I had a powerful case of procrastination yesterday.. I had a ton of work to do.. but instead I decided to resurrect the old model train we used ot have running above the soffit i our kitchen. It’s something I put there for the kids many .many years ago.. It hasn’t run in something like 15 years. . I got up there and cleaned off a ton of dust.. then sanded the tracks to get off the rust, then coated them with silicon. I cleaned and oiled the old large gauge engine and found the transformer.. I was surprised that the thing came right back to life..

I decided to give it a bit more magic.. so aI found a ZigBee controlled smart plug and linked it to our old Smarthings hub.. then i tied that to alex.. and Voila.. a speech controlled train.. that surprises, delights and eventually annoys at the sound of your voice..

some kitchens have all the modern appliances.. we have train. i like that better

nite all. nite sam
-me

We lost a good friend today.. One of our grand-dogs, Reptar crossed the  rainbow bridge today surrounded by his co-dog daddy’s , . max, jj, pat and chris.  They were all college roommates and called   themselves the original ninja turtles. Max and his friends found Reptar on the street back in 2008. He was a jack russell terrier, already an old dog.. no one knows how old . He had cataracts already. He also had several bee bee pellets still under his skin. Max and freinds tried to find his hoe. they even found that he had a chip in him.. when they tracked down his formr owner, she didn’t want him back. From then on, Reptar lived with at least one of the guys until…. well… until today.  

kn ow one knows how old he was.. but it must have been some where between 17 and 19 .. it was definitely his time..   Max flew in from Santa Fe to say goodbye. 

We were thinking of him up here.. I swear I could feel him go up here.. 

Max would bring him up from Brooklyn to get a little fresh air with us sometimes.. He was a bundle of energy and made of solid mussel. I still remember how hard that little dog would pull on the leash, He was always burrowing, ripping, tearing. but he was so sweet. He’d jump up and sleep with  us sometimes.. even our dogs are not allowed to do that.. You can see in these pics that our dogs never knew what their city cousin was thinking 

Reptar had a great life.. at least the part we knew him.. I dont think I know an animal who had more folks who knew and loved him

the world is  a little less feisty now..   but life and love go on

we’ll all miss you Reptar

nite all, nite sam

-me

Quick thing to relate of the past week and a half. As I am thinking about my next phase of life I’ve been talking to a lot of people about what I want to do when I grow up. Two good friends Gave me the same poem in response to my story… It’s The Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’ Letters to a young poet… I believe it’s number four. Rilke wrote these to a young army cadet who would asked him to critique some poems in the early part of the 20th century

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. 

        Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. 

        And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke ” Letters to a Young Poet”

I like the poem… And I think it’s pretty cool cosmic coincidence the two people gave it to me within the course of a week. It’s actually right on

Bit I, Like I suppose the intended recipient of these letters… am impatient…

That’s why I think my title of ‘Rilkes’s Shpulkes’ is so funny. the word ‘shpilkes’ Is a Yiddish word that means inpatient or full of nervous energy… And it rhymes with Rilke

I crack myself up sometimes

Night all, night Sam

-me

Dianne and I had a really good time in Cambridge. It’s so much nicer when she gets to come along.

We took advantage of a little extra time in our commute to stop at the Massachusetts green high-performance computer center in Holyoke Massachusetts… About an hour and a half west of Boston. This is where a lot of the computing for MIT happens. I’ve always wanted to see it. It’s built in an old mill town that has seen better days. As a result there’s lots of Hydro power and real estate is really cheap.… A good recipe for a good data center. I met Chris and John and they gave me the Cook’s tour of the place. It is such a cool place… You literally could eat off the floors… Or sleep on them. As I attempted to do

Very nice to see where some of our bits are massaged…

Drive home was a little rough as the rain turned to snow. Glad to be home.

Night all, night Sam

– me