First things first.. Happy birthday to Gabe !!!!.. He turns 29 today. He’s so fun, so smart… and so loving..

Happy birthday my son.. ! I love you so much and I’m so happy to be your Daddio  . 

In celebration of the birthday season, we’re working hard to find funny pictures of each other. This one popped up on my phone today !

My first challenge for the day was to escape from my airbnb.. someone had parked a bike next tot eh gate I had to leave through.. and I could not push it open. I had to sneak through the main house to get out 🙂

I got to Rafe and Lolos. Lolo and I went out for a run this morning.. We did a big loop around their neighborhood, then ran up the hill to the Stanford radio telescope . It was a good workout for such  a hot day..

Around 1ish we headed to Stanford for Sabine’s graduation. She’s graduating from the really cool Stanford Online High School. Rafe actually helped start the program about 13 years ago.. Many of the students are local, but many classmates live in other parts of the world.. THere’s a big group of competitive athletes , performing musicians.. and other high school age students who need to travel for their craft.  It was great hearing from the faculty.. and hearing a little bit about all of the 120 or so graduating students. . 

I particularly like the talk from the physics teacher  Kale Tok. I’d given a talk to her students remotely once during Covid. I really enjoyed working with her. SHe’s the reason that several of the kids, including sabine, are going into physics/astrophysics  ! her talk was fun and though provoking.. she talked about the discovery of interstellar microwaves that are relics of the bog bang and cause the static we see on old tvs.. She told how that was discovered when scientists thought the static was from dirty antennas in their instrument.. bird poop, basically.. she talked about the need to experiment.. and showed this great picture of the school mascot on a helium balloon that went 1000000 feet into the upper atmosphere.. She concluded by telling the students.. that sometime the biggest discoveries are in the bird poop.. though sometimes it is just that.. bird poop !..

 It was really nice to see what they said about Sabine !

After the graduation we went out and took pictures. I was able to find Ms Tok and introduce myself in person.. It was fun to meet face to face .

I got lots of pictures of the family 

Afterwards we went back tot he house and hung out with Sophie, Madeline,Matteo,  Rima, and Tom..

Rafe and Lolo’s friend Eduard came over. They had introduced us a few years back under sad circumstance. Paul and his wife 11 year old son Paul was killed by a car right before the pandemic.  We didn’t really meet until today. It was good to connect on how he and his family were doing, Hard conversations but often helpful…

It turns out that Eduard is also a serious electronics nerd.. so we spent most of our time talking about that.. and giving each other demos.. Life’s like that !

This eying, Rafe, Lolo and I got take out Thai.. it was a good day.. I’m really glad I’m here. 

NIte all, nite sam

-me

I got on a plane again today.. I’m heading out to California. I am giving a talk next Tuesday about how we can interest more students in electronics careers.  I changed my plans to go out earlier because I just learned that my very good friend Rafe was not feeling too well.. 

I got out to Rafe and Lolo’s hose about 5:30.. 

I got a tour of Lolo’s gardens and kefir making operation.. and caught up with Rafe.. in addition to catching up.. I l heard about how he was feeling.. and the treatments he’ll be having.  Sounds like he’ll be ok..

I was also  in time to see their oldest, Sabine, head out to her Prom..   youngest daughter Sophie and niece Madeline  helped get Sabine ready. She looked beutiful. Its great seeing Rafes kids again.. They are adults now.. and really wonderful adults at that !

Refs nice and nephew Madeleine and Mateo are in town.. and rates sister and brother in law Roma and Tom are coming tomorrow for Sabine’s graduation..

I’m really glad to be out here .. 

note all, nite sam

-me

 

mid morning we decided we needed to get out of the house.. so we went and ran Libbys look.. Its a fun run.. even though you need to watch out for roots !

We worked around the house today until about 4:30.. We had several errands to do in town so we heading in to Williston. In the space of  less than an hour we 

1. picked up prescriptions
2. bought a pair of  steel toed (actually carbon toed) shoes  .. with help from a voucher from work
3. Bought a new pair of running shoes for me using our REI rebate
4. .. and ordered sushi. at our favorite place Sakura. 
   
   
5. and bought the perfect birthday gift for Gabe,. A solar powered sushi maker man
   
   

While waiting for our sushi we got to watch our friend Cooper.. who’s worked there for 13 years.. greet nearly every customer by name, remember their favorite orders.. and engage them on some topic they shared.. (e.g for me its jam bands) It was really amazing. to watch..

While the food at sakura is very good.. I think what makes the place really specials Cooper !

Thanks for what you do Cooper !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Diane is spending as much time as she can in the garden this time of year. Here’s proof !

It rained like crazy this evening.. I heard an alarm go off in the basement. It was one of the cool new features that our basement redo added.. WHat I didn’t expect was to see the basement flooding after all that work.. It turned out that the new sump pump wasn’t plugged in.. we got that going and things got better.

Overall we loved the rok that was done. Hoping pluggin in the sump will prevent it from happening next time.

nite all, nite sam

-me