Yearly Archives: 2014

Thursday night – thanksgiving in Montreal

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Happy thanksgiving from Montreal .. less than 2 hours from home. .. but a very different world. We’re up here staying with out good friends the Townsends. Max, Gabe and I drove up midday.. Diane came up last night with Deb to help with cooking.. and there was a whole lot of cooking. I thin there are about 18 folks here… and no one is going away hungry !

Our thanksgiving was traditional in many ways.. the males gathred around the tv.. but here video games (call of duty) took the place of football..

 

and the two best cooks I know held out in the kitchen.. after days of planning, it was a true feast !

my favorite part of the meal was the middle eastern first course.. hummus taramsalat, tabouli, wierd slaty rope cheese, olives , pickled horseradish, stuffed peppers.. YUM !!!!

 

 

 

 

 

matt did the carving..

 

 

 

while folks rested and built up their appetite for round 2

 

 

Then it was time for the main deal.. We held hands and went round the table and reflected on what we were grateful for.. many good feedings..    i’m grateful for family and friends present and absent ..

 

 

after round two.. came deserts.. amazing again !!!

then we all took over for clean up.. many hands made for light work..

 

lots of great leftovers for tomorrow.. not sure we can cross the border with anything.. we’ll see !

speaking of light work.. we all weighed in before and after. I think matt got the record with 4.5 pounds.. I only managed 1/2 pound !

 

then we all retired to the living room to talk and play games.. .. very fun

 

 

I am lying here thinking about and how grateful i am for  all the good I have in my life . Hope you are enjoying your day as much

nite all nite sam.. you were with us tonight..

-me

 

Wednesday night – busman’s holiday

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I remember a term from our time in the UK that was called ‘Bisman’s Holiday’.. It meant when someone used their vacation to do what they normally did for work. For example.. a guy hw drives busses for a living woudl take a bus vaction when he was off work..

 

I think I’m doign that now. I just looked up and realized it was 1:30 and I’d been programming for 6 hours.. not work.. or .. not exactly work. It uses software from work (Bluemix, MQTT)  I’m adding some features to the Floorish light sculpture.. but I’m not sure that sitting and programming all night was what I meant to do. .. but even so.. I made good progress.. and it was fun..

The only other thing I did of note today was to show my good buddy scott how to use the laser cutter at Generator. Scott has helped me build high voltage demo equipment for more than 20 years. He’s now rebuilding my singing tesla coil that I kept blowing up. Hopefully his monster skills will make it more robust than I was able to do.  Here are the end caps for the secondary and support standoffs for the driver transformers. I love this laser  !!

ok.. time to sleep Big day tomorrow..

I’m truly grateful for all i have in my life. .. and that includes many of you out there.

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

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