Beautiful day in California/ Spent the first half doing absolutely nothing at Peter and Megan’s wonderful beach house. Diane and I read and hung out in the hot tub.. doesn’t get any better than that !

 

Around 1 we motivated.. and drove up to Point Reyes to get in a hike before meeting our friends for Dinner in Inverness. 

 

Pint reyes is a hige place.. so we stopped at the guide cengr to ask for advise.. They suggested a close by moutain hike.. 

the trail maps suggested not eating mushrooms. 

 

the trail up Mount Wittenberg was a great hike up and run down.. not much view a the top.. but beautiful old forest.. I really loved running down with poles.. never used them on a run.. it was sort of like parcor meets hiking.. . I was flying !

 

at the bottom.. we took a short hike that went over the san andreas fault that runs through the park.. so cool !

check this out !> Point Reyes was down near Los Angeles  20 million years ago !.. it’s been sliding north as the pacific plate grinds agains the North American plate. 

 

 

and it’s goign to keep on sliding.. so hang on !

 

 

here’s one of  set of markers that show where ther fault goes through. It slid 16 feet in 20 seconds during the 1906 earthquake !

 

perfect place for a samstone !

 

after abotu 5 miles of hiking we were pretty hungry.. and luckily dinner  with  our friends was only 6 minutes away..

 

just by pure luck.. one of my best friends, Rafe Mazzeo and his family had rented a a house in Inverness to celebrate the 90th(!) birthday of Rafe’s mom.. and our dear friend.. Katie Clare. ..  it was a total coincidence that their house was only 16 miles from where we’re staying.. perfect serendipity !

We were surprise visitors for Katie clair.. she was really happy to see us !

 

Rafe was my suite mate at MIT begining in 1978 ! thats 40 years !!!!!!! (!!!!! !!!!!).. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

here’s katie clare and a family freind John .. we’re eatign oysters .. yum !

 

here are Rafe and Laurance’s daughters. Sophie and Sabine, and Rafess sister RIma’s daughter Madelyn   and Rafes wife Lauraunce. 

 

and our dear frind Rima.. the magical cook !

 

a pile of women childeren 

 

rafe testing the food 

 

at the end is rafe’s nephew Mateo (I note winter storm Mateo is now moving across the country) 

 

a tiast for the birthday girl !.. .. She noted she’s been alive for 16 presidents.. she’s so swonderful.. funny and sharp as a tack !

 

Katie Clair and Sabine make whipped cream 

 

ahhhh.. heare comes birthday cake ! (pineapple upside down cake) 

 

they also made a cake for me ! (lemon soufflé cake ) 

 

make a wish !

 

it was a wonderful night.. we were able to catch up with alost everybody.. 

rafe and I traed work stories (he’s a mathematician at stanford.. .. until recently the chair of the math department) 

 

Sopie and Madeliene sang for us.

 

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what a wonderful evening.. it was so cool that we could interesect..

 

ok. early flight tomorrow.. so I’ll sign off here..

 

what a  wonderful vacation !

 

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

59, 59.. i’m in my prime .. 59 is a prime number.. and I was born in 1959

mystical connoatiions ? .. who knows.. all I know is that we had a really wonderful ay here in Stinson beach with john, lauren, and andrew.. and great , great thanks foto our friends Peter and Megan for their amazing kindness and the  use of their wonderful house here in stinson..

 

this place is really, wonderful.. .. hot tub , overlookign the lagoon,  tidal estuary on teh other side. 

I wore my birthday suit in the tub.. in honor of my birthday.. I’ll spare you the piuctures.. but here I am in my birthday socks !

 

around 9:30  we portages the conoe and kayaks over to the esturary and headed towards the inlet.. the tide was going out, so the water was gettign pretty shallow .. 

 

we saw beutiful egrets, herons.. and soee other birds.. and a couple of large and beutiful seals.. that refused to be photogrrphed well 

 

we pulled out just before the tidal current was ready to pull us out into the surf.. 

