Yearly Archives: 2011

Saturday night – spring cleaning

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Gabe had a LAX game at 8 this morning. it was … of course.. raining/sleeting and freezing.. .Even so, we love watching him play. We got home around 10 to find snow in the yard.. again..   Ah. spring…

Weather not withstanding, I decided to get into the spirit of the season by doing some spring cleaning.. My lab had gotten to a point of impossibility and impassibility .. I had 3 biggish projects goign on in there and it was getting impossible to move in there.. let alone find anything..    And as someone once said (and I think it was me)  man’s laboratory is an external presentation of his internal state of mind.. so.. cleaning was cathartic and calming..    Here’s before

and here’s after.. I realize not perfect but everythign more or less in place..  and there are at least channels to navigate through the mess..  I now feel like a better person.

THis afternoon Chris C. came over and we worked on his sculpture.. it’s a strange and wonderful piece. that’s motion activated.. No pictures here until next week..

Then Diane and I went over to visit with Dylan’s family.. They’re just back from a week in Florida. They’d scheduled the trip before Dylan died.. then decided to go anyway. I think it was a good thing for them. It was very good seeing them again.. We took Thai food over and talked for a couple of hours. I think in these first few weeks and months it’s important just to be there for them. It’s easy to talk to them. first because they’re nice folks.. and second because we have this awful shared experience.. We talked about all of our kids.. not just sam and dylan. It’s good tor all of us to talk and listen to each other..  this is going to be a long road..

OK.. batteries goign.. so I’ll sign off now..

nite everyone.. nite sam

-me

Friday night – i kid you not

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Blissfully little happened today.. I need the down time.. I kid you not.… (Diane and I have been hearing that phrase.. ‘i kid you not’ all over the place these days.. not sure why. Isn’t it strange when you start to hear the same thing time and time again ? )

Today was simple.. a morning full of meetings then a great working lunch with my friends Jeff and Colin from UVM. We’re scheming on using UVM students to help build something cool to attract folks the Echo center..

Then more meetings in the afternoon.. around 4 o’clock no one was around anymore…. I guess because of the holiday weekend  so I walked outside.. and promptly fell asleep on the skate ramp.

Gabe  had a lacrosse game at MMU at 5.. it was a beautiful evening for sitting on the hill and watching MMU win (12 to 1). Gabe had a good game. After the game we headed to Bridge Street for dinner.. as did many of the other kids and parents.. Without planning, we had 15 for dinner. It was really fun .

and that my friends … was it for the day.. like I said, pleasantly devoid of excitement..  Oh wait. I did ger one  important thing done in the last 24 hours.. I updated my Facebook profile picture.. Whatcha think ?

Nite all. nite Sam

-me

Thursday night – Justin

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I got word today that  another friend of mine died this week. Justin  “Buzz’ Harlow was a friend of mine from back in grad school. Back then he worked at the Semiconductor Research Center (SRC).where he helped coordinate the research of many folks in my field. We’ve managed to stray in touch for the last 20 years..though I sometimes only see him once or twice a year.  He was a really nice and gentle guy.. and very smart.. we will all miss him.

I almost hesitate to write about another loss this month. It’s been such a crazy month in that regard. I almost feel that it tempts fate to write about it.. but then .. I know that fate needs no tempting.  I think my radar for loss is highly tuned right now due to Dylan’s passing..   I had to remind myself today that there is always great joy and great sorrow in the world.. and you get exposed to both.

World… lets try and find some joy…

nite all, nite sam

-me

Wednesday night – glassover

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Just got back from a special 4/20 showing of ‘The Grateful Dead’ movie down in Shelburne. with my buddy Andy..   It was great.. a bunch of folks my age watching a 37 year old 3 hour music video.. It doesn’t get better than that !  Seriously it was awesome..

Lots to catch up on for yesterday.. It was an incredibly jam packed convergence kind of day.   The day had 3 basic chapters..

