My friend Xin is out this week  at the International Solid State Circuits Conference.( ISSCC)    ISSCC is the bigist and most important circuits conference in the world.  Its really the heartbeat of the electronics industry.  .  This is the 70th year os ISSCC.. and every decade they put out an anniversary booklet. Xin sent me this picture of one of the pages. It calls out memorable Plenery talks during the history of the conference… ..It was nice seeing these pics.. also of my good friend Nick !

This picture brings back such great memories.. this  was one of my first really big keynotes.. I remember walking ou t on the stage,., there were more than 9000 people there and I could hear my heartbeat on the PA system..   It was also my 50th birthday.. and 2 weeks before I was off to do the reality show. My talk was about getting my  nerdy  colleagues to share  their love of engineering and science with the next generation..   I had such stage fright.. but it went great.. ..

After the talk, DIane and  I walked across the street to have dinner…   and there was a surprise birthday party waiting for me.. Our freinds larry and leah. carl, rob.. and my sister  mary and her husband our nephew Jake.. it was the first time o met him !!   

What a great moment.. it was punctuation for a very new chapter in my life.. 

It really filled my heart !

Nice memories 

nite all, nite sam

-me

We took advantage of good snow pack to climb camels hump again today.. no sleds ti time.. but we did it in 2 hours and 20 min. Thats a good pace for us. It was really cold  and windy at the top..but so worth it !

 

When we got down, we headed just down the Huntington road a bit to see our friends Tim and Priscilla. They built a house to rent out.. its on Van Dyne road in Buells Gore (or maybe Hanksville). The place os so beautiful. Tim is such a great builder (he built our barn)..   We all drove a a little ways down 17 to the conversation area at the headwaters of the Huntington river.. 

We got home in time to invite our 6 year old neighbor Carly over for dinner and a tea party.. . It was great catching up with her !

full day !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Today my good freind and coworker Shannon and I took a little biut of BETA to to UVM for their annual Discover Engineering event. There were over 200 middle and high school kids there… as well as representatives from all sorts of engineering companies from across the state.In the morning the kids milled aroudn and talked to all the companies. I saw so many people I  knew from so many different connections. It was great talking to the kids about their interests. 

In yhe afternoon we taught a works showp on the physics of flight. THe kids all made airplanes out of styropone cutouts and then test flew them to compare length of flight.. Shannon did a great job of leading us all through the exercise she designed. What a pro !

 

 

I love doing events like this !
nite all, nite sam 

-me

Diane and I went for a short run on the rivershore this morning wearing  our spikes for traction. the temp was dropping .. and we could watch the ice crystals forming on the sidewalk 

A kind of shocking  thing happened on our run.. it’s kind of hard ot explain.. Every time I run that route… and I’ve done it i’m sure 1000 times.. i touch these  same three spindly fir trees on the trail  .. It’s somewhere between a good luck ritual and an OCD “itch” I cant resist.  Just like the need for filling glasses 3 times before drinking   from them.. or toughing a specific place on the stirs  when I climb them . I think the number 3 I wrapped up in the number of kids we have..

Today, I saw that one  of the 3 had broken.. .. I’ve actually thought about this day amy times before.. what would happen when one of these trees .. or all of them.. were no longer there.. what would I do. 

I stopped and didn’t really know what to do.. .. I wasn’t so much sad as surprised.. but I didn’t feel any panic.. I didn’t feel frozen.. I actually was able to touch them all once more..and kept running

That feels like.. .. hmmm.. a break through  maybe ? 

nite all, nite sam 

-me