Sunday night – Easter

April 8, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

Good day today but feeling somewhat blue anyway. I think holidays still ( or will always) come with a fair bit of sadness. We had a great brunch with friends in the morning . Then our good friends Kevin and Betsy dropped by with their daughter Megan who’s checking out uvm. We spent a great afternoon catching up with them… Then we took a good walk showing them around downtown.
Now I’m trying to hear back up for the work week and I’m having a load of technical trouble with my laptop. I wasn’t able to blog on it hence this short post from my phone.

I think my jet lag is catching up with me so I better sign off. Hope everyone had a good holiday

Nite all, nite Sam
-me

Saturday night – Missing Dylan

April 7, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

Tonight is the second night of passover.. a night we ask.. “why is this night different than all other nights’ .. Tonight that question has a much different significance to us. One year ago today our good friend Dylan Peters died.

Dylan had been in a car accident 3 days before . As he left this earth, he gave of life to four others t through the donation of his strong, young organs. Dylan was an amazing guy.. funny, athletic and smart. He’d been one of Sam’s best friends. They grew up together on the mountain learning to spin through the air without fear. When Sam died. Dylan stepped in like a brother to Gabe.. He helped Gabe grow as a rider.. and as a person.

Dylan.. it is so hard to believe that it’s been a year.. I can still remember your goofy antics.. like the time you ate a whole ball of wasabi on a dare when you Gabe and me went out for sushi.. or smuggling candy into the room for Easter at nationals in Colorado after you won the national slopestyle in your age group.

It’s been a hard year for everybody wiht out you.. your folks, your brother, your sister.. for Gabe.. and for us. Your still very much part of all our lives…

Me miss you Dyl… RIP

nite all, nite sam

-me

Friday afternoon – heading home

April 6, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

I’m in Frankfurt airport now on my way home My meetings originally scheduled for today actually got pushed in to yesterday.. which is allowing me to come home a day earlier… very glad..now I won’t miss Gabe’s lacross game !

This week has been REALLY full and interesting . I’m enjoying getting to know the people and landscape of Eastern Europe again.. I hadn’t been in Slovakia, Hungary or Slovenia in over 30 years..They’ve change so much. All were cool and interesting places full of very smart people.. The countryside was beautiful in Spring green… even some flowers this early in the year.. lots of opportunity here. Even with the economy in question, the sense of growth here is strong.

Andrej’s going to help me remember what we did this week.. but here’s my quick recollection of our 1600KM drive…

Sunday – Vienna.. hung out with my host family from 1979-80 year abroad.. great to reconnect. Worked late, 5 hours sleep.

Monday – drove to Bratislava, 3 media interviews,one meeting with university professors, one university talk, two employee meetings, drove to Budapest, had dinner with old freind Zoltan, caught up on work , 5 hours sleep

Tuesday – meetings in Budapest 2 (or 3) media interviews , 1 employee meeting, one university talk, drove to porterocz slovenia – arrived late, skipped dinner, worked on talk, 4 hours sleep

Wednesday – presentation for 1000 clients, meetings with clients all day, 5 media interviews, drove to Ljubljana one ieee/University talk – dinner with freinds. 3 hours sleep

Thursday – ealry morning flight from Ljubljana to Kracow poland, Quick lunch with freinds, then three back to back employee meetings, and one media interview. Quit dinner in town with Andrej..

Friday.. first real sleep of the week (8 hours !) changed return flight.. now heading home..

ok.. gotta run

they’re boarding.. glad to be heading home

nite all, nite sam

-me

Thursday night Kracow

April 5, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

Andrej and I left the hotel this morning at 545 am..once again I was seeing beautiful Slovenia without the benefit of son..but I really love the place. As we drove to the airport i marveled at how close everything was around here.

the airport lounge was busy even though it was hardly 6AM.. we looked at Slovenian trinkets.. this guy is their national poet.

the irport launge offered beer for breakfast.. why not ?

checking out the local newspapers..

eeek I’m in one !

we transfered at vienna and got in the large puddle jumper for the trip to Poland.

the flight over was uneventful ( i slept).. then we got a quick cap to IBM)

hari took andre j and me to lunch…

then it was back to the lab for 6 hours of great meetings/

Andrej and I then caught a cap back to our hotel and then ventured out in search f food and adventure

first stop was the famous dragon sculpture.. a beautiful bronze of a dragon that occasionally shoots fire. it used to be in response to an sms message.. now it seems to do it on a timer. I absolutely need to build one like this of Champ !!!!

i left a samstone on the sculpture.. just .. cuz !

then we walked downtown in search of food…. there Easter fare was getting set up in the old town village square.. It was small but still looked magical .