Tuesday evening.. feeling a little low and quiet. The change of season seems to do that it’s just past 8 and already pitch black outside. I think we could all go to sleep about now..

One good thing about having Gabe back in school is that it generally gets me out of the house and to work pretty early.. I’m usually at my desk by 8:15.. that makes for longer .. more productive days.. even if there’s not much I could write about here. One thing that was on the agenda today was a filming for an outreach project that IBM is doing to encourage more folks to volunteer in schools. A film team (Jeff, Peter… and Mr. Becker) drove up from Connecticut this morning to film me doing a show for the Boys and Girls club of Burlington.. The club is a free activity based after school program for kids from the North End.. It’s a really nice facility.. there were abotu 450 kids there.. mostly in the 9-12 year old range. Great kids. It was a little crazy doing the show with the video crew there.. they had all sorts of lights and mikes.. and we had to keep the kids happy for about 45 minutes before they were ready to go.. We all practiced screaming while the crew set up.. that was nice because most of the kids were hoarse by the time we started. The show went pretty well… though there were a few times we had to back up and repeat things for the camera or sound. We also only had camera releases for about a third of the kids.. all the other kids couldn’t be on camera.. so I couldn’t pick on them.. or ask them to volunteer.. I felt kinda bad for them…

All in all it was fun.. I kept their attention and had them screaming at regular intervals.. That seemed like a success.

After the show I hung out and talked to the kids as I cleaned up.. they want to do some sort of big project together. I think that would be fun to do..

As we cleaned, Jeff and the crew interviewed a bunch of the kids.. It was fun watching them being filmed.. The kids were all so into the whole movie thing. I can’t wait to see how it comes out..

The funny thing is that they drove 5 hours to come up, filmed for 3 hours
and the entire video if only going to be 3 minutes long.. so my part will only be 30 seconds or so.. amazing..

By the time I was heading home it was after 6.. I dropped by Jacks.. or as close as I could get with the Richmond bridge out… to pick up Gabe.. I had to cram him in the car around all of my equipment. Good thing he folds up well !

We got home to find Diane making great progress on the downstairs big room. we’re going to start a major painting and trim job ourselves.. There’s a tremndous mount of prep before we start. Step one was to take off all the things off the walks and tables and put them away. one of those things was the table with all of Sam’s things.. some really precious photos, his lacross head, a few of the poems people had written for us.. other things of his. It had stood on that table since… the first days we came home after he died. All the stuff is safly put away for the renomavations.. and will come out again.. but seeing it not there was so… I don’t know.. it made my heart hurt .. At the same time it felt kind of like progress..

He is not his stuff… Today I found a broken rubber band on the ground in a shape of an ‘S’.. He’s everywhere

OK.. that’s all for today.. more manana… Nite all.. ntite Sam
-me