I had a great day today at the first day of the national Day of Hacking event and the kick off of the code for BTV brigade of Code for America…but Sometimes something comes up that must preempt my telling about my day .

Today I just want to write in support of all my friends in Turkey I’ve been shocked to read about the violence there over the last three days.. I’ve heard from several of them and from what I can understand the total story is still not getting out. The government Is saying that the riots there are being caused by activist. Some of those activists Are actually folks like my good friends there. They are peace-loving, Law abiding, highly educated, fun loving, professional people. They were peacefully protesting the bulldozing at a popular park in the Taxim square part of Istanbul. The government is removing the park because it is a popular area for bars and restaurants frequented by Young people who enjoy getting together to have a good time. When I was there last November I saw police and water cannons parked near taxim Square. Then there was No violence just lots of people hanging out with friends enjoying their evening.

I guess the government in power doesn’t want that. They are intent on imposing their social beliefs on the rest of the country.modern Turkey has a great history of religious tolerance. Ataturk made sure that turkey was a country for people of all beliefs. I hope they can find their way back there again soon.

My thoughts are with my friends in Istanbul and in the rest of Turkey I hope there’s a peaceful resolution to this current violence And all parties can begin to listen to one another again.

Night all, night Sam
– Me

ps. more about my day today, tomorrow

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it was in the 90’s here today.. 96 on the lacrosse field if the thermometer was ot be believed.   I’ve often said that my IQ drops a point for every degree above 70 degrees.. so I was eeling pretty slow and stupid by the end of the day..

That same heat is limiting my powers of observation even now.. The only insight I have from today is about cell phones.. Like most days I spent nearly my entire day on my cell phone on work calls.. Pretty strange when you think if it.. but thats how I make my living.. That included being in the car with our 3 year old friend Finn.., dropping Finn off with his mom and sister, and driving to saint albans  with diane to the lacrosse game.

As I ignored everyoen and everything around me as I concentrated on my calls, I had thisSatori moment, a flash of external clarity.. I realized that all those obnoxious people who I always see walkign around with their cell phones oblivious of me and the rest of the word.. are exactly like me.. they are not intentianally jerks.. as I often conclude they are.. they are simply trying to feed their family.. just as I am.. I am them..   Not sure whether that pushes me to have more compassion for folks talking on their phones.. or compells me to talk less on mine..   gotta ponder that..

Not a big insight, I know.. but it will have to do for now.. no big insights over 75 degrees

nite all, nite sam

-me

ps. Tomorrows is the first US National Day of Civic Hacking  t, http://bit.ly/18EtskT we’re getting our geek on at http://bit.ly/11d4EZE       Fin starts at Cafe Manleirno at 9 tomorrow.. Come help us write code for the good of vermont !

Made a very full day with lots of variety. But I paid for it tonight and I'm just finishing up my email from today at 1 AM. I try never to go to sleep with more than a page of email still in my inbox. It's a good discipline but it doesn't allow for much sleep these days.

My day was split between a work workshop and a number of other work. meetings as well as the end of the echo water summit I'm very pleased that the water summit and my day job are intersecting quite well. It will be interesting to see how the summit is summarized but one of the great outcomes from my perspective is Echo's commitment to create an open data resource for water data related to the Lake Champlain basin. This fits in very well with my work concentration right now.

I'm very excited about the prospects of open data for collaboration. There's actually a day of civic hacking is happening this Saturday but I'm just speaking in on the topic of open data more on that as it occurs.

A couple of highlights from today included a good talk from robert Kennedy Junior at the summit. He's an environmental lawyer with a long history of protecting waterways. He was funny, passionate and well-informed. He was quite an inspiration.

We also Had Secretary of State Markowitz teach us the Vermont State song while the state commissioner for water quality did interpretive dance

After work i went to our annual Vt Academy Of science and engineering (vase)spring meeting. We inducted the new member and we saw presentations from schools Woodcott equipment grants. That was so great to see the teachers and students describing their work it really felt like we made a difference.

Then I headed home. On the way Diane called to ask if I wanted to go to tuscanos for friend Jean's birthday. Why not? So we did that

after being out with friends for a while i came back and then spent 3 hours catching up on my email from just this one day. But it was worth it!
More tomorrow

Night all night Sam
– JC

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Spent part of the day today at a water summit at the ECHO center down by the lake. The fun thing was that the topics on discusion, open data and sensor networks are now parts of my day job, the summit brought together about 80 folks from a wide range of interests and professions to imagine lake champlain in 2018.

The opening was by Sen. Pat lehey.. A big supporter of echo, he gave a great talk about growing up with the lake..

Some of the attendees were a little hard to get out of. There shell

I had several other work meetings today that i had to get outside to do.. I. Took advantage of the pier at echo to take my calls out in the water

The evening has now moved on to blender sports.. Max and gabe are trying to see what will and wont blend in Diane's vitamax… The blender equivalent of a chain saw… Heres the result of blending a whole bag of thise wierd peach rings.. Dont try this at home !

Max is heading back early tomorrow.. So im goign to hang out a little more with him,,, so i'll sign off now…

More tomorrow.

Nite all, nite sam

-me

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