Last night was what I needed to get back in my flow . I’d been feeling increasingly hurried and ‘in my head’ through the busy week.. I had gone to bed around 9.. but then found myself wide awake at 1 AM.. I tried to fall back asleep.. but no luck. I came down and worked for a couple of hours.. then .. just before I was ready to go back up to bed i got really really sad.. I put on a piece of music that I sometimes listen to from Sam’s memorial service and fell apart for awhile.. the dogs knew something was up and both came over and stayed with me until I stopped crying … At that point I  went up stairs and fell instantly asleep

I woke refreshed and went on to work.. The day offered a ton of cool technical and people surprises. .   It seemed that many things I needed both for work and for my peace of mind just decided to appear.   I discovered that my friend Jen’s dad who passed away last June was my friend Thor .. I’d known them both.. but never associated them despite their same last name.   I don’t knwo why it was so comforting to make that conenction.. but it was..

I  also had a good conversation with my friend Ronald in Switzerland about how good things  often come when you let them.. but how tough but essential it is to sometimes know when to turn them off. Both of us, we discovered, have the experience of inviting too many cool things into our lives at once to the point that things that should be fun become stressful.

I’m going to work on saying ‘no’  a bit more..   .. no, make that ‘no thanks’ (because I am grateful)
 
Later in the day my friend Steve chased me out into the parking lot to give me these two pictures that he’d found as he’d cleaned his office.. They’re from Marcho of 1992 .. it’s a picture of Diane, Max and me (yes, that’s me !).. Diane is 6 months pregnant with Sam.  It was probably the last time I was on ice skates.

Here we are with our neighbor Chris P.. It was a wonderful thing to have these pictures..

I feel happy right now.. and I’m glad for that..

Oh.. Diane pointed out that I hadn’t really said much about my dinner last Sunday with Vice President  Gore.   I remembered that today withne ny firend Jane sent us some pictures from that night. We weren’t allowed to take pictures at dinner.. but here we are afterwords. Jim, Matt, Jane, Lloyd and me standing outside of the ‘Mansion’ at the MGM Grand.   They’re all great folks.. we had a ton of things to discuss just among ourselves.   Missing from the picture are Rod A and Al Z, two Sr. IBM mamangers who’d also attended.

VP Gore was really an amazing guy.. very dedicated.. and very, very smart. I think I already said this .. but I was so impressed how he’s taken on this mission of spreading the message about climate despite the personal costs.   One thing he passed on to us was the message from his father which was.. ‘you should always bite off more than you can chew’   .. I certainly am living by that..

Here is the VP at his talk the next morning..

OK.. that’s it for this busy day.. we’re up at 6 tomorrow for a snowboarding event.. more then
nite folks, nite Sam
-me

ps. I got soem surprise help today translating the captions of ‘Engineering Paradise‘
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0DxmthvkKU) into Portuguese by Gustavo C. a guy I just met in brazil   . My friend Rodolfo in Gudalajara has offered to translate the captions into spanish. Is there anyone out there who can offer to translate the lyrics into any other languages ? I’d love the help !