Friday night – Cèilidh Weekend

Great day. Diane Max and I were at Carnegie Mellon Universtiy ,, my graduate school alma mater, for an event called Cèilidh Weekend.  It’s a a weekend of talks, demonstrations, panels and events  designed for both current and previous alum. It was a full day event with lots of hand shaking wiht interesting an fun people

 

The alumni relations folks took such good care of us.. I knew where I had to be and what i had to do at every point in the day. They even had a parking place for me !

 

first stop was an awardi lunch.. where I got to met a bunch of really nice folks who were also gettign awards.   Then i had to ggo get prepared for my talk..

n the way there, i ran into David Souter, the former supreme coaurt justice in the bathroom.. how cool is that ?

 

the hall for my tlak was a comfortable size.. as folks filtered in, i got to reunite with many old  friends.. Here’s Dave G catching up with larry. Dave an I collaborated on our phd research and wrote a book together back in the day.

 

Shilo and beck  f old friends  from vermont showed up too..

 

 

my talk went pretty well.. too long, but audience seemed to like it. I enjoyed speaking to them..

Friend ben even arraigned to have ice cream there for everyone .. that was so awesome..

 

after my talk.. we walked over to hamershlag  with larry and lea to see our old stomping grounds. Here’s my old office..

 

Around 5 i headed over to green room. where all the folks getting awards got together. It was great to meet them all.. here’s the gang

 

CMU President Sureash welcomed us all

 

 

then it was time to get  bagpiped into the hall. away we go !

 

 

there were 18 awardeees.. I was last.. which allowed me to listen to all the other folks.. which was cool

i was really, really  homered to get the distinguished achievement award..

one by one we got called up on stage, they played a nice  video.. we got our award then made a short talk. I loved the short video they’d made me.

 

 

and then it was over !.. We got bagpiped back into the hall for a really nice reception.   I met so many folks and shook so many hands that my head was spinning.. .. in a good way. it was inspiring meeting all of those good folks.. I also got to meet the families of the other awardies.

 

Diane and Max there..were super patient with me as i Shmoozed..

 

 

then ut was done..

 

we headed bakc to the hotel changed clothes a.. and the 3 of us headed out for beer at Primantis.. a famous place.. where the serve french fires on their sandwiches.. It was only beer for us tonight though .  I don[t think id been in primantis since the early 90’s.. it hadn’t changed all that much 

 

 

 

now .. grateful after this long and fun day to be lying in bed..

time for me to go to sleep !

 

More stuff tomorrow. Nite all, nite sam

-ne

 

 

Thursday night – old friends

Greetings from pittsburgh.. One of my favorite cities in the world. Diane, max and i lived here from 1988-91 while i was in grad school at cmu. We had a really fun time considering i was working soemthing like 20 hours a day.

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Im back here to give a tlak tomorroow…and to see freinds…im both nervous and lookign forward to it..hope it goes well

Our freinds larry and leah invited us over for sushi tonight which was really wonderful..

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Our friends shawn and angela also showed up.. It was like a cmu homecoming.. I didnt get a picture of shawn and angela.. But got the rest of us

Ok.. Tomorrows a big day..gotta sleep now

More tomorrow

Nite all, note sam

-me

 

Wednesday night – Foorish vid

Got a nice surprise from Max today.. He created this great demo movie of the Floorish piece that he worked on along with john. colin, ken. tim and me last year.. I love the way it looks.. The finny thing is.. I needed exactly that kind of movie for the talk I’m giving on Friday.. and he had no way of knowing that.. A very cool and welcome coincidence .

Thanks you Max !

nite all, nite sam
-me

Tuesday night – so darn nice

Just spent the day in wisconsin.. And EVERYONE i met there was nice.. Not just nice.. But exceptionally, uniqulysincerely.. Even pathalogically nice.. It was wonderful and bewildering. That lovely accent just doesn't lend itself to unpleasantness.. Im goign to have to check on this, but im betting that no one in the state of wisconsin got mad in the past year.. And if they did.. They didnt get past 'darn'

You may think im being sarcastic here.. But it is not that at all. I thouroghly enjoyed being surrounded by freindly folks…

Amd its not that im not usually surrounded by freindly folks.. Vermonters are really , really freindly.. But just not as frindly as folks from wisconsin,..

Thank goodness our cheese is better 😉

 

Nite all, nite sam

-me