After work, DIane and I drove to the Charlotte beach for the send off of the Borreal express.. The Boreal Express which is the bbrainchile of my freind Zach and his wonderful team at http://hackclub.org , will take 55 yhigh school age students from across the world on a private trainride from Vancouver to Montreal. During the trip, these teenage hackers will create amazing stuff in software, hardware and 3d mfg.
Tonight was the send off.. It was a beautifully cool and windy night down by the lake.. We actually had to wear sweatshirts.
Zach and hackclub staff member Christina gave a great welcome to teh group.. My friend Woody a flipped burgers and the crew got to know each other.
Got on the road mid morning.. drove through the main street of Endicott to see the old IBM buildings. THis was where the company was founded .. Now they are just empty shells.. I think they are actually due for demolition soon.
Driving home I got a surprise alert from my phone that I was scheduled to give a talk to a bunch of my old friends at ibm.. lots of them actually.. Somewhere around 500 technical leaders. in the Company
I hadn’t seen it on any of my 3 calendar(s) this morning so didn’t even have it in my head.. when my phone came up with a reminder.. the talk was to start in 30 minutes.. WHAT ?!?!
Diane and I did some quick problem solving.. we were on the Northway.. in the in the adirondack park region which has notoriously poor cell cervice.. so our phones aren’t working .. we got off at the first exit we could.. nothing there.. got back on the northway for several miles.. and got off again.. this time there was a sign to a gas station.. we drove a mile or so to find it.. It was a Stewert’s .. and the parkign lot was packed !. Turns out that there had been a microburst storm in the region the day before. and power (and cell service were down for all of the surrounding towns. This gas station was open because it was one of the few places with power.. and .. it turns out.. cell service !
Tempers were hight there becaus there were long lines, several pumps already eampty and bad behavior of folks trying to cut the lien as they filled up their cards and gas cans for generators. People were shouting at each other… !
meanwhile I looked around the back of the store and found..an outlet (TaDa !).
So..
I quickly sat down, set up a hot spot, did some quick editing of the talk I was planning to give , set up my props and ,at the appointed time, joined the web meeting and .. .. I was the only one there .. I frantically looked up the call leaders email, phone and slack ids.. and tried to figure out what might be going on.. It was then I found in a slack message that the meeting had been moved the night before due to the organizers travel. It had been automatically removed from most of my calendars.. but not my phone.
Too funny !
Nice drive the rest of the way home.. stopped at our favorite dy lilly place. and filled the car with color.. Got to Vermont only to find the main road, Route 17, still closed due to flood damage !
Got home in time to change clothers and head to Echo for the FIRST board annual meeting
Began the day goign over to Linda and Davids.. We propbably wont see them the rest of this visit
Dianes brother Steve showed up mid day.. and we hung aroudn catching up for most of the day. Steve briaght gifts of some old family photos framed for both DIane and Joe.. Super cool old stuff. One great picture of their Uncle Armond who was a good friend of ours
Towards evening Joe, DIane and Steve’s Uncle Rick (only 3 months older than diane _ came over with his wife Sue. We hadnt seen them in a long time. We all had a really nice time catching up
After dinner we took a walk down the creek behind Dianes old house and looked for Fossils.. we used to do that with our kids every time we came here.. Nice memories..
Saw a nice rabbit.. .. and Pat showed us a picture of a tiny Fawn theyd seen in their yard last week
Nice catching up with everyone ! nite all, nite sam -me
Slow day in endicott.. We did another run around the neighborhood.. It’s so hot.. after that .. al l we felt like doing was hanging out in Joe and Pats house
I did get a bunch of electronics hobby / fluffy work done that i’d bruaght with me..
Joe and Pat came home back from N Carolina midday. so spent a very pleasant day hanging out with them (and eating Roma’s Pizza !)
