Sunday night – deflowered

July 1, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

Slow and beautiful day.. diane and I took a very fast walk up one side of Robins mountain.. until the bugs got so bad near the top that we decided to turn back.. spent the rest of the day working ’round the house. Like most vacations, I began by cleaning my shop.. nothing like getting ready to work..

ok.. so not spotless.. but much better.. found lots of unidentified pyrotechnics stuff while I was cleaning.. which I burned off tonight.. always a surprise what I’ll find when I clean..

worked on a couple of projects today.. We rebuilt Jackie’s light up hoola hoop for an upcoming festival.. and I started on a new one for here.. this one will be microcontroller controlled.. should be pretty cool.

while I worked, diane had the unfortunate task of having to pull up all of her impatiens. .. They had come from the nursury with a bad fungal infection that killed thme all off.. by color.. it was very strange.. unfortunetly, there’s no time to replant them for the season.. but the nursery has been very good about it, they’ve offered diane replacement plants of a different variety.. I believe we can’t replant impatiens there for 3 years because of the infestations… It’s too bad.. lots of work went into planting them.. then more work to pull them up. then even more work to plant whatever we replace them with.. looks pretty bare out there now..

it was a beautiful evening out there..

ok.. time for bed.. more tomorrow..

nite all, nite sam

-me
Continue reading Sunday night – deflowered →

Saturday night – feldenkrais

June 30, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

Lovely day of doing nothing, not my strongest skill.s. but I’m adapting to it. I did just about nothing for most of the day.. Ran, cleaned up the house a little.. But other than that.. Just hung out and enjoyed the warm weather… We didn’t have anything planned until 4 pm.. At 4 folks started showing up for Diane’s feldenkrais party.. Feldenkrais is a body awareness system.. It reminds me of yoga.. But without the stretching… (is that like saying pizza without the crust ?) I always assumed that feldenkrais was some sort of mystical name.. A place shrouded in mystery.. An ancient order of monks… But no… It was named for its founder, one Moshe Feldenkrais, an Israeli engineer and Marshall arts specialist who developed it in the 50s .
Our friend Uwe is the only feldenkrais instructor we know in the state.. He sometimes uses our studio to teach classes.. Which is fun because we get to attend them.. I like the classes.. Even though I manage to sleep through about half of them.. Something about Uwes voice just puts me right out.. The practice is about body mechanics.. You position your body then pay attention to how it makes you feel supposedly your body ‘learns’ from these positions and develops new awareness of … Uh.. I don’t know what.. But something…important… Actually.. I find it pretty cool. Once we took a feldenkrais running class from uwe which taught us about contralateral movement.. Believe it or not.. It changed the running stride I’d been using for nearly 30 years..

Tonight we had about 12 folks there… There were two class sessions.. With a break in between for beer… Which made me doubly sleepy during the second session. Then we hung around for a potluck.. Peter brought his Oed, a middle eastern instrument he plays. It was a great evening.. An interesting collection of friends who didn’t know one another .. It was a fun mix..

Peter plays classical guitar as well. He played us a few pieces on Sams guitar including the able ez piece Sam had learned right before he died. It was so great hearing it again..especially on his guitar

Ok.. I have another day of goofing off to get ready for ..so I need to sleep.
More tomorrow.

Nite all, nite Sam
-me

Friday night – retiring

June 29, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

No… Don’t worry.. Its not me Not me.. I’m not retiring for another 15 years…. But suddenly lots of my friends are . It seems every day there are 1 or 2 retirement parties going on at work.. And I’m getting 2 or 3 “dear friends” email letters. I really enjoy those letters by the way.. It’s so interesting to see how people sum up their 30 or so years of work … most are upbeat.. Some are chronological lists of accomplishments, others are more philosophical. All have a phrase like ” the best thing has been the people” . I read each one of these carefully.. Looking for clues about the persons real state of mind.. Its rare is see any bitterness.. But I often see ambivalence .. Or uncertainty. Some have clear ideas of what they are doing next.. They’re moving ‘towards’ something. Some are moving ‘away’ and just are trying to avoid burnout.. I also read with a little bit of wistful envy.. No, envy is too strong a word…. Maybe vicarious longing.. I love my work right now.. Still the thought of being able to devote all of my time to my personal missions.. Whatever they may be.. Is so very tempting. How will that feel when it’s my time to take the watch and go ? Will I know what I want to do next ? Some thing tells me ‘yes’ .. But I’m sure it will be bittersweet when it happens.

Well, I Think I’ll retire right now.. To bed…
More tomorrow…

-nite all, nite Sam
-me

Thursday night – flaming arrows

June 28, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

I finished work around 5:30.. and immediately got lazy.. diane was lazy too.. we talked about going for a run, taking a walk, going canoeing, or going for a bike ride. In the end we decided to do nothing of the sort.. we plopped down on the couch and watched netflix. We’ve just gotten hooked on a show (dirty, sexy money.. a realllly stupid drama/comedy from 2009-10).. this is the first time I’ve ever watched a series online.. and its evil.. I’ve always prided myself for not having a tv.. but this is far worse)

Luckily, something saved us. Chris and Kim called to ask if we wanted to come over and shoot flaming arrows at a wooden man full of gunpowder and covered with gasoline.. Who WOULDN’T want to do that ?!?!

It’s harder than it sounds.. Chris wrapped the arrows with paraffin soaked cheese cloth.. but even those are hard to stay lit..