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