Sunday night – camp out!

Diane is down in Endicott. I am here with the dogs on the coldest night of the year. It's one of those three dog night's… But we only have two dogs!.(in the Middle Ages On very cold nights people would bring their dogs into their beds for warmth) All three of us are asleep on the floor as close to the fireplace as we can safely get. It was about -9 when we all curled up here. It's got colder than that now… Heading to 25 below I think. That's about the limit for our drafy old house.

Brrrrr it's cold

Nite all, night Sam

-me

 

 

 

Saturday night – Finn’s party

Our big outing  today was to help Finn and hs family celebrate his 5th birthday party with a big science show . We all met at the hinesburgh school.. on a cold and windy day

The kids loved watching their hair stand up on when they were hooked to the VanDeGraf.. it was a perfect day for static electricity .

Then we all rode around on my electric cart.. it was so crazy fun !

Then we made GAK.. white glue and borax.. yucky fun !

 

next came volcanoes big and small.. first vinegar and backing soda ones

 

then a bigger ‘elephants toothpaste” one using app hydrogen peroxide and  yeast




finally came the ice cream.. we used almond milk which worked pretty well !!! It was delicious !

finn blue out the candles, then i put in a little liquid nitrogen to make the volcano cake really smoke !



what a fun  mess !!


Happy birthday Finnegan !

 

noite all, nite sam

-me

Friday night – goose chase

Happy friday The 13th everyone. The day sort of rang true to its reputation. I managed to engage in a constant series of goose chases. Starting from driving to the wrong airport this morning in DC… Luckily, I had left enough time to get to the right airport.The rest of the day I wrestled with a broken calendar… And then late tonight tried fruitlessly to gather supplies for science show I’m doing tomorrow morning for a bunch of five-year-olds. How hard can it really be to buy 10 bottles of Elmers glue?!… Or coconut milk? 5 stores is how hard ! … The stars were not aligned with me… But, it is so nice to be home with my diane after a long week away. I am going to jump into a bathtub and with any luck will remember to put down my iPad first.

 

Night, night Sam

–me

Thursday night – the Kiki room

Super late… So this will be short. Went to a great conference today at the national institutes for standards and technology.NIST.Made some great work connections including this guy Jon from O’Reilly. He left us with this great quote:

NIST was pretty interesting. The walls were covered with pictures of famous and cool looking scientists

Afterwards went to a nice reception at the new maker space that’s part of the Montgomery county innovation office. It’s in a beautiful old courthouse building

Here’s my friend Dan showing off the white noise generator used to mask noise in the courtroom

The event ended early so I took advantage of being down here to drive the one hour into Maryland to see my friends Catherine and Vince. When we saw each other we realized we hadn’t been together in 19 years. Still it was as if no time had passed. We were with them when they met each other in Burlington. We visited them when they lived in England but had not seen them since they moved to the US

Katherine (a.k.a. Kiki) recently was diagnosed with cancer. She’s dealing with a combination of radiation and  Chemical therapies. It’s no fun. Even so, she was the same funny and boisterous good friend we’ve always had. Vince was also unchanged. It was so great hanging out with them tonight

I was also able to catch up with our mutual good friend Todd on the phone ride there. I really want to make a point of seeing these guys whenever I’m down this way now.

So great seeing old friends and reconnecting…

 

nite all, nite sam

-me