All posts by johncohn

Thursday night – kinda blue

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I was feeling kinda blue today.. not in a bad way at all. I was blue because Mount Mansfield Varsity Basketball was in the State Championship tonight.. wait.. I mean.. Mount Mansfield Varsity Basketball WON the State Championship tonight. Normally I don’t care much about sports. Diane had to explain to me that Basketball was the sport with the orange ball, note the brown or white ball (not really.. but close).. But tonight;s game against Rice Memorial was stupendous. The two teams were very well matched.. with nearly perfect seasons each..   Gabe had gotten us all tickets to the game which filled Patrick Gymnasium at UVM..  I was very glad to be there.. since I was sitting on the MMU side, I decided to blend in 🙂

 

 

The boys all choose a more understated war paint..

The girls sported blue bhindis

Tha fans were almost more fun to watch than the game.. they had tons of cheers and routines.. I would have said it took me back ot my high school days.. but I never ever attended a sporting event until my kids started playing.

Here’s the magic free throw spell.. seemed to work about half the time 🙂

The crowd was surprisingly subdued through most of the game.. NOT !

I was impressed how masterfully both coaches managed substitutions..at one point near the middle of the game it seemed that they’d all been swapped out for girls !

and then… instantly it was over.. I think MMU had a 10 point lead.. The crowd exploded !.. I was jumping up and down too just to blend in..

Graydon seemed happy that we were now THE MOST POWERFUL TEAM IN VERMONT  (bwah-hah-hah)

The players seemed to enjoy it too !

No event is complete without leaving a samstone.. so Patti and I left one high in the bleachers while we were waiting for the crowd to disperse.

Diane, Gabe and I went with Victor and Patti to On The Rise to hear open mike and celebrate a bit.. Victor ran home and got his guitar and played a set with our friend Todd.. What a nice way to end the evening .. and drain off some of the adrenaline we’d stored up.

 

Gabe came in looking very funny.   But I didn’t point it out to him.

ok.. gotta sleep.. More tomorrow. night all, nite sam !

-me

ps. go cougars !

 

 

Wednesday night – Miro !

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I woke up to find Super Tuesday had passed me by. I’d actually forgotten to vote I don’t think I’ve done that many times in my adult life.. it just.. well… happened.  Feeling a little sheepish for not having cast my vote, I sleepily pawed through the internet looking at election results that I cared about.. Amy Lord made it to the select board for Richmond.. I think she;ll do a good job. Hmmm. 2 Humvees purchased for the town of Richmond.. Not so sure about them..  I was glad to hear that our town voted like much of the state to call for a repeal of  the ‘Citizens United’. ruling.  The law that claims that Companies are people too.. I found this blurb on that in CNN moments ago

March 7 – Town meeting voters in Vermont yesterday overwhelmingly approved measures calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United and restore limits on corporate campaign spending.

According to the latest tally, voters in 55 towns passed resolutions to amend the Constitution to ensure that corporations do not have the same First Amendment rights as people.

 

GO Vermont. !. I just love this place.    The best news for me, however, was on a race that I couldn’t have voted in even if I had voted. My ECHO Board colleague and friend Miro Wienberger won a strong victory for the post of Mayor of Burlington !.

The headline made big news that this is the first time a Democrat had been in City Hall in 31 years !. Anywhere else that would be signs of a slide to the left..  Here  if anything, it meant the reverse.It’s all a relative  Burlington has been run (quite well I might add) by the Progressive party since the year I moved here in 1981. Bernie Sanders was our first big time progressive.. and there were many after him. I list myself as an Independent.. but I end up voting Progressive quite often through the years.. and still will. This time, , I’m very happy that Miro won. From my work with him on the board, i know he’s really bright, really engaging, very organized and a really great guy.  I wish him lots of luck. I’m really glad we have a guy who likes science leading our biggest city !  Congrats Miro !

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Tuesday night – totally fab !

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I’m an excitable person..I know.. but I have to say it’s been awhile since i was as excited about a project as I am about the Vermont Fab. The FabLab ,, or I should say Fablabs. will be the first makerspace/hackerspaces in the state of Vermont. If you haven’t heard of a makerspace or hackerspace, just go out and google those words. What you’ll find is pointers to hundreds of do-it-yourself  rapid prototyping facilities that are sprouting up all over the world . The idea is to get sophisticated tooling like 3D printers, 3d scanners, laser cutters, electronic test equipment, vinyl cutters etc.  into the hands of college students, high school students, artists, entrepreneurs, inventors and anyone else who needs them.. or at least wants to try them out.  I’m helping to create two spaces here in Vermont. The first is going to be at UVM in Votey hall. We already have our 3d printer, laser cutter and electronics bench up and running. It’s going to be made available first to the Senior Engineering students for their SEED projects.. and then to the general public by way of Continuing Education programs.   Some of those Continuing Ed classes may actually be paid for by State grants for high tech training for high school students and entrepreneurs.We’re planning a grand opening on May 2nd. More on that as it gets closer. !

The second facility will be at Essex Tech Center and will be available for the Tech Center students and the general public through similar continuing ed programs. That program will be opening for business next fall. Stay tuned for that..

. We’re looking for people interested in contributing money. equipment and expertise. If you have any or all of those.. please  let me know  Come help us make soemthing really cool for Vermont.

 

For news on both facilities  http://vermontfablab.org.. or check out Vermontfablab on Facebook

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Monday night late – first cut

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Very late as I write.. I worked until about 1:30 am trying to get caught up from my day off on Friday..
I did take a couple of hours off midday to go help inaugurate the new Epilog Mini 60 Watt Co2 laser we just bought for the Vermont FabLab. We’re planning our big opening for May 2nd and we already have our 3D printer, Scanner, laser cutter and electronics station. I’m very excited about it. I wanted to go see the laser first hand. Victor and Jeff had gotten it running.. but we still hadn’t figured out how to mix raster engraving with the actual cutting. Victor and I spent a half an hour fooling around.. (and calling the technician).. and finale got it working !.

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After you figure out the settings.. the thing is a piece of cake to use.. You draw soemthing on the screen and push pring and voila !.. The laser head starts flying around.. and magically your object appears. The laser 10.6 microns.. so it’s well below what our eyes can see.. all you see is a white hot point and a razor thin cut appearing in the work piece. This thing can cut plexiglass, plywood, thin aluminum, cloth, leather.. just about anything that isn’t too flammable or too toxic when burnt (eg polycarbonate aka Lexan) ..

Our first real test was to make a plastic SamStone.. of course..

Here’s what it looks like while etching.. not much to see. but you get an idea of the speed. The cutting is lighting fast at this thickness..

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We are VERY excited abot the new FabLab.. once again. if you’re intetested in learnign more about using the fablab resources, please let me know and check out VermontFablab.org.

OK.. It’s now past 1:30 and time to sleep
nite all, nite sam

-me

ps. Our great freind Debra is a fantastic cook. She’s started a business around baking Scottish shortbread cookies. She’s having a free tasting event tomorrow at Natural Provisions Market. You should check it out if you can. .. We’ve been here samplers these past months , and you’ve *never* had cookies like this.. My fave is the Scottish S’more.. two shortbreads sandwiching home made dulce de leche dipped in chocolate. Really good and interesting stuff. Please come check it out .. and support Deb. !!!!