Diane.. and I live in a beautiful part of the world. .  I know the world is not perfect..  our family and friends have had their share of challenges with work health and the economy  and there is stil strife and injustice in the world…    Even so, I’ve learned a very good lesson in a very hard way.. be grateful for what you have.. and for the beauty you can see in the world.. and I am.. and I do..

all the best to you and yours for 2012 !

Happy new year all.. happy new yar to you , Sam.. we feel you strongly on days like this !

-me

 

Friday night – camping

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Greetings from the back of our car. Diane and I are in Brooklyn in the middle of a very short down and back to NYC to return Max to the boat . The boat is full tonight so Diane and I are sleeping in the car. It should work out well because we want to be on the road by 5am.
Its been an interesting day . We got a late start leaving so we had to make good time on the trip down. I say we but Diane drove nearly the entire way. Max, maxs friend meredith and I slept most of the way down. Max had been up all might working.. And Id gotten about 4 hours sleep. In the end we made it down in time. We parked at the boat, unloaded then Diane and I took the subway into town. I had a short meeting with my friend Jeff at a hotel hes rented for a party tomorrow night . We did
Nt get much time to talk work… But it was mice seeing him and g.f.
Michelle for a bit Theyre good folks . While I met with Jeff, Diane met with her yoga buddy sho . It was my first time meeting him. He is a wonderfully warm and funny guy . It was great getting to hang out with him . Diane, sho, max , jac, Meredith and I just got back from a great Thai dinner . Great way to end our visit.
Ok.. Gotta sleep now . More tomorrow from new years eve
Nite all, nite Sam
-me

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Thursday night – let it slide

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Coming to the end of a makerfest vacation week. I culminated last night with a near all night marathon build session with Max and our friend Jeremy. Our goal was to get his new computer controlled robotic camera slider working by the end of the night.. .and I’m psyched to say that we were successful.. After a long couple of days of brainstorming, trial and error, and restarts the beast was humming along prettily by about 3:30 AM .  The trick was to choose the right approaches to a bunch of decisions  including  (final decisions in bold) : kind of motor (stepper, modified servo or geared brush-less ). the right kind of drive (cogged belt, string.) idler set up ( erector set home brew, old motor, vcr rotation encoder) motor mounting (top vs bottom), stepper mode (single, double, interleaved, or microstepping).

 

The devil as always was in th details.. pulleys had to be recentered, heights had to be adjusted, code re-written.. and rewritten and rewritten……  but by about 3.. everything was working solidly…

 

I’ll post a video from max’s camera as soon asI can.. so you can see what this thing does…

It’s a thing of beauty.. able to move max’s camera down the track smoothly in a few seconds or a few hours.. depending on the shot..

 

My desk… on the other hand.. was less a thing of beauty this morning.. I spent an hour cleaning it for the 3rd time this week…   but it was so worth it. I get so much pleasure working with my ids like this… I’m blessed…

OK.. now I ned to sleep.. more tomorrow…

-nite all, nite sam

-me

Wednesday night – D.I.Y.

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Another great day working with my hands. The big project today was installing a new  stereo in Gabe’s car.. it had a circa 1998 cassette deck.,,and none of the music gab listens to was even imagined in final decades of the cassette era. When I got the stereo the guy at the store told me that they would happily install it for only $150…  What !?!?!    the guy told me that installing them was only for experts. One should only attempt such a thing if you were extremely handy.. That almost scared me off.. the fact that the guy doubted my mechanical abilities was enough to convince me that I have no mechanical ability… Hmmmm

Anyway.. Gabe and I decided to go for it ourselves.. it wasn’t a matter of money.. it was a matter of pride..

less  than an hour later it was in and working.

so…i guess the message for the day was supposed to be ‘beleive in yourself’.. or ‘just go for it’…

but actually the message I came away with is ‘there are always many more screw than necessary in the world…

something to think about !

 

nite all, nite sam

-me