Yearly Archives: 2012

Monday night – guadalajajajajara

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Good day in gadalajajajajajajara.. I saw many old friends, met lots of nice new people.. and  got some very useful work done in the bargain. The people here are so warm and friendly that my smile muscles hurt form smiling at them..

 

The day was busy with meetings, thoguh the main event is tomorrow (wish me luck).. I did have one quick excursion out mid day with Sergio and Carlos to buy supplies for a demo (not sure what demo yet) for my talk tomorrow.

we ate a late lunch after an emloyee meeting in the giant room full of smiling people

i loved lunch.. there’s a hot sauce bar..

and multiple choices of types of hot peppers.

i had tuna (not the fish.. but cactus fruit) for desert..

here’s fernando and sergio at lucnh

the rest of our lunch crowd

I ran into this guy that tied this band around my wrist laast time I was here (1 year and a week ago) .. the band is about volunteering at hospitals.. For some made up superstition, I never remove things from my wrist until they fall off.. so I showed him I was still wearing it !

After work we went downtown to Tlaquepaque. the old part of town.. very beautiful streets and stores..


great public art outside the galleries …. everywhere !

here’s katrina.. the lady of death.. her image is everywhere.. they bring them out on  El Dia de los Muertos  in November

Here we are in the town square .. thats ana and John.. John’s from Indiana.. ana’s from here.

Ana took us to a cool candy store.. here are chili covered mango pieces

When Holly,and Romilla’s plane got in, we all met at Casa Fuerte for an excellent dinner..

I had grilled cactus and cheese rellenos.. the best I think I’ve ever had

even the sinks are pretty !

Ajhhh Sr. Cantinflas.. nice to see you again !  Lookign pretty good for 101 years old .

here’s our blurry good bye (I need a new camera, quick.. it’ll be my 7th 🙁 )

Then back to the hotel to try and invent soemthign for tomorrow.. I don’t think the hotel would want to know what I mad or how I made it.. .. we’ll see if it works.

OK.. folks.. time for sleep..

Thanks mexico for making me feel so welcome as always .

nite all, nite sam

-me

Sunday night – inside Guadalajara

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Hello from Guadalajara Mexico..I’m down here for some business meetings for the next couple of days. It’s been a lonnnnnng day. I found it was much cheaper to fly here out of montreal than it was to fly out of Burlington. I figured it woul d take me an hour and a half to get to Trudeau airport.. But it took nearly twice that due to 15 north being closed around Montreal. Luckily wonderful Diane convinced me to leave lots of extra time to make my flight.. So I di.. But that meant waking before 5 am.
I spent the entire day on a plane.. But it’s basically north south.. So no jet lag.. It was Ctually a great time to get things done. Finished my talk, worked on a study I’m doing (and enjoying) .. And Petty much cleared my in box.. Which is a huge feat !
I got to GDL at around 6 .. My friend Selene and her daughter marinando met me at the airport and dropped me at my hotel. I’ve had the whole evening to myself and used it pretty well on work. I’m going to have plenty of socializing the next couple of days.. So another several hours of work in a small clean,well lit and air conditioned space was a treat . Here’s the view from the room


Also a treat was the very cool room service dinner I just finished,l I rarely eat out when I’m Lone.l I prefer to by food and cook it in a room (ever cooked a grilled cheese with an iron ? I haven’t yet.. But going to try) tonight, though, I splurged and ordered traditional jalisco Specialties.. I had grilled paella cheese with green tomato sauce and worm seeds (huh ?) and pumpkin flower, corn land poblano soup.. It came with corn tortillas, guacamole and beans. All vegetarian and all delicious


Since I don’t have anything rally exciting here.. Let me tell you two interesting blog relate stories that have occurred in the last week. Both are kind of bittersweet

In the first .. While Diane, gabe, max and I were hiking a week and a half back, we spent a night at Taylor lodge. I noted in my blog that the lodge was dedicated to Debo Laplante , an old friend of ours that used to play soccer with Diane . Debo died in 2007. A few days after I posted that. I got a note from Debos sister J,. She’d just been randomly googling her sisters same day I wrote my post. She was happy to hear we were thinking of her sister. There’s more here though.. Just last night Diane and I were at our friend Dana’s going away celebration and we began talking to a guy R who we quickly recognized as Diane and Debos soccer coach from the early 1980’s. He was actually dating debo when she died…and was glad to hear about our recent resonance with Debos memory