 

we wenet for a nice mile or so walk on the beach.. lookign for sewa glass and sand dollars 

 

on the way back, the tide was still goign out.. so we had to fight the current to get to the boat ramp.. and portage back into the protected lagoon . 

 

we got howe around 11:30 to find Andrew there.. eh’d biked over from Mill Valley .. thats over mt tam.. amazing !.

we all went out for a birthday lunch at Parkside.. .. really yummy… 

 

then andrew took us up Mt Tam where we hiked back aroudn on the costal traill 

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here’s lookign down on Stinson and dipsea where we’re staying. 

 

last stop was the mountian amitheater.. where every year a group puts on  a musical in the .. the stone amitheater was built by teh WPA in the 30’s.. it seats 3000 people !

 

aroudn 4L30, Andrew had to head out.. so he got on his bike and headed down to mill vlaey, whuile we drove back to stinson. 

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we jusmped in the ot tub again and drank beer..

 

it doesn’t get better than this for a birthday !

 

oh wait.. yes it does.. we all cokked together and made burritos. 

 

and brownie sundays as a birthday cake !

 

really lovely day.. happy to spend it with Diane and our good freinds.. 

 

thanks to everyoen who reached out oin txt, facebook and email.

i’m proud to say I did a pretty good jobv of staying off of screens today..

in that spirit.. I’ll sign off now..

 

feeling grateful to be surrounded by all this love

 

nite all. nite sam

-me

wonderful day out in California.. took most of it off work. I worked the end part of our trip around  being here to see my good friend .. and my PhD advisor .. Prof Rob Rutenbar  get the Phil Kaufman award.. which is the highest honor anyone in my old field of EDA could get..The Phil Kaufman award is like the Nobel prize of EDA.. and if anyone deserves it, it’s Rob. 

 

there were bout 165 folks there to see ROb get the ward.. It was great seeig so many old freinds.. John K and Gloria.. 

 

Anderzej  and David

 

Jolly and Shispal 

 

me and my  closest grad collaborator David 

 

my codvisor.. and ROb’s long time (30 year) collaborator Rick. 

 

Jolly !!!

Patrick

 

rob and his son Peter.. see the resemblance ? 

 

My freind Prof Martin Wang of UI did a wonderful talk on Rob’s career. it was warm. personal and well researched .

 

lots of pictures of stuff I worked with Rob on .. 

 

nice stuff about his students 

 

and his teaching.. .here whinnign the Aristotle award .. fromour mutal good freind Bill Joyner.

(who’s that in the background ?!?_ ..)

 

rob gaveaa great talk about the twists and tursns aof his career.. as with all of robs talks.. it was wonderful adnd funny. 

 

young robb at U of Michigan. 

 

rob’s folks 

 

rob and rick.. the dynamic duo !

 

robs career as a word cloud.. 

rob’s first chip . 507 transister 

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the award !

 

colleagies and former students 

 

here’s the medal I made for ROb.. its his name in mth.. (get it .. ? root  n-bar) 

 

what a great event !> I was so proud of ROb..and so happy to see so many people gathered there for him. he’s SO deserving of this award !

 

we left around 9:45.. then drove up to Mill valley to meet our friends john. laurne.. and andrew…. andrew guided us to stinson beach to peter and Meagan’s wonderful beach house where we’re staying..

 

we got there just as it turned midnight.. it’s my brithday !!!!

 

ok.. it’s late and I need to  sleep..

 

more from my Birthday day tomorrow..

 

for now: nite  all, note sam

-me

 

busy day in sf working with friends at AKQA .. very productive. Met diane at the hotel at 5 and escaped the city with her . Went down to palo alto to see friends peter and megan … where we met up with john, lauren, andrew and some other friends.. all burning man connections. Great evening of conversation.. mostly talking aboit what most burning man falks talk about when not at burning man…  …burning man… 

it was almost as fun as going to burning man…

but here they have flush toilets !

 

nite all, nite sam

-me