All posts by johncohn

Monday night – lapsed vegan

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OK.. so I fell off the wagon today… .and I fell hard. As of January 1st, Diane, Deb and I all decided to go vegan for a couple of months. I’ve been a vegetarian since 1976.. well.. actually a pescatarian.. somewhere in the past 30 years I started eating fish occasionally..  but for the most part I’m veggie.. Every year for the past 3 I’ve spent a month or so as a vegan.. that means no meat… no fish, no eggs, no dairy.. I love doing it because it makes me more mindful of what I’m eating.. .. i’m not militant about it.. I eat sushi in Japan because it would have been hard not to.. and I did accidentally eat a piece of mozzarella at a fancy dinner in NYC 5 weeks ago. I practice..’don’t ask don’t small’.. if I don’t know it’s not vegan.. I can assume it is.. .. Also.. I ate a piece of pizza at a meeting 2 weeks ago ..

For the most part i love eating vegan.. I feel lighter and healthy.. Diane’s a wonderful cook.. so there’s no trouble with variety.. …though I do recall eating my weight in hummus every week  ..

As Spring started to come on. though. I started to crave more portien.. I started eating soy stuff again.. but secretly.. desperately… I was craving cheese… there.. I said it.. I missed cheese. I never ate much of it.. but I mss it.. I miss feta on slads.. parmesian on pasta…

so.. today.. I decided to go back to my more relaxed veggie waves.. I shopped aroudn for a way to break my fast.. Paul. Eduardo and I stopped in Hartford on the way back to NY to have dinner with Paul’s friend Pavan..   We went to a restaurant across from pavan’s.. and there… I confess.. I ordered home made macaroni and cheese…

and it was delicious… (forgive me father for I have sinned)…

nite all.. nite sam

-me

Sunday night – smart grid

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Blissfully boring day.. did not much of anything.. cleaned up a bookshelf.. took a nice run with diane, took gabe to stowe, worked on a media sculpture project I just started.. it was wonderful doing almost nothing and hanging around the house

Around 4, ny freind Paul, a Prof at UVM, and his student Eduardo picked me up at home and we drove down to Mt. Kisco NY. Paul and Eduardo work  in the area of Smart electric Grids.. We’re going to a series of meetings tomorrow around that topic. On the way we managed to

meet up with my friend Jeff in Hartford who also does smart grid work. It was a fun, total geek-out evening… great getting to spend time wit these guys.

We did a bunch of talking about high voltage.. I asked the guys if they’d ever seen the attached video.. None had.. so I post it here for their.. and your.. viewing pleasure..

Well.. that’s all I have to report.. hope your day was peaceful too…

Please send some love to the folks in Japan that were hit in the earthquake tsunami the other day

nite all, nite sam

-me

Saturday night – spring cleaning

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Today was wet and overcast outside.. so it was a good day for spring cleaning.. at least for Diane. She bravely decided to attack my closet, the top three shelves of which have become a collection point for years of untouched photos, papers, and other stuff. Like any pile of old stuff around the house, this one is full of memories.. I have to admit, I still find doing this very hard.. but Diane is much stronger about such things..

Some of the stuff was Sam’s.. in fact, most of it was.. it was great .. and hard.. to see again..

Some was just piles of school papers .. what do do with them ? Are they precious.. or are they trash..?I guess we can’t keep this all. Diane went through and picked out some good writing and art pieces.. the rest .. I don’t know.. maybe we’ll burn ? or recycle.. I went through and looked at them for a long time last night.. I didn’t know what I felt..   In the end, it’s just lab reports and Spanish worksheets.. Sam’s not there.. it’s OK to recycle them now..  i guess

One cool find: Diane just found a $10 bill stuck in a birth congratulations letter abut Gabe’s birth..

Diane continued to plow through the stuff while I did our taxes.. Mid day we both had to get outside.. we strapped on our snowshoes and went out in the mucky melting snow.. it felt good to be outside.

Spring is coming.. time to clean.. time to renew.. time to keep moving…

night all, nite sam.. good to see your stuff

-me

Friday night – Senator Leahy

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Just sitting down to write.. It’s just past 2AM and I keep falling asleep as  I type Good day today.. the main even was a great visit to the site by Senator Pat Leahy and his wife Marcelle. I had the honor of doing a short presentation for the senator and about 200 of my co-workers.  My task was to link IBM’s recent Watson victory on Jeopardy  to the patent contributions of some of my Burlington-based coworkers.. It wasn’t hard to do.. Burlington had help drive at least 20 patents that were used in the creation of watson.

after I spoke, the Senator gave a great talk on the importance of patents.. and outlined some of the patent reform legislation he’s currently pushing through congress.   I really respect Leahy . He’s very smart, very principled and he’s been a great friend to IBM in VT.

One of the cool things about the Senators visit is that he immidiatly recognized my Jerry Garcia tie.. Leahy is a big Greatful Dead fan.. so we got to talk about that for awhirle. He told me a great story about taking Jerry Garcia and Bob Wier to lunch at the Senate Cafeteria.. and meeting Strom Thurmond..

Here we are with the IBM Master Inventors .. several thousand patents between the 40 of us..

I had a chance to talk to Marcelle Leahy for a bit.. It was great getting to know her a little more.. I remember seeing her and the Senator this summer when Diane and I  were at friend Bob’s wedding.. Leahy walked into the restaurant we were in for the reception .. We had to turn him and Marcelle away.. but I noticed that they were still holding hands after 49 years of marriage,,, That’s pretty cool.  I gave her a couple of samstones to keep…

Ok.. I’m pretty sleepy right now.. Just came back from a live Grateful Dead  cover band show at Higher ground with George .. A great end to a very good day.

I did see that WPTZ, a local TV station did a story on Leahy’s visit to the plant. tonight.. here it is..

Can’t stay awake anymore.. gotta sleep..

more tomorrow

nite all, nite Sam

-me