All posts by johncohn

Wednesday evening – mountain top

Leave a comment

Once more I was up before 5 AM this morning.. but for a really good reason. Diane and I had decided to climb Bolton mountain and check out the sunrise. we left home about 5:20 wiht the dogs and mmugs of tea and coffee.. It was 37 degrees at the bottom of the mountain. but by the time we got to the top about an hour later there was thick frost everywhere/ The wind was still so it wasn’t too, too cold just cold enough that we had to keep moving..

IMG_5361

 

by the time we made the top, the sky was beginning to lighten.. IMG_5366

 

the view from the fire tower was breathtaking. The valley  fog wiped out any signs of human inhabitation.. it was back to the days before people IMG_5368 IMG_5370 IMG_5373 IMG_5374 IMG_5375 IMG_5377

 

i put a samstone on the railing as I always do.. then we turned and made the quick trip down.. I was home and on the phone for my first meeting at 7:30.. not bad for 2 hours !IMG_5379 IMG_5383

 

ok.. because I was up at 5.. i can hardly keep y eyes open.. im heading to sleep !

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

Tuesday night – open data vermont

Leave a comment

Long day.. I woke at 4:30 this morning to take a meeting with some friends in india… I had hoped to go back to sleep after the call.. But i wss so wound up, i couldn't.. So i got out of bed and started working.. My next call was 6:30 am.. Id had 2 meetings by the time gabe woke up at 7 am..

One of the hilight s of my day was a really nice intersection between my hacker self and my work self. I was the keynote speaker at the first Vermont open data conference. On the same day, burlington announced that they are going to be hosting a Socrata-based open data site. Win !

It was so great sitting with all these folks from local gov, universities, startups, industry… Etc, there are so many different ideas and motivations . This is very good learnign for my day job.. And great inspirationfor some of our civic hacking.. I think this is going to turn into a really good group..

 

Ok.. Gotta get some sleep this week.. Climbing a mountain early in the morning. More on that tomorrow,

 

Nite all, nite sam

-me

Monday night – thermite

1 Comment

Diane is out of town for the evening so Gabe and I had a quiet meal and decided to do the only guy;s night thing we could think of. We interrupted homework (mine and his) to run outside and melt a hole in some scrap metal with a thermite bomb. Thermite is a combination of iron oxide and aluminum dust that makes an intense 2500 degree C ..

THermite is fun stuff it works like this

Fe2O3 + 2 Al → 2 Fe + Al2O3

 

here’s gabe mixing the iron oxide and aluminum

IMG_5308

IMG_5310 IMG_5313

we through in a few screws to melt too

IMG_5315

in goes the magnesium ribboon to ligh the stuff

IMG_5316

we wanted to see if we could bunr through an empty acetone can ..

IMG_5320

gabe torched the magnesium and quickly got out of the way.

IMG_5323

whooooosh !IMG_5324

IMG_5325 IMG_5326 IMG_5333 IMG_5334 IMG_5337

what was left was a gooey mass of molten metal tht took about 15 minutes to cool IMG_5343 IMG_5346

here it is still glowing about 10 minutes later. IMG_5347 IMG_5349

the molten metal burned right through the top.. IMG_5350

here’s a pool of iron IMG_5352 IMG_5353 IMG_5354 IMG_5356

and two of the welded screws. the others had vansihed IMG_5357

pretty fun !.. now back to homework !

nite all, nite sam

-me