Monthly Archives: November 2014

Tuesday night – what a long strange trip it’s been.

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1:45 AM and I’m just back from a great Dark Start Orchestra show at Higher Ground. DSO is a Grateful Dead cover band.. but so much more than that too. Honestly, I think they’re better than the Dead most times. I try to catch them every time they are here… and they usually come about now every year.

I remember seeing them shortly after Sam died. .. dancing and crying at the same time (Joni Mitchell says that laughing and crying are the same release)

as I sat there tonight I remmerb being there every year since.. it’s another good marker.. and reminds me of the healing power of good music

 

On the theme of ‘Long strange trips”, I opened a composition book today to begin writing soem notes and found soem cool artwork of Sam’s that I’d never seen

 

It really is a long strange trip.. no

nite all, nite sam

-me

Monday night – unwinding

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I had a busy day doing nothing today.. which is just what I needed. I’m doing my best to not think about work at all this week.. but got off to a rough start with hat. I actually ended up with a few work calls .. but they were pretty good ones.

The high point of my day was lunch with my good friend David. He’s been retired from IBM for several months now and is really enjoying himself.

 

He built himself a 3D printer and wrote a bunch of code that allows him to print out sections of topo maps.. It’s so cool..

Here’s Mt Mansfield

Here’s Mt Desert Island in Maine

And here’s soem strange figmant of Davids most amazing brain (he really is one of the smartest people I’v eever met )

OK.. not much else to report today.. more tomorrow

nite all. nite sam

-me

Sunday night – With science !

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Reasonably peaceful day, just trying to get into vacation mode and struggling a bit to put work out of my mind.. which I really need to do.

I did have some good play time today dialing in the design and settings for the Reubens tube I finished yesterday. The rubens tube was invented in 1905 by German physicist Heinrich Rubens . I made mine with a 5 foot steel stove pipe, stuck a gas line on one end and a compression tweeter on the other. drilled 114 holes int he top .. lit it and played music into the speaker.. Sort of like this illustration.. but I didn't use a rubber diaphragm.. I sealed a speaker airtight to the tube… and I used an iphone as both a signal generator and music source.

Pretty cool !

Here's my fiery rendering of Thomas Dolby;s 'She blinded me with Science' .. (note this is still uploading at 10:48 PM)

And Here's what happens with Big gigantics 'sky high' ( I managed to blow out the speaker right after this one. Luckily, i had a spare replacement vice coil for it.. don't ask me why.. )

Nice little demo.. .. no ?

nite all, nite sam !

-me

 

Saturday night – Celebrate Sam, Donate Life !

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Today’s the day we mark when sam did his ultimate act of kindness. He donated four of his organ and saved 4 other peoples lives.   You can honor Sam’s memory by telling your loved ones how you feel about organ donation. thats the most important thing you can do so they know your wishes

 

 

We were surrounded by love and support today.. many friends showed up and freinds and family checked in from all over. We appreciate the support even after 8 long years !

First to show up were morgan, phil and james.. expecting their 2nd baby as of yesterday.. they stopped by on their way to eat spicy Thai food in the hopes that would get things going !

 

At 1 we met friends at Bolton parkign lot for our traditional Sam day walk up bolton. we had between 6 and 12 inches of snow up there.. it was a beautiful day.

 

we all gathered for a redbull toast to sam at the top.. and I passed around some of my homemade moonshine..

 

 

gabe and I ten climbed the icy fire tower to launch a mortar off the top as we have every other year for sam.. Nothing like being on a shaky 8×8 foot piece of ice with a live munition to make you appreciate life !

h

 

Then we headed back to the house for a pot luck. lots of good friends showed up

we had another redbull toast for sam

and then a proper birthday celebration for Kevin !. Happy 23rd man !

 

then we settled in to make samstones.

here’s ari demonstrating the technique 🙂

 

 

 

 

I did manage to slip out for a few minutes and test my new ruebens tube, it’s a tube filled with propane on one end and music on the other.. pretty good for a first test (after a near disaster 🙂

 

ok..sam.. thats another year.. we all love you and miss you…
more frome earth tomorrow

nite all, nite sam
-me