The other story also has a sad twist. A woman L, who’s a songwriter wrote to tell me that a friend of here’s had recently died suddenly. She was looking for a recording of a song she’d written called “we do not die’. She found my blog because my friend Sybil, had sent me that song after Sam died. Sybil had gotten it when her boyfriend Darius died. Darius was a good friend of lynda’s

It’s a small world and our spirits keep swirling around in it..it seems

Ok.. Gotta sleep off those worm seeds
Nite all, nite Sam
-me

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Saturday night – goodbyes

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We had a day of several goodbyes. This afternoon we went to our friends Sandy and Michael’s for an informal memorial celebration of Sandy’s father Gunter. He died last week at ag 87. He was such a great guy, funny, even tempered and out dorsey. He was an engineer.. perhaps the first one that I really knew ! He was born in Hamburg Germany in 1925 and even served in the German army as a very young man in WW II. He managed to escape from a Russian prison camp and made his way to the US. Gunter and his family were a few streets down the road from us in Houston. I spent many hours over there just hanging out.
I went and visited him in at the assisted living apartment he had in Barre a few months back. It was his birthday .. it was great hearing him take calls from friends all over the world alternating in german and english. I left that meeting thinking about what a conteded guy Gunter has always been.
It was a nice gathering for him today.. we told stories and looked at pictures, and generally caught up with each other.. Sandy’s brother ron and his partner Green were there which was a treat.

Just as we got there, Sandy went to the table with Gunters things and handed me this.. it was Gunter’s slide rule.. She wanted me to have it.. how cool is that ?

We’ll all miss you gunter. happy hiking wherever you are now..

 

From Sandy’s in Middlesex we headed back to Underhill. Our friend Dana is leaving soon for a year fellowship in Armenia

She’s pretty fluent.. but studying up on her armenian just to be safe..

While in Armenia she’s going to be doing something with folk art.. She’s a wonderful artist.. Dana and Peters house is full of dana’s work.. like this one peice she did as part of a series around her mother’s struggle with alzheimer’s .. (she called the series aliceheimers)

Here’s a painting of neurons from the brain.. .. on the same topic

 

The first part of the party was a 90 minute yogic chanting session lead by fletcher and her harmonium. it was really cool.. lots of Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmms

Got us all mellowed out for the party.

Dana and Peters kids and their friends coordinated the feats.. Mostly indian food.. really, really good. We all toasted Dana and wished her luck and fun on her trip

After dinner. Peter’s band Lokum played soem awesome Armenian and other central european and middle eastern music At one point peter  and the band played and sang a song that Peter’s written for Dana for her trip. He’s staying here for most of the time, but hoping to travel over to be with hjer for at least half of the time. I like seeing how much they love one another.

One interesting thing today.. at both events we met people that we hadn’t known before.. That always  makes the topic of Sam’s passing come up..I liked talking about him… I always do..

Speaking of goodbyes.. I gottta go.. I’m heading to mexico for a few days tomorrow for work. More from the road..

Nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

Friday night – the root of all evil

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Petty in eventful day.. Very , very busy with work.. So busy in fact that I’m still in my running clothes from this morning.(and badly in need of a shower I’m told 🙂
One cool thing did happen today..l facebook finally responded to my letters and converted my page back to a profile .! My pictures, friend list, history are all restored.. Albeit as they were a couple of weeks ago.l but it makes me very happy !
The only other thing of note that happened today was that my lovely wife called me today to tell me that the keys had gotten locked in the car . And I had to drive into town to rescue her, . Note that I used the passive voice there.. Diane didn’t lock the keys in the car, the ginger root did it. It’s a long story.. Something about the keys being in the same hand as the ginger root as the ginger was tossed into the car. I wasn’t completely clear on the details But suffice it to say that this was a very bad ginger root and we’ve taken disciplinary action.


Ok that’s it for now.. More tomorrow !
Nite all, nite Sam
-me

Location:Hinesburg Rd,Richmond,United States