Tuesday night – Winchester

October 15, 2013 johncohn 1 Comment

Hello from my ancestral home… At least one of them .. that we got to Winchester about 830 tonight. my work friends and i dropped our stuff at the hotel and went out to have a meal. It was so cool walking around with in this place that i used to live. It hasn't changed much… I guess a city this old wouldnt. Still it took me back like a Time Machine.

I left avSam stone on the statue on the high street

Seen Winchester Cathedral really brought back memories… It was completely quiet there . it was fun walking around outside

Okay… Major jet lag setting in… More tomorrow from Hursley.Night all, night sam– Me

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Monday night – jolly old

October 14, 2013 johncohn Leave a comment

Im just about to land in jolly old England.. And I'm feeling neither jolly nor (thankfully) old.. Unfortunately due to an equipment mixup, i did not have enough battery power to get all the work done i needed to do .. So it looks like a long night.

I am happy, though, to be returning to the UK. Ive only been here in short (1-2 day) stays since diane and i lived here in 1984-86. I was working at ibm hursley and diane was at grad school at the university of southhampton.

In fact,… on Wednesday, i will return for first time I've been back to our adopted home town of Winchester for… Hmmmm… When was it ? Sam was 3 and max was 7 i guess that makes it something like 17 years.. Then we traded homes wihit our dear friiends phil and sue.. They took ours, we took theirs…

I remember that trip so well…. We sat in their wonderful house in the country and watched old godzilla movies and played with their cat….

Now so much has changed… both sam and sue have died. . Phil is visiting in the us.. Tis week aNd im going to be here on my own,,, Im looking forward to it in a nostalgic kind of way… If you can look forward to something in the past.

I do look forward to walking the same streets.. Seeing some old friends and reliving those relativly crefree days of warm beer, cream teas and fried food.

I am looking forward to the work im doing he as well.. Im very excited about the stuff im working on now.. At the same time its complex… Wish me luck..

Ahh were landing now.. Btter sign off.. More from the round,

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Sunday night – Chai turns 10 and Jeremey and Dani get married

October 13, 2013 johncohn Leave a comment

Great day..

Two big events today. Our furry friend Chai turns 10 year old today. quite an elegant lady !.. Gabe made her (and Satori) a hamburger, egg supreme dish to celebrate). You couldn’t ask for a better four legged friend.. We love you Chai-baby !

We love you too satori !

The other big news of the day was our friend Jeremey’s wedding to the love of he life and long time girlfriend Dani.. the wedding was donw in Plymoth which was a beutiful 2 hour drive through fall colors..

Down there we met up with Jerememys’ family and freinds.. including our old friend Shawn.

Mason and Claire dorve down with us (in separate car)

Jac and Max had come up too. (Gabe and Raya stayed up here)

it was a beutiful camp house near a small pond.. perfect weather and color..

the wedding started at 1.. here are jeermey’s mom and brother

jermey’s sister

dani and her dad

and before we knew it.. they were hitched !

the wedding party skipped out.. !

then time for pics

one shot from upstairs..

then in to eat !

karen, jeremy’s mom brought her tea cup collection.. and 24 pies she’d made herself !

time to cut the .. uh… pie !

thumprints from everyone !

first dance

jeff and karen..

Sean, Jeremy and Max once had a band.. EVOL (love backwards) .. the band was back together !

sean and his gf molly.

the happy couple.

Cute couple !

Diane and I then drove home.. .. to see gabe.. Gabe felt like doing some chemistry.. so we took a pile of Ammonium Dichromate and lit it to make a volcano… A perfect end to a very nice day

ok.. early flight so I gotta sleep..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Saturday night – HackVT

October 12, 2013 johncohn Leave a comment

Wonderful day.. Diane and I took the most gorgeous hike this morning out at little river state park.. S it was a perfect fall walk.. broad woods roads, bright leaves and history as we walked through the remains of a town that once stood up in these mountains.. All that was left now was a few old cemeteries , a well , some bits of iron and some orchards gone to wild.. It was s beutiful my heart ached…

and you’ll have to take that on my word as I seem to have lost all my pictures from the hike when I cleaned off my phoen this afternoon as I prepped for the HackVT judging.. This is the second year where i’ve been a judge on the Vermont Open Data Hackathon.. This year we had 131 people, 31 teams who worked for 24 ours on projects ranging from insurance calculators to art catalogs for the state. It was so muhh fun.. especially since I didn’t have to stay up working all night.. All i had to do was meet up with my three co-judges and pass judgment. It was really great !

One thing that struck me is that for all the noise we make on ‘open data’.. most of these folks don’t think of open data as anything different than any other data thats out there.. if you can find it.. it’s open.

my favorite thing was to announce the winners.. I got to announce the first prize.. .. some folks who did a very cool insurance calculator for the states new insurance exchange.. I know it may not sound exciting. but it was !