Diane and I got married 30 years ago today !. It was a beutiful day when we sealed the deal  in Richmond’s beutiful Round Church surrounded by freinds and family. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long.. It’s been amazing journey so far.. adventure, joy, sadness… and lots of love.. lots and lots of love. I can’t put into words how much that girl means to me. She’s my love, my best freind, coach, advisor and parnter in everything I do…. ,, i’m so glad to be on this long strange trip together.

I Love you Diane !!!!

Normally , we would mark the day by goign to the Round Church and doing our best to receit our home made vows from memory .. Not today though.. After a quick anniversary breakfast Diane dropped me off at the airport .. I’m off to Burning Man in the Nevada desert to be wiht sons Max and Gabe. I’m really lookign forward to being with my boys out there..

One thing about Burning Man..  cell  coverage  or wifi is very hard to come  by.. so I wont be blogging until Sunday .

Happy anniversary to us !

Over and out till Sunday

nite all, nite sam

-me

I have finnaly arrived.. I got email today asking me (and I’m sure a 1000 freinds) to help judge the weekly New Yorker Cartoon Caption contest. i enter it frequently.. but have never won..

You too can help judge.. just go here

It’s addicting !

“We just need your e-mail address so we can e-mail you all day every day for the rest of your life.”

nite all, nite sam

-me

As many of you know, I’m heading out to Burning Man at the end of the week to be with my sons Max and Gabe.. Max is part of a big project there called Helios.. he’s in charge of burnign it down on Friday night… He asked Gabe and me to come  out to be part of it…   I can’t wait !

Burnign man is many things.. its wild, overwelming, beutiful crass and dirty.. but its also very spiritual. One of the major features out there is the Temple. It’s dedicated to folks who have died.. and it’s burned on Sunday.. We’ll be taking about 300 SamStones out there to give to folks.. and we’ll put some in the temple..

Sam would have loved Burning Man. .. and we would have loved to have him out there. .. so I’m also takign some  of Sam’s ashes to burn

That meant ,

taking the box down off the book shelf

opening the blue velvet bag,

takign out the cardboard box, ,

opening the plastic carton,

taking out the plastic bag,

undoing the twistie..

and dipping a screw top test tube into my sons ashes

It was amazingly easy to do.. and so hard.   I cried for a bit.. then laughed at how wierd this was…then

I closed the bag,

twisted the twistie

put the bag back in the  plasic carton

putting it back in the cardbord box

put that in the velvet bag

and put the whole thing on the shelf

And went out of the room to begin packing

Life is so, so strange

nite all, nite sam

-me

we’re back from pittsburgh from a great trip to Matt and carolyns wedding. .It was great seeing old freinds,larry and leah and  our old town  … we had a nice time just hanging out. .. The trip home was uneventful.. i used it .. and the rest of the  last 11 hours (!) getting my email backlog down  to less than a page.

note much else to report on today.. oh.. one interesting thing.. there was a nice brunch this Am for the wedding guests that were still around. It was in the Lawrence Welk room. evenidenyly , the william penn hotel was where he originated  some  of his shows.   Tos of you my age or older will remember Lawrence Welk’s shmalzy ‘champaing music.. .. he’sd start each oen with ‘and -a-one-an-atwo;.. it was a mystery to me as a kid why folks would watch him play on tv.. while folsk danced.. but.. i did think the bubbles were cool…

actually the station KDKA in pittsburgh was the first commerical radio station in the world..

and their firtst live broadcast was from this same hotel !

and get this.. here’s the machine that made the bubbles. it was build by one of the handymen  in the hotel.. 

seeing that made the trip even more worthwhile !

nite all, nite sam

-me