I had a  most peaceful day.  As I said yesterday I needed to spend some more time to get back into balance this weekend and that’s exactly what I did. Max and Diane were at a at Reiki training session with Marcy and Gabe was up at the mountain in a competition.
   I began the day with a science show for the girl scouts in Bristol . It was a smaller crowd, than they expected (about 19 vs. the 80 they imagined_ but I really enjoyed doing the show anyway. It turned out to be a mix of girl scouts and a few boy cub scouts. .  That was OK.. but I had been looking forward to doing an all girl show. I notice that when boys are present the girls feel less free about volunteering and shouting out answers.   Not sure why that is.. Anyway, the show went well. Igot a little misty eyed when I dedicated it to Sam at the beginning. But once I started I was great. It felt really. really good to be doing another show.  Here’s me with the girls
  
   By time I got home from Bristol after unloading my gear at IBM it was about 1PM.. I had lined up a list of things to do around the house today.. Id’ also received a generous invite to  learn TIG welding at my friend Bruce’s… but I realized I needed some down time..   Instead of doing anything, I sat in Sam’s room and thought about him for awhile. While I was in there , I heard our friends form the band Skanky Green practicing. In the barn.I heard them playing their new ‘Captain Sam’ song they wrote about Sam.. It’s such a fun and beautiful song  I was laughing and crying hard to hear it performed live..   I love the chorus to that song

Relax a bit, you might just have some fun
Don’t take it all so serious
You’ll never live it down
Take the plunge, you might have to take a dive
‘Cause that’s what he would have done
if he was still alive

    Hearing that song inspired me to go back in the house and do something that I had been putting off  for many weeks. I transferred the last phone message I got from Sam on the day he died to my laptop. I had been hitting save on my cell phone now 3 times.. each one saves for 20 days. I new it was coming up again. Each time it came up it was very hard.  I had no choice whether to listen or not. No matter where I was or what I was doing. The last time I heard it , I almost drove off the road…I’d really been putting it off. In the spirit of ‘turning into the storm’: I recorded it on my PC. . It was much less painful than I expected it would be. I was hurting pretty much as I recorded it.. but the more I listen to the message in the course of editing, removing noise, balancing the volume,.. the more I loved listening to it. I was going back and forth on whether other folks would want to hear the message. I talked about it with Diane and she said ‘go for it’.. I’m going to post it here.. but you may want to think before following the link. He sounds so ‘there’  in the message.. it may be hard  for you to listen to.. or you may love it.. just think about it first. . It’s really a perfect Sam message. You can hear the fun he’s having in his voice.
   By the time I’d finished editing the message and listening to it 30 times or so.. it was getting pretty late. Martha and Kevin came over (Kevin driving :-%). Kevin drove me up to his house to get his dad and his dad’s snow blower to clear our driveway. They are really good friends to have helped us do that. Joe and the beast made quick work of our driveway. We’d been at it with snow shovels, but we might well have been using a teaspoon for all the snow that was there.  
    As soon as the driveway was done my family all piled in the car and headed out for our big concert night. First we went to Sakura . We ordered an extra miso soup for Sam. It’s starting to be a ritual. We get enough of them we can start our own religion.: The Samarians ? Here’s a funny thing; as soon as the soup came, three of the overhead lights in the restaurant went off.. Sam had come to eat with us.
From there we went downtown to the Flynn to see The Pink Floyd Experience.. a cover band on the 70’s band  It was an excellent show. Our good friend Gina had helped us find the last five tickets to the sold out show.   They played the Pink Floyd stuff note-for-note…. They were so good that I remembered that I felt that Pink Floyd songs come from a cold and cynical place.. they seem to have this ‘look you’re a slave to money’.. or ‘ time is passing you buy’ kind of message… no warm and fuzzy stuff in their music.. That’s ok for the right mood.   I think I’m a warm and fuzzy guy now, though. As much as I loved the show.. I managed to fall asleep during the song ‘Money’.. If you know me.. I have just two speeds.. Zooming or sleepy.. and tonight I was sleepy. I only slept for a few minutes, but I managed to have a dream.. I dreamt that Sam was alive and my family was whole in some different parallel dimension. The thought made me happy.. I sent that family in the other dimension some love as I woke myself up . The concert had some pretty cool visuals including a radio controlled flying pig.. Now that would be cool to build.  Here’s the pig:
  
   We ran into many folks at the concert tonight.. We were happy to see our friends Tim and Ivy . Ivy has been writing me long beautiful letters. In her last she included this very cool picture of her and her dad. Check out the Sam stuff..

Gotta sleep now. Good night my son..

-jc