Today is the day that we mark Sam’s passing.. it’s a strange day because I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. I know today I felt pretty good. We spent a lot of time talking about and thinking about Sam. It’s important to actually bring him into mind At all the stages we knew Him… The beautiful baby, the sparkling toddler, the mischievous middle Schooler… And the beautiful young man

I told lots of stories today… I just got through telling our housemate Kyle about both of Sam’s broken elbows… Both funny little painful stories.

We took our annual hike at Bolton. It was a weekday and we’ve decided to shift the potluck until tomorrow Friday… So it was a small crowd. There were five of us hiking up in the beautiful snow. It was a wonderful hike

I climbed up the fire tower on my own. I always pour a drink out for Sam up there and set off fireworks

Our friend Karen and Iain were there… They came up one at a time to check it out. It was a place Sam loved

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Diane got this great shot of the fireworks from below

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got this great shot of the fireworks from below

We got home and I was so exhausted (I hadn’t slept much the night before)… But I fell asleep for a few hours. I woke up and it was dark and I was confused about what day it was. Luckily my friend Tim came by and made me a martini… That cleared things up immediately :-)

Afterwords Diane and I took Kyle out for sushi which was really nice.

It was a good day. I feel like I spent a good part of it with Sam

What a great kid

I love you my son

Nite all, nite sam

-me

 Just got home from a busy day to a quiet house. Tonight marks the evening  13 years ago that Sam left this world. I don’t know what to say about that.. Only that our Sam is still so much in our lives. We thinking of him. talk of him.. and sometimes I still talk to him. 

I just did..   

 

here’s what I wrote on this day in 2007.. it feels so much the same today. I can’t even imagine that its been 13 years.. 

It’s just before 9PM on November 20^th.  Sam, exactly one year ago to the hour you started to cross that street with your friends and left this life. I’ve been thinking about  you every moment  since. I miss you so very much.  You always loved life and had the most wonderful gentle and generous spirit. Your spirit continues to do good in the world through us and your many friends..  We feel your presence  always.You are loved by so many people Sam.. you always will be..  Be at peace my son.

-dad

 

Here’s the message Sam left on my phone 13 years ago. I love hearing his voice.

I miss you  so much my son..  We love you forever !

-dad

 

Today marks the 2nd Jarhzeit (death day) of my cousin Leslie’s daughter Rachel. Racel died of opiod-overdose after years of struggling with addiction. Rachel left a young daughter Kennedy

I was thinking of Rachel when I got asked to help out with the my new friend Lena C’s http://allourhearts.com project.  Allourhearts is a project devoted to spreading the message about the opiod crisis and celebrating the life of its victims here in Vermont. 


2 weeks ago. Families of the victims got together to make small heart shaped clay stones. The back of the stones had the allourhearts.com website pressed in them using stamps that my freind Pike and I cut on the laser, the front of the stones had the person who died name written in it by hand. 

Today I was looking at the all our hearts site and I found a movie that our freind Eva created around the event . It’s really nice. you get a sense of the families stories.. Rachel story would fit.

There’s a nice piece towards the end where Lena describes how they  adapted the stones idea from Sam stones which they did with our blessings.. it’s so nice to see how this came out. 

Thinking of you Leslie, Bret and Rachel nite all, nite sam -me

This is a big week For high-performance computing. The international supercomputing conference is taking place in Denver. I woke this morning to find out that the Satori super computer that we have donated to MIT Was number four on the green 500 list. The green 500 list is all of the Top 500 fastest computers sorted by their energy efficiency. Our machine Is the fourth most energy efficient super computer in the world right now. The first two were exotic Japanese test computers that were immersed in oil. The third one is our sister computer AIMOS at RPI which is part of our Albany AI hardware center. The fifth machine, the one after us, is the summit supercomputer. That means that numbers 3,4 and 5 were based on IBM technology. I’m very proud of that

I’m also proud that our computer… Which is air cooled… Is by far the greenest computer on the list. The Massachusetts green high-performance computing center (mghPCC.org)… Where it lives is run 100% on renewable power. In fact there’s an on-site Hydro generator that creates more than enough energy to run our computer… It’s an amazing story in a time where ai use of computers is taking up more and more energy

I want to thank the large crew of people who helped make this machine happen… Starting with my friend Dr. John Kelly, Chris Hill our colleague at Mit, the folks at the Mit – Ibm Wattson AI Lab. (David Cox and Mark Weber in particular) And all the folks in the power computing group… I want to specially call out my friend Florin Manaila who designed the system, Craig Bickerstaff who help me navigate all of the political and technical aspects of ordering system like this, and Fred Robinson and his team and services who built the machine… And all the wonderful people in global university programs who helped with the donation (Peggy Strong and Ken Pisano in particular)

I also want to thank the four legged Satori… For her support. Here she is this evening taking in the news

nite all, nite sam

-me