All posts by johncohn

Thursday night – old friends

Tonight was our annual fathers night out.. one December night for at least the last 15 years, I’ve met up with the members of my old dad’s group for a night of not-shopping. Our original goal was to meet for dinner and beers.. then go out shopping for our wives.. Somehow in the last decade and a half.. the shopping time has decreased while the beer time increased. Tonight I don’t think any of us really did any shopping. It’s a comfortable tradition. Same place, same time.. generally the same week. We all catch up , talk about kids, work,… the weather.. the kind of small talk that you can stretch ot for 15 years.. Most of the guys I see around all the time.. some.. I only see on this night…

The group has been there for each other over some really tough stuff..   family troubles, work troubles, …9/11… Sam…  I rmember that our night out in 2006 was the first time I left the house alone after Sam died.    I remember trying to shop.. it was so , so surreal

Even now, I just cant get my head around buying stuff for xmas.. It’s not that it’s too sad….. I like christmas now.. It’s just that I don’t like the idea of aquiring more ‘stuff’

Tonight .. I did a little window shopping then gave up/ .. still it was fun to try.

We all knocked off early.. I was home befor e9…

another yearly ritual ticked off.. The calendar reminds of two other milestones… It was tonight 2 years ago that I walked outside with my glass of wine and asked the cosmos what I sjould do next.. The next day I got the call from the makers of The Colony..

Diane also reminds me that it was 30 years ago today that John Lennon was killed..    I remember standing in a museum .. not believing what I had just heard..

OK not much else in my head for tonight.. the last night (I thik) of Chanukah..

Hope everyone is staying warm…

nite all.. nite sam

-me

Tuesday night – family tree

Home again.. quiet night with family. Gabe is doing a family tree project for school . For that he had to find pictures of our family back to his great grandparents. It’s been fun talking about all the family members.. where they we’re from. where they lived, what they did, etc..

Here’s Gabe….

His folks.. looking a little grubby..

My folks

Diane’s folks

My dad’s folks..

My mom’s folks.

Diane’s mom’s folks

Diane’s dad’s folks.

Nice to have them all here with us on our kitchen table..

nite ancestors

nite all, nite sam

-me

Monday night – cloistered

Greetings from my tiny cell at the IBM hotel in Armonk NY. This is my favorite hotel in the world. The rooms are tiny.. 10 feet by 15.. I just measured. The rooms are functional, small and spare. one of the walls in each room is made of stone. Everything has a minimalist utilitarian design.. It says..’you come here to work.. not to play.. not to rest’. There;’s a scratchy bathrobe hanging on the bathroom door. You’re supposed to put that on while you work. it’s your hair shirt. your penance.. for not working harder. The whole place  reminds my of a medieval monastery.. a hundred people.. all f the IBM employees, scribbling in their journals.. typing in their laptops.. slaving over whatever they need to present tomorrow.. like me..

It’s purifying, really.. to work in this small cell.. knowing that 10 rooms on either side are doing the same thing. I feel like knocking on all their doors and asking them to come out for a midnight game of ping-pong.. ut then, I don’t like ping pong.. and I suspect they don’t either…

We’re all kindered here..  .. it’s kind of sweet and sad …

gnite all. nite sam

-me

Sunday night – short circuit

Sunday night.. at the airport (again), Had a really great and slow weekend. Good time with family and friends.. Some stolen time out in the lab. I’m taking the slow and steady route to finish this latest big project.. Made some progress forward and backwards today..    I was trying to track down some goofy behavior of the synchronizer logic.. and found the tiniest of short circuits.. A short circuit is an unintentional connection to something you’re not supposed to be touching..

Here’s the culrit.. a tiny bride of extra solder.. very tiny !

To give you a sense of how tiny.. this is a portion of mf the tip of my little finger as a size reference.. Anyway.. I cleared this short circuit.. and kept on testing..

Everything was looking great until about 5 minutes before I had to run off for this trip.. I started up the high voltage .. .. 20 volts.. loking good, 40 folts.. still good.. 60 volts.. bang.. something popped.. .. @#Y@&#&* !.. I don’t know what it was.. I didn’t have time to locok.. must e another short ircuit soemwhere..

Talk about short circuit.. I managed to find a short   circuit    to the middle of the last century. Gabe is doing a geneology project for school. He was lookign for pictures of his grandparents and great grandparents. I remembered I had this old box from Dave, my dad’s dad.. We opened it up. It was all his old Masonic stuff. I don’t think I;ve ever really looked at it. I knwo it was very important to him.. Dave died in 1968.. but I felt like I was in the room with him again.

Here he is in thhondourous where he lived in the 1930’s.. with a gun !

Diane also found some lace from her grandmother Pierene.. a wonderful lady Beautiful  into her 90’s ..

We also have these old brushes from my side of the family

It was so cool finnding that stuff..

I wonder if any of my great grandkids will find relics of this blog one day..

If so.. ‘hi’   ..  Nice finding you here 🙂   Good luck in your homework !

OK.. the plane is booarding.. gotta dash..

nite all, nite sam

-me