Had a very busy day down here in Cambridge… Lots of fires burning at once. The fun part of my day actually started around 5 PM. A group of 22 Spanish students and interns showed up at my door. Wasn’t a surprise but I didn’t realize that be that many of them. My new friend Carmen from Madrid whom I met just two weeks ago told me that she was coming with this group to Mit… And asked if they could come by. Of course I said yes.… The group is called the “Movers and “because they were selected to move the world. They’re all high achieving recent grads chosen from different parts of Spain. They were all amazing… We had mathematicians, biologist, chemistry, business folks, pharmacist… It was so much fun spending time with them. They even coaxed me into speaking some Spanish after a few beers.

I gave a quick talk

Then we played with the Vera men

And we are hanging out in a bar for a while…

Then I took them for a tour of MIT… The High Point was lying on the floor in the grand Jc entrance… That was fun !

We met a woman who had been teaching at MIT for more than 50 years. She help guide us up to the building 10 library on the fifth floor… And the strobe alley on the fourth floor. Those are both great things to see..

I’ve just got home and I am ready for bed… Heading home early tomorrow morning

Night I’ll come at night Sam…

– Me

So.. does it ever happen to you that a theme evolves in your life.. Something that appears inc reasingly frequently.. in disparate parts of your life ? That happens to me sometimes.. and usually at great pints of opportunity. possibility and transition. Its as if the world is trying to tell you something in as many ways it can

for me .. right now.. its on the value and lessons of mistakes….screw ups, miscalculations…

Those who know me well know that I’m an imperfect perfectionist.. Imperfect in that I’m pathologically disorganized.. .. but a perfectionist none the less.. I don’t like making mistakes.. no one does. .. But like everyone else .. I make them all the time.. 

I think the message is.. i’m beginning to accept them more.. maybe even enjoy them !

Tonight I had a meeting / presentation that didn’t go that well due to technical difficulties among other things. 2 weeks ago I had major presentation disasters in 3 coutnires.. but in each case.. imanaged ot keep smiling and learn from them. .THats kind of new for me.. botht he smiling part.. and the learnign paet. 

Take today for exmple . in a great act of meta-mistakes.. this morning I was on the cover of the Retina’ section of Spanish national Newspaper El Pais.. it was a great article but half way through the interviewer picked up on this theme of the lessons of mistakes.. He did a very good job of capturing the intent of my message  . He also somehow captured my  appreciative mention of  the one org I know that celebrates the lessons of mistakes F**kUp Nights  

Since the executives in my company are discouraged   from    using  the F-word publicly I’m certain thats the part will be the part of the wonderful article thats remembered by my bosses 🙂   But I loved the article.. and that the slip was a mistake in itself that reinforced  the message. 

How meta is that : > ?!?

I think learnign to tolerate and grow.. maybe even enjoy failre is a new evolutionary step. that might make me a better person..

but .. maybe I’m gettign that wrong.. and that would be cool too

nite all,. nite sam

-je

Down in Cambridge after about a 6 hour drive down in snow. So Happy to be not driving..

just had two packets of Taco Bell hot sauce for dinner… and enjoyed it !

now heading to bed. 

before I do.. I want to share this not so flattering picture max made of me having a conversation with a log that had defied  my splitting attempts . Never mind that I’d split about 1/4 cord successfully .. and I would say more gracefully by this point.. this one log was my nemesis.. and  he happened to catch it. 

This seems like a great metaphor for something.. 

just not sure what 🙂

nite all, nite sam

-me

We had a really wonderful Thanksgiving week in Santa Fe with Max Becky and gabe. That included an overnight flight home.We arrived in Albany about 330 this morning. Diane was the wonderful driver back home while I snoozed. We got home around 7:30 and probably both fell back to sleep. That set the tone for a very lazy day. Our one venture out ways to take the dogs for a walk by the river sure. It had been raining but there was still a ton of snow.

Cleaning out bathe fridge i realized we were living dangerously!

Romaine !

Now trying to say awake long enough to pretend to have been awake for at least part of the day 🙂

Ok .. just enough consciousness to eat, bath then sleep

Nite all, nite Sam

-me