Chapter I : Glass

Gabe is off school this week, so we took advantage of his freedom to make good on a glass work class  coupon  I’d given him for xmas. .. I took calls in the morning.. then around 10:30 we headed down to the Bern Gallery.. the local glass blowing emporium (and head shop)

Gabe’s instructor was ‘scuba steve’ a really nice guy. He was there to teach gabe how to make a spiral glass pendant from hard glass (borosilicate) rod.  Gabe had never worked with glass.. He took to the torch like he’s recently taken to the guitar.  He really has a knack for materials.. he can now weld and work stone.. .. it makes me so proud that he and his brother(s) are/were so good at making stuff !
We both had to put on the special ‘didium glasses to block the bright yellow flame of the sodium in/on the glass..

Here steve helps gabe by adjusting the torch

then gabe had to fuse a rod to the flattened paddle of glass.. that means spinning both sides evenly and at the same rate.. I was never good at it.. but gabe sure is

here you can see the bright sodium yellowflare that was blocked by our special glasses.. It’s too bright to look at with your bare eyes for long.

Then gabe heated the paddle, addded the twist, melted off the holding rod and flame polished the cut. Then Steve helped him pull out teh handle and make a hanging loop. Gabe was steady and smooth in everythign he did.

Afterwards the piece went in the annealing oven (i picked it up today)..we said goodbye to steve and

and we left for lunch .. It was an awesome experience..

Gabe and I went to sushi do in williston for lunch and ran in to all sorts of freinds… gretchen and claire, my freind duncan.. and dan and his cool heralist friend.. Then Diane came in.. it was like a spontaneous party..

until it was time for me to get back to work.. The rest of the day went pretty well..

Chapter II: Vase

Around 4 I had to zoom down to UVM for my first meetign of VASE (Vermone Academy of Science and Engineering). Each of the 4 of us inducted this year hd to give a short talk on a favorite subject..

We had a talk on magnetic positioning for surgical devices, low order models of plasma containment for fusion reactors, and a talk by Prof Krapcho on his Krapcho Decarboxylation  I tfelt like being back at MIT.. I did my talk on enginerring outreach.. I left kinda thinkign I should have done a technical talk instead.. but it went ok.. (not great).   I think I’m really goign to like Vase

Chapter III: Passover

After the VASE meeting I rushed home to have a Pesach (Passover) Seder with Diane, Gabe , Ian, Hanna, Dave, Adah and Senya.

Gabe, Ian and I had dyed easter eggs the night before.. which is  part of our blended non religious family practice.. (love hte smell of those egg dyes)

That allowed us to have a colorful pasach plate to remind us of the exodus from Eypt (Mitzryim) .. with the egg and parsley(karpas)  to remind us of spring,  horseradish (moror) to remind us of the bitterness of slavery, apple glop (charoset) to remind us of something.. maybe the mortar used in the pyramids ?, matzo th remind us of the great hast with which we left mitzryim, and a bone (a dog bone from the yard) to remind us of the Pesach adminition to the ancient Israelites wipe the blood of a lamb over the doorpost of their homes to be spared the angel of death.

We started with the shehechyanu.. the prayer that thanks the universe for allowing us to reach this saeson.

It always sticks in my throat now that sam is not with us.. We thought of both sam and dylan this time..

We lit our lantern for sam as we always do at family events..

here I am passing aroudn the green parsley of spring that you dip in the salty water of tears..
lots of mixed messages in this holiday.. as in life..

we took turns reading and singing from some old xeroxed hagadahs we have.. they need to be retired.. they’re from the 90’s.. here ian and gabe are singing something bizzare from the text..  i think it was bob marley ( i kid you not)

After dinner all the kids tried to find the piece of matzo i hid before the meal.. turns out that Adah found it !!
Her prize was a bag of choclates that she graciously shared with the rest of us.

here’s what my chocolate said..   nice !

clean up time..

Then early to bed.. which leaves me lots still to do tonight.. and it’s already midnight.. so I’ll end here..

Hag sameach (happy holidays) everyone, youu too Sam

-me