Today was ‘the’ day for the stamp mobile. The thing is rolling out of here tomorrow.. And after one last 3:30 am night last night, john, colin and i ( and seth the day before) finished the last mods to the mechatronics in The beast. I e of the last,steps was to put samstonen in the electronics…box

Im not proud of some of the last minute stuff we had to do… But in the end… Its all working pretty well. (Touch wood). Like most big projects, we all drastically underestimated the time, complexity and range of problems we would encounter. I really don’t have anything to complain About. Poor John and Collin did almost 3 all nighters this week. But what matters I guess, in the end it all worked. To celebrate Ben had a big party in the garage tonight. With Turkish food , beer , wine, Colin brought in a margarita maker.

And we ran the machine for a couple of hours. And believe it or not it just worked.

Now comes cleanup. Ughhhhhhh

Even with the hassles its been a lot of fun. I enjoyed working with the crew., Jerry, pelch, John, John, Colin, Seth , ben et cetera et cetera et cetera. And of course stamper dog Riley

Having a problem that no one has solved before. I also like trying to find unusual uses for normal things to solve unusual problems. There’s no cookbook in the world that has a device like this and it. Nor should there be. Someday I would like to build things like this for a living. I wonder if I could do it somehow in a way that would help the world? ( Actually getting money out of politics… which is the mission of the stamper… is a good place to start !)
Any ideas out there? Id love to hear them !

Ok…i have only had one good nights sleep.in the last 2 weeks.. Im hoping for one tonight

Nite all, nite sam
-me

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Location:Cochran Rd,Richmond,United States

Busy and productive day in nyc.. So busy i didn’t even get to see max or jac.. I stayed in town last night and was asleep by 10.. The first full night of sleep I’ve gotten in… . Maybe 2 weeks ?
I was going to see them tonight then i realized that if i ran for it.. I could make an earlier flight back to BTV.. As soon as my meeting was over.. Or at least almost over, i ran down and flagged a cab…. That guy drove me around for a while.. Then politely told me that i had to get out of his cab… His meter wasn’t working.. And evidently, if you get caught driving to the airport with a faulty meter.. Its a bad thing.. He found me another cab… That guy took me on some crazy back roads and made up the time id lost in cab swap.. E he turned around and asked me if i could do him a favor… I was fearing a scam.. But it was a genuine favor.. He was going off shift at 4. And my trip to the airport was going to make him an hour late getting home.. He asked me if it was ok if the stopped on the feeder and let his friend/cab partner take me the rest of the way… He was nice and apologetic.. So i said what the heck.. A promised, we stopped off the freeway, hhe got out, and his freind jumped in and took me the rest of the way.. In the end , my trip cost exactly the fixed rate set by law.. U id had two cabs and three drivers.. Imgot to the airport in just enough time to check in for the earlier flight…. Only to find that it had been delayed by 2 hours for weather…
My trip home reminds me of Zeno’s paradox.. Zeno was a 5th century BCE greek mathematician and philosopher who pointed out that if you walk toward a goal, and each step you half the distance, you will never actually reach your goal….

Which reminds me of my favorite zenos paradox joke

A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer were asked to answer the following question. A group of boys are lined up on one wall of a dance hall, and an equal number of girls are lined up on the opposite wall. Both groups are then instructed to advance toward each other by one quarter the distance separating them every ten seconds (i.e., if they are distance apart at time 0, they are at , at , at , and so on.) When do they meet at the center of the dance hall?

The mathematician said they would never actually meet because the series is infinite.

The physicist said they would meet when time equals infinity.

The engineer said that within one minute they would be close enough for all practical purposes.

Oh well.. Im almost home…
Nite all, nite sam
-me

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Terminal 5,New York,United States

Greetings from nyc… Im here for a work meeting.. Getting here involved getting up at 4am… Which on its own would not have been too bad… But i never really managed to fall asleep last night. Usually i sleep like a rock as soon as my head hits the pillow.. But last night i had a cool work problem in my head.. .. And a mechanical problem for the stamp mobile.. Swilling around in my head in one of those stupid confused movie loops one sometimes gets… I remember reading a poem about just that from my favorite poet, billy collins. .. Its called insomnia….

Insomnia
By Billy Collins

Even though the house is deeply silent
and the room, with no moon,
is perfectly dark,
even though the body is a sack of exhaustion
inert on the bed,

someone inside me will not
get off his tricycle,
will not stop tracing the same tight circle
on the same green threadbare carpet.

It makes no difference whether I lie
staring at the ceiling
or pace the living-room floor,
he keeps on making his furious rounds,
little pedaler in his frenzy,
my own worst enemy, my oldest friend.

What is there to do but close my eyes
and watch him circling the night,
schoolboy in an ill-fitting jacket,
leaning forward, his cap on backwards,
wringing the handlebars,
maintaining a certain speed?

Does anything exist at this hour
in this nest of dark rooms
but the spectacle of him
and the hope that before dawn
I can lift out some curious detail
that will carry me off to sleep—
the watch that encircles his pale wrist,
the expandable band,
the tiny hands that keep pointing this way and that.

So.. He i sit in the most exciting city in the world. , ready to go to sleep at 9:30 pm… It just aint right…

But im so sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Nite all, nite sam
-me

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Feeling better finally, My fever seems to have broken. The temperature outside seems to have stabilized as well… It’s stuck at 11 for the past 4 days or so. That was down coat weather at first… Now it’s sweatshirt weather.

Apropos of nothing. Ihad an interesting self realization Tonight while cooking pasta. The box said 12 minutes to ‘al dente’ . Thats the way connesours like it… With a slight crispy bite. I waited 12 min the decided it needed 3 minutes more. I realized that I’m just not that cutting edge. It’s not just pasta… I prefer the comfortable way over the edgy.

It’s nice to know who you are…. Really

Nite all, nite Sam
-me

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone