Another surreal day in Cambridge… Work was almost empty. From what I understand Boston is now an emergency zone. Harvard is sending his students home. I’m coming home as soon as I can tomorrow. Not sure when the next time I’ll be able to come down here. This is such a strange feeling… It’s very reminiscent of the colony.
This drain cover I saw on my run this morning was clearly channeling the mood
Despite the lack of people I had a crazy busy day. Lots of meetings… All of them by phone. At 4:30 I had an interesting treat… The “Lego heads”… A first robotics team that I had met in Vermont a few weeks back came to visit me at the Mit-Ibm Center. They were four of them… Two high school kids and their two adult mentors. I told him a little bit about the MIT-IBM Lab… And they told me about this wonderful plan they have for helping Vermont grow their first robotics Lego teams. It was so inspiring!. They had actually reached out to every library in the state of Vermont…. To see if they were interested in helping start a first Lego team. They’ve heard from three of those library and they actually drove up and visited library’s in south Royalton, Plainfield, and near Rutland. They have a fabulous plan for raising money, getting equipment etc. I spent a long time trying to figure out how we could work together to help First in Vermont. I am so grateful That we met the Lego heads.

The team mentor Anupendra had to leave because tonight is holi, An Indian holiday that people celebrate by throwing colored sand each other. I started to tell him about my good friend Gaya who always has great pictures of been covered in colored sand. As soon as I said her name Gaya called me… That’s pretty weird because I talk to her about twice a year. ( queue the Spooky music)
Just back from a really delightful dinner with my good friend Irving. We both happen to be in Cambridge at the same time. Irving suggested Helmand… The Afghan a place right by my hotel. It’s such an interesting place. We had a wonderful meal And an even more wonderful conversation. Irving has been out of IBM for about 13 years… But he still keeps track of us. He’s currently writing for the Wall Street Journal and working at MIT. Always respected his view on both technical issues and life issues. We talked about both tonight. I particularly enjoyed talking to him about our two families. I get so much out of these conversations with him
That dinner was a great end of a kind of crazy day.… It was busy despite there being absolutely no one at work. Look how empty it is
The coronavirus has everyone working at home.… Kind of unnerving.
I did enjoy walking around outside today. It was in the high 60s and sunny. Even tonight walking home to the hotel was beautiful with a giant Fullmoon. I took advantage of that to slip Around a fence and walk out on the ice rink… Even though I knew it was closed.
It was a small act of defiance against the invisible virus
Diane left early this morning for a trip with her friend Linda to celebrate both their birthdays. That was a perfect time for me to sit down and actually do our taxes.… To be honest… We actually use a firm that we really like to do the taxes… “All” I need to do is to gather up all the information. That’s not a small task given that I work in several states, ‘Diane has her own business,Etc.… I don’t really mind doing it it’s just like a little bit of archaeology
That said… There’s little that’s as satisfying as ceiling that envelope when you’re done
We had a really nice morning with Kyle’s parents JOHN and Tracy still here. We made it great waffle breakfast and then they headed out for a ski with ‘Kyle and Hunter
Dianne and I got the dogs out for a nice long walk down to the Huntington River. Chai loved standing in the ice cold water… It must feel good to her knees
Around three we went over to Ben’s for the first planning meeting of what we are now calling “fire in water”… We’re putting together a small fire Pagent as part of our annual summer kayaking trip… Details are still being worked but it will involve large burning things out on the lake in an environmentally conscious way. stay tuned !
Always fun getting together with these guys… Lots of creativity and lots of good food
From there Diane and I headed down to Vergennes to see Jane and George… Haven’t seen them in quite some time. Had a nice dinner at 3 square
