All posts by johncohn

Saturday night – heart and mind

i had just the day i needed.. I had several things burning a whole on my calendar today but i didn’t do them.. i couldn’t do them, actually. I was sick..and really in need of sleep so i took the day off. Might sound crazy to ‘take a day off’ on a weekend.. but that’s how it felt. I did almost nothing And it was good !.

We did get out for a short walk on the ice with diane , jane and the dogs. They both had gotten clipped while I was in Nevada.. the single digit weather called for creative measures. Diane offered up two of her vests.. they looked sweet !

not much else happened until this afternoon when we went over to see our friends Tammy and Gary for pizza. It was so nice hanging out with them..

we had lots to talk about , kids, life, zombies, manure, hearts and minds.. the best advice we all got for the evening came from a wrapper on a piece of chocolate..

nice advice..

nite all, nite sam
-me

Friday night – leaving las vegas

Had to use that as a blog title,now didn't i ?.. Actually saw a great interview with Cheryl Crowe while waiting for the plane to take off. She was talking about how hard it is to put yourself outt there in the public eye.. For fear of criticism . She said her mantra was dare to suck .. Great words to live by !

Glad to be(almost)home.. Gettingoff plane in BTV now ..man ive missed home.. Both confrere ces were really good.saw old friends,met new people and my talk today didnt suck… But at least i dared to suck..

 

Nite all, nite sam

.-me

 

Thursday night – 542 steps

I spent a very surreal day for Vegas. I only left my hotel room three times. I'm not really a biggest person so that was not a bad way to spend the day. I have a full day of meetings as well as a lot of work on a talk I'm giving tomorrow. (Always nervous before a talk).

It was a great deal of disturbance in the force today. I heard from friends who were struggling with work, with their health, with their lives.. My heart goes out to my friends were struggling right now.

I'm also in a state of flux… I'm very excited about some of the stuff I'm doing at work I'm also challenged greatly by it. The general swirl of things has me excited and rattled at the same time. Diane's calming voice on the phone always brings me back in perspective. There's a statue of diana the huntress in the stairwell below me. Made me smile

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It was nearly 3 PM when I realized that I hadn't eaten or been out of my room since 8 PM last night. I went downstairs and got something healthy to eat and walked around outside in the sun and practice some more on my talk. Time passes very strangely when you're alone. And it surprisingly easy to be alone in the city like this.

Around 6 PM I ventured out again for a long run to rehearse my talk. I decided to take the stairs. I'm on the 26th floor so that was 542 steps. By the time I got to the bottom I was in relaxed and spaced out. I charged out of the door to find myself in the middle of a wedding. Only in Vegas.

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Around eight I went downstairs and ordered takeout from a Chinese noodle shop. It was fun watching the guy make noodles just like doing shanghai or Beijing.

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I ran into my friend Wilson from Brazil which was nice seeing a familiar face really helped.
Spent the rest of the evening going over my talk thinking about friends and thinking

 

I'm committed to be in bed by 10 so I'll end here. I'm putting good energy out in the world for my friends you need it. I could use some back my way got something to spare.

Night all, night Sam
– Me

 

Wednesday night – vacant lot

. Moving from one conference to another. Now in a different hotel but still in Vegas. The pulse conference I've been at this week was really exciting. We announced some cool technology and I talked to so many cool people. I'm really energized by it.

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One of the keynotes today was pretty interesting. They had Vince Gilligan and Anna Gunn from breaking bad. My all-time favorite TV show. Not sure I got the connection between breaking bad and IBM cloud… Oh wait. We just announced something called blue mix maybe this was blue meth? Dunno

 

Anyway they were great speakers and took questions from the crowd via Twitter. it was really amazing. My question didn't come up but it was something to the effect of.:

Do you guys know how much you've done to promote science ? it's a small step between meth and math. Thanks for all you do.

I really do think shows. like that create interest in science even if it's for weird reasons.

Okay got to get some sleep. More tomorrow
Night all, night sam
– Me