Very busy right now.. But making time to follow the supreme court debate peels away the onion on same sex unions an California's prop 8. I have several friends for whom this is personal. Its their marriages that are being debated .. I understand their outrage that someone else would have a vote on whom you choose to spend your life with.

One of the things i learned today was that Edi Windsor, the woman at the center of the supreme court case, was an IBMEr. She had to pay a huge estate tax when her spouse Thea died. that tax would have been 0 had her partner been a man. Its a tough story, but i cant think of a better legacy for Thea in making the right to marry a law.

Lets hope we do the right thing…..

Nite all, nite sam

-me

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Insanely busy but still pleasant day. Beautiful Sunshine and I was able to break for a run at lunch. That made all. The tip.
I took several of my calls downstairs and I am happy to come in and she commented on all the different kinds of accents that came in and out of my calls… Today it was French Indian Irish Chinese Swiss German and a little North Carolina thrown in, Just tomake it interesting. I sometimes take it for granted, but I really do enjoy working with the entire world in any given week… it certainly keeps things lively.

Speaking of the entire world… I was trying to get through my email today and I have six new invitations to give talks at some place in the planet. You may be surprised to hear this, but There are few things I dread more than public speaking. It doesn't matter whether it's an audience of 10 or 5000… My mouth gets dry my heart beats and I don't sleep well for a week before. The problem is is every time I do it I get more invitations to do it again. you would think it would get easier after 20 years or so but it never does.

As much as I don't like it, I probably say yes to about 50% of the invitations I get for one reason or another. Usually it's because I Have passion for the topic but I've been asked to speak on. I say yes, forgetting that to make good on that passion I have to have several sleepless nights of putting together my thoughts. Get on an airplane. Eat bad food, fly back. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Someday I guess I'll learn… But for now these 6 invitations look pretty good.., After all I have passion for these topics…lol

Nite all, nite sam

-me

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Happy Passover y'all… Or is we say in the tribe Chag sameach. Tonight is the first night of Passover. The day that get black all over the world remember the escape from bondage . Usually one celebrates with one's family and has a ritual meal of nearly inedible food punctuated with long bouts of impenetrable prayers. I decided to have a modern shortcut. I had a quick premeeting dinner with my friend John at a local Mexican restaurant and had a glass of red wine where I said my own version of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer over the wine. You gotta love any religion that has prayers over wine.

I felt a little nostalgic for the big old family seders we used to have… But I guess I'm doing one of those Friday so I didn't feel too bad.

From There I went to a makers meeting on 3-D printing. If you've been organized by my friends John, Tim, and Tyler… It was about two hours of great talks on the current and future prospects of 3-D printing. They showed lots of devices that they had made using 3-D printers and they were two printers printing in the background as they spoke. I gave a brief Set of comments on our 3-D scanner and showed some of those results. The meeting was amazing… It was in the Miller Center at Champlain College and it was standing room only. Last time I counted there were about 70 people and more people kept coming. The maker movement is growing so fast here. It's so great to see.

And it was a great question and answer session and then lots of hallway conversation. It was really really exciting. I talked to so many smart people tonight. I just love this stuff

Afterwards we had a quick impromptu meeting on the floorish project that Eric John colin and Katie and I are working on. We have a lot to get done in the next two weeks. We made use of the available whiteboard the plot our next steps. . Our picture here so I can find it later

Okay… Got to go. I have both work homework and nonwork homework to do. More tomorrow happy pesach everyone
Night all, night Sam
– Me

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Lovely day.. Slept 'till 9 … Then a longish snowshoe on the long trail on virgin snow with diane and the ogs.It was a foot and a half deep and getting a little heavy.the dogs were working pretty hard to break trail as were we…

Rest of the day i spent on various projects.. I am heping with two projects for the upcoming interaction required' show at the bulington firehouse gallery. I was up late last night working on the one im doing withmy friends homer and karen. I got a pretty cool system going for reding patterns out of memory card to feed to those fancy led strips i use. Were using those lights to illuminate some of homers metal 'water' paintins.. Which will look very cool. I me with homer and karen mid afternoon to work on some of the hardware and software for that piece..

The rest of the afternoon i spent with eri, ken, john an olin working on our piece for the floor of the firehouse gallery.. We only have 2 weeks till installation. And have SO much still to do,,. Yikes .. We did make very good progress today, though. I love that group of folks…

Ding these projects reinforces to me that all projects take longer and are more complex than one ever estimates even when one tries to over estimate..

Is there a name for that ? If not.. Im claiming it.. From henceforth.. I'll call that 'cohns law'… You should too 🙂

All for now..

Nite all, nite sam

-me

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