Yearly Archives: 2011

Monday night – Fitzcaraldo

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Aboard the boat with Max.. we left VT about 5 .. and made it here just before midnight. After unloading, we went out into the parking lot with soem of his freinds and watched the Herzog movie “fitzcaraldo” projected on the side of an airstream camper.. Surreal and prefect.;

.The movie chronicles the main character (Klaus Kinskey’s) obsession with bringing opera to the high andes.. the whole move is about his hauli a 1900’s era steamboat up the amazon and portaging to a river in the high andes with the help of the indigenous people. no movie better captures the sysiphisian struggle and wonder of life..

no movie better captures what it’s like living on this wonderful and @#%&^ing crazy boat..

 

IT’S 2AM.. AN i NEED TO WORK EARLY.. BETTER END HERE..

 

(too lazy to correct those accidental caps)

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Sunday night -V.O.M.I.T. picnic

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Today was another great and peaceful day.. much busier than yesterday..  Two  social events.. the first was the annual VOMIT   (Vermont’s Own M.I.T. club) picnic..   What a great and eclectic group of nerdy folks.. we had everything from graduates in the 60’s to next years admitees..

We met at the Waterbury reservoir day camping area.. I had brought some fun fire things (flame thrower, pyrodex, potassium permanganate, glycerin) with the intent of doing a special fire lighting experiment.. but the campground was full..not a good place for explosions..small or large.. so we opted for simple charcoal lighter fluid.

 

Somone.. Maybe Laura ? had the great idea of using our bodies to write MIT.. I suggested MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY , but we were a little short on people, so MIT it was.. so .. here we are !

It was a beautiful day for spelling.. here’s a shot of the scenery.. that’s Robin’s meeting.. the mountain in our back yard.. in the background.

It’s beutiful Diane in the foreground..

After VOMIT, I zoomed over to Winooski to see my friends John and Sue who were visiting from California.. They were having a great party at Donny’s Pizza.. which turns out to be run by my friend Dimitrious. .. I got their late.. but there were still plenty of folks.. here are Dimitrious, Greg and Deb, Dennis, Sue John, Ray and his wife.. Very nice to see them all !

here’s another shot of John and Sue and daughter Abby and her boyfriend..

Then home to dinner.. we had both Gabe and Max home for the first time in a long time..TJ was there too..  Dan  showed up just in time for dessert with his new Avacado Lemon sorbet.. so yummy !

 

OK.. can’t keep my eyes open.. more tomorrow…

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

Saturday evening – stars

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Totally laid back day.. nothing happened.. and I’m proud of it.. I think the big news for the day was that I finally decided to shed the growing collection of concert bling on my arm.. Might have said it was getting a bit ratty.. or unhygienic.. but it was my freak flag for the last month.. I just didn’t think i could pull it off on a business trip.. so I pulled it off…literally.. and  carefully

shazam. instant adulthood..

 

The household was relatively quiet today.. though we had two nice visits.. first friend Tim came by with his family Wife Diane, daughter Katie and on Matthew. Tim and family live in CT.. They’ve been up in Vermont on vacation for the last week. It was great seeing them again.. Funny thing is.. I saw Tim just last week at the Vibes .  Tim now works at Cisco.. but used ot work at IBM.. where we were in the business of making goofy movies together. Like this.. (note.. Tim didn’t expect to go in the water here.. 27 degrees !)

Before Tim and Diane took off, we had another fun and unexpected visit from my cousins Mark and Kathy. They live in Ca.. and are here for a freinds wedding. It was so great seeing them !  Funny too, because Mark now works for Cisco too..i’m glad he got to meet Tim,

It was fun having Mark and Kathy here..they used to live here in Vermont. In fact.. Mark lived in this house for several weeks when he moved to Vermont in 1982.. he’s the closet thing to a relative I’ve ever had nearby !..   It was great catching up with them….

Later on.. we had a nice dinner with Max at bridge street.. And.. that my friends was pretty much our entire day.. ..

Ahh.. one more thing to share.. Max took this very cool time lapse of the house 2 nights ago.. nifty.. no ?

TimeLapseVT: StarTower from Maxwell Cohn on Vimeo.

OK.. that’s it from here.. more tomorrow..
nite all, nite sam
-me

Friday night – d-oh !

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12L30 and I’m just back from my annual pilgrimage to the Governors Institute of Vermont (GIV)   engineering summer camp   .. Every year I do a show.. for them.. and every year I feel good that there are so many geeks and geekettes in the land. This year’s crop was particularly wonderful and geeky.   !

Today was a pretty cool and historic day for the GIV.   Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin came there and annonced that any Vermont student who goes to enginnering school.. then moves back to Vermont will get a 1.5K$ per year payement against their student loans for 5 years.. that’s 7.5K$ of npo-strings debt releif if you choose to coem back to Vermont with an engineering degree. How cool is that ?!?!?

 

one casualty of the night was te door to my building.. as I rushed out of the buuilding with my gear loaded on my go-cart.. I miscalculate on my speed and rammed the door. I’m used to having an automatic opening handycap door which swings out of the way as I come through. This building has no such convenience.. As a  consequene.. I tapped the door hard enought to.. welll.. take a look..   I felt SO bad.  I’ve offered to pay to have it fixed.. we’ll see..

 

 

d-oh !

 

OK.. it’s past 12:30./ time to sleep.. more tomorrow..

nite all, nte sam

-me