I tried to take a day off today and managed to not work most of the day. I did get pulled into a few calls and some email.. but for the most part, it was a downtime day. , I’m trying to use the vacation I’ve got to simulate a 4 to 4.5 day work week for the next couple of months.. just to make sure I have enough down time. I managed to sleep until near 10 AM. (!) this morning. I stumbled out of  bed then took Diane for a run I the fine spring rain. Outside was beautiful.. even though it was windy and rainy. You could see the ‘sproing’ of spring just a few weeks away. There were buds on all the trees and the ferns were starting to push up on the Rivershore path.  Our Daffodils are in full bloom.

 

Another notable thing about this morning’s run is that today was my  first day running this year that I’ve not seen enough snow to write Sam’s name.. I chose instead to write his name in the dirt.  I’ve developed a techniques of using only strokes that come toward me.. I’ve found that the snow.. (or mud) tends to distort if you mix up and down strokes. As I wrote Sam’s name in the dirt, , I was thinking about how many times I.. or one of our friends have written Sam’s name just in tribute.. I can’t count home many times I’ve written his name in the snow.  I’ve also used rocks, candles, mustard, steel, paint, powdered iron oxide, water, syrup, chocolate chips, M&M’s, sticks, sawdust, metal filings, light., spray paint, glue, sand, batter. I even came out one day a few weeks ago to find someone had written Sam’s name in the snow with …. Some sort of yellow ink ?!   I just read that Kevin wrote his name on a bagel.. I’d be interested to hear what other folks have used  to write Sam’s name.

 
    When I got back to the yard, I happened upon this.. the tool max used to open the upstairs window last night..

I guess it didn’t actually go through the window.. it broke it and bounced back.
Diane reminded me that the week before the wind had blown in two of the windows in the tower and broken them…. those are  curved glass  pains I have to cut to repair them.. I hate cutting curves in glass.. grrrr

   The rest of the day passed pretty peacefully. We just hung out.

I spent an hour or so watching Gabe play videogames… I figure if I’m on TV saying that videogame technology is wicked cool, it would count as a work day to watch Gabe play G-d of War.   I managed to get about 45 minutes to sleep as Gabe battled some hydras, a three headed beast and lots of creepy zombie things that looked a lot  like the engineers we use to build the chip inside the game.

 I was surprised how many visitors we got during the day. I guess it was because it was school break.   Both Sam’s old band, Black Night Vengeance and Skanky Green came to practice in he barn today.. It was great hanging out with both of them.. 

Skanky Green was squeezing in one last practice before there big debut concert at Higher Ground tomorrow night. They’re opening for Badfish at 8ish tomorrow night.. Come check it out if you can..  

 

Corrine and her mom Deb also came by to get some SamStones. They’re going to Bermuda next week and wanted to take some.

While she was here, Corrine told us to very cool dreams she’d had about Sam. In one Sam was out in the backyard helping two other kids build a slingshot to shoot people through the air..   that sounds so Sam.. In the other one.. he told Corrine that he was going out to e a Ninja.. Again.. Sam was always into the Ninja thing.. he pioneered the Ninja move on his Snowboard.. The ninja is when you  kick out your back foot and shake it in the air like a kook. as you do one of the rails..

 

Speaking of Ninja’s  last night as I was writing my blog around 1AM I heard a noise.. I was Max and Gabe coming back into the house. Max had organized some sort of goofy  Ninja stealth mission last night and had pulled Gabe out of bed to go with them.. Here a picture they took before heading outside.. the three ninjas..

 

Gabe and I spent the last half of the afternoon doing some high speed strobe photos with my little camera and the sound actuated strobe I have.. We did all sorts of shots.. eggs dropping, BB’s shooting, water splashing and balloons. Here are a few of the shots that came out well.. We’re open for any suggestions of things we can photograph in this way.. It’s really so much fun.   Tomorrow I hope to hook up a Kirlian photography set up and try to take a picture of people’s ‘auras’.. (or at least the ionized gases that come out of their skin. )

Here’s a baloon being slapped down on a pan 

This one is an egg breaking after being dropped

This one is an egg breaking after being hit by a hammer

Here’s a container full of MAPP gas goign up in flames

And here’s a baloon with a ittle enthanol being lit by a blow torch

Speaking of photos.. here’s a picture of Sam that Mason had on his cell phone. Last week He and some friends wen to see the Wailers, Bob Marley’s old band, at Higher Ground. He didn’t have a SamStone with him, so he put his cell phone with tis picture of Sam on it and stuck it up on stage.. Sam.. you be jammin’

 

Gnite all.. see you at Skanky Green tomorrow night !

 -jc