We spent a very fun day in Minneapolis with my sisters family and my Mom.    My day began with carrot cake and Bundi Masala.. A day that starts with spicy okra cant go wrong. 

 

Diane and I took Mary and John’s dog Skye out for a 3 mile run around the lake of the isles.. right near their ose.. It was a beautiful cool and clear day. 

 

Grandma was satuing at the hosue as well 

 

It was great hanging out with my nephews.. we spent most of the day getting up to mischief of one sort or another. 

 

 

both Jake and THeo are really into sceince.. we made a simple motor 

 

 

my brother phoned in to say hi 

 

ellery had soem freinds over for cookie making 

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this house is huge an amazing .. very warm and comnfortable and informal inside.. stately outside. 

 

prrof that my sister is now a grown uo.. to me she is always 12 years old. 

 

she was sporting a new hircut today. 

 

around 3 we drove to watch theo’s hockey practice   he’s very good on the ice 

 

at that point we were just a mile from my mom’s. she wanted to show us her new condo.. which overlooks the Mississippi .

 

 

firstly thing inside the door is my dad’s hat.. made me happy to see 

 

 

 

check out this view !

 

lots of family memorabila.. felt lie home 

 

lots of pictures of dad.. made me miss him. 

 

 

views from moms condo were really nice 

 

 

 

here’s where the local footbal team plays

 

 

lots of sam pics.. which made me happy/sad

 

mom gave us a tour.. here’s hwer sorage room 

 

her neighbor Marta is a potter… she’s from Hungary.. she accidentally became a potter when she accidentally signed up for pottery when she meant to sign up for poetry  in college   . her’s her digs 

 

marta was a movie star in Hungary back in the day.. here she was in the 60’s 

 

mom took us to see some of the other facilities.. her’s the ‘party room’ .. 

 

we had a toast to moms new place 

=

 

we took a short very cold walk along the river.. 

then home to marys for  more science mischief  (spud gun, steel wool, mentos and coke) 

 

now almost 11 am. time for sleep..

more tomorrow

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Greetings from Minneapolis… I’m at my sister Mary and her husband John’s house… It’s the first time I’ve ever been here. Beautiful place. My mom is here too. Diane and I are visiting for two days. So great to see everyone doing so well. My nephews Theo and Jake and my niece Ellery I’ve gotten so big… They have a really cute dog named skye Why can’t get enough of… Right now all I can think about is crawling into bed and getting some sleep… I’ll post more pictures of the family tomorrow

Here are a couple to tide you over

OK… Can’t hold my eyes open any longer… More tomorrow

night all, night Sam
-me

via PressSync

Attempted to take a vacation today.. but still managed to work abotu a half a normal day.. all in all a good day . 

Cleaned my office, put away a ton of electronics.. and genereally prepared to try to do very little next week.   Around 4, DIane and I headed up to colchester for the quarterly VOMIT (Vermonsts own MIT club) meeting. Today was a tour of Twincraft soap.. i didn’t knwo what to expect.. but it was actually amazing !. .. Here are my fellow MIT alums 

 

my buddy KC’s car has a munny license plate.. her initials.. are the chemical symbol for Potassium  Cyanide 

she just had her 50th MIT reunion 

 

we all checked in to twincraft 

 

here is Kurt, Twincrafts main formulary inventor.. and our tour guide

 

here we are , gowned for the tour 

 

after a short presnetation.. we went down for the tour 

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here’s the raw soup in 1000 kg bags 

 

here’s scrap soap thats sold at cost to prisons. 

 

here’s the milling machine that shears the soap pellets 

 

here are the ingredient bays for the days runs.. 

 

one of the gieant mixers 

the pruductin floor below 

 

a pressing machine used to test spoap

 

african black soap after its first milling 

 

purpule soap !

 

2nd mixing and extruder 

 

adding exfoliants (oatmeal) 

 

heater 

 

cutter 

 

soap ingots 

 

the soap is warm and still flexible 

 

yellow soap 

 

boxing 

 

translucent soap 

 

lots and lots of finsihed product !

 

the soap dies .. they have over 5000 shapes

 

extra extruder screws

 

lots more ingrediants 

 

the soap lab.. where they expereiment 

 

 

it was 7 pm by the time we got out. I drove DIane back to Richmond.. then headed out to waterbury to meet my Burnign Man friends.   We’re planning next years projects. We met at Sun Commons, my freind Duanes company . 

 

 

It’s goona be great !

 

ok.. gotta sleep now.. more tomorrow from the road

 

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

THird work day on US soil.. I swear when I’m back in the states even a 12 hour work  day feels like a vacation,..   I’m squeezing in a a bunch of local stuff I haven’t had time to do for the last month and a half. Yesterday was our monthly Generator Board meeting.  My work day began at 5Am this morning.. but I was able to break from 8-9 for the  Generator Safety committee lab walk through.   The place looked good.. thoguh there are always things you can find to improve. 

 

here’s our fancy finger saving saw.. if skin touches the blade, it fires a brick of aluminum into the saw, breaks a pin and saves the finger..   we have proof that it works !

 

I had three remote meetings at work all which went well… but all which i would have preferred to be in the room for. I compensated this evening by attending a local IoT meetup. A group of us are planning a Long Range, low power LoRa network for the city of Burlington. all of these folks are doing it as s volunteers.. we had every skill you could wish for in that room…

 

I so love my nerdy little town !

nite all, nite sam

-me