This morning I met with my friends Matt and Lyn to finish up our prototype for the S-port.. Matt’s and his wife Juietta’s son Storm was diagnosed with Leukemia last July.

https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/sports/high-school/2018/05/18/stormstrong-how-cvu-baseball-player-storm-rushford-battled-leukemia/613841002/

Storm’s  working through the tough treatments and is feeling strong enough to play baseball for CVU highschool. One of the challenges is that Storm has a chemo port implanted on his chest that needs protecting when he plays. . Lyn.. who’s  an amazing seamstress  and I have designed a protection device to protect the port while he pitches , runs, etc. We call it the S-port (get it ? ).. I made a diamond shaped polycaprolactone. (a polyester) shield that I molded  and drilled to fit a flexible hip impact protector for snow boarders that Matt and Julietta got at Burton . Lyn who used to work at Jogbra created  a lycra belt and strapping device to hold the pad and sheld against Storms body. 

 

 

 

for fun .. I also created an Ironman-like back light he can wear under it when he’s not playing. 

 

here’s Matt tryign the thing on before we added the shield 

 

here’s the complete S-port 

 

 

Storms trying it today. will eb interested ot hear how it works. 

 

the rest of the day was aroudn prepping for our upcoming trip to Oregon. 

Gabe made this amazing Ditch baby to help us build our strength 

 

late afternoon diane. gabe the dogs and I did a loop up in honey hollow.. enying the amazing but too dry weather. \

ok. Thats all for today. more tomorrow

 

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

Gbe turned 23 today.. He’s such a wonderful person.. I’m so proud to  be his papa !  

 

Gabe was camping on burton island with Raya and her fam.. so Diane and I woke early and canoed out to see him

 

the crossing to their camsitre on Burton island was only about 20 minutes … the water was nice and smooth on the way out. 

 

there’s the birthday boy !

gabe , raya and M were up.. 

 

Kack , wendy and the 4 dogs were just coming back from a walk 

 

they’d made a cobbler in the dutch oven.. almost done !

 

raya, gabe, diane and I headed in to check out the small store on the island. 

 

make that ‘the only coffee on the island… THe island is tiny .. about a dozen camsites, one store, no cars.. beutiful 

 

we got back to camp just in time to try the cobbler 

 

meanwhile M had found this awesome snake !

 

He also foudn a complete snakeskin !

 

lazy dogs we tred to get them to swim.. but no luck 

 

 

we all went for a walk to the southern tip of the island..  abeutiful trail through the woods. 

 

there weres soem cool rocky beaches along the south part of the island 

 

there were even soem benches.. .. just no people !

 

we walked back on a differnt trail ad headed bac to camp for lunch. 

 

jack cooked the buns 

 

we had a full spread with biabatta and lox, cream cheese, onions, tomatoes and capers.. yum !

 

whiel gab e wasnt lookign we got out his cakes and put the candles in 

 

here comes gabe !

 

gabes favorite chocolate mouse cake !

 

here’s M shows us that you actually can put 4.5 beers worth of beer in a regulation frisbee !

 

around 3 diane and I headed out tin the canoe. the wind had kicked up.. and it was a pretty rough crossing. we almost capsized one .. but made it to shore safely . .. 

 

gave raya diane and I met up at our house around 5.   aroudn 7 we went out for birthday beer and dinner.. first stop was Von Trap brewery. 

 

a few small presents to mark the day 

 

then t Piecassos in Stowe  for pizza

 

dinner was great.. 

 

and our friend the toad was there waiting for us when we got home !

 

 

great dinner, great day..

great kid !

Happy birthday my son !

 

nite all. nte sam

-me

 

My day was super busy until the late afternoon. We used my on free time at 6:30 this morning to take the dogs on a run. The Dame Rockets  or Phlax  are out and its so beautiful  

 

late afternoon  my buddy ben called.. they were heading out on the boat.. .. I couldn’t resist.  it was such a  beautiful 

day. sunny , cool and light wind.  Met up with Ben, Newt and Michael at the Burlington doc.. and we were out in only a few minutes. 

 

looking back towards houston. 

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

Super busy day.. two nice hilights. I had a great late  Vietnamese  lunch with my friend  Byung  who’s a prof at UVM.. I also had an after work beer meeting planned with my Vermont Maker friends. It didn’t make sense to make the hour roundtrip back home.. so I decided to work downtown.. I drove down to the lake and worked for a couple of hours on one of the swinging benches there.. It was so beautiful looking out across the lake 

 

this guy was under my swign for the wole time. 

 

 

at 5:30 Jen. Ken and Rebekah and I met at Burlington Bay. We hadn’t gotten together in about a year. THe four of us were part of the organizing movment for  several of the maker things that are now in Burlington . We also held  a bunch of speaker events and workshops that brought together the the folks that icreated several of the maker institutions  we have around today including the Generator, the VT Fablag at UVM, the Champlain maker space and the Essex fablab and the Champlain makerfaire. It was fun lookign back on that.  We’re tryign to think up soem projects to do as a group this coming year that builds on all those great groups we have around here now.. It’s so much fun to brainstorm 

 

 

it’s also fun to eat ice cream, french fries and beer on a  beautifulVermont  summer evening . 

 

nite all. nite sam

-me